Saturday, February 26, 2011

Is gkkworks involved in the LACCD mess?

     Re our earlier post about the incompetence, waste, and sleazitude of recent Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) construction project(s):
     gkkworks, an Orange County firm, is assisting Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College in planning future construction. Some of us have asked: is gkk involved in the massive LACCD fiasco?

     That gkkworks has the LACCD among its clients is revealed here: gkkworks: clients (click on "clients").
     It could be that this relationship exists through CCS Group (and LHA, etc.). These firms were purchased by gkkworks in 2007. (See below.)
     On this page (click on "projects"; then "LACC capital outlay support"), one finds various gkk projects, including:
Los Angeles Community College District:
[gkk's] CCS Group has been advising the District on Facility Issues; Funding and Space Utilization to assist them overall with their bond and capital outlay programs. CCS Group provides support to individual colleges as well as to the District. CCS Group completes Final Project Proposals, Five-year Construction Plans, Initial Project Proposals, and facilitates Master Planning and serves as Chancellor Office Liaison. We continue to assist various colleges within the District to align bond projects with established goals and objectives. Reference: Larry Eisenberg, Executive Director of Facilities
     I found the following OC Reg article, from nearly four years ago, reporting gkk's acquisition of CCS Group and LHA, two names that come up in various sites I have come across when Googling* "gkk LACCD":
Gkkworks in Irvine buys CCS Group (OC Reg; 7/20/07)
     Gkkworks, an Irvine architecture and construction management firm, said today that it has bought CCS Group in Sacramento.    
     Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Gkkworks has 270 employees in nine offices. CCS has 20 employees and specializes in community college projects. CCS President Shaun Blaylock will remain with the company in charge of the Sacramento office.    
     It is gkkwork’s second acquisition in the past year. It acquired the Glendale architectural firm of Leidenfrost Horowitz & Associates Inc. [LHA] last July.
THE UPSHOT: gkkworks, which now owns CCS, seems to be involved in the bond and capital outlay programs that have gone so wrong for LACCD. And our district is currently relying on the same company to plan its construction projects.
     That the LACCD construction programs have gone badly may well be the fault of other parties than gkkworks (and the companies that gkkworks has acquired).
     Still, it is fair—and it is important—for us, in the SOCCCD,  to ask: does gkkworks have any share in the blame for the LACCD fiasco?

*See:

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmmmm

Rebel Girl said...

David Hunt of gkk works gave $500 to Don Wagner's assembly race on May 5, 2010.

check it out here:

http://www.electiontrack.com/lookup.php?committee=1320958

More to follow perhaps - I am reading as fast as I can...

Anonymous said...

The story is in today's Sunday paper and it's HUGE. I hope our trustees are reading it.

We've had our own share of problems with construction firms, recent and ongoing projects. How about that company that walked away from IVC's outdoor theater, leaving it just a pile of dirt? Who hired them and vetted them? How about all the problems with IVC's PAC?

Anonymous said...

It's a 6 part series! Go get 'em!

Anonymous said...

I knew you'd be connecting the dots! This is the stuff you guys do best.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...