Community Briefs

Wednesday, October 28, 1998

Community Briefs

Expansion project for Morgan Center begins

The scheduled $10.8 million renovation of the Morgan
Intercollegiate Athletics Center began Monday, and will focus on
the demolition of the UCLA Athletic Hall of Fame. In its place, a
new three-story replacement will be built by Soltek Pacific of San
Diego.

The Bruin Walk pathway to the north of the Morgan Center will
remain closed until completion of the project in May, 2000.

The project will also include renovation of the Center’s
remaining 15,000 square feet, which houses student and
administrative support services, and the construction of a lawn
area immediately adjacent to the new buildings.

Halloween events held for residential hall

Both the Office of Residential Life and Theta Delta Chi will
sponsor events in celebration of Halloween beginning today.

The Office of Residential Life will be holding its annual trick
or treating festivities, where approximately 1,600 kids from the
inner city will be bused in to UCLA to trick or treat in the dorms.
This event will last from 6 p.m. to 8 pm.

Also, Theta Delta Chi will be holding its third annual Community
Bridging Halloween party, where children from communities that have
been at conflict are brought together to carve pumpkins, eat candy
and participate in other Halloween-related events with fraternity
members in a healthy, non-threatening environment.

UCLA cancer doctor’s research recognized

Dr. Dennis Slamon, of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, will receive
the Public Advocacy Award from the National Breast Cancer
Coalition, Tuesday in New York.

Slamon will be honored at a ceremony at the Plaza Hotel for his
work that led to the development of Herceptin, a breakthrough
breast cancer drug. Slamon said that the drug heralds a "new age in
the way we treat cancer," because it fights cancer at its genetic
roots.

General Motors will also receive the Corporate Leadership Award
for their support of the National Breast Cancer Coalition,
according to Fran Visco, coalition president.

"Their dedication has served to increase awareness and bring us
closer to a cure," Visco said of the recipients.

Knox pleads with MTA to fast-track projects

Assemblymember Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) appeared before the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) board of directors
Wednesday morning to urge them to fast-track two projects that will
reduce the gridlock on the 101/405 interchange.

The projects plan to relieve congestion around this interchange,
considered in a "crisis stage" according to Knox, by adding a lane
on the northbound 405, widening the freeway into the shoulder, and
by adding a lane to the 405 connector to the eastbound 101.

The cost of these projects is $10 million, which Knox says can
be taken out of the half a billion that will be made available by
the California Transport Commission next week for use by the MTA
and Caltrans for local highway improvements by 1999.

To date, however, MTA has not agreed to request the funding for
the projects, nor have they identified the 101/405 as a priority,
which Knox states is particularly disturbing to the half a million
drivers that endure the daily gridlock, especially the hard-hit
residents of the San Fernando Valley.

"The only thing worse than gridlock on the freeways is gridlock
in the transportation bureaucracies," Knox said.

Compiled from Daily Bruin staff reports.

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