BELMONT ORDERS ON WAY; CARPET, TILE, FURNITURE STILL SCHEDULED.

Byline: Greg Gittrich Staff Writer

While the Belmont Learning Center sits partially completed and padlocked downtown, thousands of yards of carpet, trucks of cabinetry and boxes of ceiling tiles are en route to the environmentally troubled complex, Los Angeles Unified officials said Monday.

The interior fixtures - including 5,500 square yards of specially made carpeting - have not been diverted and it remains unclear if the district can cancel the shipments without losing its money.

``The innards are still arriving,'' said board member David Tokofsky.

The predicament has left administrators little time to broker settlements with the bulk manufacturers or find places to store the goods.

Ed Weyrauch, LAUSD project manager for Belmont, said all of the orders are ``specialty runs'' and hopefully won't be shipped by the manufacturers without his approval.

Other than the carpet, which will cost the district about $75,000 and be delivered before Christmas, Weyrauch said there were no cost estimates available for the goods.

``I'm still looking into what I can cancel and what I can get a decent settlement on. It's all tied up in the settlement with the developer,'' he said.

The district's relationship with the developer, Temple Beaudry Partners, has been strained since June and fell apart on Nov. 30 when the school board voted unanimously to fire the consortium, led by Kajima Urban Development.

Upon sacking the developer, the board blamed the consortium for failing to meet a Nov. 23 deadline to weatherproof the stalled construction project. About half of the complex remains exposed, and Weyrauch is searching for a new contractor to board up the campus.

Kajima has denied any wrongdoing, saying the district provided ``arbitrary, vague and misleading'' direction on the project, creating ``impossible tasks and deadlines.''

The two parties now communicate only through lawyers. Adding to the tension, the district's top investigator, Don Mullinax, issued five subpoenas last month, demanding documents from Kajima and its subcontractors.

Mullinax is scheduled to release a follow-up audit on the Belmont project today. His first report, released in September, exposed massive incompetence at the highest levels of the district and led to the ousting of Superintendent Ruben Zacarias and several other senior administrators.

Today's report will focus on the financial implications of building the nation's costliest high school atop an oil field seeping potentially deadly and explosive gases.

While the district has invested $170 million in Belmont, the project's fate remains in doubt. The school board will consider recruiting the U.S. Army Corps Engineers at today's meeting to help the district determine whether to scrap the school or go forward.

The proposed agreement with the Army calls for the corps to be paid $200,000 for a six-week review of Belmont. State toxic officials are expected to complete their review of the 35-acre property by next summer.