School Air-Conditioning Talks Hit Boiling Point

Disagreement over the best way to air condition hundreds of Los Angeles campuses boiled into a snarling debate Wednesday at a meeting of the school district’s bond oversight committee, yielding little hope of resolution.

With a six-week bidding period already half over, members of the Proposition BB oversight panel appeared even further from agreement on the fundamental question of whether the $200-million job should be awarded to any of the seven firms seeking it.

One member of the committee said the concept of awarding the work outside the district’s existing management team “doesn’t meet the test of common sense” because it would tend to disrupt the thousands of other projects being financed through Proposition BB, a $2.4-billion measure overwhelmingly approved by voters in April to repair sagging Los Angeles Unified School District campuses.

The management team, 3DI/O’Brien Kreitzberg, was hired to oversee implementation of all the school repair projects financed by the bond issue.

But Steven Soboroff, Mayor Richard Riordan’s appointee to the committee and its chairman, said the district has an obligation to award the work to one of the seven bidders. He contended that the private firms can do the work more cheaply, and that the district has evaded competitive pressure by not requiring the management team it hired to bid on the job.

“It makes a sham out of the bidding process,” he said angrily.

Echoing Soboroff’s outrage, one of the bidders raised the threat of litigation if no contract is awarded to one of the seven bidders.

“Millions of dollars are being spent by seven firms,” said Michael Dochterman, project manager of the Energy Alliance.

The district’s initial plan called for the air conditioning to be parceled out over three years on a priority basis along with thousands of other jobs.

Reacting to public discontent over that schedule, the Energy Alliance--a consortium of energy companies including the Department of Water and Power and the parent firm of the Southern California Gas Co.--proposed in May to do the whole air-conditioning job on a fast track in a third the time.

As the Energy Alliance made detailed studies of nearly 300 campuses, 11 other firms submitted competing proposals. All bidders, now honed to seven, were allowed until Oct. 22 to come up with final prices.

For the first time Wednesday, school officials advanced the possibility that all seven bids could be rejected.

District facilities general manager Beth Louargand said 3DI/O’Brien Kreitzberg is continuing to refine the district’s initial estimates on the air-conditioning work to measure the seven bidders’ claims that they could do better.

School board member Jeff Horton told the panel the board would have to decide whether to accept one of the seven bids or retain the work under 3DI/O’Brien.

“Why don’t you do that now, before the 22nd?” Soboroff demanded.

“There have been a lot of claims made,” Horton said. “That is not enough. We have to analyze it. I rely on staff to give me expert opinion.”

David Barulich of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. said that considering all the outside bids could slow the project down. He accused Soboroff, seen as a possible mayoral candidate in 2001, of trying to create a political issue and added: “Why don’t you get on with the business of this committee instead of grandstanding?”