CITY PARKS MONEY WASTED.

Byline: Erik N. Nelson Staff Writer

Already delayed for years by city mismanagement, dozens of park improvements promised to Los Angeles voters in the 1996 Proposition K face running even further behind schedule and some might never be built unless the cash-strapped city finds more money.

Millions of dollars have been lost and projects delayed as city officials, contractors and insurance companies point fingers at each other, often in court.

One surety company, which provides insurance to make sure construction jobs are completed, went broke and city park officials say it may be many years before Los Angeles recoups even pennies on the dollar - money they were counting on to complete two recreation projects totaling $4 million.

``The city's going to have to find funds to complete them,'' said Maureen Tamuri, assistant general manager of the city Recreation and Parks Department's planning and construction division.

The revelations come as a blow to city officials pushing a $600 million bond issue on the March 5 ballot for police and fire facilities, particularly after the recent disclosure that the Los Angeles Unified School District improperly spent $600 million of the $2.4 billion voters approved in 1997 for school renovation and construction under Proposition BB.

``It is typical of mismanagement by the city of various bonds and tax revenues that they receive for specific projects,'' said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association which helped win passage of state Proposition 218 in 1996 to require two-thirds votes rather than simple majorities for assessments like Proposition K.

In a bid to speed up improvements, the city Recreation and Parks Commission last month approved the concept of transferring 56 projects to the Bureau of Engineering in the city's Department of General Services, which has 900 employees compared with the parks construction division's 60.

The bureau is already in the process of taking over 29 projects in construction and three others that are being designed.

``My general feeling is that we're not out of the woods yet, but we're on a path that's going to head us out,'' said Tamuri.

2 delayed projects

Just as with other delayed projects, the two projects that lost their bonding company are being held back because of a lack of money.

The contractor claims in a breach of contract suit it could have easily finished the job if the city had been ready and willing to do so.

A surety company for another project, the Oakwood Recreation Center near Venice, says it won't put up the money to finish work that it says bears little resemblance to the project the city accused a San Fernando Valley contractor of failing to complete on time. The city's own delays made it impossible for the insurance company to get a new contractor, the firm's lawyers say.

``The city doesn't want anyone to read the blueprints, to point out all the mistakes,'' said Mikki Davidovicz, president of D&M Construction based in West Hills. For the Oakwood project, ``it took them eight months to come up with (building) permits. What did I ask for? More time, and they refused to approve the change order.''

D&M is now filing seven lawsuits against the city, while the city has filed a counter-claim for $750 per day for delaying the project.

``Part of what happens is that in the great rush to meet the deadline, you have to make some hard decisions, and sometimes that means going forward without the permits in hand,'' Tamuri conceded. She added, however that no contractor was ever dismissed for having to contend with problems foisted upon them by the city.

Regardless of who prevails in court, city officials are wringing their hands over another example of city improvements being stalled by bureaucratic paralysis.

``We need to make sure that when we put a bond on the ballot, we put in the appropriate amount of dollars for oversight,'' said city Controller Laura Chick, who as a city councilwoman endorsed Proposition K. ``I'm afraid that that was not done in this case.''

Now, as controller, Chick said she is launching an audit of Proposition K projects to determine ``what are the problems and how to eliminate them and avoid them in the future. We have these problems every time we do capital improvements.''

Chick has also questioned timing, amounts and safeguards for the the upcoming police and fire bond issue on the March ballot.

1996 approval

Proposition K, approved by voters in 1996, provides $750 million assessed on property owners and doled out in $25 million increments over 30 years ``for the acquisition and improvement of parks, recreation and community facilities.''

But since its passage, dozens of projects have stalled in the quagmire of inefficiency or been pushed aside in favor of projects selected by City Council members.

Former Recreation and Parks Commission President Steve Soboroff had complained that council members put their own pet projects ahead of those listed on the 1996 ballot when voters passed Proposition K.

Now, however, Soboroff said he believes the measure has worked well despite its difficulties.

``I think Prop. K is being implemented better than I would have anticipated, because I would have rather picked 15 or 20 projects and have them done all at once'' rather than parcel the money out over 30 years, he said.

``They're taking Prop. K money and matching it with state money or federal money or private-sector money.''

But that same slow burn of cash has caused a lot of the problems, said Tamuri, who has asked the steering committee to grant design money one year, and construction money the next to resolve it.

Tax-reduction advocates see Proposition K as simply another horror story that should be instructive to voters the next time a seemingly worthy cause like building recreation centers or police stations appears on a ballot issue.

``In 1992, city voters approved about $240 million for a new (city) 911 facility. By 1999, they still had not broken ground for that project,'' the Howard Jarvis association's Vosburgh said.

The apparent loss of Proposition K funds - which city officials estimate to be at least $2 million - is the latest in a string of costly failures involving the ballot measure. The surety failure highlighted what critics call city officials' penchant for removing contractors from Proposition K-funded parks projects and making claims against the projects' surety bonds.

The surety companies, however, have resisted taking on the projects, arguing that city parks officials have failed to justify firing contractors.

One company, USF&G, balked at taking on a the Oakwood Recreation Center project after city representatives repeatedly failed to justify their dismissal of contractor D&M Construction Inc.

The delays caused USF&G to lose a replacement contractor it had hired, according to a letter the company sent to the parks department in July.

``We believe that the events of the last several months clearly demonstrate an unreasonable delay on the part of the city in responding,'' the letter charged. ``The city's delay in working with us to get an agreement in place ... to complete this project has caused us to lose our low bidder.''

Among the examples of the department's inefficiency is its failure to discover the presence of dangerous levels of asbestos and lead on the site of the Studio City Recreation Center. Now that project is delayed until the city figures out how to pay for costly abatement work on the site.

Such revelations are surprising to Wesley Greenwood, president of the Commission for Children, Youth and their Families. The commission, which endorsed Proposition K, makes recommendations to the Proposition K Steering Committee on neighborhood projects proposed by nonprofit organizations. Those projects are usually rejected in favor of larger and costlier parks department projects on the theory the department is better equipped to bring them to fruition.

``It's strange to me why they keep coming in every year with eight, nine, 10 projects,'' Greenwood said. ``If they don't have the wherewithal to do it, I'm surprised that somebody is saying to them, go ahead and do this.''

The city's fumbling of the contracts compares to revelations of squandered bond revenues from Proposition BB in the Los Angeles Unified School District, some critics say.

``I can't conceive of any public entity that's worse than the Los Angeles Unified School District, but Rec and Parks is approaching it,'' said Sam Abdulaziz, an attorney who represents contractors in disputes with the city, including D&M.

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Mikki Davidovicz is president of D&M Construction, which is filing seven lawsuits against Los Angeles over project delays.

Eric Grigorian/Special to the Daily News