After the Quake : NEWS IN BRIEF : City Council Orders Audit of Seismic Safety Program

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday ordered an audit of a 3 1/2-year-old seismic safety program that has strengthened only a handful of about 200 buildings and bridges in need of work.

The council also agreed to hire a full-time analyst in the controller’s office to oversee progress on the $376-million program and two other public works bond projects that have proceeded slowly. If work is not expedited, the analyst will inform the mayor and the council.

The Times reported last month that less than $30 million of the seismic safety money had been spent since the bond was approved in 1990 and that progress was also slow on separate projects to remodel libraries and police stations.

The council’s actions followed half an hour of scathing comments, directed at Department of Public Works officials who are directing the work.

Conceding that the work has gone slowly, the bureaucrats said that improvements have been made since last year, when City Controller Rick Tuttle and then-Mayor Tom Bradley urged speeding up of the work. Tuttle and Bradley got the council to agree to put 50 public works employees on a special detail to draw plans, solicit bids and oversee construction.

A report from the Public Works Department showed that seismic improvements have been completed at just five of 51 buildings, with a $92-million rehabilitation of City Hall the biggest uncompleted project. Nine bridges have been strengthened and 163 are yet to be done.