Paper Trail in Awning-Collapse Probe Points to Dead End

The building inspector who approved a faulty welding job on a heavy department store awning that collapsed last month, narrowly missing several shoppers at University Towne Centre, may still be on the job, approving welding work at other sites around the city.

City officials don’t cherish that thought, but they have a major problem: They don’t know who he is.

And they may never know.

Because of a practice dating from 1932, the city doesn’t keep inspection records. What it keeps are copies of a building’s design but not the more detailed paper work showing who approved the construction.

The records--if they still exist--are in the custody of private contractors, who, again under the city’s longstanding policy, hire independent inspectors certified by the city, as opposed to city employees, to oversee their work.

If the 2-ton, concrete-and-metal awning above a main entrance to Robinson’s department store hadn’t come crashing down, no one would have known that faulty welds--temporary and weaker than those specified in the plans--were holding up the structure.

But wind and weather in the years since the canopy was built in 1977 caused the welds to fail without warning, according to a city-approved report analyzing the collapse.

When the structure fell June 15, it barely missed a throng of lunchtime shoppers, an incident that Fire Capt. Al Macdonald later said had the makings of a “major disaster.”

The rubble has since been cleared away, but city building officials are still digging for inspection records that would show who was responsible for the faulty construction.

Pete Lopez, the city’s chief of structural inspection, said all aspects of the 13-year-old building’s construction, including the welding, should have been carefully monitored daily by quality-control inspectors.

Tracking down the inspector who approved the canopy’s welding--and possibly other welding jobs around the city--won’t be easy, however.

“Any time we have something unusual that comes up like this, we take a look at it,” said Richard Christopherson, city director of building inspection. “We’re continuing to look at this whole situation to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”

The inspectors who monitor construction projects daily aren’t city employees but independent experts certified by the building department, Lopez said.

Those inspectors work directly for the company building the structures, and they fill out reports as work progresses, Lopez said.

The inspectors must have their certification renewed annually, and the city can suspend or revoke certification if an inspector is found to be negligent, Lopez said.

There are 122 welding inspectors certified to work in the city. Overall, there are about 300 city-certified construction inspectors.

But the city doesn’t keep copies of their reports, or records of who did the inspections, after the final building permits are approved by the city, Lopez said.

Keeping up with such records for every building project in the city isn’t required by state law, and Lopez said it would be “a monumental task.”

So city building officials are now facing what may be an equally monumental task--that of obtaining the reports from officials at Robinson’s or the construction firms that did the work.

“We haven’t looked for the records,” said Bill Doyle, a senior vice president at Hahn Co., the main contractor on the 1977 project. “We wouldn’t know where to look.”

Hahn Co. isn’t in the construction business any more. Instead, the company develops and manages shopping centers around the country, according to Kim Wenrick, Hahn’s director of corporate communications.

Doyle said the company might still have copies of the welding report, but it might not.

Nu-Hahn Co., which split from Hahn 11 years ago and continues to work in the construction business, might have the records, but, again, it might not, Doyle said.

“There is a paper trail, but it gets a lot less clear as time goes on,” Doyle said.

Wenrick said that E. F. Brady, a La Mesa company, was the subcontractor for the welding work. A spokesman for E. F. Brady declined a reporter’s request to discuss the incident or review records.

The city has asked the companies involved about the records but has yet to receive a response.

But, even if E. F. Brady, Hahn Co. or Robinson’s kept copies of the inspection records, it’s questionable whether the city could ever legally gain access to them.

“If the city feels there’s a need to obtain that kind of information, I would hope that the company would cooperate,” said Gene Gordon, chief deputy city attorney for the civil litigation department.

“But, unless there was a lawsuit pending and we could subpoena the reports, I don’t know how we could compel them to give us those documents.”

John Kaheny, chief deputy city attorney for legislation and public affairs, said the city’s Civil Service Commission might have the authority to subpoena the records if the intent was to discipline the inspector involved. Although the commission was given subpoena power in the City Charter, it has traditionally only dealt with personnel matters of city employees on appeal, Kaheny said.

“I’m not sure that it could be used that way,” Kaheny said. “We’ve never done that. We’ve never had a situation like that develop.”

Building officials and at least one city councilman are analyzing the way the city handles such inspections.

Councilman Ron Roberts said he will instruct his staff to investigate the city’s record-keeping practices, and he said he will request that building officials make a report to the city’s Public Services and Safety Committee.