CSUN WANTS LUMP SUM TO SPEED UP QUAKE RECOVERY.

Byline: Mary Beth Alexander Daily News Staff Writer

Hoping to put earthquake repairs on the fast track after a six-month lull, Cal State Northridge will ask federal officials for a lump sum payment of $139 million to finish the job.

If the request is granted, officials hope to have the campus abuzz with jackhammers, cement trucks and power tools by summer - with repairs completed by December 1997.

"When we get done, it will be terrific. It'll look like a brand-new campus," said Art Elbert, the university's administration and finance vice president and recently named earthquake recovery leader.

Since the Jan. 17, 1994, Northridge Earthquake, the estimate of damage has been reduced from $350 million to $301 million. About $162 million worth of repairs have been made, but some buildings - such as fine arts and engineering - await major overhauls.

Elbert said he will submit the final damage reports to the Federal Emergency Management Agency within a month, and ask the agency to provide $139 million for all the remaining projects and forgo some of the in-depth project-by-project review.

FEMA could save $65 million by funding all the repairs at once, Elbert said, because the longer the application process is dragged out, the higher labor and material prices will rise.

Leland Wilson, the FEMA coordinator working with CSUN, said the agency would consider cutting the red tape - if the university can provide adequate documentation of the damage and prove the savings.

"I think our FEMA headquarters in Washington would encourage this concept," the FEMA coordinator said. "Hopefully, we can cut out some of the details, consolidate some of the (projects) together, and move."

Once the damage reports are submitted, he said, FEMA could release the money within 60 days.

Elbert said earthquake repairs could drag on another five years if FEMA rejects the proposal.

The university has taken the unusual step of preparing construction plans before receiving funding approval, so building contractors can be sought immediately if FEMA hands over the money, Elbert said.

University President Blenda Wilson said changes in the university's and FEMA's approach to the recovery effort have allowed the agencies to forge a strong working relationship that could make quick funding possible.

"We're now pretty much in sync about how to go about completing the repairs," the university president said. "We simply perfected a way of working with FEMA and OES (the state Office of Emergency Services) on a weekly basis."

Approval could end a construction lull that began in mid-1995 and prompted the university president to publicly criticize FEMA in July for losing interest in the campus's plight.

FEMA countered that the university's disaster recovery team, headed by Jane Chatham, who previously had been assistant vice president of business affairs, wasn't reacting quickly enough to the agency's request for information.

A month later, Blenda Wilson hired Elbert and named him leader of the reconstruction effort. Then, in December, Elbert disbanded the recovery team and assigned many of Chatham's duties to California State University Vice Chancellor Handel Evans.

Elbert said the team's breakup was not because of FEMA's complaints or other problems.

Instead, Elbert said, there was not enough work to keep the recovery team together, and the new system of delegating repair responsibilities to existing university departments is more efficient.