Few Happy With 3 Sites Weighed for High School

Rosemead residents and city officials are considering legal action to stop construction of a high school in their city, while Monterey Park parents are threatening to go to court because the school is not earmarked for their city.

The Alhambra High School District has narrowed its long and controversial search for a new high school to three sites, all in Rosemead. But few seem happy with the choices.

Rosemead Mayor Jay Imperial said the city is developing its legal strategy and he is uncertain when a lawsuit might be filed, but if the school board insists on locating a new high school in Rosemead, “the reaction is going to be litigation.”

Imperial said all the proposed sites are unsatisfactory because they would uproot hundreds of residents.

Growth Is Elsewhere

Besides, there is no reason to build a high school in Rosemead, he said, when most of the population growth in the Alhambra High School District is occurring in Monterey Park and Alhambra.

The district, which serves all of Alhambra, nearly all of San Gabriel and parts of Rosemead and Monterey Park, has three comprehensive high schools, Alhambra, Mark Keppel and San Gabriel, plus a continuation school. All are within the city limits of Alhambra.

Not only is the Rosemead City Council exploring legal options, according to Roosemead Councilman Bob Bruesch, but many property owners and residents are talking to lawyers, too. “The passions are running high,” he said.

Bruesch said the dissatisfaction extends from Rosemead residents who would lose their homes to a new high school to Monterey Park parents who have been fighting unsuccessfully to get a high school in their city.

Cindy Yee said she and other Monterey Park parents are considering legal action on the grounds that failing to build a high school in Monterey Park amounts to discrimination against the city’s residents. Residents there have been demanding a high school for 20 years, she said, but the Alhambra board has ignored the request.

Yee said attorneys are being consulted to find out if there is a basis for a discrimination suit. Alhambra, San Gabriel and Rosemead all have their own high schools, even though San Gabriel High is technically in the City of Alhambra and Rosemead High is part of the El Monte Union High School District, which serves part of Rosemead. “We are the only city in the Alhambra school district without a high school,” she said. Monterey Park students attend Alhambra and Mark Keppel.

Meanwhile, the owners of a 32-acre hillside site in Monterey Park that was considered as a high school site and rejected are considering a suit alleging slander of title because, they claim, a school district report drastically understated the value of their property.

Litigation Talk Expected

All this talk of litigation is to be expected, said Ron Apperson, an attorney with the Los Angeles Unified School District who has been on the Alhambra school board for 10 years. Apperson said residents whose homes might be taken for a school and who do not want to move are naturally going to object. In fact, he said, the Alhambra board has been hearing threats of litigation ever since it began targeting potential school sites two years ago.

Alhambra, Mark Keppel and San Gabriel high schools were designed to house a total of 6,500 students but now serve more than 9,600. Alhambra High is so crowded that some classes meet off campus in nearby churches. School district officials expect overcrowding to worsen in the next few years, with high school enrollment reaching 10,319 by 1991.

Apperson said he is convinced that the school district has acted properly in its search for a site for a new high school.

Apperson said the school board looked carefully at enrollment growth patterns two years ago before concentrating its site search in the southeast part of the district. But the sites that were initially proposed in 1985 drew such strong opposition that the district expanded the site search districtwide. However, all three sites that emerged as finalists last month are in the southeast corner.

A Help to Many Students

Board President Dora Padilla said that putting the high school in the southeast part of the district will help many students in that area who now walk more than two miles to school. And, she said many Rosemead parents would welcome a high school even though they have not been as vocal as Monterey Park parents.

Bruesch, a teacher who has been on the Rosemead City Council for three years, said he finds it incredible that the board is determined to put a high school in the eastern part of the district even though the cities with rapid population growth--Alhambra and Monterey Park--are on the west side. He noted that Rosemead has adopted planning policies that inhibit growth.

Bruesch said the school board is making a decision based on politics, not logic. Rosemead has been targeted, he said, because none of the school board members live there and it is more dangerous to them politically to try to buy and clear land in a more affluent area, such as Monterey Park.

‘There Is No Secret’

But Apperson said the board’s concern is not with city boundaries but with placing the school where it makes sense in relation to other high schools.

“There is no secret, hidden agenda about not putting a high school in Monterey Park,” he said.

Padilla said those residents of Monterey Park who want a high school in their city had the chance to show the board where a high school could be built and their best suggestion--vacant hillside property west of Atlantic Boulevard between El Repetto Drive and Cadiz Street--turned out to be impractical because of its size and steep terrain. But supporters of the hillside site still insist that it could have worked with a creative approach and, if necessary, through expansion of its boundaries to include some neighboring homes.

Padilla said the school board’s next step will be to solicit bids on the preparation of environmental impact reports on the three selected sites, labeled A, B and I. State law requires a six-month period of public comment on the environmental impact studies, she said, which means that the final decision on a school site will not be made until the end of this year or early in 1988.

Auto Auction Lot

Site A, which covers 46.8 acres, includes part of a wholesale auto auction lot and 293 houses and duplexes. It is bounded on the north by Emerson Avenue, on the east by Alhambra Wash, on the south by lots fronting on Garvey Avenue and on the west by Del Mar Avenue.

Harold K. Hedlund, a land planning consultant hired by the district to find and evaluate sites, estimated the cost of buying the land in Site A at $24.3 million. He estimated that the district would have to pay the owners of the auto auction $3.9 million in severance damages for harming the business by taking part of its property. It would cost $1.2 million to demolish buildings and $4.4 million to relocate residents, he estimated. Additional expenses would bring the total cost for the site to $34.3 million. The figure does not include the cost of building the school.

Site B lies at the eastern edge of the district along the Rio Hondo flood control channel and contains 44.5 acres. It is bounded on the north by businesses fronting on Garvey avenue, on the east by the Rio Hondo channel, on the south by Fern Avenue and on the west by Muscatel Avenue. It contains the fewest homes--116 houses and duplexes--and would be the least expensive, with a total estimated cost of $23.7 million, including $19.6 million for land and $2.3 million to relocate businesses and residents. But a geological report submitted to the school board said the site has potential flood problems and earthquake hazards.

Contains a Post Office

Site I contains almost 36 acres and is bounded generally on the north by Garvey Avenue, on the east by San Gabriel Boulevard, on the south by a line extending from Garvalia Avenue and on the west by Kelburn Avenue. A post office lies within the area but could be excluded. The school would displace 187 houses and duplexes and Builders Square, a large building supply company housed in a former K mart store. Hedlund estimated the cost of buying the land at $25.6 million, relocating residents and businesses at nearly $3 million and demolishing structures at $1.6 million, bringing the total to $31.8 million.

The three sites were chosen by the school board last month from 10 that received formal scrutiny and from many others that were suggested.

Board member Phyllis J. Rutherford said the district received all sorts of suggestions for sites, ranging from golf courses and parks to hilltop restaurants. There was even a proposal that the district build the high school at the closed Operating Industries landfill in Monterey Park, she said, but “there is no way I would take responsibility for building a high school on a toxic waste dump.”

Private Plan Developed

Owners of the Monterey Park hillside property west of Atlantic Boulevard spent $3,500 to hire a land planning firm to demonstrate that the hillside terrain was suitable for a high school. The firm developed a plan that would have taken 40 adjoining homes to create a 47-acre campus complete with gymnasium, athletic fields and an outdoor theater.

But Supt. Bruce Peppin said the site contained so much unbuildable land that it could accommodate only an elementary school, not a high school. And the site would present formidable engineering problems, he said.

Board member Richard Amador, who lives near the proposed site, said, “I believe the hillside property is unrealistic.” He said most of the vacant property is too steep to build on, and expensive land would have to be acquired to make the site workable.

Hedlund, in his evaluation, disparaged the site. He said the purchase price would be cheap, valuing the 32 vacant acres at $320,000, but the site would not be large enough for a high school.

High Appraised Value

Mark Jabin, an attorney whose wife is a partner in Monterey Views, which owns the hillside property, said a professional appraiser valued the property at $4 million in 1982. The City of Monterey Park has approved a tentative tract map for construction of 101 homes on the land, he said, and a recent marketing study put the land value at $6 million. Jabin said the district report valuing the land at $320,000 is so irritating that he and the partners have talked about suing for slander of title.

Hedlund defended his report by pointing out the property’s assessed value in relation to market value.

Margaret Clark, a Rosemead resident who has advocated the hillside site, said she cannot understand why the school board did not at least give it further study through an environmental impact report.

“To me it’s a beautiful place to put a high school,” she said.

Rosemead Councilman Bruesch said it seems clear to him that while the school board has selected three sites for further study, the most likely one is I, commonly known as the K mart property. He said Site B has the disadvantage of being at the eastern edge of the district and has flood and earthquake problems, while Site A would displace hundreds of families and carry a high price tag to compensate the owner of the auto auction.