Coalition Pushes for Reversal on Belmont

A coalition of political leaders is stepping up pressure on the Los Angeles Board of Education to reconsider its January decision abandoning the Belmont Learning Complex.

The coalition, led by Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, planned to attend today’s board meeting to argue that the board killed the project without key information. It is demanding completion of environmental studies that would establish the cost and the time required to eliminate methane and hydrogen sulfide hazards at the half-built high school.

Meantime, the citizens committee that oversees the $2.4 billion in Los Angeles school construction and repair bond money has jumped into the Belmont debate, demanding that the district complete thorough environmental and financial studies on the project.

The Proposition BB oversight committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a resolution that would hold up approval of funding on alternative sites until those studies are completed.

Panel member David Abel said the board’s politically charged decision on Belmont has “infected and severely limited the district’s options on every real estate matter that now comes before facilities staff.”

Molina and her supporters say the board must have better environmental studies so it can adequately compare the $200-million project against alternatives.

“It’s become evident that very few of the facts were known,” said Molina.

But the coalition faces serious obstacles, including school board members who are adamantly committed to their anti-Belmont stands as well as potential dissension within the coalition’s own ranks.

“I don’t care who comes,” school board member Valerie Fields said. “They can send Bill Clinton and the pope and I’m not going to vote to revisit it.”

Board member Caprice Young said she believes she got sufficient information from the seven-member panel set up last July to evaluate safety issues at the property, a former oil field west of downtown.

The commission voted 4 to 3 to recommend completing the school. The majority cited the judgment of numerous safety experts who said that a system of barriers and vents would provide an acceptable level of protection against methane, which can explode, and hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic even at low concentrations. The minority, however, said there was no guarantee that the site could be made safe.

The board, hoping to put a swift end to the Belmont saga, voted 5 to 2 to kill the project, after a recommendation by chief operating officer Howard Miller. With no state funds forthcoming, Miller said, the district could not afford to drain classroom money on unknown environmental costs.

Several board members said they didn’t think the property could be made safe.

“I have read thousands of pages and the position I have reached is I would not feel comfortable sending my child there,” Young said.

The call for a new look at Belmont will coincide with Miller’s presentation to the board today of alternatives that he said will more than make up for the loss of 4,000 to 5,000 seats that Belmont would have opened.

It will include the former Ambassador Hotel, a parking lot at Dodger Stadium, the district’s headquarters downtown and a popular adult school.

Many of the sites face difficult political hurdles, and some also have environmental problems. The Dodgers, for instance, have said the proposal is impractical, and City Councilman Nate Holden opposes a high school at the Ambassador.

Molina contends that the board should not discard Belmont before having a complete picture of the environmental costs and timetables for all the options, and then weighing those against Belmont.

Since the January vote, Molina and Los Angeles Councilman Mike Hernandez have been working behind the scenes to assemble a substantial group of allies.

The coalition includes all but one member of the Los Angeles City Council, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), who is running for mayor, and Reps. Xavier Becerra and Lucille Roybal-Allard, both Los Angeles Democrats.

Several prominent Latino organizations such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials have joined Molina.

Surprisingly, two unions that had been firmly opposed to Belmont are included on the list of coalition members. It is far from clear, however, that the unions would actually support completing the controversial school. Instead, both unions have joined the coalition in calling for a comprehensive school construction plan for the Belmont neighborhood that includes the learning complex as one option.

Local 11 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union conducted a fierce campaign against the project. The union’s opposition was tied to a labor dispute with the Belmont contractor, Kajima International. Kajima was kicked off the job last year.

In a letter to Molina and three other coalition members, the union’s president, Maria Elena Durazo, said “the board should be willing to respond to continuing concerns about its Jan. 25 decision” to stop work on Belmont. But an official of the union later said that Molina had not been authorized to include Local 11 on the list of coalition members.

The Los Angeles teachers union has also written a letter partially backing the coalition.