A construction management firm implicated in the ongoing audit of the Orange County Great Park has requested that the city take back a preliminary report issued in early 2014 and say publicly that the firm has done no wrong.
The master plan and schematic design for the acreage at the former El Toro Marine base, which is being developed into a massive regional park, was under the auspices of the Great Park Design Studio, a company formed by San Diego-based Gafcon and landscape architect Ken Smith.
The request from Gafcon comes more than a year after it filed a complaint with the California Board of Accountancy to investigate the auditing firm for what Gafcon calls “questionable practices” that have damaged its reputation.
Great Park Design Studio has said its work was completed “on time and within budget.”
The 2014 complaint accused accounting and forensic firm Hagen, Streiff, Newton & Oshiro Accountants of publishing “numerous factual inaccuracies, incorrect assumptions and speculative preliminary conclusions” in a report released in January 2014.
In the letter sent Monday to the subcommittee overseeing the audit process, the company wrote: “We are asking for this report to be withdrawn because we can no longer tolerate the damage these false and misleading allegations are doing to our hard-earned reputation.”
Since January 2014, the Design Studio has provided the city over 35,000 pages, from its records, Gafcon said.
The company said the city has not responded to its rebuttal of the findings in that report and that the ever-changing deadline for its release is indicative of the true nature of the investigation as a “special consulting contract” rather than an independent audit.
Councilwoman Christina Shea said Tuesday that former Councilman Larry Agran is holding up the release by requesting a delay of his deposition.
However, Agran said no request for information was made of him until 14 days after he left office in late 2014, Agran said.
On Jan. 28, he received a request to be deposed; Agran asked for questions to be instead provided in writing and two weeks later was issued a subpeona.
“The idea that I am holding up the audit or that I have held up the audit is patently false,” he said.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or sdecrescenzo@ocregister.com
