Investigator Calls for Staff Penalties in Belmont Case

By DOUG SMITH and RALPH FRAMMOLINO

Sept. 15, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The new chief investigator for the Los Angeles schools called Tuesday for a sweeping housecleaning of the district’s senior business staff for failure to supervise construction of the environmentally plagued Belmont Learning Complex.

Nine high-level district employees, including general counsel Richard K. Mason, Chief Administrative Officer David Koch and former facilities general manager Beth Louargand should receive discipline up to termination, a 200-page investigative summary said.

The report said that former school boards violated state laws in approving the half-completed high school west of downtown with inadequate environmental review and that their decisions were “ad hoc, uninformed by reference to any policy and generally rudderless.”

The Board of Education received the long-awaited report from its top auditor, Don Mullinax, on Tuesday morning. Although members gave no indication how quickly they would respond, pressure was already building for decisive action.

“The district is not competent to be building schools,” said Barry Groveman, attorney for the district’s environmental safety team that raised the red flags about Belmont. “They cannot take on those responsibilities as they are presently constituted.”

No immediate discipline was recommended for Supt. Ruben Zacarias, who was a deputy superintendent when the Belmont project started. But the report said his “failure to supervise the Belmont project in a diligent, professional and effective manner” should be taken into consideration in his next evaluation.

On Tuesday, Zacarias denied responsibility for the project’s problems, as did several others named in the report.

Explosive methane and toxic chemicals, including hydrogen sulfide, have been found across the 35-acre site at unexpected concentrations.

The school board has appointed a separate commission to recommend whether to continue building the school, which would require costly mitigation measures to ensure the safety of the 5,000 students it would serve.

Mullinax, hired in January as director of internal audits and special investigations for the Los Angeles Unified School District, recommended civil action against five consulting firms to recover damages.

His report accused both the influential O’Melveny & Myers law firm and Belmont architect McLarand, Vasquez & Partners of conflicts of interest in the $200-million project.

Mullinax said the six-month Belmont investigation also produced evidence of probable criminal activity, but he declined to name anyone suspected of a crime. He said that information has been turned over to law enforcement agencies.

Part of the blame for the Belmont fiasco also falls on two state agencies, the report said: The California Department of Education approved funds for the school without proper standards to protect public health and safety, and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research failed in its duty to refer environmental documents concerning Belmont to the Department of Toxic Substances Control, thus allowing the project to avoid regulatory scrutiny.

The report will pressure the school board to dismantle the management team that is now in a frantic race to find land and draw up plans for 100 new schools. State school bond funds totaling nearly $1 billion, to be used for at least half the schools, will dry up next July unless the district purchases the land and has plans approved by the state architect.

The Mullinax investigation provides a ringing validation of mounting criticism that the district bureaucracy is a shambles of politics, infighting and finger-pointing and is incapable of carrying out such a massive construction project.

Hayden Demands Resignations

Emerging from a nine-hour closed session that began with a 6 a.m. briefing by Mullinax, board President Genethia Hayes said the board had already begun “a process to take corrective action that will safeguard the public trust in the LAUSD and ensure fairness and accountability.”

She declined to give details, citing the rights of district employees named in the report.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), whose critiques played a key role in forming the special investigation unit that Mullinax heads, said he thinks most of the nine employees named should “resign or be fired immediately.”

However, saying that throwing the captain overboard won’t save a ship in trouble, Hayden repeated his demand to have the development of new schools removed entirely from the district’s control.

The Mullinax report did not go that far, but recommended review of several district operations to establish clearer lines of authority and accountability.

In a midmorning media briefing, Mullinax said he was increasingly troubled during the investigation to find no one willing to take responsibility for any aspect of Belmont.

“The people we interviewed we thought maybe should have been in charge said they weren’t,” Mullinax said. “They said they were coordinators.”

The diffusion of responsibility was characteristic of a district culture that has to change, Mullinax said.

“It has to start at the top,” he said.

Mullinax was assigned to investigate Belmont after a Times article disclosed in February that top district officials were aware that environmental assessment of the former oil field site was inadequate but did nothing about it.

The commission of civic leaders charged with recommending whether the project should be completed or abandoned is scheduled to make its report around Oct. 20.

Team of Investigators

Mullinax, a former Defense Department and U.S. Senate investigator, put together a team of sleuths including former FBI agents to find out who was to blame.

The picture drawn by his report was of a school board of construction neophytes being led by an underqualified staff who relied for technical guidance on outside consultants tainted by conflicts of interest.

The report criticized architect Ernesto Vasquez of McLarand, Vasquez, who was a district consultant on the design of Belmont. At the same time, it said, he was also competing for the project contract as a member of the eventual developer, Temple Beaudry Partners. Vasquez was unavailable, and his firm refused to comment.

O’Melveny & Myers and its partner, David Cartwright, also engaged in a conflict of interest, the report said, by representing the district at the same time it represented the Temple Beaudry Partners in negotiations over the Belmont contract.

The report said Cartwright, who was dismissed from the job in February, should have recused himself.

In a written statement, O’Melveny managing partner C. Douglas Kranwinkle disputed that charge as “unfounded, unfair and badly mistaken,” pointing out that district general counsel Mason waived the conflict of interest.

Finally, the report accused Temple Beaudry Partners of misleading regulatory authorities, including the Los Angeles Fire Department and the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, by failing to report hazardous conditions it discovered during construction.

Temple Beaudry Partners also released a statement strongly disputing the charges and implying that the report may be a ploy to gain advantage over the firm.

“We believe we have complied with all laws regarding environmental issues at the Belmont Learning Center,” the statement said. “The school district and its auditors are badly misguided if they hope to gain some political or negotiating advantage by asserting otherwise.”

Denying responsibility for the project’s problems, Zacarias said he had taken steps to correct past failures on Belmont.

Among these, he said, were disbanding the office of planning and development, which was given sole responsibility for the Belmont project under a former superintendent. He also formed an environmental team to examine safety issues at Belmont and other school sites and appointed a chief administrative officer to oversee the business side of the district.

The person he appointed to that job, David Koch, is now one of those for whom discipline has been suggested.

Neither Koch nor general counsel Mason would comment.

Rodger Friermuth, who was the Belmont project manager from May 1997 until two weeks ago, said Mullinax was offering up him and other administrators to appease outside interests.

“Listening to the list that you read off, I think I’m in good company,” Friermuth said. “Those are all dedicated, hard-working people and I feel somewhat proud to be in the mix with these people.”

Robert Niccum, the district’s director of real estate and asset management, said he considered himself a “white knight” in the project because he commissioned a staff inquiry that found environmental reports lacking.

But the Mullinax report said Niccum, who was the designated environmental quality officer for Belmont, “failed to properly coordinate with environmental health and safety branch to obtain the proper environmental assessment,” that he failed to ensure that the school board followed the law and failed to cooperate with the investigation.

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun also contributed to this story.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Investigator’s Key Points

Following are key recommendations of the Mullinax investigation of the Belmont Learning Complex.

PERSONNEL*

Discipline, up to termination, nine employees:

* Dianne Doi, deputy director of environmental health and safety branch

* Rodger Friermuth, project manager

* David Koch, business manager

* Beth Louargand, general manager of facilities services division

* Richard Lui, safety officer

* Richard Mason, general counsel