Mayor Demands Explanation for Flaws at Center : Pacoima: Bradley says the building’s problems ‘should have been apparent.’ But another official minimizes the risk posed to youths using the club.

Expressing astonishment at its shoddy workmanship, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley on Thursday demanded an explanation from the city’s building inspectors for their failure to catch major flaws in construction of a youth center in Pacoima.

Bradley spoke at a news conference to announce a $1.5-million fund-raising drive to tear down and replace the building as a less expensive alternative to repairing it. Although the clubhouse was built on city-owned land just six years ago for $1.2 million--$400,000 of it from the city--a private structural engineer has said it is unsafe and could collapse in a high wind or an earthquake.

But Robert Harder, the Building and Safety Department official in charge of checking construction plans, said the 24,500-square-foot Boys & Girls Club of San Fernando Valley could be repaired for several hundred thousand dollars. He minimized the risk it poses to the hundreds of youths who use it, even though he has issued an order requiring the club to bring the building up to code within 180 days.

Harder also denied that his department should be held responsible for failing to notice such flaws as undersized wall studs that do not reach the floor, and gaps in roof members designed to prevent walls from caving in.

“We think it’s safe enough to occupy right now and we have not ordered them to get out of the building,” Harder said of the club, which offers recreational and other programs for 1,200 children and teen-agers. The building “has some structural problems, but we don’t think they are major problems and . . . can be fixed fairly easily.”

In approving construction plans, the building department relies heavily on licensed private engineers who must sign the plans before they are submitted, Harder said. During construction, city inspectors have time only to spot-check to see if plans are being followed.

But John R. Fuchs, an attorney representing the club in legal action against the building’s general contractor, structural engineering firm and architect, said Harder was refusing to recognize the severity of the defects to avoid sticking the city with the responsibility for failing to notice them sooner.

If the city were to “come out now and say it’s horrible, they’d be admitting their own liability and so their tendency is to say that it’s not that bad,” Fuchs said.

Even Bradley said the flaws in the building’s construction “should have been apparent to everyone.”

“Someone had to be aware of the problems as they were created,” he said.

The general contractor for the clubhouse at 11251 Glenoaks Blvd. was McLaughlin Construction of Quartz Hill. A federal block grant awarded to the city’s Community Development Department covered $400,000 of the project’s cost.

According to club members and court records, problems developed immediately after the building was occupied in June, 1986. Doors fell off hinges, the resin floor began bubbling, the roof leaked, the stucco exterior began cracking and skylights fell in, they said.

“Every day, there were new problems,” said John Keating, who is chairman of the club’s crisis committee, which was formed because of the building’s problems. He said the structure was being undermined by what he called “a slow cancer” of poor design and bad workmanship.

The club sued McLaughlin, several subcontractors and architect William Bray. Arbitration in the case began in March, 1988. In 1990, an additional lawsuit was filed against the building’s structural engineers, Leonard Liston and Associates, who refused to participate in the arbitration.

Fuchs has submitted to the arbitrators documents contending that ripping out substandard materials and making structural repairs would cost $1.16 million and non-structural repairs to the building’s floors, roof, doors, frames and substandard plumbing would cost $350,000.

Fuchs said McLaughlin and three subcontractors had agreed to pay the club $550,000, but the settlement is being held up over the side issue of whether the payment would completely release the general contractor from further discussions involving the liability of other subcontractors.

In 1989, Arnold Bookbinder, a structural engineer hired by the club, found “a serious and possibly fatal gap” in the building’s roof that would allow the walls to collapse inward in the event of an earthquake, according to court records. Bookbinder blamed Bray and Liston for the design errors.

In March, several of the building’s walls were opened up to permit a more complete inspection and further flaws were discovered. Along a 46-foot section, for example, the builder had assembled 27-foot wall studs from 13-foot and 14-foot metal pieces. Moreover, the pieces used were only 60% as strong as those required.

The result, Bookbinder said in an interview, is “dangerous and hazardous” and the wall is so weak that “a good wind . . . could blow these studs down.”

He said the building plans were correctly designed for that area, but had been ignored.

Fuchs blamed McLaughlin for failing to supervise the subcontractors, who did most of the work on the project after the building’s concrete foundation slab had been poured. In addition, he said McLaughlin had submitted a bid that underestimated the cost of proper construction.

Gerold McLaughlin, the head of the company, did not return telephone calls for comment and Douglas W. Andrews, his attorney, declined to comment until he had conferred with his client.

Documents submitted by McLaughlin as part of the company’s bid on the project said the firm had been in business about 30 years. The bid indicated the firm had participated in previous projects including a junior high school and several industrial facilities for Rockwell International and McDonnell Douglas.

But the Boys & Girls Club was the firm’s largest contract to that point.

A spokeswoman for the Contractor’s State Licensing Board said McLaughlin’s firm was active and in good standing and no complaints had been upheld against it.

Donna D. Melby, an attorney representing Bray, the architect, and Liston, the structural engineer, said “there’s a big attempt under way to blame any problems on the designer.”

She said the undersize studs were used “in direct contravention of plans drawn up by my client. What we’re dealing with is an error in construction, not in design.”

The roof’s problems, she said, were “a subject of much debate” and that “even if there is a problem, there is strong evidence that it doesn’t need the very expensive fix that Mr. Bookbinder says it needs.”

Melby said the clubhouse was “absolutely a good building that does not need a lot of repairs.”

The club has spent more than $400,000 in legal and consulting fees over the past five years and now faces an immediate financial crisis, Keating said.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who represents the northeast Valley, said he has introduced a City Council motion to allocate $100,000 in federal community development block grant funds toward building a new club next to the current site. That motion has yet to come to a vote.

After the mandated repairs are completed, it will stay open until the new clubhouse is ready in three years, said Jose de Sosa, chairman of the club’s emergency fund-raising committee.

Gerald Weisstein, the club’s president, said the club’s directors voted unanimously to build a new facility and are committed to raising all of the building’s $1.2-million replacement cost from the private sector. Donations totaling $85,000, including $50,000 from Keating and his wife, Florence, were announced Thursday.

The Boys & Girls Club was started in 1966 by a group of community leaders in response to the Watts riot. At the time, it was one of four such clubs in the San Fernando Valley. The others have since closed.

De Sosa, head of the state National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and a member of the club’s board of directors, said that the building fulfilled long-held dreams and that “the youngsters have treated this building with a great deal of pride and respect.”

If the club’s 1,200 members were not able to go there, they “would be out in the streets,” Keating said.

Weisstein noted that the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, which patrols the area, estimates that there are more than 4,000 gang members in 40 gangs in the northeast Valley. “Without the club, these figures would be even higher,” he said.

Times staff writer Jim Quinn contributed to this story.

What’s Wrong With the Building? * Roof: City building officials and a private consultant say there are gaps in key structural members of the roof that are meant to keep the walls from caving in.

* Walls: The walls are wobbly because 27-foot metal studs called for in plans were not used. Instead, studs as short as 14 and 13 feet were assembled to create the 27-foot height of the wall. Also, the private consultant says that studs used were thinner than those called for in the plans.

In addition, some of the studs were cut off at the bottom, meaning that they “float” instead of providing support.

* Earthquake bracing: Walls are not sufficiently braced against temblors or strong winds. The private consultant says that welds holding horizontal bracing to studs are as much as 80% overstressed, but city officials estimate the overstress factor at no more than 20%.

* Floor: Epoxy resin joining the subfloor to the concrete slab was not properly applied, causing the flooring to bubble and lift in many places.

Sources:

City Building and Safety Department

Arnold Bookbinder and Associates.