Construction Firms Fund Orange County School Bond Campaigns

Companies linked to the school construction industry have placed their November bets on a number of Orange County school bond ballot measures, a California Policy Center investigation of campaign contribution reports collected by the Orange County Registrar of Voters show.

Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Rudd & Romo (AALRR) is a law firm with eight offices across California. AALRR has donated $2000 to Anaheim Elementary School District’s bond measure, $12,000 to Orange Unified School District and $1000 to Fountain Valley School District. AALRR claims to represent nearly half the school districts in California and has previously represented both districts.

Bernards Builders Management Services is a general contractor located in San Fernando. Bernards has donated $2000 to Anaheim Elementary’s bond measure and $5000 to Brea-Olinda Unified School District’s measure. Bernards has worked with Brea-Olinda before on the Brea-Olinda High School and Olinda Elementary School. The subcontracted architecture firm for the Brea projects, LPA, has donated $10,000 this election cycle to Orange’s bond measure.

Ledesma & Meyer Construction Company Inc (LMCCI), located in Rancho Cucamonga, is a construction firm that proclaims to have completed “over a billion dollars of public works and K-12 school district projects.” LMCCI previously contracted with Ocean View Unified School District on asbestos removal projects amounting to over $3.4 million. Ocean View USD has a $148 million bond measure this fall and among their proposed projects is additional asbestos removal. LMCCI has contributed $25,000 in support of Ocean View USD’s measure. LMCCI has also contributed $5000 to Anaheim Elementary bond measures.

Pocock Design Solutions, Inc. is a Tustin-based full service design firm. Pocock has completed design projects for both new construction and modernization in over 60 schools districts in California. Pocock has donated $1500 each to the Anaheim Elementary and Ocean View Unified School District bond measures.

All firms worked throughout Southern California on previous school construction projects.

In addition to this election cycle, California Policy Center examined contributions in 2014 made by construction firms to two incumbent Orange USD board members. Vanir Construction Management, a general contractor with offices throughout the Southwestern United States, contributed $1000 each to Timothy Surridge and Rick Ledesma. In addition, Arcadis, a design and consultancy firm, contributed $2000 to Rick Ledesma. Both Ledesma and Surridge voted in favor placing Measure S before voters in Orange USD this fall.

There’s of course no guarantee any of these firms will win lucrative contracts associated with new funding from the ballot measures. California State Public Contract Code Section 100 requires local governments to offer all businesses “a fair opportunity to enter the bidding process, thereby stimulating competition in a manner conducive to sound fiscal practices” in order to “eliminate favoritism, fraud, and corruption in the awarding of public contracts.”

But concern about what some state officials call “pay to play” campaign contributions has risen. California State Treasurer John Chiang issued a press release in July on the subject of pay-to-play, specifically addressing bond underwriters.

“Preying on school districts eager to win voter approval for bond elections, municipal finance firms, including bond counsel, underwriters, and financial advisors, are offering to fund or provide campaign services in exchange for contracts to issue the bonds, once approved by voters,” Chiang warned.

The concern about pay-to-play is not limited to underwriters. The California Building Industry Association has donated over $1,500,000 to Proposition 51, a statewide measure that would allow the state of California to issue $9 million in bonds for the State School Facilities Fund. The builders are the second-largest contributor in support of the proposition.

Andrew Heritage is a California Policy Center fall Journalism Fellow. He is a doctoral student in political science at the Claremont Graduate University.