Oakland’s 154-year-old Holy Names University (HNU) | Photo via HNU Website
Part XLIII of the “Back-to-Basics Governance” Series
The City of Oakland can and must initiate the listing of Holy Names University (HNU) and its campus as “landmarks” of the city. The Country of Alameda and the State of California must join the city in declaring HNU a “landmark of an educational institution.” After all, it is a 155-year-old institution of learning. And it has held 143 continuous commencement exercises.
The “fifty-year rule” is one of the most commonly accepted principles within American historic preservation and is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
Landmarks must be fifty years of age or older. Resources under 50 will be considered for designation only if they possess exceptional design merit or historical significance that transcends the fifty-year age requirement.
The present HNU campus was started in 1957. The original site of Holy Names University (then a college) was purchased by Henry J. Kaiser, where he constructed the Kaiser Building. HNU moved to its present location in Oakland Hills 66 years ago.
It is suggested respectfully that after it is declared a California landmark, the City of Oakland must move to exercise its governmental power of “eminent domain.” It is the formal term for land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation by a state, local (town, city, or county), or national government to take private property for public use more so if the acquisition is the continued use of the private property for public use.
By exercising its power of “eminent domain,” the City of Oakland can practically end the negotiation between prospective buyers and HNU. No private entity likes to engage in a protracted civil case against a governmental entity and usually will not contest the turning of the HNU campus into public property. After all, an adage says, “any individual or juridical person cannot fight City Hall.”
Simultaneous with the move to turn the campus into public property, the city may assist HNU faculty members, employees, alumni, former students, their families, in-laws, and friends (as stakeholders) in forming a cooperative that will take over the university. And help arrange a medium-to-long-term settlement of the amounts a Texas-based lending company loaned to the university.
By this Wednesday, how HNU officials can work together with interested stakeholders in attracting many students (even from abroad) to enroll for 4-year courses — with the initial four semesters done online. And the junior-and-senior years at the Oakland-Hills campus with clinical or laboratory work done in affiliated medical centers in Alameda County.
