Third in a series
Re “Alliance’s Faulty Report Was a Rush Job, Minutes Ahead of Deadline”
On the 32nd consecutive day that the Culver City Ice Arena has been closed as a public health hazard and on the sixth day that has passed since City Hall’s latest inspection of premises, a cloying, clawing web of mysteries dangles from the ceiling like a satchel of unpaid debts.
Which Alliance Industrial Services employee wrote the “fraudulent” report last month that has shut down the 52-year-old rink, preventing it from doing business, which was to resume last Saturday?
At a glance, and even upon closer inspection, the shaky document appears to have been composed by one David Smith, described as Alliance’s only licensed engineer.
But no, says Jim Wright, P.E., owner of his own engineering company in Fullerton, whose word – curiously and uniquely – is trusted by both warring sides, City Hall and the rink ownership. Curiously, because Mr. Wright was hired by the Ice Arena to independently examine conditions and to critique the Alliance condemnation. He said firmly that the report’s contents were weighted down with towering fundamental errors that invalidated it.
Was Mr. Smith’s name strategically attached to lend gravitas to a rushed document that Alliance may have known would not withstand a glaring examination?
Whose John Hancock Was It?
“You can be led to think that Dave Smith, whom I have known a long time, wrote the report,” Mr. Wright said, “because the very first page of the report says it is ‘presented by Dave Smith.’ The word is carefully chosen. It did not say ‘authored by.’ It is off the mark, sort of a disguised phrasing.
“The report also has Dave Smith’s name at the end and the technician’s name.
“The technician was the guy who came out to the Ice Arena and took pictures (used in the report).
“As far as I know, it was only the technician who took the pictures, took the notes.
“I was talking to Dave (Smith) on a Friday morning as he was driving to the office, and he said, ‘No, I didn’t see the report. I will have to see it when I get to the office.’”
That remark ignited a guffaw before an amazed Mr. Wright resumed his narrative.
“I said, ‘What did you do, Dave?’
“He said, ‘Well, I calculated the capacity of the compressor. That’s all I did.’”
The respected Mr. Wright’s conclusion: “It was a real broad overreach to attach Dave’s name to the report,” apparently a clumsy attempt, as noted before, to create a false aura of legitimacy.
What else smells in this expandingly strange case where City Hall has been sitting comfortably, smugly at the wheel while rink owner Michael Karagozian loses daily income as the arena remains sealed off by the city?
(To be continued)
