BELMONT FIVE GET THEIR JOBS BACK; CORRUPTION CLINGS.

Byline: Bryan Steele Local View

FIVE LAUSD executives placed on paid leave in the wake of the Belmont scandal have been reinstated. This action is evidence of a sick bureaucracy unable to heal itself.

The action to reinstate these individuals at first glance makes sense. They were originally placed on leave over possible criminal charges relating to Belmont. As civil servants, they were protected from termination until convicted of a crime. But the indictments and resulting convictions never happened and a year later Superintendent Roy Romer informs us that his only option is reinstatement.

Romer also argues for reinstatement because these five were just bit players in the larger Belmont scandal. This argument is not based on fact. During my time as an investigative analyst for the legislative committee investigating Belmont, I pored over thousands of relevant documents. The names of the Belmont Five were everywhere in the form of authorizing signatures and meeting participants. To say these individuals played only a cursory role in Belmont is to deny the obvious.

One poignant example of a Belmont Five member actively participating in Belmont is Robert Niccum, the former director of the district's Real Estate and Asset Management branch. Niccum was also the district's California Environmental Quality Act compliance officer. In January 1999, the California Legislature published a report in which I identified the failings of Belmont in relation to CEQA regulations. At every turn, Niccum failed in his due diligence responsibilities as the CEQA compliance officer. Yet we are now being told that the very person responsible for dodging CEQA compliance deserves reinstatement as an LAUSD employee.

Further, Belmont is not the only LAUSD school construction scandal involving the Belmont Five.

In July 1998, the California Legislature published a report I authored identifying nine LAUSD school construction projects involving contaminated land. Two months later, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control confirmed these findings.

One of these nine projects is Jefferson Middle School. At the time of purchase, there was an active chrome plating facility less than 50 feet from the property. Plus, the Jefferson property is the site of a former World War II defense plant. Underneath Jefferson is the highest concentration of chromium-6 groundwater contamination ever recorded in North America. The current price tag on this small middle school is around $110 million, although the final cleanup cost may be unknown for decades. Throughout the documentation surrounding Jefferson and the other toxic sites were the names of the Belmont Five.

One plausible explanation for Romer's effort to reinstate these employees involves the district's lawsuit against outside Belmont counsel, O'Melveny & Meyers. The district is arguing that it was the unwitting recipient of bad advice and that O'Melveny should pay hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation.

In order for the LAUSD to argue its innocence, it must assert that the Belmont Five did not knowingly participate in O'Melveny's alleged shenanigans. But such an argument is difficult as the paper trail evidences complicity between these two parties. Since it is impossible for the LAUSD to assert its innocence outright, it is offering the next best thing - the acknowledgment that one foolish but otherwise virtuous employee was lured into believing O'Melveny. The district's sacrificial lamb is Dominic Shambra, the former director of the Office of Planning and Development. Since Shambra resigned his post some time back and therefore is no longer eligible for reinstatement, he is the perfect candidate.

The district is pursuing a rogue employee strategy as it is far easier to defend the group when the fault lies with a single member under the corrupt influence of an outside agent. It would be considerably harder for the district to argue its innocence if numerous senior members of its organization were involved. While this ``lone gunman'' story may work at first, it dissolves when viewed in relation to the ``grassy knoll'' populated by the Belmont Five.

The real casualty in this saga is student performance. Since Romer's arrival, the district has failed to acknowledge its corrupt nature. This acknowledgment is crucial because bureaucratic corruption does not stop with downtown executives. Placing politics over students is equally alive at individual schools as it is downtown. It is the teacher who struggles under this burden of politics over performance, and it is the student who ultimately suffers. The problem here is that adults are making decisions as they relate to other adults rather than asking how their actions influence the classroom.

The primary obstacle to LAUSD reform is a cultural malignancy that rewards selnterest. Like a cancer, this malignancy needs cutting out. The Belmont Five exemplifies this terminal illness. If civil service laws prohibit termination on the grounds of gross incompetence, then these cases should be terminated with financial settlements. No one said cancer surgery was free.