Quake Panel Prods Cities on Masonry Peril : Seismic safety: Half of jurisdictions have failed to move to upgrade dangerous brick buildings. The problem is that the law carries no penalties.

More than half of the cities in the most earthquake-prone parts of California have failed to complete the first steps toward upgrading their most dangerous masonry buildings, a Seismic Safety Commission report released Thursday showed.

“Our lives are threatened by these buildings, and cities that have ignored the law or that have adopted ineffective programs are simply letting us down,” Commission Director L. Thomas Tobin said in a statement Thursday.

Tobin said that only a fourth of the 366 cities and counties in the regions most threatened by earthquakes have identified their masonry buildings and embarked on programs to bring them up to safety standards. Another 20% claim to have no unreinforced masonry buildings.

His analysis was released as the commission continued its investigation of the Oct. 17 Bay Area earthquake. Officials say at least 10 of the 62 deaths during the quake are blamed on unreinforced masonry buildings, including five people who were crushed when a wall of bricks fell onto a parking lot in San Francisco.

In 1986, the Legislature passed a law calling on cities and counties to identify hazardous masonry buildings. They were to also adopt and begin implementing plans for bringing those buildings up to minimum safety standards.

The law had a Jan. 1 deadline, but included no penalties for failure to comply.

“We are pleased with the progress,” Tobin said, “but on the other hand, we are disappointed that over half of the cities and counties covered under the law have yet to comply.”

Los Angeles and several neighboring cities are in the forefront of requiring owners to fix their unreinforced masonry buildings. But Tobin said 49 municipalities and counties have failed to so much as inform the commission about any progress they may have made.

Riverside, Monterey and Imperial counties, as well as several cities in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties, are among those that have failed to contact the commission.

The commission staff is not sure of the extent of the problem in the 49 cities and counties that failed to respond. But the commission estimated that Escondido has 24 unreinforced masonry buildings, El Monte has 25, San Clemente has 35, Rialto has 40, and San Gabriel has 50.

Several cities identified as among those attempting to comply with the requirement in fact have a long way to go. San Francisco, for example, has more than 2,000 unreinforced masonry buildings, more than any other city in California.

Tobin called on the commission to back legislation that would penalize cities that failed to bring the masonry buildings up to minimum seismic safety standards. Such a law also would provide money for seismic upgrading.

In his letter, Tobin went on to advocate extending the requirement that brick buildings be brought up to minimum standards to Central California and San Diego--areas thought to be less threatened by earthquakes. The commission postponed discussion of the proposal.

In other testimony, University of California President David Gardner said he opposed suggestions that warning signs be posted on campus buildings that would be unsafe in major quakes.

Gardner noted that the main libraries at UCLA and UC Berkeley are thought to be unsafe in major earthquakes, but he said warning signs “artificially deal with the issue.”

“What is a student to do?” Gardner asked. “They really don’t have the discretion to go in or not go in.”