Art School Plan Gets Los Alamitos Arguing

A loud and boisterous crowd alternately protested and defended plans for an $18-million complex for the Orange County High School of the Arts at a City Council meeting Monday in Los Alamitos.

The debate over the project by the Los Alamitos Unified School District lasted several hours and, late into the evening, council members still had yet to decide what action to take.

The crowd seemed evenly divided between opponents and supporters of the new school.

The city has no jurisdiction over the school district, which founded the arts program at Los Alamitos High School in 1987 as a “school within a school.”

But city officials decided that the impact on residents was severe enough to try to halt the new school from being built at the proposed site on Bloomfield Street between Cerritos and Katella avenues.

“We have advised the school district that they need to follow state environmental laws and they have not done so,” City Manager Robert Dominguez said. “That is an extremely congested area. The addition of 650 high school students, plus administration, plus faculty, just compounds a problem nobody would like to face.”

Residents said the site already serves two schools and they are worried about the safety of all children in the area.

Some said they oppose plans for a school that largely serves students who are from out of the district. In a typical school year, about three-quarters of the arts program students are from Orange, Los Angeles and other counties.

“In their rush to get the money, the school district is cutting corners and pushing everyone who disagrees with them out of the way,” said Los Alamitos resident John Kennedy, who lives near the site. “I hope you will protect us. It would be a disaster putting the school there.”

School officials, who have been planning for the project since 1997, said they don’t understand the sudden groundswell against the school. They had a 50-member committee meeting and have shown all the plans to the community, Assistant Supt. David Hatton said.

With the new complex, the arts program could boost enrollment from 458 to 650 students and stop turning away hundreds of gifted youths, district officials said. Facilities at the high school are outdated and crowded, with many students being bused to other schools for classes, they added.

The new complex would include an arts technology center, a 600-seat theater, an art gallery and new classrooms for academic and arts classes. Officials said about 25% of the students at the school are from Los Alamitos.

Protesters and city officials said district trustees never took a formal vote on the Bloomfield site and failed to conduct a full environmental impact report.

District officials countered that they took formal action on the site in 1997 and just completed the only environmental studies required by the state, including plans to accommodate the extra traffic.

The issue became urgent in November when voters approved Proposition 1A, which gives matching funds for school construction, Hatton said. With about $2.7 million in donations already raised, including a $22,500 grant from the Times Mirror Foundation, officials could be well on their way with the first phase if they get their application in to the state by the early deadline of Jan. 25.