Controversial Site for High School to Be Discussed

A neighborhood watch group opposed to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s plan to build a high school on an old Gemco lot is holding a special meeting tonight to address concerns with district officials and school board member David Tokofsky.

Representatives from the offices of state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) will also be present.

“We want some concrete answers,” said Robert Rouge, 56, who has lived in the area since 1978. “The community does not want a school. We want to know what’s going on. No one is telling us anything.”

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. at Beachy Avenue School.

The controversial site, near Van Nuys Boulevard and Beachy Avenue, is a vacant 12.6-acre lot where a Gemco store once stood and is now owned by Grupo Giante, a Mexico City-based food retailer that hopes to open a supermarket there.

Neighbors said they would rather have the convenience and economic boost from a store than litter, traffic, crime and noise from a high school.

L.A. Unified called the property a “preferred site” for relieving crowding at Monroe, Van Nuys and San Fernando high schools. If necessary, the district would acquire it through eminent domain, said Bob Niccum, the district’s director of real estate and asset management.

Niccum said few other sites exist in the growing northeast Valley that would be safe and ideal for a high school.

The district plans to begin an environmental impact report on the Gemco site in two weeks.

Alarcon has proposed that the district instead build a campus, as well as a middle and elementary school, on a 200-acre Department of Water and Power property in Sun Valley, a site that the district says could have problems with toxicity and the possibility of flooding, among other issues.

Alarcon said the district needs to research its claims more.