School Cited for Code Violations : Calabasas: Meadow Oaks discovers buildings’ minor shortcomings after a plan to sell the campus falls through.

Meadow Oaks School, which plans to reopen now that the announced sale of its campus to neighboring Viewpoint School has fallen through, was cited for numerous building code violations this week, an official said.

Although anonymous flyers warned parents that the school grounds may not be safe, Calabasas building official Tim Steenson said Thursday that the violations were minor infractions commonly found in many buildings.

“We have no reason to believe that (Meadow Oaks)) did anything to intentionally violate the codes,” he said.

The anonymous, hand-distributed flyers urged parents: “Don’t send your child to school until you demand the truth,” saying the school has “unsafe buildings” and is prone to mudslides.

Steenson and Interim Headmaster Dennis Fliegelman denied the existence of any such dangers. They said they had received only a handful of calls from parents asking whether the school was safe.

Steenson said he discovered the violations Tuesday, during an inspection made at the request of Frank Rich, a building contractor who is also a Calabasas planning commissioner.

Meadow Oaks hired Rich to bring the facility up to code to make way for the sale of the campus to the next-door Viewpoint School, Steenson said. Both are private schools.

The violations included overloaded circuits, missing circuit breakers and electrical wiring which was not enclosed in the required metal pipe conduit, Steenson said.

The school also needs to brace the foundations of numerous portable buildings to strengthen them against earthquakes, Steenson said.

The code shortcomings will be corrected within weeks, Fliegelman said. “We are committed to reopening this school in the fall, and we are going to keep it open,” he said.

Both schools have refused to discuss why the sale fell through this week, saying they are bound by a legal agreement.

Steenson said that, in his opinion, the violations would not have been enough to kill the sale. Generally, he said, potential buyers simply require the seller to fix such minor shortcomings before the sale goes through. In addition, he said, it was already common knowledge that the sale had fallen through before he made his inspection.

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Viewpoint Headmaster Robert Dworkoski declined comment on whether he knew about the code violations.

The announcement that the sale had fallen through angered many Meadow Oaks parents, who had already enrolled their children in other schools.

Dworkoski said his school has received inquiries from parents of Meadow Oaks pupils who want to transfer their children to Viewpoint, but offered them little hope. “We are putting some on a wait list, but we have filled most of our grades,” he said.