Board Kills Belmont Project

* Re “School Board Kills Troubled Belmont Project,” Jan. 26: I want to congratulate the Los Angeles Unified School District for its decision to terminate all further activity regarding the current location of the Belmont Learning Complex. As painful as it is to have already committed $170 million to the project, it is better to accept our losses and not throw good money after bad, given the environmental problems with the site. Losing $170 million is nothing compared to the possibility of the loss of health or life among the children and school employees who would have been exposed to hazardous conditions for extended periods.

Also, the district has demonstrated that politics has no place in making decisions that have such dramatic consequences. For whatever tax dollars I contributed to the building of the Belmont Learning Complex at its current location, I’d rather pay that than the health- and death-related damages I, as a taxpayer, would be asked to pay, because of a political decision.

ARLENE BATTISHILL

Los Angeles

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* The vote (5-2) by the LAUSD board to abandon the Belmont Learning Complex is outrageous. The $170 million squandered by the board could have been put to much better use by other school districts in the state. The LAUSD board offers no incentive for anyone to vote for statewide school construction bonds or for the pending proposition to lower the voting requirement from two-thirds to 50% plus one vote for school bonds.

These five members should be recalled, as should those who originally voted for this project without having all of the needed information to move forward. LAUSD clearly needs to be dismantled into independent, smaller, more manageable districts.

RON WEINERT

Ventura

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* Kudos to LAUSD Supt. Ramon C. Cortines and Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller! Their proposed solution to the Belmont Learning Complex debacle is simply brilliant (Jan. 21). It’s only just that the school board and administration should be forced to live with the daily reminder of the folly that led to proposing the Belmont site as a healthy learning environment for our children and to recoup some of the money already invested in the site. The refurbishing of the current administrative offices at 450 N. Grand Ave. for use by arts and humanities students would be an equally brilliant move.

CHRISTOPHER MINNES

Los Angeles