Mr. Robert Brower of El Sobrante made the following comment after Citizens Bond Oversight Chairwoman, Sue Pricco presented the CBOC report, item C.2 on WCCUSD's 7/30/08 agenda:

Mr. Brower was invited to attend 7/22/08 of the audit subcommittee of the CBOC
auditors discussed pg. 51 of the last midyear report...transcript of Mr. Brower's public comment follows:

Auditors reported:
**Of the17 elementary schools that had been modernized under the Measure M bond program the work was completed before district realized the geotechnical reports for all sites were fraudulent....the geotechnical reports had to be repeated by another firm and all were cleared except Washington and Riverside...

**The auditors reported that they tried to determine what corrective actions needed
to be taken at the Washington and Riverside sites and the amount of money
lost to the Measure M bond program but the district refused to supply this
information to the auditors claiming "attorney-client privilege"....
NOTE: THIS ILLUSTRATES THAT THE DISTRICT DOESN'T PROVIDE
INFORMATION TO INDEPENDENT AUDITORS

**The auditors failed to mention the losses to the Measure D program as the result of fraudulent geotechnical reports on Downer, Pinole Middle, Portola Middle, Helms Middle, & El Cerrito High

** Brower gave the auditors a copy of the district's confidential damage analysis for
these losses...this analysis reflects construction delay losses for these 5 Measure D projects in the amount of $12,568,247 based on a 9% escalation....in addition to these contruction delay damages there were also out of pocket damages for engineering and design work which was worthless...e.g.on the Portola middle school project the out of pocket damages were $3,244,706...against these losses of over $15M in the Measure D bond program, the district settled its claim against the negligent architects for $1.1M and it's claim against the geotechnical firm who prepared the fraudulent reports for ZERO!!

**Brower told the auditors that these settlements had never appeared on any agenda
for closed session of the board...in addition a review of the minutes of the board's
closed session revealed the settlements had not been presented to the
board for ratification as required by law...further the settlements had never been
reported out of closed session as required by law...

** This conduct has kept the amount of the losses, over $15M, and the amount
of the settlements, $1.1M, essentially secret....because the settlements were secret,
Brower asked the auditors if the district had actually received the settlements and who had received the money....NO ANSWER SO FAR.....!!!