☁ Community college construction projects can go very, very wrong

     Today's Times article about the stunning waste and abuse involved in a massive construction project for the Los Angeles Community College District is well worth reading in full. Some excerpts below.
     (7:05 p.m.: Based on a reader suggestion, I Googled gkk & LACCD and found numerous connections, including projects related to measure J, referred to in the Times article. gkk is currently working with Irvine Valley College, helping the college plan its future construction. I'll let you know what I come up with. Obviously, that gkk was/is involved in recent LACCD construction does not imply that they have been guilty of anything.)

Waste throws wrench into Los Angeles community colleges' massive project (LA Times)

     The effects of decades of neglect were all too visible at the nine far-flung campuses. Roofs leaked. Furniture was decrepit. Seismic protections were outdated.
     In 2001, leaders of the Los Angeles Community College District decided to take action. With support from construction companies and labor unions, they persuaded voters to pass a series of bond measures over the next seven years that raised $5.7 billion to rebuild every campus.
     The money would ease classroom crowding. It would make college buildings safer. New technology would enhance learning. And financial oversight would be stringent.
     That is what was promised to Los Angeles voters.
     The reality? Tens of millions of dollars have gone to waste because of poor planning, frivolous spending and shoddy workmanship, a Times investigation found.
     Bond money has paid for valuable improvements: new science buildings, libraries, stadiums and computer centers. But costly blunders by college officials, contractors and the district's elected Board of Trustees have denied the system's 142,000 students the full potential of one of California's largest public works programs.
     This picture emerges from scores of interviews and a review of thousands of pages of district financial records, internal e-mails and other documents.
     At East Los Angeles College, construction of a grand entry plaza with a clock tower degenerated into a comedy of errors. Heating and cooling units were installed upside down, inspectors found. Concrete steps were uneven. Cracked and wet lumber had to be torn out. A ramp for the disabled was too steep for wheelchairs, and the landmark clock tower listed to one side.
     Fixing the problems helped drive construction costs from $28 million to $43 million.
     A new health and science center at Valley College was marred by defective plumbing, cracked floors, leaky windows and loosely attached ceiling panels that threatened to crash down in an earthquake.
     The district paid a contractor $48 million to build the complex, but had to hire others to correct the problems and finish the project — for an additional $3.5 million.
     At least those buildings were finished, eventually. At West Los Angeles College, officials spent $39 million to design and begin construction of four major buildings, only to discover that they didn't have the money to complete them.
     Just as crews were starting work last summer, the projects, including a $92-million athletics center, were abandoned.
     "This is astounding," said David Beaulieu, president of the District Academic Senate. "How could this have happened?"
     At Valley College, workers renovated a theater complex, installing new seats, lighting and sound equipment in time for a 2009 student production of "Alice in Wonderland." But even before the $3.4-million job was done, officials decided to build a new theater complex. The renovated one is slated for demolition.
     "I think it's obscene, given what's going on in this economy," said Pete Parkin, former chairman of the theater department. "It's mind-boggling."….
. . .

     By the 1990s, however, many campus buildings had fallen into disrepair. So in 2001, the board placed before voters a $1.2-billion bond measure, followed by another for nearly $1 billion in 2003.
     Both passed by wide margins.
     In one respect, trouble was inevitable: Voters had put $2.2 billion under the control of seven of the region's most obscure elected officials. They would be spending it with almost no public scrutiny — despite their promise of "strict oversight" by a citizens committee.
     Nearly all of the trustees are longtime players in local politics. To fund their election campaigns, waged largely by mail, they typically solicit donations from college administrators, unions and contractors.
     Voter approval of the construction program opened a spigot of new campaign money by turning the trustees into powerful figures in the world of California public works. All but one of the trustees — Tina Park — have accepted donations from builders, architects and engineers who have won contracts from the board, records show.
. . .
     By 2007, it was clear that the $2.2 billion in bond money would run out long before the district had finished all the projects on its list. The trustees decided to go to voters once more, this time with the biggest bond measure of all — a $3.5-billion proposal, Measure J, on the November 2008 ballot.
     Contractors put up nearly two-thirds of the $1.9 million raised for the ballot campaign. Measure J passed with 70% of the vote, more than doubling the size of the construction program.
     Taxpayers will be repaying the debt until at least the 2050s. With interest, the bill is likely to exceed $11 billion.

     Overwhelmed by the program's scale, the trustees mostly let [construction chief Larry] Eisenberg run it as he saw fit.
     "He was in charge of everything, all the money," said former Pierce College President Thomas Oliver. "Because the district wasn't good at building anything, everybody kind of followed his lead."
     Eisenberg played to the trustees' thirst for recognition, pursuing construction awards that they liked to publicize. Even after problems spilled into the open — such as the loss of several million dollars when a financing plan for solar power projects collapsed — the trustees rarely questioned his leadership.
. . .
     By Eisenberg's account, the program has been "remarkably clean in terms of relationships and ethical behavior and those kinds of things."
     But district leaders have not hesitated to help family members land jobs, The Times found.
. . .
     After Times reporters began asking questions about waste, construction errors and other problems, the trustees in November 2009 commissioned a special audit of the program by a management consulting firm, Capstone Advisory Group LLC.

. . .
     In addition to the Capstone audit, the district ordered a review of the program by its bond counsel, Fulbright & Jaworski. The law firm reported that millions of dollars in bond money had been spent in violation of state law.
     The money went, among other things, to public relations, food, travel and aerial photography for promotional videos. The law allows bond spending only for construction and the purchase of property or furniture.
     The law firm's review led officials to lay off at least 15 people, including a woman whose main job was to book speeches for Eisenberg and the trustees. Also dismissed was an avant-garde Swedish photographer hired to take what one official, in an internal e-mail, called "glamour shots" of new buildings.
     In theory, such excesses should have quickly been flagged. In all three ballot measures, the district had promised that a citizens committee appointed by the trustees would rigorously monitor spending. But the panel was starved for money, staff and information and failed for eight years to file annual reports to taxpayers, as required by law, Fulbright & Jaworski found.
     James Lynch, chairman of the committee from 2006 to 2009, said of the construction program: "Quite honestly, it was run so well that it would be a model for any place."
     Lynch, a former chief executive of the Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Century City chambers of commerce, said he had heard nothing about construction errors, misspending or nepotism. "It seemed like everything was pretty transparent."….