Council Belatedly Enters Belmont Debate

Joining the debate months after nearly everyone else thought it was over, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday called on school district officials to reconsider their controversial decision to abandon the troubled Belmont Learning Complex.

Led by Councilman Mike Hernandez, the council voted 12 to 1 to urge the Los Angeles Board of Education to reanalyze the possibility of mitigating the environmental problems at the half-built, $200-million school near downtown Los Angeles.

Under the measure approved Friday, city funding and permits related to Belmont or any alternative school sites will be withheld unless the school board complies with the council’s request.

“The city of Los Angeles wants a fair analysis of the Belmont site, as well as any other potential site to create additional seats for our students,” Hernandez said after the vote. “The school district had taken a vote to eliminate considering Belmont. We want them to reopen that analysis. We need schools for our kids.”

District officials denounced the council decision, saying that the vote is the direct result of the L.A. Unified malpractice lawsuit against its real estate attorneys, O’Melveny & Myers. The law firm hired a well-connected political consulting group to try to convince nervous politicians to proceed with building the school on the existing site.

Los Angeles Unified School District insiders argue that in lobbying council members to open Belmont, O’Melveny & Myers was trying to diminish its potential liability, which some estimate could soar into the tens of millions of dollars.

“The City Council has cast a vote that can hurt the child of every parent in Los Angeles,” said a senior district official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Has any city government, anywhere in the U.S. ever said it would hurt its own public schools to aid a powerful vested interest?”

Members of the council were visited earlier this week by a representative from consultants Rose & Kindle and two mothers who favor using the Belmont complex as a school.

Officials note, however, that the effort to revive Belmont predates Rose & Kindle’s involvement. In addition to Hernandez, those who have been pushing for the complex include county Supervisor Gloria Molina, Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

“The fight to build Belmont is being led by the community and its leadership,” said attorney Ralph J. Shapira, a spokesman for O’Melveny & Myers. He said his firm and Rose & Kindle “have worked with the community to present the facts to show that Belmont can be completed safely.”

After the council’s vote, district officials launched an internal analysis to determine the effects of the lawmakers’ resolution.

Other officials said that although they were aware the City Council motion had been introduced, they hadn’t taken it seriously and fully expected that it would fail to win approval.

But after a lengthy debate Friday, only Councilman Joel Wachs voted against the measure. Complaining about the lobbying effort, he urged his colleagues to stay out of the controversy.

“God knows we’ve got enough with Rampart right now,” Wachs said.

But Councilman Nick Pacheco and others argued that the complex could be salvaged for far less than the $60 million estimated by school district officials.

“I’m cynical,” Pacheco said. “I think they purposely inflated the $60 million in mitigation because it served their interests. . . . They are not looking at the facts. Hopefully they will see a new day with more information.”

Councilwoman Laura Chick told her colleagues that they should not allow “turf wars” to get in the way of their decision to join the debate.

“There is a question over whether we have jurisdiction over this matter,” Chick said. “I have come to the following conclusion. These are our . . . boundaries. We share constituents with the school district. And this is about our children.”

The school board voted 5 to 2 in January to abandon the 5,000-student school that the district was building atop an old oil field. Board members Victoria Castro, long Belmont’s strongest supporter, and Mike Lansing dissented.

Through a staff member, Lansing expressed support for the council’s vote.

“We hope the City Council will work with the school district to open a dialogue on the site,” said Paul Escala, who serves as a deputy to Lansing.

Just Thursday, Howard Miller, the chief operating officer for the school district, jubilantly announced that the district had located enough alternative land in Los Angeles to establish five new campuses to replace the overcrowded and aging Belmont High School.

Within two weeks, district officials expect to have identified several more potential school sites elsewhere in the district that could provide seats for 8,000 other students. Miller said he plans to present the list of sites to the Board of Education later this month.

“I think the point is to reevaluate it . . . with a different set of lenses,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas.