Schools in Thousand Oaks, Simi Still in Need of Earthquake Repairs : Education: Officials face millions of dollars in work to fix campuses, but frustration is voiced over dealings with FEMA.

Nearly 18 months after the Northridge earthquake, the Conejo Valley Unified School District has repaired less than one-third of an estimated $7 million in quake damage to Thousand Oaks school buildings.

A few miles away, the Simi Valley High School gym is still locked shut, unusable because of earthquake damage.

Officials in both districts said even though they are trying to fix the schools quickly, they understand that school buildings rank behind freeways and housing on disaster repair lists.

But with Federal Emergency Management Agency offices closing down and a sense of urgency fading, some school board members and district officials are starting to voice frustration with what they say is a slow-paced, cumbersome bureaucracy.

“If you told me right after the earthquake that it was going to take longer than a year I never would have believed it,” said Mary Beth Wolford, superintendent of the Simi Valley Unified School District. “It’s a very difficult process with lots and lots of paperwork.”

Even disaster relief officials concede as much.

“It is a long and arduous process,” said Rick Ranous, senior structural engineer for the state Office of Emergency Services. “We’re trying to keep it moving as fast as we possibly can.”

Some people are losing patience.

“We keep going through this process and it seems to me we keep getting screwed,” Simi Valley school Trustee Carla Kurachi said at a recent board meeting, before voting to give emergency status to an asbestos-removal project at the high school gym. Only after the asbestos is removed will the district determine whether the gym can be repaired or needs to be demolished.

“It looks like the structure may be tilted. We’re not sure if the building is going to be recoverable,” said Lowell Schultze, acting business manager for the Simi Valley district.

In the meantime, the high school’s wrestling, basketball and volleyball teams have played “home” games everywhere from Moorpark College to Newbury Park High School. “It’s been a scheduling nightmare,” Athletic Director George Ragsdale said.

District Maintenance Manager Devon C. Bell said the damage is not just at Simi Valley High School, where, in addition to the gym, a multipurpose room is closed. The district estimates several million dollars in damage overall, but has no precise repair figures.

“At just about every one of our schools, something is waiting to be fixed because of earthquake damage,” Bell said. “It’s frustrating for the district. We started the day after the earthquake. We had meetings on top of meetings. It just goes on and on.”

In Thousand Oaks, no school buildings are closed because of damage, said Sean G. Corrigan, director of planning and facilities for the school district. Still, Corrigan said it may take until 1997 before all the cracks are repaired and the suspended ceilings and lights are braced “so that in the event of another temblor they don’t fall on our children and staff.”

The bulk of the work is still ahead, Corrigan said. Indeed, the Conejo Valley school board Thursday got its first look at a 1995-96 budget that includes more than $2.7 million in disaster repairs and building improvements.

Corrigan said the $7 million worth of needed repairs are more than cosmetic. The cracks left unpatched, for instance, could allow water damage, and the lights and ceilings are a safety issue.

The Conejo Valley district has three people working full time on nothing but paperwork and contracts related to earthquake repairs, Corrigan said. But the district has to wait for approval from FEMA and state emergency services before conducting any repairs. The work is also delayed, he said, by having to accommodate children in occupied school buildings.

Corrigan said much of the $2 million the district has spent has involved repairs to Acacia elementary school.

“After the earthquake I personally got involved,” Acacia School Principal Fran Smith said. “I was very eager.”

Smith said most of the repairs occurred during spring break, but four classes had to be moved into portable classrooms to finish the work. Now the doors that stuck after the earthquake swing freely, the windows that would not lock now do and the unsightly wall cracks are gone.

Still, the school’s floor tiles remain cracked from the quake. And they have asbestos in them too.