An Unexcused--and Inexcusable--Tardiness

Late afternoon in deep urban Los Angeles. Dismissal time in the West Adams district, a typical, mid-city neighborhood. Here comes Leticia Martinez, mother of five, surrounded by many small children. Here comes her neighbor with another diminutive crowd.

There goes a beat-up clunker with--four? five?--kids in it. And here, turning into this driveway--more offspring. This is the face of L.A. during certain crucial afternoon hours. Children with Barbie backpacks and “101 Dalmatians” book bags and half-laced sneakers, slogging. Children. As far as the eye can see.

“We walking a lotta blocks,” Leticia Martinez confides in her newcomer’s English. “But it’s not so bad.” Hey, at least her kids are within walking distance of their classrooms. At least they aren’t being bused, as are so many thousands in L.A.’s massive, jam-packed school district. Though every year, she says, it gets more apparent: “Too many children,” she says, “but no too many schools.”

You said it, Leticia. If there’s a face to be put on the latest permutation of the LAUSD horror story, it’s the face of all those children, with not enough room. Such sweet little faces, watching Mrs. Martinez talk to the reporter. Such a crime, the fiddling that’s been done while their district’s empire has burned.

The current twist involves the way the district has now bungled what may have been its one chance to fix its crowding problem, and the desperate measures that are being undertaken, once again, to bail it out. Though this is a tale of big bucks and big politics and lots of big buildings, keep in mind the heart and soul of this issue: those small, upturned faces, watching grown-ups talk.

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In fringe suburbs and farm towns, if you want a school, you essentially go out to the city limits and put one up. In built-up L.A., if you want a school, your choices are: Rip up homes and markets, or clean up a toxic oil field. For details on the latter approach, see Belmont Learning Complex, filed under G for “grotesque fiasco.” For details on the rip-up option, ask someone on the city’s Eastside whether Chavez Ravine will ever forgive Dodger Stadium.

In other words, there are no easy answers to the LAUSD crowding problem. There were, however, years in which answers could have been worked out. Those small, upturned faces have been proliferating for decades. But what little planning was done at LAUSD was half-baked and halfhearted; past boards had nixed any Chavez Ravine-invoking ripping up of houses, and there was no money for new schools anyhow.

Then, a miracle. In 1997 and 1998, local and state voters passed separate school-bond issues. Suddenly, the district had almost a billion dollars in local bond money for new school construction, now potentially matchable with a second billion or so bucks from the state. Buoyed by the election of new board members, and sobered by Belmont, civic pooh-bahs met in May at the Getty Center and emerged with joyous talk of 100 new schools that could be put up with thought and neighborhood input--schools with grounds that could double as parks or that could take the place of pawnshops and liquor stores.

Great talk, long-awaited talk, but of course no one at LAUSD deigned to tell them that it was way too late for intelligent planning. See, there were rules attached to the first-come, first-served state bond kitty, and one was that if a district wanted any of it, it had to have its school sites bought, inspected and blueprinted by one of two deadlines. Incredibly, LAUSD blew the first one and is now so overwhelmed that, without an act of God--or a spree of eminent domain that will make Chavez Ravine look like a sandbox quarrel--there’s no way it’s going to make the second. In other words, unless someone hustles fast on behalf of those small, upturned faces, almost a billion dollars in state money will get fiddled away.

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So once again, panic ensues from City Hall to Sacramento. The last best estimate, I was told this week, is that, with luck, the district will manage to qualify for less than $100 million of the $900 million it had hoped for from the state bond pot. People in L.A. are lobbying for a deadline extension, or some sort of set-aside for “urban districts” by way of bent rules or legislation (some are even talking lawsuit), but it’s not clear what, if anything, can be done.

“The truth is, because of the kids, I’ll make the effort,” says the fed-up Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, “but these people have no idea what they’re asking. The idea that the district isn’t ready--it’s just unconscionable.”

You said it, Antonio. And you have to wonder how long this behemoth school district will try to hide behind those small, upturned faces before someone breaks up its fiddling, money-burning empire for the good of all.

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Shawn Hubler’s column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail address is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.