Board of Regents Meeting – Good News and Bad News

Well, I just got back from the Arizona Board of Regents meeting at
ASU and before I dash out to try and earn a living today want to drop
a quick note.

On the “Good” news front the Board voted to approve the “delegation
of authority” to allow ASU to meet it’s contracted obligation to sell
us the House.

Therefore we are planning on either closing the sale on Oct 8th or
filing suit against ASU on Oct 9th should they move us past that date
since we had originally agreed to close on September 30th.

As you know our loan is approved for $364,000 dollars and we have
every intention of closing on the 8th and to continue with the
remodeling and renovating that we started in July. The other houses
on the Row will be doing the same. In fact Chris Ward, the Pike
representative, was calling his National as we broke from lunch
following the Regents meeting to inform them to begin making his $1
million dollar loan available so that he could being construction immediately.

The simple statement that we were approved however does not begin to
reflect the atmosphere of “our” portion of the meeting.

When the Regents finally got to that part of the agenda that
addressed Alpha Drive they indicated that they had already met to
discuss this topic in a closed Executive Session so the balance of
the Open Meting became a bit of a “Star Chamber” proceeding with only
Michael Crow (ASU President) and Mernoy Harrison (ASU VP) addressing
the Regents. Chris is putting in a call today to one of the top
First Amendment Attorney’s in the state on the possible issue the
Regents violating Open Meeting laws by holding this discussion in private.

Both reiterated to the Regents of their intention to redevelop Alpha
Drive once they repurchase our properties from us. Mernoy even went
so far as to tell the Regents that ASU would be back before the
Regents with that request before the end of this calendar year. He
also told the Regents that is was ASU’s intention to move the
Fraternities into an as yet undesigned facility on the south side of
Campus (this would mean south of Apache). Mernoy also bald faced
lied to the Regents when he was asked how long the negotiations with
the six houses seeking to exercise their options had been going
on. Mernoy’s answer – “About a month”. Silly me I wonder what all
those meetings with ASU have been about for the last X number of
years have been about?

The Regent conducting the meeting then took a few minutes to tell
those assembled that the Regents did not agree with the
characterizations that have supposedly been made in the press that
their is an anti-Greek or anti-fraternity bias at the University. And
that the people they had talked to didn’t seem to have a problem with
moving the Fraternities to the south-side of campus. We do not know
who they would have talked to since the House Corporations represent
the housing interest of our Headquarters and none of us have been
talked to or interviewed.

After the vote to approve was concluded Mernoy walked by Chris Ward
who was standing at the door, and who was standing ready to address
the Regents should the opportunity or need arise, and this time
Mernoy verbally leveled a threat towards the Fraternities when he
told Chris “I warned you to be careful of what you wished for.” This
would be a follow-up to his letter of August in which he attempted to
extort the Houses to walk away from their properties for pennies on
the dollar if we wanted to be included in the planning for the
south-side housing facility.

On the subject of anti-Greek bias I believe the following anecdote
will provide a bit of illumination.

While I was seated with other members of Alpha Drive house
corporations (Pike, Sigma Nu and Sig Ep) waiting for the meeting to
get started Michael Crow (the new ASU President) walks over and is
talking to a couple seated in the row in front of us (he has never
met any of us) and I overhear him talking to them about
Fraternities. He certainly let slip his personal animus towards
Greek Letter societies. He said “When I left to go to school my
father said to stay away from anything with Greek Letters so when my
Phi Beta Kappa arrived I threw it in the trash”. Now does that
indicate a deep seated bias and outright hostility?

For the future of the Row and our House on the Row only time will
tell but with a State deficit projected to be $1 Billion dollars next
year and with the Universities already behind to the tune of over
$200 million in deferred maintenance on facilities they already own I
would think that there is no way that they will be able to come up
with the minimum $4 million it will cost to move us and a similar
dollar figure to move the other eight houses.

Duty Performed…