Panel Seems to Favor Killing Belmont Project

The commission weighing the fate of the environmentally plagued Belmont Learning Complex appears headed for a recommendation today that the Los Angeles Unified School District abandon the half-built high school.

In deliberations Tuesday, four of the seven commissioners indicated that they either consider Belmont a magnet for future litigation or do not trust the district to keep safety equipment running properly for the life of the school.

Explosive methane and toxic hydrogen sulfide at the site will require complicated and costly systems to ensure the safety of students.

“The issue is whether the mitigation can be safely maintained,” said Commissioner Ira H. Monosson, former medical officer for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. “I don’t think the district is capable.”

Although none of the commissioners argued forcefully for completing the $200-million project, sources close to the advisory commission said they anticipated two or three votes in favor.

A negative vote wouldn’t automatically kill the 5,000-student school, which is desperately needed to relieve overcrowding in the densely populated central city area.

Board of Education President Genethia Hayes said Tuesday afternoon that the board would still consider the option of completing the school, no matter what the commission decides.

“Nothing [is] implied or stated that we have to follow the recommendation of the commission,” Hayes said. “Nothing is going to keep us from having to make the tough decision.”

The board appointed the commission in August to examine the safety issues that have swirled around the project. It was disclosed early this year that district officials began construction without adequately assessing environmental hazards.

New testing conducted this spring concluded that the site cannot be cleaned up because the methane and chemicals are being created by crude oil deep beneath the surface. The board has partially stopped construction pending its decision on whether to go ahead with or abandon the project.

The commission is scheduled to present its conclusion to the board Thursday and follow that with a formal report next week.

Hayes would not predict how soon the board would make its decision. However, an agreement allowing scaled-back work on the project will expire Nov. 23.

After hearing testimony from numerous safety experts, the commissioners all agreed that Belmont could be made safe by developing barriers and underground collection systems to vent hazardous gases into the atmosphere.

Because of widely varying cost estimates, however, they found it impossible to make a recommendation simply for financial reasons.

“The cost to go ahead and the cost to abandon are so close, that it’s a wash,” said Commissioner Maribel Marin, a Los Angeles City Board of Public Works commissioner.

The commission heard testimony last week from the district’s environmental consultant that the safety measures could cost from $16 million to $60 million.

Other experts said the cost could be less.

More important, the commissioners said, was the potential for lawsuits filed years from now by people who are sick or dying and think their condition was caused by Belmont.

“There are going to be a multiplicity of lawsuits,” said former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, the commission’s nonvoting executive director. “Twenty years from now, people who are ill or dying will file toxic tort lawsuits, absolutely guaranteed.”

Nor did the commissioners find compelling issue in the time required to build a new school to replace Belmont.

Because of a lengthy process that would be required to obtain state approval of the Belmont site, commissioners said they believe that it could not open for four to five more years.

Finding and building on a new site would take about as long, they are estimating.

On Tuesday, Reiner pressed for a quicker alternative.

Reiner said the district administration could move to a commercial building either in the Mid-Wilshire district or downtown, leaving the current headquarters a few blocks northeast of the construction site available for a high school. Part of the district headquarters still occupies a former high school building on the site.

“Reconverting back to a high school makes all the sense in the world,” Reiner said. “This facility can be turned into a high school in a relatively short period.”

Reiner said the job could be done in two years with 80% of the cost reimbursed by the state.

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Times education writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.