Hunt for Money to Rebuild Avalon Gym Takes Officials to Sacramento

Since the asbestos-filled Avalon gymnasium was torn down two months ago, Long Beach Unified School District officials have been searching for funds to replace it. The building served as the recreation center for Santa Catalina Island residents and school children.

Next week, district officials will travel to Sacramento to meet informally with state officials as they plan their strategy for renewing their request for funds from the State Allocation Board.

The board has given the district approval to build a 6,000-square-foot gym, estimated to cost $1.2 million. But school officials want an additional $800,000 so they can build a 8,200-square-foot gym, one the same size as the building that was razed.

The board figures its allocation of funds in terms of square feet rather than flat dollar amounts, according to district officials.

“We feel we’re totally justified in these efforts because the state made us tear the gym down, and they should replace it foot for foot,” said Jerry Gross, the district’s director of legislative services.

Gross said he will meet with the state officials and said that school officials hope to present their case for additional space to the board within the next few months.

The cost of construction on the island is about 50% higher than on the mainland because materials and workers must be transported there, said Avalon Schools Principal Jon Meyer.

On Tuesday, Meyer visited a high school in Clearlake, in northern California, to inspect its gymnasium which he said could serve as a model for what Long Beach school officials want. The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered the old gym shut down last fall while asbestos workers attempted to remove the carcinogenic substance from behind the building’s walls and ceilings and from beneath its floors.

Laden With Asbestos

But the corrugated steel building was so laden with asbestos that in March, Cal-OSHA ordered the district to tear the gym down.

School officials say they need a new gym at least as large as the old one so they can have a 4,200-square-foot, regulation-size basketball court for California Interscholastic Federation games.

In addition, Avalon’s student population is growing.

“Although Avalon is a small place that doesn’t mean we require a small gym,” Gross said. “It wouldn’t be fair to the people of Avalon to be given something less based on the size of our school.”

District officials estimate that the number of students attending Avalon schools will increase from 450 to about 800 students in 10 to 15 years.

The district spent about $750,000 to remove the asbestos and demolish the building, Gross said. He said the state reimbursed the district for about $225,000 of that under Proposition 79, a school bond measure passed last fall that provides $100 million for asbestos identification and abatement.

The old gym, which was donated to the school district by the Wrigley chewing gum family, was used for school assemblies, dances, basketball games and graduation ceremonies.

After the gym was shut down, school officials received permission from the Santa Catalina Island Co. to use the Casino Ballroom as the site for Avalon High School’s home basketball games. This year’s graduation ceremonies will be held in the Art Deco Casino’s auditorium on June 22, officials said.

The school has made arrangements to play all of next year’s basketball games on the mainland, and outdoor practice courts are being set up near the school’s playgrounds, said Meyer.

The town of Avalon, with a population of about 2,200, also is without a swimming pool, and some Avalon residents say they hope one can be built as part of a gymnasium complex.

Pam Evans, president of the Avalon Schools Booster Club, said the club has raised about $135,000 toward a swimming pool that could be built along with a new gymnasium.

“It would be so practical to do it all at once,” said Evans, who has three children attending Avalon schools.

But school officials said they are concentrating their efforts on replacing the gym first.

“The gym is our top priority,” Meyer said. “To our little community, it’s pretty important.”