BUILDING BOONDOGGLE LAUSD POLICE OFFICES UNOCCUPIED AFTER 20 MONTHS, $1.2 MILLION IN RENT.

Byline: Sonia Giordani Staff Writer

Los Angeles Unified rented a building for a new school police headquarters without knowing it had a leaky roof and other problems, and now - 20 months and $1.2 million in rent later - it's still not occupied.

District officials are using the first floor to store old furniture. They said the second floor has remained vacant as they have haggled with the landlord over who should pay for roof repairs and other items not specified in the lease when LAUSD rented the building for more than $65,000 a month.

Also, the district ran into time-consuming snafus as it proceeded with nearly $2 million in renovation work and air-conditioning installation on the second floor. And LAUSD may have to redo portions of it to house some district administrators because there's not enough room in the district's new $184.2 million administrative headquarters for all of them.

``I don't think the time it would take to do all the work was calculated,'' said Nadir Farnoush, a senior facilities manager with LAUSD. ``This was a remodeling job. As we went in, we saw things that needed to be bettered and did them.''

The LAUSD board approved the 15-year lease for the facility at 1330 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles near the Staples Center in April 2000. The building would house police on the second floor while the first floor would be used for storage.

That October, the board approved $3.3 million from the general fund to cover construction, building security, voice and data networks, furnishings and other related costs.

District officials said the project has remained on budget, spending less than $1 million on new furniture and other equipment. Farnoush said the disagreements with the school district's landlord have been worked out.

``Now the whole thing is going to be finished this month,'' Farnoush said, as district officials say the police will move into the building on May 4.

But board members said they were surprised to learn of the problems and delays incurred over the last two years. Board reports from two years ago suggested that the lease was clearly written to designate who was responsible for costs including roof repairs and other refurbishment.

``When the board voted on it two years ago, I thought it was going to happen very fast. I had no clue it was going to drag on like this,'' said San Fernando Valley board member Julie Korenstein.

Board members said they didn't learn about the problems and the change in plans for the building's use until police union officials complained that they would have to share a portion of the new police station with the overflow administrators.

``The board was not kept apprised at all,'' Korenstein said. ``You know what, we're not kept apprised on a whole lot of things. This is just one more on the list.

``The board is in this phase of no micromanaging. Turn everything over to the staff and the consultants so they can do whatever they want and that makes you a good board member. I'm not sure if that's a good idea if no one knows what's going on and it takes all this additional time.''

Facilities directors concede that project is late and that the lease worked out with the building's owner was flawed.

``The delays had to do with the negotiations with the landlord. There were some criteria in the lease that were not clear, and it took a while to work it out,'' said Kathi Littman, LAUSD facilities director in charge of new facilities.

``For instance, we wanted to do work on the roof of the building and spent quite a few months negotiating with the landlord,'' she said.

Other delays stemmed from subcontractors who walked off the job because they hadn't been paid; the developer hired by LAUSD in charge of the work preferred not to pay the subcontractors until they did most of the work.

Littman said the lease was ``horrible'' to the extent that ``it happened in a hurry, without criteria and standards.''

An in-house leasing team responsible for putting the deal together was eliminated, she said. Now a consulting team with Trammell Crow has been hired to negotiate and manage leases. And the district has begun to follow a set of predetermined guidelines and standards to ensure the district gets its best deal.

``A lot of the crew responsible for this lease retired, left or were reassigned,'' Littman said.

Board President Caprice Young credited the new facilities managers, including Littman, for revamping the division. ``Over the last year and a half, we have worked to get a professional facilities staff in place. And they have had to go through and clean up mess after mess after mess. They are doing a much higher caliber of work than we saw before.''

But board member David Tokofsky noted that the board report relating to the building dated Oct. 10, 2000, was ``prepared, approved and authorized by senior staff currently at the district.''

According to the report, that report was prepared by Littman. However, it was presented by Robert Buxbaum, then-interim chief facilities executive, who was paid $400,000 a year as a consultant.

``You can't blame it on the past,'' Tokofsky said. ``This is clearly a problem in the present. And you certainly can't blame it on the police.''

The police department continues to be housed at 450 N. Grand Ave., the district's longtime headquarters that will become a school site.

``We're definitely looking forward to moving into offices of our own,'' said Lt. Stephen Dodson of the 286-person LAUSD school police force.

``It's primarily a security issue. We are responsible for our ammunition. We also work with a lot of confidential materials and investigations of juveniles that must be kept confidential.''

Police departments have access to secure lines of communication with other police agencies. Moving into a secure location would allow officers more liberty to move around without needing to lock up for fear that materials or equipment would fall into the wrong civilian hands, he said.

Kevan Otto, vice president of the Los Angeles School Police Association, maintains that the department could have moved into the building much sooner if police officials had been invited to take a more active role in its planning.

``The superintendent and the school board were largely misled by some people in facilities and in the real estate branch on what was really going on with this thing.''

In recent weeks, board members have been flooding district staff offices with questions about the status of the project.

``The board approved this project back in April 2000 - and the project is still not completed,'' said board member Jose Huizar. Board member Mike Lansing said the district had important security reasons to lease a separate space for the police department. First of all, the district must move all divisions out of the current headquarters to make room for a new high school.

And second, he said, keeping the police station so close to other district offices may pose a security concern.

``Because of the delicate nature of firearms and other issues directly related with police work, it was not the best of worlds to have our police department housed in the same place that is providing direct services to the public for educational needs,'' Lansing said.

The police department has been housed in the current administrative building for more than 20 years.