Opinion: LAUSD’s affordable housing boondoggle shows why voters must reject ballot measures

To the editor: Reading this article on affordable housing built for but unoccupied by Los Angeles Unified School District teachers confirmed my decision to vote “no” on most of the complex propositions on the November ballot. (“LAUSD teachers earn too much to live in the affordable housing apartments built for them,” Oct. 19)

As with this shining example of bad management, I simply don’t believe that the people who will be tasked with implementing the new laws will be competent to do so. If implemented, the ballot measures will lead to years of confusion, wasted energy and tax or bond money, and little actual value to show for it in the end.

The district’s Board of Education knew before it even started the building process that it did not pencil out, yet the board proceeded with the fantasy. That this group is supposed to be in charge of basic math instruction should alarm everyone, as should the district’s belief that this wasn’t a failure.

Jan Brown, Panorama City

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To the editor: The Times’ pattern of writing all things negative about Los Angeles public schools continues with the way this article is structured. The headlines and subheadlines say to anyone who reads or skims the front page, “This is a big problem, and once again, people running the schools are really stupid.”

Not until the 12th paragraph does the article on the projects’ inability to house teachers say that “didn’t make L.A. Unified’s affordable housing experiment a failure.”

Turns out this has been a boon to low-income workers with various jobs in the school district. In other words, the housing has helped district workers.

Why couldn’t this article have started with a more positive perspective on the project? Only careful readers with plenty of time will find out that something good came of it.

Les Brockmann, Granada Hills

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