School Expansion to Push Neighbors Out of Homes

To the 1,100 students at the Wilmington Park Elementary School, adding six classrooms and a cafeteria means more than ending the overcrowding that forces administrators to juggle space like balls at a circus.

It means ending the lunchtime battle with the birds.

At Wilmington Park, lunch takes place on tables in an outdoor courtyard because there is no cafeteria. Principal Claire Sizgorich presides, with a megaphone in her right hand and a whistle in her left. She encourages the students not to lollygag during the meal.

‘Birds Are Waiting’

“Now, you people know that the birds are already waiting,” Sizgorich booms into the megaphone, “so be sure to finish your lunch before they start divebombing.”

As she speaks, the birds--pigeons and sea gulls, for the most part--swoop. The gulls have a tendency to swipe food from unsuspecting youngsters. The pigeons . . . well, the pigeons cause a different problem.

As third-grader Freddy Muratella put it: “It happened to me. I got it right on the shoulder.”

However, to more than a dozen residents who live in a duplex and single family house across the street, the expansion means something entirely different.

It means losing their homes.

To make room for the expansion, the Los Angeles school board on Monday voted to condemn a duplex at 1403-1405 E. Young St. and the house next door at 1409 E. Young St. The owners of the homes, dissatisfied with the compensation they are being offered, will ask for more money in Superior Court.

“I don’t want a big mansion or anything, but I want something that I could live in,” said John Love, who, at 81, has lived at 1409 E. Young St. nearly half his life.

The district has offered Love $92,000 for his bungalow. He said he can find nothing comparable in the Wilmington area.

Love’s neighbors, Fernando and Maria Salcedo, live with their six children in the front unit of the duplex, while Fernando Salcedo’s parents and sister live in the back. The school district has offered the Salcedos $172,000 for the duplex, but Lomita real estate broker Jan Ertzman, who represents the family, said the building cannot be replaced for less than $240,000.

Both Ertzman and Salcedo said it is essential for the family to remain in a duplex, because Salcedo’s parents live on a fixed income and cannot afford to buy a home of their own.

“If they would supply me with a comfortable house for me to have the same payments, that’s what I would like,” Salcedo said. “I really don’t want their money. What I want is to be left alone or to be supplied with a comfortable house, that’s all.”

Carol Cogan, principal realty agent for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said district policy is for two independent appraisers to determine the value of a home that is to be condemned. The district offers the higher price, she said.

The district is not permitted to negotiate. When homeowners refuse to accept an offer, the issue goes to court. That process could take as long as 18 months, Cogan said.

However, the dispute is not likely to hold up construction of the new classroom/cafeteria building, which could begin within four to six months, according to project manager Roger Friermuth.

Friermuth said the building will be constructed on the existing playground, and the houses will be leveled to make up for the lost play space. The district initially had planned to develop the new playground before constructing the so-called multipurpose building, but Friermuth said the process can be reversed.

“We’re anxious to take possession as soon as possible, but there is no deadline as such,” Friermuth said.

Expanding Campus

The new property will add three-tenths of an acre to the 3.1-acre Wilmington Park campus at 1140 Mahar Ave. Friermuth said that when the houses come down, the district also intends to ask the city to abandon the portion of East Young Street that separates the houses from the school.

For the teachers, students and parents at Wilmington Park, construction of the addition will mark the end of a struggle that has lasted more than a decade. Parents first requested a cafeteria in the mid-1970s.

In 1985, when the Los Angeles school board told the Wilmington community it had no money to help ease overcrowding at the school, they took their case to the U. S. Justice Department, charging racial discrimination, and to Sacramento, where they lobbied for state funding.

The following year, Wilmington Park was notified that the state would pay for the construction of a 20,000-square-foot building to house the lunchroom and six new classrooms.

According to Assistant Principal Barbara Jordan, Wilmington Park has 1,111 students. Its capacity, excluding kindergarteners, is 945; when first- through sixth-grade enrollment reaches that cap, as it has this year, some neighborhood children are bused to schools as far away as Carson and San Pedro.

At Wilmington Park, the children eat their meals outdoors when the weather is fair and use the auditorium when it is not. Rain often means cancellation of a special program or assembly.

“We start a juggling game when it rains,” Jordan said. “We start searching for any available space that’s open.”

When it is sunny, as it was Thursday, there are the birds to contend with.

“One got it in his hair, the other got it on his plate,” said Sizgorich, describing the pigeons’ activity while the first- and fifth-graders ate. “That’s pretty standard. It sounds crass. I don’t mean it crassly. It’s just an everyday occurrence.’