On UCLA's official website:

Members of the Bruin Family:

I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that we will continue to have sideline floor seating for students when Pauley Pavilion reopens for the 2012-13 season. Students will occupy the floor level seats along the south sideline and floor level seats behind the west basket, which was originally announced in the summer of 2009, in addition to upper level seats behind the west basket. This configuration can be viewed at campaignofchampions.com. The Pauley Pavilion Virtual Venue site will be updated by June 1.

Over the past few months, Athletic Department staff had worked with student leadership groups regarding the design of a cohesive student section behind the basket adjacent to the visiting team bench. After receiving the support of various student leadership and student focus groups, we announced the shift in the student section on March 30.

Two weeks ago, the Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC), one of the leadership groups with which we consulted, decided to solicit additional student feedback by adding an advisory question regarding student seating to the Undergraduate Student Elections ballot. We respected and supported that decision. The results of the election showed that a majority of the students would rather retain the sideline floor level seats than have the unified section behind the visiting team basket.

On April 29, I stated that we would discuss the election results with numerous leaders on USAC, along with leaders of the other groups that are involved with student spirit and we did so before announcing this decision. This is a great group of young people who are completely committed to creating the most energetic and exciting atmosphere for our teams. We are committed to working with these student leaders to do everything we can to increase student attendance and make the experience of "being there" a memorable one. That includes the creation of the Student Enhancement Committee, consisting of student leaders, including newly elected undergraduate President Emily Resnick, who is very enthusiastic about working with the spirit group leaders.

This process reconfirms the tremendous passion that exists on campus surrounding our intercollegiate athletic events. As I have said before, the importance of creating a home-court advantage cannot be understated. An energetic and supportive student section is essential to the success of any team and it is my hope that all of the students who have been involved in this process will support our student-athletes and continue the great tradition of Pauley Pavilion.

Go Bruins!

The surrender by Morgan Center to #SFatPauley campaign is now official.

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By now, it shouldn't be a surprise that Mark Harlan, Dan Guerrero's point-man during the entire student seating boondoggle, is nothing but a flat-out liar.  As we've pointed out here before, Harlan, along with the other Dan cronies at Morgan Center have systematically engaged in a dishonest pattern of putting out misinformation to mislead students, alums, and fans.

Of course, within hours of the students overwhelmingly rejecting Morgan Center's plan, ol' Baghdad Bob Mark Harlan was back into full spin/lie/bulls**t mode.  Never mind that this vote exposed Harlan's earlier disingenuous and misleading claim that "7,000" students were "surveyed" and "approved" of this new plan (reality: 700 responded, all of whom were Den members).  What's comical about Mark Harlan is that he's not a very good liar: he can't even stay on the same script as his boss.  You see, Dan came out prior to the vote and said (emphasis added):

Last month, after extensive deliberation with student leadership, Athletics announced new plans for the student seating in renovated Pauley Pavilion. This week, the Undergraduate Student Association Council (USAC) decided to further explore the overall student body reaction to the seating adjustment by placing a question on the upcoming election ballot. I fully support USAC's engagement in this process and look forward to working with them as we examine the results of the question. If ultimately, a return to the previously established student section is the desire, then that is what we will do.

Following the beat-down they received at the ballot box, Morgan Center (via lying scumbag Mark Harlan) was singing a different tune:

Mark Harlan, senior associate athletic director for external relations, said UCLA athletics recognizes the vote and will take it into consideration.

"Our plan all along has been … to get everyone together who’s involved with student spirit and get their opinions on the best way forward from here," he said.

Moving forward, athletics will work primarily with student groups that have already been involved in the development of a seating plan for the new arena, including the Undergraduate Students Association Council, the Spirit Squad and the Den, Harlan said.

In other words, a direct contradiction of what Guerrero claimed.  "Tak[ing] it into consideration" is not the same as following the will of the overwhelming majority of students (who have now voted and made themselves heard), alums (as we've seen here at BN and Facebook), and fans.

What's interesting was Mark's other comments: you see, what he said was essentially, "yeah we'll consider the student vote, then we'll toss it aside, get back with the same student "leaders" who we sold this garbage plan to and do what we want anyway."

Notice Mark didn't mention wanting to work with the students who led the effort against this ill-conceived, underhanded plan, like Sean Wang or Brandon Scapa.  Note he didn't want to reach out to members of this community (like MexiBruin or Classof66) who have been vocal against this from an alumni point of view.  Nope, lying scumbag Mark Harlan wants to keep doing things the same ol' way, the student vote be damned.

In short, Harlan, and the rest of the Dan G. cronies have been lying and will continued to lie and say whatever they need to say to swindle their way into shafting the students out of their traditional sideline seats.  Of course, for a lying scumbag like Mark Harlan, this isn't a problem.  It's what he does. 

Let's break down Mark Harlan's history of being a two-faced lying scumbag after the jump.

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On Monday gbruin set up this week's historic student vote as an opportunity for "Bruin redemption." Last night's vote was a chance for latest generation of Bruins not only to make up for the disappointing on campus stadium vote from 40+ years ago, but also to protect something very special for the basketball program built by Coach John R. Wooden.

Holy Cow - our students delivered. The result was a smashing victory for current Bruin students, who won it for the entire Bruin Nation. For 37 days we had been subjected to relentless propaganda from UCLA athletic department officials and its sympathizers that the decision to banish our students behind the baseline was done with the support of current students. We have been relentless on our pushback methodically making the point how they were full of lies and contradictions. Now we have a crushing mandate from our student body.

Let this sink in for moment. Thousands of students - over 9000 - voted last night in delivering this win stopping a Morgan Center effort to steal take away their sideline seats based on a cooked survey with just few hundred respondents. Only 8 percent of students supported Morgan Center's land grab. 8 percent! On the other hand, as pointed out by gbruin, while 69% No vote is pretty overwhelming on its own, if you only look at the students with preference 89% of UCLA students voted to preserve our decade long tradition of sideline students. This is simply a smashing victory for students, alums and fans who have organized in last 5 weeks. On the flip side, this nothing short of humiliation and utter embarrassment for the likes of Dan Guerrero and Mark Harlan.

Ryan put up a post last night thanking some special Bruins who have led the charge to get us this win. I want to add another name to the mix. The entire BruinsNation is grateful to the efforts of UCLA14. From his username, I assume he is going to be a member of class of 2014, which would make him a freshman at UCLA right now. A super freshman. It was UCLA14 who took the initiatives to organize the students on Facebook and translate his online activism into offline one by getting the word out on the Bruin Walk. The results of his efforts were astonishing as his Facebook group signed up well over 1,000 attendees and played a massive role in this huge win.

Thank you to UCLA14 and all his colleagues who came out and voted yesterday. We are not done yet though.

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Today is the day. Around 11 pm PST we are going to hear about the results of a historic vote on UCLA's campus involving our athletic department's ill conceived decision to remove Bruin students from Pauley's sidelines. The voting officially started on Monday at 9 am.

The passionate online responses from both our alums have been inspiring:

• As I write this post the petition drive led by MexiBruin has generated well over 1,000 signatures, including endorsements of the two of the most prominent players from Coach John Wooden's programs.
• The Facebook event organized by UCLA14 now is edging close to 1000 attendees. The number of Bruins pledging to "vote to restore Den seating" is at 980 right now. We hope you can help push the number of attendees over 1,000 mark this morning. That campaign got a huge boost from current Bruin players such as Anthony Stover and reportedly Joshua Smith.
• Our Facebook ad campaign has generated thousands of page views. We went ahead and extended our ad buy yesterday stretching it all the way to 11 pm PST tonight. We also extended our reach beyond UCLA students by targeting every resident who have Facebook accounts in the city of Westwood

To those students who have shown leadership by taking the initiative to reach out to fellow students on this issue and appealing them to vote NO on Morgan Center's boondoggle, we thank you. It is very cool to read about how this issue has "unified" - a code word thrown around by Morgan Center apologists to justify banishing students behind the basket - the two prominent student groups against the plan. We cannot rest easy though.

We urge and plead to all students reading this post today to reach out to everyone you know to ensure they have voted and if they have not done yet, get them to do it before 11 pm today. If students need specific instructions on how to vote No on the seating plan, UCLA14 detailed the step-by-step instructions here.

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The ongoing efforts to bring attention to the Morgan Center's dishonest landgrab at Pauley is having some epic results.  Mexi posted last night that the online petition now has over 1,000 signatures.  For those who haven't signed it, go here and sign it.  For those who have, thank you and please pass it on to other Bruins who may not have heard of it yet.

The Facebook event Vote To Restore Den Seating is also having great results.  Over 900 Bruins are attending the event and are urging the students to to Vote NO to preserve The Den in its rightful place on the sideline.

Now it's time to take the momentum from the petition and the Facebook campaigns and use it to push our cause  to another level.  It's time to tweet, Bruins.

If legendary greats from Coach Wooden's teams can get behind this, and if budding stars like Josh Smith and Anthony Stover can get behind this, then we need to reach out to some former BenBall Warriors who are shining in the NBA and pro leagues right now and get them behind this, too.  You can simply copy the text in the block quotes below and paste it into your twitter message box.  This will get our message to them.

Some of our Ben Ball Warriors and some other legendary Bruins, with suggested tweets, after the jump...

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UCLA students are capable of doing amazing things.  The latest example is here.

Now our students are working to make history on campus. UCLA students are partaking in a historic vote pertaining to our storied athletics program this week. This is the first time students are voting on a major athletics issue in about 40 years. The last time they took such a vote, they unfortunately voted down the idea of on campus stadium.

This time we want the students to say NO. We want them to say NO to UCLA athletics effort to take away 40+ year tradition of court-side seating for students. We started off on a great note yesterday with news of two Bruin legends coming out in support of our quest to save sideline seating. We then got another boost with the vocal online support of Anthony Stover. We upped our effort by launching a 24 hour ad campaign on Facebook. We have more good news to pass on today.

It appears that Bruin superstar freshman center Joshua Smith is supporting efforts to save sideline seating. It also appears that two major campus student groups listed in the USAC elections are uniting and coming out against UCLA Athletics' effort to take away our students sidelines seats.

We are going to return the favor by extending our ad buy on Facebook for at least another 24 hours. That's right. Our ads from yesterday generated thousands of views and we want to keep this going. Our ads are now going to run through tomorrow.

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Don't forget to sign the petition to get students back on the sidelines today and also join Facebook event asking UCLA students to vote to restore court-side seating.

We have some rather dramatic developments on the campaign to preserve student sideline seating at Pauley. Let's go with our latest recruit. He is none other than Mr. Anthony Stover!!

Stover just signed up to attend the Facebook event asking students to vote to save sideline seating for our students. Note how he is speaking on behalf of the entire team. I also don't think it's a stretch to say Stover is one of most popular players in the current team.

This should send as strong as signal out there to entire UCLA student population that our team wants them to VOTE NO on the Pauley student seating question and STOP Morgan Center's effort to destroy a 40+ year old tradition around Coach Wooden's program.

Well done Anthony! That is how you step up to follow the examples set by legends of Bruins who played for Coach. We are not done yet. More good news after the jump.

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We have momentum thanks to two legends from Coach Wooden's teams. Now we are trying out something new. It is clear by now that members of traditional media have no interest in covering the story on student seating boondoggle beyond cutting and pasting of talking points from Morgan Center and its designated cronies. Since no other traditional and new media outlets have not shown much interest in telling the story about why it is important to preserve a 40+ year old UCLA basketball tradition of court-side student seating at Pauley.

We have keep the drumbeat going here which thankfully is a significant platform. We have also supplemented our efforts by engaging our friends through our Twitter and Facebook channels. Thankfully members such as Mexi has taken the initiative to launch petition drive that also added another dimension to this effort. We are now pursuing another avenue to communicate with our students.

Starting today, at around 9 am PST, we are launching targeted advertisements on Facebook to reach out to folks in Westwood, Los Angeles.  The following ad will be showing up on the profile pages of those Facebook users, who one way or another is connected to UCLA basketball:

The ad points directly to Facebook event asking students to vote to restore court-side seating. As you all know by now, we need students to vote NO to stop Morgan Center's plan to banish them behind the basket.

We are not doing this out of the blue. We actually ran a stealth campaign on Facebook late last week with some success that we believe played a role in the petition - to return students to sidelines - catching fire.

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