GRAND JURY SEEKS FACTS ON BELMONT.

Byline: Greg Gittrich Staff Writer

The Los Angeles County grand jury is investigating the Belmont Learning Center scandal and has sent out requests for information to several key players in the $200 million school construction project, the Daily News learned Wednesday.

The requests were issued about three weeks ago, just before a Los Angeles Unified School District auditor finished examining the public works fiasco and handed over evidence of potential crimes to local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

The scathing internal audit blamed the district's senior administrators, the project developer and several consultants for allowing Belmont to be built atop an oil field plagued by potentially explosive and deadly gases.

``We are cooperating with the grand jury,'' said Gerry Gibbs, general manager of CalEx Engineering Corp., one of the consultants named by the auditor. ``We have given them all the information that they have requested.''

According to Gibbs, CalEx wasn't the only company involved in the Belmont project that was contacted by the grand jury in early September.

Several other firms also received requests for information, he said.

``I'm really not free to say any more than that,'' Gibbs said.

Gibbs' statements provide the first evidence that the grand jury, which conducts its investigations behind closed doors, is probing Belmont issues. It was not immediately clear whether the grand jury is conducting a criminal or a civil investigation.

A spokesman for District Attorney Gil Garcetti declined comment and referred inquiries to Los Angeles Superior Court, as is customary in grand jury-related matters. Court officials noted that the grand jury is required to work with strict confidentiality.

For several months, county Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, have led calls for criminal and civil investigations of the nation's costliest high school. On two occasions, the county Board of Supervisors passed motions requesting a grand jury investigation and urging Garcetti to convene the grand jury.

``The taxpayers deserve to know who is responsible for this chronic waste of tax dollars and who is jeopardizing the health and safety of the staff and students who would occupy that facility,'' Antonovich said Wednesday.

With $126 million spent on the project, Belmont is slightly more than half-finished. A commission of civic leaders, appointed by the school board, is scheduled to recommend in late October whether to abandon the project or complete the school but add a sophisticated system to monitor and extract gases.

The grand jury can conduct both criminal and civil investigations. The District Attorney's Office is usually involved in criminal cases. In civil matters, the grand jury acts on its own and cannot issue subpoenas, but only requests for information or testimony, said Stephen Licker, a deputy district attorney who serves as the legal adviser for the grand jury.

Garcetti's staff has been reviewing the Belmont project for months, but he has said little about it. He has issued no statement about Belmont since June 25, when he pledged: ``If there is evidence of a crime and we can identify the person or companies responsible for the crime, we stand ready to vigorously prosecute.''

Last week, the school district's auditor, Don Mullinax, sent 15 volumes of evidence to Garcetti, as well as to state and federal prosecutors.

In a confidential letter to the law enforcement agencies, Mullinax said the developer, former school boards and several environmental consultants might have violated environmental, hazardous-waste and education laws.

Mullinax singled out developer Temple Beaudry Partners and environmental consultants El Capitan, Interra, Law-Crandall, Remedial Management Corp. and CalEx.

In a June 1 story, the Daily News revealed that construction field notes indicate clean soil was mixed with soil contaminated with petroleum by CalEx during excavation at the Belmont site. That would have skewed toxicity tests of the dirt, some of which was buried at the site.

Mullinax cited the excavation work and several other actions by the developer, consulting firms and school board in his letter.

Temple Beaudry Partners, CalEx, El Capitan, Interra and Law-Crandall have denied any wrongdoing. Remedial Management Corp. representatives could not be reached.

John Bernardi, the deputy district attorney in charge of environmental-crimes cases, is reviewing the evidence from Mullinax. He did not respond Wednesday to requests for comment.