Just before Thanksgiving, Santa Ana school board members oohed and aahed over a model of a sleek science building for Valley High School.

Then, Chief Facilities Officer Bill Sharp gave the bad news: The district doesn't have money to build it.

Worse news went unmentioned. The county's largest and most crowded school district won't be able to deliver more than half the new schools it promised to voters in 1999, when they approved a $145 million school bond.

The district is $269 million short.

Nine new schools and 15 school improvement projects are on hold, according to the district's most recent projections.

"Sometimes I just want to cry," said Kim Gerda, a mother of a third-grader at Santiago Elementary, a school crammed with 24 portables. "That's kids' money."

"I expected to see new schools," added Victoria Zaragoza, whose son graduated from Santa Ana schools and whose grandchildren will soon start.

Records and interviews detail what went wrong:

District officials miscalculated the cost of land and construction when preparing the first project estimates before the school bond, Measure C, was approved.

The five-member school board and top-ranking district officials relied heavily on a small Los Angeles firm, Del Terra Real Estate Services Inc., that had almost no school construction experience.

Del Terra and the district's facilities staff fought bitterly over roles. Basic tasks like monitoring the budget fell by the wayside because each thought it was the other's job.

When Superintendent Al Mijares finally intervened last May, he discovered there were no reliable budgets or schedules for building new schools. The board had been adding state-of-the-art features to projects - not realizing there wasn't money for them.

In this atmosphere of tension, confusion and conflict, a simple parking lot could - and did - take four years to build. A science building was designed without money for plumbing. The price of a new high school in south Santa Ana almost doubled to $110 million.

"We should learn from our mistakes," said Santa Ana attorney Alfredo M. Amezcua, a Measure C supporter and vice chairman of the citizen's Bond Oversight Committee.

Who is responsible for these mistakes?

Opponents of board member Nativo Lopez are trying to hold him accountable for the slow pace of school construction in a recall election next week. Lopez, who strongly advocated Del Terra's hiring and later defended the consultant from staff criticism, has declined to talk to Register reporters, contending that he is treated unfairly by the newspaper.

But interviews and district records show that many people - from school board members to consultants to district staffers - share responsibility for the school construction troubles.

One thing is apparent: Santa Ana's once-admired school construction program started coming unhinged even before Measure C passed.

Mijares acknowledged there was little oversight by the district but also said consultants were at fault.

"I will not say that our staff never made a mistake," Mijares said. "But there was an understanding that Del Terra was supposed to take on the role of ushering these projects through to completion."

In a statement read by an assistant, Del Terra President Luis Rojas said: "The facts are that Del Terra is performing its roles at its various clients professionally and with clients' satisfaction."

Not to Santa Ana's satisfaction, according to district records.

The district's business office has refused to pay $3 million of Del Terra's first $5 million in billings. Staff members have harshly criticized the company's performance in internal correspondence. In response, Del Terra's lawyer threatened in a Dec. 10 letter to sue the district for "false statements and accusations."

A revised building plan presented to the school board last November relegates nine schools, six expansions and nine renovations to Phase 2. The science building at Valley High - which graces the April page of the district's 2003 wall calendar - is in Phase 2.

There is no money for Phase 2.

Budget mess revealed

It all started with a spare, eight-line budget.

In June 1999, right after the school board placed Measure C on the ballot, Assistant Superintendent Michael Vail prepared the spending plan to show how the district could use $145 million from the bond and an anticipated $185 million in state funds.

The details: Two high schools for just under $100 million, 11 elementary schools for $121 million, renovation and expansion work at 20 schools for $86 million. With a few other items, it came to $330 million.

Vail, who had overseen the building or expansion of 19 schools in 11 years at Santa Ana, said he based the eight-line budget on "estimates we had gotten from architects and on projects we had built in the past."

There was plenty of precedent for these estimates. Romero-Cruz Elementary cost just $3 million. It was dubbed an "instant school," comprising a permanent core building surrounded by 13 portables. Jim Thorpe Elementary cost $10 million. Both schools opened shortly before Measure C passed.

But some were unhappy with the quality of schools that Vail built, especially Lopez and board member John Palacio. They criticized Romero-Cruz, Vail recalled, "because they said it wasn't like the schools in Capistrano and Irvine."

Vail wrote a budget for no-frills schools. Board members wanted more.

In any case, Mijares said, he believes Vail's budget was unrealistic.

It made no allowance for rising land values.

The booming housing market guaranteed higher land prices, and a 1999 state law made things worse. The law, designed to prevent the construction of schools on toxic waste dumps, eliminated one school site in Santa Ana, forced cleanups at others and slowed the selection of still other sites by up to a year - inevitably driving land prices even higher.

Confusion over roles

The leadership of the school construction program was divided and quarrelsome.

Many of the problems resulted from disputes between the facilities staff and the board's chosen consultant, Del Terra.

In the spring of 1999, Del Terra was one of 17 firms to apply for a $275,000 job as district architect, designing small projects such as walk-in freezers at three schools. Most of the applicants had lengthy school construction experience, board records show.

Del Terra did not. It was a small company with one school construction client, the Montebello Unified School District.

A panel of two school board members and three staffers reviewed the applications. The two board members, Palacio and Lopez, wanted only Del Terra's application sent to the board, according to two of the staffers, Vail and now-retired construction director Jim Muhic. There are no minutes of the panel's work.

The panel sent only Del Terra's name to the school board. The firm was hired on a 3-0 vote in May 1999. Lopez was joined by Audrey Yamagata Noji and Rosemarie Avila. Palacio and Nadia Maria Davis were absent.

Then Measure C passed in November 1999 with 70 percent of the vote.

A month later, the board made two key decisions.

The board decided to interview every architect who wanted a job, a task previously performed by staff. That move delayed design work at many schools by a year and stalled the receipt of state funds.

And the board voted 4-1 to expand Del Terra's duties to include setting school design standards and overseeing budgets.

Vail had recommended advertising for candidates to fill this new role. His recommendation was pulled from the board agenda, records show.

In its place Mijares substituted a new agenda item recommending that Del Terra get the job without seeking other applicants. He later said he did so at the urging of Lopez and Palacio, although there are no minutes of those conversations. Associate Superintendent Donald Stabler confirmed Mijares' account.

When the school board convened, Lopez and Palacio advocated the immediate hiring of Del Terra, saying it would save time, according to meeting minutes. Mijares agreed.

The decision not to advertise for the new Del Terra job was later found to violate board procedures, according to district records.

Del Terra's new duties included managing the construction program, tracking documents, preparing construction schedules and helping the district facilities staff work with architects and other firms. The contract also says Del Terra "shall develop and update program budgets, including construction budgets."

The district's facilities, planning and business office staffs were responsible mainly for providing information on budgets, facilities standards, copies of construction plans and contracts.

Vail was still in charge but left four months later, in April 2000, for a new job in San Diego County.

"The micromanagement of the school board was making it impossible for me to accomplish my job," Vail said. "Lopez and Palacio wanted to run the program."

After Vail left, Mijares said he assigned Del Terra to oversee the construction program. He promoted veteran facilities planner Gordon Itow to take on Vail's planning responsibilities.

But the firm and the district facilities staff continued to fight over roles.

"They were leaning on us," Mijares said of Del Terra, "and we had hired them to lean on them."

Added Itow: "Not any one individual was in charge."

Palacio steps in

Palacio tried to fill the leadership void after Vail left.

Several times a week starting in 2000, Itow said, Palacio visited the facilities department. School board members normally supervise the superintendent, who in turn runs the staff, so Palacio's day-to-day involvement was unusual, Itow said.

Palacio, a business consultant, led staff meetings and made recommendations. When the facilities staff ignored his recommendations, Itow said, "a directive would come back (from district administrators) to change it to whatever John Palacio wanted."

Board members Noji and Avila said that based on what they heard at board meetings and from staff, they assumed Palacio, not the professional staff, was running the facilities program. Palacio would not comment.

Projects, budgets and schedules started to unravel. Meanwhile, the board and staff added features to projects without adding money to the budget.

Segerstrom High School exemplified the budgetary chaos.

The school originally was budgeted for $56 million. Today, district facilities planners believe it could cost as much as $110 million, including land, construction and consultants.

District officials estimated that they could buy the site - 38 acres near South Coast Plaza - for $14 million. Eventually the district paid the Segerstrom family just under $40 million.

The initial construction estimate was almost as far off. The district facilities staff said in May 2000 the high school would cost $34 million to build. A lighted stadium, a 50-meter swimming pool and a cafeteria - something that no longer comes standard in modern-day school construction - drove up costs.

The board approved these features "when the budget seemed lower," board member Avila said. "There was never any discussion that now we're adding this, and it will jack up the price." Engineering consultant Hanscomb Inc. is pegging the current construction cost of Segerstrom at $61 million.

The facilities staff is trying to pare features before construction starts this spring.

The science building at Valley High was another example of budgetary confusion. It was planned as a $10 million classroom structure. When the district decided in early 2002 that it wanted a science building, neither Del Terra nor the district's facilities staff budgeted for plumbing, ventilation and safety systems required in labs. That added $7.5 million.

Tensions mount

By early 2002, the school board was under growing pressure to build schools.

In the two years after voters approved Measure C, Santa Ana's enrollment grew from 58,000 to 62,000. The state's fifth largest school district, already crowded, added more portables to contain the flood.

Parents were starting to ask when they'd see promised improvements. So was the Bond Oversight Committee, a citizens' group appointed by the school board.

"It appeared to the committee that we were being stalled," said committee Chairman Bill Fogarty.

A siege atmosphere grew in the facilities department, as planners and Del Terra blamed each other for delays.

Internal e-mails and memos obtained by The Orange County Register detailed the feud day by day and sometimes hour by hour.

Facilities planner Diane Schwartz started checking the fine print in the construction budgets. Her conclusion, voiced in an April 12 memo to Itow, was that Measure C "will not be enough for all the projects."

District planners demanded Del Terra keep an eye on costs. Del Terra manager Thomas Ebejer replied in an April 24 letter that it was the district's job to provide information for the budgets.

In one memo, Schwartz wrote she spent much of her time "monitoring (Del Terra's) process and inadequacies. Basically, doing their job."

By late spring, Associate Superintendent Stabler had paid Del Terra $2.1 million of its $5.1 million bill. Itow advised not to pay Del Terra more. A $17.5 million surplus projected nine months earlier had turned into "a substantial shortfall," Itow wrote in a May 14 memo.

"Del Terra has offered no explanations as to why this has occurred or recommendations as to how to deal with the shortfall," Itow wrote.

Stabler stopped paying the firm.

Mijares takes over

In May, Mijares took over supervision of the facilities program. Mijares, a career educator whose main mission was to raise student test scores, had no expertise in construction. But he felt he had to intervene.

For 14 weeks, he held meetings every Friday.

"I put everything I was doing on hold to jump into this," Mijares said.

At times the minutes of these meetings read like transcripts from a marriage counseling session.

May 24: "As soon as Del Terra signed a contract, it seems that they stopped doing what they did for the district before the contract," planner Colette McLaughlin complained. Mike Forry of Del Terra replied that any extra work the company did before the contract "could be considered a Christmas gift."

In early August, Itow left and the school board hired Bill Sharp, a Laguna Beach architect and contractor, as chief facilities officer. A few weeks later, the Friday meetings ended. By then - after months of cost reviews by district facilities planners, construction managers and others - it was clear the district had too little cash to build many of the promised schools.

Sharp immediately halted design work on several projects. Phase 2, the $269 million list of projects for which there was no money, was born.

Del Terra keeps job

The school board knew about the war between its building staff and Del Terra.

Board member Davis, who lost her re-election bid in November, blamed Del Terra for the delays. Avila also took the staff's side.

"If we're paying Del Terra lots of money to keep us on track and on budget," Avila asked, "why didn't they?"

Avila tried at a school board meeting in June to fire Del Terra or get its contract scaled back. She got no support from other board members or from Mijares.

"They're very protective of them," Avila said of Palacio and Lopez in regards to Del Terra. "They just blame it on everything else."

The swing vote on the board belongs to Sal Tinajero, a teacher elected in 2000 with Lopez's help. He blames construction delays on the staff and the Santa Ana City Council - which argued with the school board over school sites.

"Staff absolutely didn't handle this properly," he said.

As for Del Terra, Tinajero said, "I told the superintendent last summer that if Del Terra's not doing their job, bring it up. I'd be happy to remove them."

Before quitting, Itow advised Mijares to fire Del Terra. Sharp said he delivered an evaluation of Del Terra to the school board behind closed doors in mid-September. Neither he nor Mijares will say what occurred. Del Terra remains on the job.

"Whatever differences existed in the past with previous district management, they are behind everyone," Rojas said in a written statement.

On Nov. 21, the staff gave the Bond Oversight Committee a three-page handout describing the $269 million shortfall. Five days later, the staff gave the handout to the school board.

There was no public hearing, no announcement, no call for community advice about which projects to build and which to cut.

The first four school expansions built with Measure C money should open by March 2004, more than four years after the bond passed. The first new school, Lorin Griset Elementary in north Santa Ana, should open by September 2004. New schools at First and Townsend and on South Grand Avenue are among the unfunded projects in Phase 2.

Officially, Phase 2 remains on the books, a list of projects Santa Ana will build if and when it gets the money.

"We still have the dream to do it all," Avila said.