Zacarias Considering Defamation Lawsuit : Education: L.A. schools chief threatens action against his own appointee over report blaming managers for Belmont problems.

Angered by the criticism of his leadership in his top auditor’s report on the Belmont Learning Complex, Los Angeles schools Supt. Ruben Zacarias said Wednesday he is planning to consult an attorney on whether to file a defamation suit.

Such a suit, if filed, would create a highly unusual drama in which the superintendent battles one of his own appointees in court.

“I’ve had enough people saying I should consult legal advice, so I will. . . . If an attorney told me to, I would have to consider it,” he said. That Zacarias would entertain such a course underlines the rising tension in the district over the apparent lack of confidence in his leadership shown by the new Board of Education majority.

Since a slate of reformers became a majority in July, there have been persistent rumors that some of the new board members intend to buy out his contract, which was extended a year, to June 2001, in one of the last acts of the former board.

Zacarias was openly miffed over the long-awaited report released last week by Don Mullinax, director of internal audits and special investigations. The report sought to lay blame on specific individuals for allowing construction to begin on Belmont without adequate environmental assessments.

Zacarias was not on the list of nine employees for whom Mullinax recommended discipline, but the report said the board should consider the superintendent’s “failure to supervise” in his next evaluation.

The investigative summary included Zacarias among district employees judged to have “failed to have exercised proper management, supervision and/or professional execution of their assigned responsibilities.”

Sources close to Zacarias said he learned about the negative comments only the night before the report was released to the public.

In a meeting with Mullinax and district leaders, Zacarias noticed the references to him while browsing through the 200-page report, the sources said.

Asking what it meant, he was told it was “gratuitous” and was put in not because he had done anything wrong, but because “you’re captain of the ship,” the sources said.

Calling a news conference the next day, Zacarias defended his performance, saying that he was not superintendent when Belmont was approved and that he disbanded the unit that pushed through the $200-million school.

Mullinax could not be reached Wednesday.

Although board members have strongly denied reports that they are beginning an evaluation of Zacarias, a narrow majority this week slighted his leadership by hiring an outsider to take over the entire facilities division without even consulting him. The board voted 4 to 3 to have the new position of facilities reform executive report directly to them, rather than through Zacarias.

Zacarias said he knew nothing about the proposal until the day the board voted on it.

But he appeared to have regained some of the lost ground Wednesday when key Latino elected officials rallied to his support, as they did in June to help push through his contract extension.

The subject of the facilities director dominated the hearing at which the State Allocation Board approved $278 million in state bond funds to build 49 schools.

As all seven school board members converged in Sacramento on Wednesday to rally for the funds, they ran into a cross-fire that eventually led Hayes to promise that Zacarias’ authority over facilities would be restored.

At least two board members reportedly had a private meeting with state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) and other Zacarias backers.

Later, while testifying at a hearing in support of the construction money, Polanco said he saw problems with the new facilities position.

Then, Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh (D-Los Angeles), a member of the allocation board, said he was disturbed that the facilities director would not have to answer to the superintendent.

Firebaugh said that through the “difficult period of turmoil” in the district, “there’s been one constant, and that’s been the superintendent.”

He asked Hayes to explain this, particularly since the superintendent is to be responsible for instruction in the new schools. “Shouldn’t he be in the loop?” he asked.

Hayes, in the witness chair, said, “Quite frankly, that’s a question that needs to be answered.” She said it would be part of a monthlong evaluation of the new executive’s duties.

When pressed by Firebaugh, she said: “We’re going to make sure he has a say in all of these things.”

Firebaugh asked if that meant former board member Howard Miller, the new facilities reform executive, would report to Zacarias.

“Absolutely,” she said. “All seven of us are here today . . . with Dr. Zacarias and we’ll make sure that gets taken care of.”

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.