Dodgers Rebuff District on School at Stadium

The Los Angeles Dodgers told school officials Friday that a proposal to build a high school on a portion of the team’s stadium parking lot in Elysian Park would be impractical.

“The district’s suggestion to build a 2,000-person high school . . . is fraught with extraordinary hurdles,” Dodger President and Chief Operating Officer Bob Graziano said in a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Graziano said a high school at the main entrance of Dodger Stadium would present hazards to residents, fans and students.

“In addition, there are concerns over traffic, construction and parking needs, freeway access, environmental issues and scheduling conflicts,” Graziano said.

A spokesman for the Dodgers declined to comment on the letter, a copy of which The Times obtained.

District Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller said the Dodgers’ reluctance does not surprise him and will not dissuade him from pursuing the concept.

The parking lot “appears to be an ideal site for a high school given the extraordinary need for high school space in Los Angeles,” Miller said. “It’s a site that must be considered.”

Miller proposed a 16-acre Dodger property earlier this month as one of eight sites he had identified as potential alternatives for accommodating students who would have attended the Belmont Learning Complex, which the district has decided not to complete.

Miller has also run into opposition to another of the sites on his list--the Evans Community Adult School just west of downtown. Thousands of immigrant students who attend Evans to learn English have rallied at the Board of Education to ask that their school be left alone.

But Miller indicated that opposition from property owners or students cannot disqualify any site.

“Once again we find that though all businesses and all constituencies are generally in favor of education, when it comes down to specific locations and specific policies, change and moving forward always elicits objections and obstacles,” Miller said. “Our job is to overcome them.”

Among the other sites Miller has proposed are the former Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, the school district’s downtown headquarters, the United Parcel Service facility on the edge of downtown and the offices of Eller Media near Washington Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.

In all, the eight sites would provide room for 12,000 seats, Miller said. He has promised to have other sites that would bring the total to 15,000 seats when he presents the school board with a final proposal on Tuesday.

He said Friday that one site, the Midway Ford dealership, would be dropped from the list because of environmental problems.