Deny, Deflect, Defend

“Denying responsibility, deflecting criticism and defending poorly planned and executed” decisions. That about sums it up: the management style of the Los Angeles Unified School District. So says the damning internal audit of the mismanagement in building the $200-million Belmont Learning Center. That’s the LAUSD high school that stands, nearly complete, on an abandoned oil field contaminated with potentially explosive methane gas and other toxic chemicals that could endanger the health of students. Although no one interviewed during the investigation by Don Mullinax, the district’s chief watchdog, would admit to being in charge of building a school that might never open, all who failed to do their jobs must be held accountable. To not put too fine a point on it, heads should roll.

If this report doesn’t awaken the district from its slumber, we have to wonder whether anything will. The Los Angeles school board must demonstrate that willful ignorance, neglect, cronyism and the pass-the-buck way of doing business that led to what happened at Belmont will be tolerated no longer.

As the Mullinax report recommends, Supt. Ruben Zacarias should be held responsible in his next evaluation for the manner in which the project has been managed since he took charge of the district in 1997. Zacarias, who was not superintendent when Belmont was initially planned nearly a decade ago, has argued that he was kept out of the loop. He points out that after he became schools chief he called for the creation of an inspector general’s post, which led to the hiring of Mullinax. That’s all true, but it also rings as the all too familiar refrain of managers throughout the district: Don’t blame me, it’s somebody else.

The Mullinax report recommends discipline “up to and including termination” for nine current LAUSD employees, including members of the senior staff and the managerial and professional team that worked on Belmont. At the top of the list should be the general counsel, Richard K. Mason, who was responsible for giving legal advice to the district and the board. Other key decision makers, including Sid Thompson, the former superintendent, and Dominic Shambra, who was in charge of planning and development, have retired from the district.

The board must set a new standard of expertise for itself, and for professional staff members assigned to the construction of schools. That means that former principals, teachers and playground leaders, as Thompson and Shambra were, certainly ought not to be considered qualified managers of a megamillion-dollar real estate deal.

Among other things, the Mullinax report recommends that the school board consider civil action against many, including its outside counsel, the firm of O’Melveny and Myers, for the quality of its legal advice and for an alleged conflict of interest. The firm denies the charge. And while the consultants and former staffers who failed to do their jobs might be out of the reach of district discipline, if there have been criminal violations they are not out of the reach of the district attorney or the California attorney general.

While the lawyers fight it out, and Mullinax finishes a second report on the money trail, the 4,000 students who were scheduled to attend the Belmont high school are being bused to San Fernando Valley campuses 90 minutes away from their homes. Their frustration cannot be calculated as the school board, we fervently hope, learns the lessons of Belmont. What should have been an example of what is best about Los Angeles Unified is instead likely to become the lasting icon for the district’s worst flaws: denying responsibility, deflecting criticism and, in the end, defending the indefensible.