Fault Lines: Albert Einstein Elevator Never Certified as Safe by State Officials

Eight years after it was built, students who ride the elevator every day to second-floor classrooms at still have no guarantees about the safety of parts used in that elevator.

That’s because the California Division of the State Architect, the agency that oversees school construction projects and certifies them as safe, never received several key inspection forms for the 2002 project in Rosemont.

In a 2003 letter to the Sacramento City Unified School District, the state said while construction on the project was complete, it couldn’t be certified as safe because the state had never received an in-plant inspection form for the elevator, a “lab report for rebar sampling and testing,” a contract information form for the elevator manufacturer, a “shop welding fabrication affidavit” for the elevator, and other forms.

This project and others came to light as part of a 19-month California Watch investigation, published Thursday, into the state’s regulation of K-12 school construction projects.

Jim Dobson, the Sacramento City Unified School District Director of Planning, Construction and Operations, defended the projects.

“I wouldn’t say that because we’re missing a piece of paperwork, that makes the project unsafe,” Dobson said.

He said the forms were likely just lost.

“It’s kind of unlikely that they [state officials] don’t have all these things,” Dobson said. “It means none of [the contractors] did their jobs. … Most likely they’re just lost documents.”

The state also never received key documents from other district projects, including portable teacher’s lounges built in 2001 at and five other campuses, and a portable classroom built in 1989 at Hubert Bancroft Elementary School, just west of Rosemont.

Dobson, who has been working in the district’s facilities department for 15 years, said he was unaware of the missing forms.

“Until these were brought to my attention, I wouldn’t know they were missing,” he said.

Several days after Rosemont Patch’s inquiry to the district, two missing forms were located: notices that construction had been completed on the Albert Einstein elevator project and the portable teachers lounges at James W. Marshall and other schools.

Those “notice of completion” forms are the only ones created by the district, and Dobson said district staff would have to ask contractors to re-send other missing documents. He said one of those contractors may now be out of business.

The discovery of the missing forms came as a part of a 19-month California Watch investigation, which was released Thursday and uncovered holes in the state's enforcement of seismic safety regulations for public schools. 

California began regulating school architecture for seismic safety in 1933 with the Field Act, but data taken from the Division of the State Architect’s Office shows 20,000 school projects statewide never got final safety certifications. In the crunch to get schools built within the last few decades, state architects have been lax on enforcement, California Watch reported. 

A separate inventory completed nine years ago found 7,500 seismically risky school buildings in the state. Yet, California Watch reports that only two schools have been able to access a $200 million fund for upgrades. 

The Sacramento City Unified School District is continuing to search for the missing documents. More information will be posted as it becomes available.

This story was produced using data provided to Patch by California Watch, the state's largest investigative reporting team and part of the Center for Investigative Reporting. Read more about Patch's collaboration with California Watch.