Audit Assails LAUSD Over Sites Picked for Schools

Citing the construction of a middle school on a toxic site in South Los Angeles, a state audit committee has accused the Los Angeles Unified School District of allowing political considerations to guide its choice of new school sites while ignoring environmental risks to students and teachers.

The Joint Legislative Audit Committee found the district “follows the path of least resistance” in finding locations for new schools in inner-city neighborhoods, according to a state report released this week.

The school district would rather buy contaminated industrial land, the report said, than use its powers of eminent domain to condemn homes and businesses--and end up facing angry property owners. It also said the district does not listen to suggestions from community members.

“The LAUSD may be, in some cases, acquiring urban land for new school construction based on political expedience, while disregarding the environmental costs and health risks associated with the cleanup of polluted land,” the legislative report said. “It is the clearly stated opinion of the LAUSD that purchasing industrial land contaminated with toxins for the purpose of building new schools is at times unavoidable.”

School district officials disputed the report’s findings, saying safety is their top priority when searching for school sites.

The 28-page report comes only months after the school district unveiled its plan to build 51 new schools over the next decade in the city’s most crowded neighborhoods, ranging from the east San Fernando Valley to South Los Angeles.

District officials say they face a difficult task because these new schools are mostly needed in neighborhoods with the least amount of unused land. That leaves the district with few choices beyond condemnation of existing homes and businesses--and the recycling of industrial properties.

“There are no good sites for schools in an urban environment. You can’t choose bean fields,” said Bob Niccum, the school district’s director of real estate and asset management. “It is an issue of trading off. For it to be termed political expediency is really pejorative and inaccurate.”

State officials cited the construction of Jefferson Middle School in South Los Angeles, whose opening was delayed for a year because of concerns of underground contamination.

The district bought the land on East 56th Street in 1991 and cleaned up the site, once home to a gas station and furniture factories.

But in 1996, state environmental officials notified the district of possible chromium contamination seeping underground toward the school after a state inspector revealed the campus was across the street from a former chrome-plating plant. Subsequent tests of the water table showed high levels of hexavalent chromium and the solvent trichloroethylene, believed to have originated on district property.

The state legislative committee in its report said the school district conducted a shoddy environmental review when it bought the site.

“Our review of the . . . environmental assessment reports indicated they were inadequate for a site of its size, with past extensive industrial activity,” Jesse Huff, director of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, told the legislative committee. “To ensure that future school acquisitions do not incur problems similar to those seen at Jefferson Middle School, the LAUSD should conduct appropriate environmental due diligence.”

Los Angeles school officials said they conduct thorough environmental reviews of all properties they buy.

Huff and LAUSD officials agree that the site is now safe. It opened earlier this month for more than 2,000 students. But the legislative audit committee questioned whether the school district’s cleanup has resolved the problem.

The chairman of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), said the Jefferson Middle School raises troubling issues.

“There appears to be a number of cases that we’ve looked at where the school district has acquired land and there isn’t real evidence that there’s been due diligence,” said Wildman. “I understand there’s real pressure to locate land in urban school districts. But you have to make sure the sites are safe.”

The state report mirrors many of the allegations made by the school district’s former director of environmental health and safety.

The school board fired Hamid Arabzadeh on Monday for what his superiors called poor performance. But at the same meeting, they ordered an internal investigation into his allegations that the district is building schools on toxic sites while ignoring environmental hazards.

The state’s report grew out of a Sacramento hearing last month that called officials from L.A. Unified and San Diego City Unified school districts to testify about acquiring land for new school sites.

The report praised San Diego’s program, saying the district “encourages active collaboration between community members and district staff as a means of avoiding even the consideration of contaminated property.”

The San Diego district, the report said, bought 200 parcels in urban areas over the last five years through local consensus--without condemning property or buying tainted industrial land.

The district, for example, built one school on the site of a commercial strip by persuading community groups and business owners that the new campus would replace a haven for drug dealers.

San Diego officials said their approach requires additional effort.

“The district has made a commitment to include the community in the decision-making process,” said Georgia Snodgrass, who buys property for the district. “Sometimes that commitment has made our job harder. But sometimes it makes it easier because you have the buy-in from the community.”

Niccum of the Los Angeles district said that his staff also seeks public support.

“How can it be that you’re not inclusive if you’re out there in the community holding meetings?” he asked. “We don’t do site selection the easy way.”