School-Closure Rumors Lead Mayor to Doubt Plato Pact

Mayor Lois Shade is questioning the validity of an agreement requiring a Glendora industrial plant next to a San Dimas school to move some of its operations in light of suggestions that the school be closed.

Plato Products Inc. agreed in January to move its metal-plating operations out of its Glendora plant after noxious acetic acid fumes escaped through an open door at the plant, causing 100 children at Arma J. Shull School to become ill. The firm had been threatened with legal action by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Shade said she recently learned that some San Dimas and school district officials have discussed closing Shull School, selling the land and using the proceeds to build a new school in the Via Verde area.

But San Dimas officials said that the idea has been discussed only informally and that such a move would be several years away if it occurs at all.

If the district is going to close the school, Shade said, officials should consider modifying the agreement between Plato, the AQMD and school officials calling for the firm to move its plating operations by Sept. 1.

The AQMD and other regulatory agencies involved in hazardous-materials management should reassess the risk posed by the plant if the school moves, she said.

Shade she will schedule a meeting of an ad hoc committee representing the two city councils and the school board to present her idea. The committee was formed after the Plato incident to resolve the conflict between the residential neighborhood and school in San Dimas and the industrial area nearby in Glendora.

“If the school is not going to be next to Plato anymore, the committee should address whether the agreement that was made to protect the school children is still a valid agreement,” Shade said.

Shade added she was bothered that Bonita Unified School District representatives had not informed her of the possible closure of the school. She said the matter has apparently been discussed for several months by the San Dimas Building Needs Committee, which seeks to identify necessary school projects.

“I’m distressed that they didn’t come forward and say we’ve got a committee meeting that’s discussing this,” Shade said. “I think we all need to be honest and up front with each other, and I don’t know if that happened.”

San Dimas Mayor Terry Dipple and school board member Sharon Scott have reacted angrily to Shade’s claims, saying they only recently became aware that the school’s closure had been discussed.

“I had never been approached or heard of the possibility of changing the status of the property of Shull School and building a new school in Via Verde until sometime in May,” Dipple said. “I don’t think there’s been any conspiracy on the district’s part to close Shull School.”

Supt. Duane Dishno said he has heard nothing official about a proposal to close the school and that such an action has not been considered by the Bonita school board.

However, Dipple said he favors eventually closing Shull School, rezoning the land for low-density residential use and selling it to a developer. He said the idea has been “kicked around” in meetings he’s had with school board member Robert Green and City Manager Bob Poff.

Plato Vice President Bill Eldred said he was dubious about reports that the school might close, adding that it would not affect the company’s plans to move its plating operations to a new facility in the City of Industry.

“It’s too late in the game,” he said.

Before the issue of the possible school closure surfaced, an attorney for Plato asked the AQMD about the possibility of extending the Sept. 1 deadline, but the request was flatly denied, said an official with the air quality district.

“I made it very clear to him on a preemptive basis that we would not, not consider an extension,” said Eugene Calafato, assistant to the AQMD executive director. “Our position is that nothing has been altered from the time we stipulated the agreement.

Regardless of whether Plato would be affected, Shade said the school’s closure would remove the rationale for the school district’s efforts to restrict the materials used by firms in the industrial area along Glendora’s eastern edge.

“If in fact Shull School is moving out, why is the school district giving all the businesses in that area . . . a bad time about being there?” she asked.

Scott said Shade’s comments reflect the mayor’s pro-industry sympathies. Noting Shade’s opposition to the extension of a moratorium on firms using hazardous materials in Glendora’s eastern industrial area enacted after the Plato incident, Scott said Shade wants to stymie efforts to make such a moratorium permanent.

“She’s developed a pattern all along,” Scott said. “She’s been consistent in trying to defend Plato Products and industry and not trying to protect the children at that school.”

Scott appeared Tuesday before the Glendora City Council to urge adoption of an ordinance to permanently exclude industries using hazardous chemicals from locating in the industrial area near San Dimas.

At that meeting, Glendora Councilman Bob Kuhn proposed that the city staff prepare an ordinance prohibiting industries in the area from using certain toxic materials and placing limits on the amount of other potentially hazardous substances that firms could use. Kuhn’s measure passed, 4 to 1, with Shade in opposition.

Regardless of whether there is a school in the area, Dipple said he favors greater restrictions on the types of businesses that should occupy the industrial area abutting the residential neighborhood on San Dimas’ western boundary.

“The citizens of San Dimas who live in that area have suffered long enough from the industrial encroachment from Glendora,” he said.

Both Dipple and Scott have criticized Shade’s representation of Glendora on the ad hoc committee. Dipple said the committee “hasn’t done a thing,” a charge that Scott echoed, blaming the group’s ineffectiveness on Shade’s intransigence and pro-industry bias.

Shade countered, saying “if (San Dimas and the school district) went into the committee thinking its intention was to throw stones at Plato, that was not my intention.

“I have tried to take a look at the whole situation.”