License Process for School Bus Drivers Stiffened : Safety: Two San Diego cases helped prompt the elimination of temporary licenses, which were given without fingerprints and a background check. The application process will become more stringent June 1.

The California Highway Patrol, prompted in part by two San Diego incidents, announced Thursday that state officials will toughen the application process for school bus drivers.

Robert Rengstorff, chief of enforcement for the California Highway Patrol, told the Assembly Transportation Committee that, as of June 1, the 180-day temporary licenses--given to drivers employed by school districts and private contractors--will no longer be issued.

Two San Diego incidents involving drivers employed by Laidlaw Transit played a major role in the decision to make the application process more stringent.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), who called the hearing, mentioned a Feb. 2 accident in which a Laidlaw driver was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after the bus he was operating rear-ended a pickup truck on Balboa Avenue near Mission Bay Drive. The other incident occurred in 1987, when driver Victor H. Gomez was charged with kidnaping a 5-year-old girl and molesting her in the bus.

Under the CHP plan, applicants for a permit to drive school buses will receive their licenses only after fingerprint and background checks are completed. Now, drivers who pass state tests are given temporary six-month permits before checks are made.

Rengstorff said authorities are targeting school bus drivers because “there just seems to have been numerous instances where contractor-employed applicants have been involved in serious bus incidents,” Rengstorff said.

Katz called the hearing to examine the procedures of Laidlaw, other bus companies, school districts and state agencies. “There’s something seriously out of whack” in the system, Katz said.

He cited the arrests of two Laidlaw employees accused of driving buses while drunk--one in the San Fernando Valley and the other in San Diego. Laidlaw receives about $20 million a year from the Los Angeles Unified School District as its largest bus contractor.

In January, Laidlaw driver Harold Keith Lone was arrested in Encino as he prepared to pick up students at Lanai Elementary. A breath test showed Lone had a blood-alcohol level of 0.27%, more than three times the new legal limit of 0.08%. Authorities have said that Lone obtained his job by using an alias to hide a lengthy record, including five drunk-driving convictions.

In the San Diego accident, the driver was transporting Clairemont High School students when he collided with the pickup truck, injuring three people, according to the CHP.

Moreover, Katz voiced concern about the other San Diego case involving Gomez. According to prosecutors, Gomez kidnaped and molested the girl on April 21, 1987. He was ordered to stand trial but failed to appear on Jan. 20, 1988, and San Diego police say he remains a fugitive. A civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the child against Laidlaw is pending.

At Thursday’s hearing, Katz expressed shock that Gomez is still listed as having a valid license to drive a school bus. Bill Gengler, a spokesman for the Department of Motor Vehicles, confirmed that his agency “had not suspended or revoked” Gomez’s license because “we had no information from law enforcement or other sources that would allow us to act.”

But Katz complained about DMV’s “business-as-usual approach” in cases like Gomez’s. He also said that Laidlaw and other private bus contractors “are not acknowledging their responsibility to develop a better procedure of screening the drivers.”

Dave Daley, vice president of operations for Van Nuys-based Laidlaw Transit, acknowledged that, when he joined the local operation, “substantial improvements were needed.”

For example, since Katz’s committee held a similar hearing in 1988, Daley said that Laidlaw has beefed up checks on applicant references and its training. “We feel our procedures have been corrected in a responsive manner,” he said.

Daley described the latest arrests of drivers as “isolated,” but said they pointed up the need to improve staff training to detect drug and alcohol abuse among drivers.

To prevent future problems, Laidlaw officials asked the committee to adopt criminal sanctions against drivers who lie about their background on employment applications, including a mandatory six-month jail term and $10,000 fine for violations.

In San Diego, Laidlaw attorney Eric Freedus denied allegations, in the civil suit against Laidlaw, that the company failed to do a background check of Gomez. Freedus said the company “requested a certificate” from a law enforcement agency, which checked Gomez’s background and found nothing that would prevent him from working as a bus driver.

Freedus could not recall which law enforcement agency was supposed to have checked Gomez’s background.

“The report came back negative, clean. . . . An employer has a limited ability to do a background check on an individual. If (law enforcement agencies) cannot come up with anything in a man’s background, how can an employer?” Freedus said.

He also questioned allegations that the girl was molested by Gomez and said there is evidence that the “mother suggested things” to the child.

“Laidlaw’s position is that, if this incident occurred, it is very unfortunate . . . But there is clearly evidence that words were put into the child’s mouth,” Freedus said.

In a letter to the Assembly committee, attorney Irwin M. Zalkin, who is representing the child in the civil suit, alleged that the National City and Coronado school districts had requested that Laidlaw remove Gomez from routes in their districts. Zalkin alleged that students from the two districts complained that Gomez was rude, made racial comments and “was sexually suggestive to the girls on the bus.”

Carla Bruno, spokeswoman for the local Laidlaw office, said she did not know if the allegations made by Zalkin are true.

Mark Gladstone reported from Sacramento and H.G. Reza from San Diego.