Compton : Breach of Contract Denied

The City Council has denied a $600,000 breach of contract claim filed by a consulting firm that it hired to oversee the construction of public facilities in the Alameda Plaza Hotel in Compton. Wexco International, a Century City corporation, was fired in early spring after a dispute arose over how much monitoring it would do and at what price.

The firm claims it is owed $400,000 for engineering services and $200,000 for consequential damages.

Before the dispute, Wexco conducted a management audit of the $15-million convention and parking facility being built along with the hotel. The audit reported that general contractor Tucon Development Corp. had allegedly been paid for $1.3-million more work than it had performed. And the audit predicted that poor planning and conflicts of interest in the project’s management could lead to as much as $5 million in future cost overruns.

Tucon officials strongly denied the accusations and charged that Wexco made them to justify its own contract with the city.