Merced contractor arrested on bribery charges in connection with Los Banos school project

Greg Opinski, a Merced Union High School District board member and owner of Greg Opinksi Construction, was arrested this morning on a warrant charging him with two counts of bribing public officials and two counts of attempted bribery, a law enforcement source confirmed to the Sun-Star.

Opinski, 53, is accused of paying off at least one trustee with the Los Banos Unified School board in connection with the controversial expansion project at Mercey Springs Elementary School, the official confirmed.

Opinski faces two counts of bribery, two counts of attempted bribery and one felony count of aiding and abetting a conflict of interest with a public official, the source told the Sun-Star.

The Los Banos Unified School District board of trustees on May 12 appointed Opinski to manage the expansion project, overruling a recommendation from the board facilities committee to hire Hanford-based Bush Construction.

During a special meeting July 26, the board voted 4-3 to award Opinski a contract worth up to $541,208.

The controversial decision drew heat from several residents and former board members.

“I just can’t make sense of this,” Chau’an Menefee said at the meeting. “The only thing that I can assume is that there is some sort of funny business going on behind the scenes.”

The official, who spoke exclusively with the Sun-Star, declined to say whether other arrests were expected.

Some trustees in Los Banos have openly questioned Opinski and specifically questioned whether he paid any trustees for their votes.

Opinski, in an interview with the Sun-Star and Los Banos Enterprise, flatly denied making pay offs, saying there was “absolutely no truth to anything like that” and described the allegations as “unbelievable.”

Opinski in 2014 won election to the Merced Union High School District board of trustees, narrowly defeating Ida Johnson by just 33 votes, according to the Merced County Elections Office.

Opinski briefly challenged Adam Gray for the 21st Assembly Seat in the state House of Representatives, but dropped out in May, citing a need to focus on his “business and personal circumstances.”

This story will be updated.

This story was originally published August 29, 2016 at 12:39 PM with the headline "Merced contractor arrested on bribery charges in connection with Los Banos school project."