At the same time UC Santa Cruz is struggling to find affordable housing for its faculty, it spent $30k for … a dog run for Chancellor Denice Denton’s dogs.

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

By way of comparison, the county’s Animal Services Authority paid $6,000 for cyclone fencing with slats for its shelter in Scotts Valley; construction of a one-acre, fenced-in dog park for the city of Scotts Valley cost $12,000.

Irwin explained the enclosure at the chancellor’s residence was a much more complex project. It’s located on a hillside and special care was taken to protect trees in the area. The fence had to be 8-feet high to keep out deer, and wire mesh was installed a foot deep to prevent the dogs from digging out or other animals from digging in.

The design was developed by campus staff in consultation with the animal control officer, and outside contractors were hired to build the enclosure, Irwin said. She added that the chancellor was not personally involved in any aspect of the project. About $24,000 of the total cost went for labor, with the remaining $6,383 for materials.

$24k for the labor? Just how many people are needed to install a fence? And we note that doesn’t seem to include the cost of the planning.

Next time UCSC needs to install a fence, they should drive to Home Depot, pick up some day laborers, get the job done, and have about $22,000 left over.

—
2005 was not a good year for Denton, who started at UCSC a year ago. The Santa Cruz Sentinel also revealed that the university created a $192k / year job for Denton’s partner, Gretchen Kalonji, as part of Denton’s signing package.

H/t: the LAT’s George Skelton

technorati: UC Santa Cruz UCSC

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 10:25 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under California Schemin', Your Tax Dollars In Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.