InfrastructureCalifornia school building regulators had ties with anti-regulation lobby group

A California watchdog group recently revealed that state officials in charge of enforcing earthquake standards for school buildings have had a long and questionable relationship with a lobbying group that actively works to oppose building safety regulations in public schools.

California Watch discovered that senior officials with the Division of the State Architect had been dues paying members of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing.

The Division of the State Architect is responsible for overseeing the design and construction of public schools and community colleges, while the Coalition for Adequate School Housing has repeatedly lobbied for less regulation and oversight of school construction.

The coalition’s members primarily consist of school architects, construction engineers, contractors, and inspectors who have projects under review by the state’s regulatory body.

For at least ten years, senior regulators from the state agency had closely associated with the lobbying group’s members at conferences, golf tournaments, and dinners. In 1997, state regulators were even told that taxpayers would reimburse their membership dues to be a part of the lobbying group.

Tom Duffy, the legislative director for the Coalition for Adequate School Housing, said that the state’s regulators had a close relationship with the lobbying group but did not see a conflict of interest.

He admitted that state officials had been members of the coalition and explained that the arrangement helps create “state and local understanding and contributes to conflict resolution.”

Duffy added, “We believe that top-down, authoritarian state policy creation and control is counterproductive to meeting local needs.”

Senior officials at the state architect’s office and its parent agency, the Department of General Agency, say that it is not unusual for regulators to meet with lobbying groups to discuss new programs, but were not aware that state regulators had become members of the Coalition for Adequate School Housing.

David Thorman, the former state architect, said, “I never knew about this. … If I had known this, I would have told them to quit. I think it has the potential to be a conflict, and it shouldn’t happen.”

Despite his claims, records indicate that Thorman had been a member of the lobbying group and had even listed it on his resume.

When asked about his relationship to the organization, he said, “I’m sorry, I did not remember this.”

Thorman maintained that the close relationship between state regulators and the coalition had not led to any corruption, but he did admit that “there is a real possibility” that lobbyists had “captured” school regulators.

“You’ve got a system that’s broken,” he added.

The coalition met with Thorman twice in 2008 and 2009 to push for the limitation of legal liability of school districts and building contractors that did not comply with the Field Act.

The Field Act was adopted in 1933 to ensure that children were safe in public schools in the event of natural disasters. In particular, the law was aimed at ensuring that buildings would not collapse in the event of an earthquake and that furniture and other heavy objects were secured so that they would not fall on children and crush them to death.

In August 2010, after meeting with the lobbying group, the state’s architect office no longer required contractors to verify that their work had followed state-approved plans, a key element of the Field Act.

Patrick Campbell, the former chief structural engineer for the state architect, worries that this change will leave school children at risk and makes it more difficult to hold contractors accountable.

According to Campbell, the state has lost a valuable tool for keeping contractors honest and responsible.

With contractors no longer verifying their work, Campbell said, “You will have nothing to go after them if you later find out they did something wrong.”