Third in a series. 

Re: “LaRose Is Figuring Out Where to Start”

In the midst of Supt. Dave LaRose’s necessarily lengthy, wending explanation of why projects from the $106 million schools improvement bond remain invisible across Culver City, he was asked:

How many of the complex, meandering, bureaucracy-laden steps behind the delays were foreseen?

“The whole identification of the architects, their roles and our fees, those were foreseen,” Mr. LaRose said. “The unforeseen are the immediacy of what we could have accomplished this past summer. That’s where there would have been visibility much like the previous two summers where work was getting done.”

The superintendent laid the blame on a court decision in Fresno “regarding elements of leasebacks and what was required of those and what was deemed inappropriate.

“We are in the midst of negotiating a leaseback.

“Having used leasebacks in the past, we had to reconvene to make sure that our negotiations adhered to the new regulations.”

Mr. LaRose said the double burden “almost was like starting over the negotiating process. That extended another four or five weeks to even develop that. “You start looking at the summer, and you have used up half of it this way.

“A number of projects,” the superintendent said, “were tied to fields at the elementary schools, the drought and water restrictions came in. That brought a halt to two of the field projects.

“So there were those two matters in the middle of the summer,” he said, “that caused a perfect storm.”

(To be continued)