CSUN Quake Rebuilding Chief, Wife Leaving Posts

Bill and Jane Chatham, the husband-and-wife pair of Cal State Northridge administrators who played a pivotal and sometimes controversial role in the campus’ earthquake recovery, are leaving to move out of state, campus officials said Friday.

Bill Chatham, CSUN’s associate vice president for facilities planning and operations since 1988, has been named vice chancellor for facilities with the University System of Georgia based in Atlanta. His wife, the former head of CSUN’s disaster recovery office, is moving there with him.

Although CSUN President Blenda Wilson had praised the couple’s work, Wilson also publicly censured them last year after the couple accepted home repair work from several employees of CSUN’s main earthquake contractor, a firm they were responsible for supervising.

The matter was investigated by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, which found a lack of evidence of a legal conflict of interest.

Despite that outcome, some campus officials privately predicted the couple’s days were numbered. But the university denied Friday the Chathams’ departure has anything to do with the controversy or broader criticism about the lagging pace of the recovery during the past year.

“I would say it’s Bill’s decision and it’s a positive move for him,” said CSUN spokesman Bruce Erickson. “I know the president appreciates his years of service and his role in the earthquake recovery,” Erickson said.

Wilson was vacationing in Idaho and unavailable for comment, he added.

In an interview, Bill Chatham said he was leaving for a better opportunity, not because of the contracting controversy. Chatham said he expects to start his new job next month for the 34-campus, 189,500-student Georgia state system, which includes all the state’s public universities and colleges.

“They’ve got a pretty dynamic university program, and I think I can do some good,” said Chatham, 53. While at CSUN, he supervised more than 200 employees and worked on development plans for CSUN’s North Campus. From 1985 to 1988, he was chief of planning for the Cal State system.

Chatham will earn a salary of $105,000 a year, Georgia officials said, a slight increase in dollars but a substantial increase in earning power over his current $102,672 CSUN salary.

John Millsaps, a spokesman for the Georgia system, said Chatham told officials there about the construction controversy and they investigated the details to their satisfaction. “They had a very thorough investigation . . . and were very satisfied with what they found,” he said.

Millsaps also said his system picked Chatham partly because of his earthquake recovery experience at CSUN. Georgia officials issued a statement describing Chatham as “the executive responsible for rebuilding” CSUN after the 1994 Northridge quake and “orchestrating the recovery process.”

Jane Chatham, 48, a CSUN administrator since 1989, ran the campus’ disaster recovery office for two years until her December 1995 reassignment amid mounting criticism of delays and other problems. Campus officials said they did not know what Jane Chatham, who earned $85,284 at CSUN, will do in Atlanta, and her husband refused to discuss that issue.

The couple ran into trouble over their dealings with Atlanta-based Law/Crandall Inc. when The Times reported that Law/Crandall employees had repaired an earthquake-damaged patio cover at the Chathams’ Northridge house for free. That occurred when the Chathams were renegotiating a contract with the company that would have doubled its fee to about $20 million.

Amid that and other controversies, the university last year dropped Law/Crandall from overseeing the estimated $300-million campus recovery effort. A state ethics probe later found insufficient evidence to prove a legal conflict of interest in the Chathams’ actions.