Judge Demands Clear Answer on School Bond Use

A Superior Court judge Tuesday refused to allow work on a proposed $87-million downtown high school to resume, saying a school bond oversight committee still hasn’t made a clear recommendation on whether funds from a recently approved bond measure should be used to help pay for it.

In a decision Monday night, the committee that oversees use of Proposition BB funds appeared to reject the use of bond money for the Belmont Learning Center. But Judge Diane Wayne said the resolution, approved on a 9-1 vote, was too vague and called it “screwy” for not directly saying whether the money could be used.

In a comedy of errors, a last-minute amendment that was intended to satisfy Wayne’s demands in an earlier ruling had the opposite effect by stripping out the key reference to Proposition BB money. Instead of saying no to the bond money, the measure urged the Los Angeles Unified School District board to pay for the project with certificates of compliance, a more expensive form of financing.

Wayne, who halted planning on the project last month to allow the oversight committee to review it, said she will not lift her injunction until she gets a simple yes or no answer from the committee on whether Proposition BB money should be used. Wayne had already tossed back a previous committee vote that supported the Belmont project but made no recommendation on the use of bond funds.

The judge wants “a vote up or down--no waffling,” said David Koff, a researcher for a labor union that filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Belmont project.

Wayne’s second rebuff of the committee, which was set up to watch how the district spends the $2.4-billion bond approved by voters in April, may have overshadowed the panel’s decision on the use of bond money--a recommendation that could spell bigger trouble for the Belmont project.

The school board, which is scheduled to consider the project Monday, now faces a choice between disregarding the advisory panel’s decision--a politically risky move--or choosing to pay off loans for the project out of the district’s general fund at a higher interest rate.

The board is under pressure to resume the project because the developer, Kajima International, has said it will charge the district $12,000 a day for added costs while the work is stalled. In a letter to the committee released Monday, the developer offered to partially relent. If allowed to resume work by Tuesday it would place the money in a contingency fund that could later be partly returned to the district, the developer’s lawyers said.

In the hope of making it possible for the board to meet that deadline, committee Chairman Steven Soboroff has scheduled a special meeting of the committee Thursday.

Although the sometimes deeply divided panel will now have to reconsider its Monday vote, a reversal may be unlikely in light of the lopsided vote.

“I think this committee showed some teeth,” said Deputy Los Angeles City Controller Timothy Lynch, who has criticized the way the Belmont project has been handled by the district. “Even those willing to spend the bond money weren’t willing to do it as a blank check.”

At its meeting Monday night, the committee first considered a proposal to allow the district to use Proposition BB funds for half the project as long as the state pays the rest. That motion failed, with six votes against it and five in favor.