May 22, 2012, 12:05 AM
Los Gatos school trustees have rescinded a contentious decision to close a mountain community's elementary school and halt plans for a new campus over concerns about seismic safety and cost increases. During a meeting last week, trustees for the Los Gatos Union School District reversed...
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May 8, 2012, 12:05 AM
A Los Gatos school district's decision to halt construction of a new elementary school over state geologists' safety concerns has inflamed a local mountain community and highlighted the difficulty of building schools in seismically vulnerable areas. Los Gatos Union School District...
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April 24, 2012, 3:30 PM
A state Senate committee voted today to support legislation that would create a task force to strengthen the state's oversight of earthquake protections for public schools. Sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, SB 1271 now heads to the Appropriations Committee...
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April 20, 2012, 12:05 AM
Prompted by a scathing audit and proposed legislation, the state's top construction administrators are scheduled today to discuss ways to improve the seismic safety and oversight of public school building projects. State Architect Chester Widom and Lisa Silverman, executive officer for the...
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April 16, 2012, 4:36 PM
The staff of California Watch and the Center for Investigative Reporting was named today as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the local reporting category for exposing regulatory breakdowns in the way seismic safety standards are met at public schools. The local reporting prize went to Sara...
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March 29, 2012, 12:05 AM
Legislation aimed at overhauling the state's school construction law sailed through the Senate Education Committee yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, introduced the bill, SB 1271, following a California Watch investigation and...
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March 22, 2012, 12:05 AM
Three former executives of TurnKey Schools of America, a construction firm that manufactured and installed prefabricated school buildings across the state, have pleaded no contest to charges of siphoning millions in construction funds from a Santa Barbara County school district. Four years ago...
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Daily Report:
March 16, 2012, 6:05 AM
It is an honor and privilege to announce that the Center for Investigative Reporting's California Watch today won a Scripps Howard Award in the public service category for our 19-month series “On Shaky Ground,” detailing a breakdown in the way the state protects children and...
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March 1, 2012, 12:05 AM
The chairwoman of the state Senate disaster preparedness committee is calling for new building standards and an overhaul of California's seismic safety law in the wake of a California Watch investigation and a scathing audit that found significant flaws in the state's oversight of...
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January 13, 2012, 12:20 AM
Newly appointed State Architect Chester Widom said yesterday that he is "digging deep" and looking at all possible solutions to address issues cited in a recent audit critical of the state's seismic safety regulator for public schools. Speaking for about five minutes near the end...
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January 12, 2012, 12:05 AM
Newly appointed State Architect Chester Widom is slated to discuss today what steps seismic regulators are taking to address problems with their enforcement of earthquake safety requirements for public schools. Widom will brief the state Seismic Safety Commission in Sacramento about a...
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December 23, 2011, 12:05 AM
The office that regulates California school construction routinely destroyed key documents that might have shed light on its lax enforcement of earthquake safety standards – despite a binding agreement it has with the State Archives to preserve public records. For the past five...
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December 22, 2011, 12:04 AM
Despite California’s strict seismic safety regulations, the construction process at two school districts illustrates how mismanagement, disregard for safety requirements and allegations of fraud led to structural defects that could endanger students during an earthquake.
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November 18, 2011, 12:05 AM
UPDATE, Dec. 6, 2011: Gov. Jerry Brown announced today that he has selected Chester “Chet” Widom as the new state architect. An ex-designer and supervisor of building projects at UC Berkeley, two former national presidents of an architectural organization, and the state architect...
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October 31, 2011, 12:05 AM
As many as 17,000 older concrete buildings in California could be vulnerable during a major earthquake, according to a new inventory by a coalition of volunteer structural engineers, universities and government agencies. A number of schools, state and local government buildings, and other...
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