Another Orange County business leader is caught up in the scandal over the Belmont Learning Complex in Los Angeles. A recently released audit said Wayne Wedin, former chairman of the Orange County Business Council, wasn’t able to explain adequately how he earned his consulting fees for work on the controversial school.
“Mr. Wedin did not describe his work sufficiently to justify the payments he received from LAUSD,” said the audit, which was conducted by the Internal Audit and Special Investigation Unit of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
However, the report did not suggest any actions be taken against Wedin.
Paper Trail
Wedin said every invoice he submitted was checked by his supervisor at the school district as well as district personnel in accounts payable, and he assumed it was then checked by the district’s auditor on an annual basis.
“If they wanted something done differently, I would have done it differently,” said Wedin. “I felt that I gave an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. I used the reporting system that my client said was acceptable.”
Wedin, a former city council member and city manager of Brea, was a consultant since the mid-1980s to the school district, which paid him approximately $1 million in fees over the years.
On the Belmont project, he assisted the district staff in selecting the private development team that would build the school. Wedin brought to the project Ernie Vasquez, principal of the largest architectural firm in OC, Irvine-based McLarand, Vasquez & Partners. Vasquez was initially a consultant for the school district and then the architect of the project, for which his firm was paid nearly $6 million. Vasquez has blamed the Belmont controversy on unions that are involved in a bitter labor battle with Kajima International, the construction firm that won the contract to build the Belmont Center and which owns a non-union hotel.
The Belmont Learning Complex was to be a model school for 5,000 students, built through a unique public-private partnership that included connecting the school to a shopping center, which would help finance the project. However, the school has already cost an estimated $200 million and is only half-completed. It’s bogged down in controversy not only over the cost but also over safety, since it’s built over an old oil field that still contains methane gas. Defenders of the project note that many facilities in Southern California are built over old oil fields.
The most recent district audit is a follow-up to a report released in September. The audit placed most of the blame for the school project on the lack of oversight by district officials. It also recommended civil actions be taken against Ernst & Young, O’Melveny & Myers and other firms for “breach(ing) their professional duties of care to the LAUSD.” The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office reportedly is examining the project, as well.
The report heavily criticized the conduct of Wedin’s principal contact at the school district, Dominic Shambra, who was the director of the LAUSD’s Office of Planning and Development and considered one of the driving forces behind the Belmont school.
Shambra “failed to exercise diligent supervision over Belmont budgeting and expenditures. … His behavior raises questions of whether there were payments made for work not performed by certain of these outside consultants, including Mr. Wayne Wedin,” said the report. The audit said Wedin’s invoices lacked details on the work done and it questioned whether the work was done on the days specified.
“Curiously, Mr. Wedin managed to bill the school district for work done on Christmas Day 1995,” said the audit.
“I did work that day. I was preparing for a deposition the following day,” said Wedin.
Wedin is a consultant well known in business and local government circles in Orange County. He was one of the founding members of the Orange County Business Council and was its chairman in 1995. He was also involved in developing plans to help the Orange County government recover from its bankruptcy. Last year, Wedin formed a partnership with Newport Beach-based developer Capital Pacific Holdings and former USC football star Rod Sherman to try to bring a professional football team to Anaheim. n
