New Questions Raised on Press Box Inspection

Inspection report entries rejecting several welds in the structural steel connections for the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum’s new press box were later marked as accepted without the knowledge of the inspectors involved, records and interviews show.

The acceptance notations were made on inspection entries for welds that were rejected in June 1995. The documentation was compiled by the inspection firm of Smith-Emery Co., whose inspectors served as formal deputies of the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department on the project.

The inspection entries are part of the documentation used by Smith-Emery to verify that each major weld was inspected and if defects were found, were repaired during construction. The engineer for the project, Nabih Youssef, is preparing to certify the structural soundness of the press box, based in part on Smith-Emery’s assurances.

The press box hangs out over hundreds of spectator seats at midfield, and depends on a succession of vertical columns and welded connections. The soundness of the construction, paid for entirely with emergency federal and state funding, has come under scrutiny after Times articles reporting problems encountered during welding for the structure.

The president of Smith-Emery, James E. Partridge, acknowledged in interviews that notations to reports were made.

“We’re honest folks and not trying to do anything irresponsible,” said Partridge, who is a civil engineer. “I can’t really tell you, honestly, that there was any intent other than any routine issues, that may have caused us to make those notations,” Partridge said.

“I don’t think that we’ve done anything to obliterate what may have been written before. . . . I think maybe what they are, are maybe marks that [two other Smith-Emery managers] or I may have made, when we went through the reports. . . . The character of any mark in there does not alter the marks that were there before.”

Partridge added: “There were no acceptances made on the report, or no attempt to indicate that something had been accepted after it was rejected, unless that acceptance was made on that report by the same man who made the rejection.”

However, the after-the-fact notations do indicate acceptances of previously rejected welds. And the original inspectors said they did not make the notations.

In four instances, welds that had originally been marked as rejected by an inspector were marked as accepted, to represent that the weld had been repaired, according to a review of the documents and interviews with the inspectors. The welds were made at a San Bernardino steel shop and then shipped to the Coliseum.

The four rejected welds that were marked as accepted had been noted as inadequate on a June 17, 1995, report, compiled by a Smith-Emery inspector. The inspector, Cecil Farrar, noted each rejection with a check mark, on a document titled “Report of Ultrasonic Weld Testing.”

At some point later, three of the welds were marked as having been repaired and accepted, but with the date, “6-24,” used instead of a check mark. Farrar said he is certain, after looking at the documentation, that he did not mark the disputed welds as repaired or accepted.

Farrar said he is certain because the “6-24” date is not in his handwriting. Nor, he said, would he have used the date, instead of a check mark, to signify the acceptance or rejection of a weld. Indeed, Farrar’s other reports for the Coliseum inspections show that he consistently used check marks.

The fourth weld, which attaches a base plate to another vertical box column, was checked as accepted, with the notation, “per Dennis Johnson,” another Smith-Emery inspector.

Johnson, when shown the inspection document, said that he did not mark any of the welds on Farrar’s reports as having been repaired or accepted. “I wouldn’t have written anything on Cecil’s report,” Johnson said.

Moreover, Johnson explained that there is no way he could have accepted the weld in question, as depicted on Farrar’s report. That is because the date of the notation accepting the weld is July 14, 1995. Johnson said he left Southern California on June 28, 1995--bound that day for his next inspection assignment for Smith-Emery, in Upstate New York.

“I didn’t write that in there,” said Johnson, who, when first interviewed, was at his new job site in Monticello, N.Y. Johnson said that he had been unaware of any inspection report alterations. “They shouldn’t do anything after the fact.”

Farrar, who retired last year and has been described by Smith-Emery’s president as an “A-plus” inspector, said he was surprised at the new notations. “You would think it went through the way you wrote it,” he said.

In July, Partridge told The Times that he had recently discovered inspection documentation that would shed light on the acceptance of the welds and would attempt to make it available. Reached finally by phone five weeks later, Partridge declined to identify the nature of any such new documentation and said he did not intend to provide access to it.

Partridge has advised the Coliseum Commission at public meetings that any weld found defective during the construction was repaired before the steel was placed in the structure.

Coliseum officials ordered new ultrasound testing of the steel structure after a May 5 Times article reporting problems experienced during construction. Those tests--conducted by Smith-Emery and a Seattle firm--identified defects in 26% of the welds that were examined.

Further testing of the structure by two other companies reconfirmed the presence of the defects. A structural engineer retained in July by the Coliseum Commission, John A. Martin Jr., recommended that repairs be made to those defects. Martin also has said he believes the structure is safe. The repairs were completed within the past few days, according to city officials.

Construction of the press box was paid for almost entirely from about $100 million of federal emergency funds provided by the Clinton administration after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The press box has been in use since September 1995.

The money was allocated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Leland R. Wilson, the agency’s coordinating officer in Southern California, said FEMA is “always concerned” about construction quality, but would defer any action regarding the press box until the local Coliseum Commission completes its examination of the structure.

The state Office of Emergency Services paid for up to 10% of the construction costs.

Richard Holguin, chief of the city building department’s engineering bureau, said he is not aware of any original weld inspection reports from the Coliseum work that were filed by Smith-Emery with the city. Holguin said he is unconcerned with any problems raised regarding the construction, so long as Youssef, the project engineer, ultimately certifies that the structure is safe.

Partridge told The Times last spring that it had been his company’s intention to file the inspection reports with the city building department. Indeed, typed summaries of inspection documents kept on file at Smith-Emery list three supposed recipients of those documents: The building department, the Coliseum Commission and Youssef’s engineering firm.

The reports were not filed with the Coliseum Commission, according to Chief Administrative Officer Margaret Farnum. Representatives of the Youssef firm did not return calls seeking comment.