Fonda-Hayden Visit Struck $our Notes

Fonda-Hayden visit struck $our notes

By Zada Blayton

STAFF REPORTER

While organizers of the recent lecture of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden agree it was well worth the precedent-setting $5,000 fee, there are some extra costs they want to take a look at.

The extras include a “bomb sweep” of Hill Auditorium and a dormitory where a brief reception was held, a last minute request for a movie screen; additional costs for student help because the lecture began some 45 minutes late; and an agreed-to 20-minute press conference limited to five minutes because of the couple’s delayed arrival.

Fonda and Hayden were late in arriving, organizers say, because the couple chose not to accept two student driven rides from Southfield. They chose instead to come to Ann Arbor in a Pontiac Grand Prix driven by one of their aides.

THE MONDAY NIGHT lecture to a standing-room-only crowd of 4,000-plus people was the biggest lecture ever attempted by the University Activities Center, said UACs president Jeff Yapp, and had been planned since last May.

But Yapp concedes organizers had not planned for the impact of the popular and controversial couple on security measures.

UACs is not seeking punitive damages, said Mike Levitt, financial officer, but has requested that Program Corporations of America meet to discuss the additional expenses with the possibility that additional costs agreed to be subtracted from the $5,000 fee.

“WE HAD PROBLEMS we never had to deal with before,” said Yapp. “I’ll still stand behind my people till we meet with representatives. I do think something can be worked out.”

“Our (UAC’s) purpose is to supply programs to satisfy the interests and needs of students so if you look at it that way it was a success.”

Yapp suggested that the root of the problems may have been due to poor communication from representatives of Fonda and Hayden.

The California based couple are in the midst of a 50-city, 35-day tour of the eastern United States in support of their grass-roots Campaign for Economic Democracy.