At their on-going two-day meeting, the UT Board of Regents dropped the long-awaited hammer blow to UT Medical Branch at Galveston. The medical school, which is the biggest health care provider and the biggest employer on the island, is to lose 3,800 employees.

So where did the board decide to make this huge decision? As a guide, here’s the distance between the people that lose their jobs and all the UT campuses where they could have held their meeting:

UT Health Science Center at Houston: 46 miles

UT Austin: 212 miles

UT Dallas: 271 miles

UT San Antonio: 223 miles

UT Tyler: 272 miles

UT Brownsville: 288 miles

UT Arlington: 308 miles

UT Pan American: 382 miles

UT Permian Basin: 590 miles

UT El Paso: 718 miles

So exactly where was the meeting? Of course, UT El Paso. The furthest campus possible. Yes, it was scheduled ahead of time, but since only three of their 17 meetings this year take place outside Austin (none of them in Galveston), would it have been hard to make this announcement face-to-face?

Which brings about the bigger question, as asked by former Galveston council member Joe Jaworski: Why did the governor never see fit to call a special session for the biggest disaster in state history?

This article appears in November 7 • 2008.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.