School Board Backs Away From Gag Order on Belmont Project

Three days after slapping a gag order on information related to the Belmont Learning Complex, Los Angeles school officials backed down Friday, announcing that they will set up weekly news briefings on the environmentally plagued project.

A statement from Richard K. Mason, general counsel for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said district employees’ adherence to the edict is purely voluntary.

“No staff of any kind is ordered not to speak,” Mason said in a letter to The Times’ attorney.

Board members are also free to talk about the project if they wish, Mason said, although all have publicly vowed not to do so.

After reviewing the statement, Rex Heinke, attorney for The Times, said it appeared that the district has established satisfactory assurances that it will comply with the 1st Amendment.

“We are pleased that in response to our concerns, the Board of Education has acknowledged that it is not ordering any board members or Los Angeles Unified School District employee to stop talking to the public or press about the Belmont Learning Complex,” Heinke said. “We are also pleased that the board has recognized that board members and LAUSD employees do not lose their free speech rights to criticize and comment on government activities simply because they work for the government.”

The Times had notified the district that it intended to sue unless the policy was rescinded.

The free-speech flap began during a special board meeting Tuesday. The board voted unanimously to establish a commission of civic leaders to examine the problem of methane gas and other hazardous oil byproducts at the $200-million high school under construction west of downtown.

After the vote, board President Genethia Hayes read a statement that ended, “In order to ensure the integrity of the commission’s work, board members and staff will not comment on this project while the commission is at work.”

The statement was widely interpreted as a prohibition on any comment on the project.

Several district employees cited the policy in declining to discuss Belmont with The Times.

In the clarification, Mason said the policy is intended to apply only to the new commission--not other aspects of the project, which has generated extensive reporting on deficiencies in the district’s environmental reviews.

Also, it applies only to senior staff, and they have been “requested,” not ordered, to refrain from comment.

Mason declined, however, to rule out discipline against senior managers who violate the policy. Citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision, he said that a senior manager can be required not to undermine the policy of a public employer.

Whether any comment undermined district policy would be decided on a case-by-case basis, Mason said.

In the first application of the revised policy, a senior district official on Friday declined to comment on the Belmont project, but said he was doing so voluntarily.

“I can talk about Belmont, but I choose not to in deference to the board’s wishes to have a single spokesperson in board President Genethia Hayes,” said Brad Sales, spokesman for Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

Mason’s letter said that four key figures in the developing Belmont story will answer questions from the news media from 10 to 11 a.m. every Thursday. They are Hayes, Zacarias, Chief Administrative Officer David Koch and Angelo Bellomo, the scientist on the district’s environmental safety team.

Once it is set up, the independent commission will hold its meetings in public and will report to the board in public, Mason said.

The commission will be charged with making a recommendation by mid-October on whether the district should complete the project.