Contractor with big donations, questioned performance wins community college projects
The Los Angeles Community College District has awarded a series of multimillion-dollar contracts to a firm that district officials said needed to be babysat to meet construction standards and was doing an “absolutely awful job.”
The firm, Sinanian Development Inc., lost a contract in July 2008 about a month after district officials had criticized its work performance at public meetings.
The same month, the company began contributing $75,000 to the district’s construction bond measure, the first contributions made by the company to any district campaign.
Those donations made Sinanian one of the largest contributors to the successful bond
GRAPHIC: Timeline for construction contracts and Sinanian Development
Sinanian Development has received seven major construction contracts from the Los Angeles Community College District, although some of criticized the firm's performance
