SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Senior officials who oversaw construction of the $6.5 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge repeatedly and deliberately brushed off criticism about construction problems and sought to keep information secret as part of an “institutionalized, if not malicious, lack of transparency in the project,” a state Senate investigative report released Thursday found.

The 64-page report, commissioned by the Senate Committee on Transportation and Housing in the wake of numerous media reports about construction flaws, cost overruns and delays, found a pattern of mismanagement among Caltrans officials and systemic failures in the way problems were reported and tracked.