Convicted inspector monitored safety at dozens of schools
Courtesy Doug Devine/Los Angeles Department of Building and SafetyRichard Vale is shown here on the day he was served with a search warrant in 1991.
A school construction inspector previously convicted of a felony in a construction safety related case has worked on at least 15 school projects in Southern California in the last few years, records show.
California Watch reported April 9 that the Division of the State Architect – the chief regulator of public school construction – certified inspector Richard Vale in 2005 without checking his background.
Vale had been kicked out of the city of Los Angeles inspector program in 1991. Documents show prosecutors had accused Vale of conspiring with a contractor to overlook makeshift, faulty seismic anchors installed in
