Panel Votes 4-3 for Completion of Belmont Project

The commission weighing the fate of the Belmont Learning Complex narrowly recommended completion of the environmentally plagued project Wednesday, bringing a muddled conclusion to two months of fact-finding and deliberations.

The 4-3 vote, which came after one commissioner announced he had had an eleventh-hour change of mind, throws the decision on the half-completed high school back to the Board of Education without the “clear and unambiguous” recommendation promised by the commission’s executive director, former Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner. Reiner, a nonvoting member of the panel, said after the vote that he sided with the minority of the commission, calling Belmont a “false promise.”

The split recommendation left unclear what course the school board, which has been deeply divided over Belmont, is likely to choose. Board members who have not staked out a firm position expressed disappointment with the commission’s result.

“The 4-to-3 vote wasn’t the resounding cry one way or the other on this project I was hoping for,” Mike Lansing said. “With all these experts, we had hoped for a major consensus. But then, I guess that goes with the territory on this project.”

The recommendation will be presented to the board at 10 a.m. today in a committee of the whole meeting with oral reports from the majority and minority, Reiner said.

After the commission vote, school board President Genethia Hayes said she expects the board to make a final decision in about two weeks.

“We have to act decisively. The parents, the students deserve an answer. This thing has been out too long now.

“In some people’s minds [the vote] means the community has been vindicated and all this was a tempest in a teapot. I don’t know that it means that to me,” she said.

The question of whether to complete the campus being built on an abandoned oil field west of downtown has been the most heated issue facing the school district all year. Opponents argue that protecting students against explosive methane, toxic hydrogen sulfide and other gases rising from the oil field may be impossible and at minimum will add millions to the cost of the school, already the most expensive in American history.

But supporters of the project say the environmental problems are solvable and that finishing Belmont is the only way to resolve massive overcrowding in existing downtown area schools.

Before the commission voted, that position was forcefully expressed by some 200 area students who marched to the commission meeting accompanied by history teacher Sal Castro, who led the Chicano walkouts of the late 1960s.

“We would like to know what is the difference between a campus that has methane [and] . . . the cathedral across the street . . . our homes across the street . . . all the businesses in our neighborhood,” said senior class President Anna Fernandez.

“We will take the risk.”

Commissioners said they agreed unanimously that the school district lacks the management ability to be trusted with monitoring and maintaining safety equipment that would need to run for 50 to 75 years to keep the school safe. They also agreed that given the uncertainties about costs, finishing the school and scrapping it could be equally expensive.

But the ultimate decision of whether to go ahead with the building divided the commissioners sharply along the lines of their professional experience:

Three members whose backgrounds are primarily environmental opposed going ahead under any conditions. Three from government service and labor pressed for the $200-million project to be finished.

The swing vote was cast by commissioner Dr. Ira Monosson, a former medical officer for the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, who had an 11th-hour change of heart.

Monosson had said Tuesday that he was leaning against the project because he had no confidence in the Los Angeles Unified School District to monitor and maintain safety equipment for the life of the school.

As the deliberations began Wednesday, Monosson said he had pondered the question overnight and, after reviewing all the scientific reports presented to the commission, had changed his mind.

Safety measures, including collection pipes and blowers to vent hazardous gases to the atmosphere, could be maintained adequately by an outside contractor, Monosson said.

“I think the kids in the inner city deserve the same excellence as the kids in Beverly Hills”--uncrowded schools with modern facilities--he added during a break.

In their final deliberations, the commissioners spoke almost as emotionally as the students had.

“In my mind, you shouldn’t be putting students, no matter how old or how young, on that type of site,” said commissioner Maribel Marin, a member of the Los Angeles Department of Public Works.

Also taking the negative view was David S. Beckman, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“My logic and my judgment tell me we need to stop the bleeding,” Beckman said. “We need to stop spending good money after bad, and we need to stop this project.”

Commissioner Craig A. Perkins, director of environmental and public works management for the city of Santa Monica, also voted against continuing construction of the school.

But the commission’s chairman, Cruz Reynoso, a former state Supreme Court justice, and commissioner Charles Calderon, a former state senator, argued in favor of the project, citing the desperate need for the school.

“Like Belmont, there are 10 other sites that are on the periphery of this oil field,” said Calderon. If steps are taken to handle the environmental hazards, “I don’t think we would be placing students at risk. I think we would be placing them in the safest school in that area.”

Saying that the issues over Belmont have been motivated by politics, commissioner Janett Humphries, president of the Los Angeles City and County School Employee International Union/Local 99, said she puts her faith in science.

“When I see a nuclear submarine on television or when I see laser surgery performed, I am encouraged by the fact that science over the last 100 years has served mankind very well,” Humphries said.

Just before the vote, Reynoso listed five conditions for completion of the project, including setting aside funds for permanent monitoring of the equipment and state legislation that would establish an outside regulatory system to make sure that the monitoring is done.

Monosson said he wanted another condition requiring the appointment of an outside contractor to be responsible for the equipment.

But after a conversation between Reiner and Reynoso, the commissioners agreed to adopt a simple recommendation with no conditions. Reynoso said Reiner had persuaded him that it would be better to include a discussion of conditions in a report to be completed next week.

Afterward, Reiner said the removal of the conditions in the motion had made the recommendation “unambiguous” as he had promised, though not unanimous.

Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Burbank), who has said Belmont should not be completed, disputed Reiner’s assessment.

“My reaction is that this decision is really ambiguous,” he said.

School board members who had previously taken strong positions on Belmont quickly reiterated their stands after the commission vote.

“I’m disappointed. It was the wrong decision,” said school board member Julie Korenstein. “There was a terrible mistake made by going forward with a piece of land that should not have had a school built on it. You can never take a chance with human lives.”

A spokesman for board member Victoria Castro praised the recommendation. “The technology exists to make it safe--the very same technology being used right now at the city library,” said Gabriel Monares. “Beyond that, all the Belmont High School kids want it.”

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Times education writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.