University Of California At Merced

The long-proposed University of California campus near Merced, bedeviled by the endangered fairy shrimp and other environmental troubles, has secured an $11.5-million grant for a land deal that should allow the campus to open on schedule in 2004. Until the grant came in, university leaders were lamenting that the first class of 1,000 students might have to begin their college education in temporary classrooms off campus.

With its first year tucked under its belt, the University of California Merced -- which cost more than $500 million and took nearly 20 years to plan -- still lacks federal permission to build on wetlands near the fledgling campus. UC Merced is developing 105 acres as part of Phase I of the campus and plans to build Phase II on 805 adjoining acres it purchased near Lake Yosemite. But that second parcel includes 86 acres of federally protected wetlands.

On a former golf course in this farming town between San Francisco and Yosemite National Park, construction crews are busily laying foundations and raising walls for a library, dormitories and classrooms that will form the next campus in the University of California system. Meanwhile, 27 professors are already at work planning the curriculum and recruiting more faculty for the day the first classes begin next year.

The political leaders rushing to build a 10th University of California campus north of Merced have been forced to slow down and reconsider the plans because of concerns about the survival of fragile wetlands and an endangered creature called the fairy shrimp. Complaints have increased in recent weeks among federal regulators, university faculty and students that the 2,000-acre UC Merced campus could devastate California's largest remaining cluster of vernal pools.

County supervisors voted this week to ease building regulations around the new UC Merced campus. Supervisors decided not to require developers to substitute other farmland for acreage lost to development and not to require phased development around the campus. The decision follows weeks of plan revisions and hearings.

Gov. Gray Davis is proposing to spend $100 million in a new effort to combat pollution from sewage spills and storm drains that resulted in 5,000 beach closures and warnings about contamination in 1999, administration officials said Thursday. Officials said they hope that with $100 million, they can reduce the number of beach closures and postings about pollution-related hazards by a fourth, and perhaps by half, within a year and a half.

No question Al Gore cares deeply about reducing class size. And expanding access to affordable health care. And curbing urban sprawl. These are among the emerging hallmarks of his campaign for the White House.

Convinced that California's economy will continue to grow, Gov. Gray Davis offered a record $104.7-billion budget Wednesday that would expand the junior high school year, give people a back-to-school sales tax holiday on clothes and computers and earmark $1 billion for the energy crisis. Davis, appearing fatigued after spending the night in Washington working on solutions to the state's electricity crisis, called his proposal for the 2001-02 fiscal year "responsive and responsible."

Estimating California's surplus at $12.3 billion, Gov. Gray Davis on Monday offered a revised budget that has ballooned to $98.4 billion and emphasizes schools, transportation and tax rebates. It was met with a sharp reaction from top lawmakers.

Gov. Gray Davis on Monday proposed an $88.1-billion budget that boosts spending for public schools and the elderly, while offering modest tax cuts, urging relatively flat spending for highway construction and rejecting a Republican call for deep cuts in college tuition. Davis starts his second year in office with an unprecedented $6 billion more in revenue than he had last year.