Parents and Students Want Belmont High

I agree with the solution offered by Frank del Olmo (“Leave Those Bad Decisions Behind, and Build Belmont,” Commentary, Oct. 28). Is it really the environment that poses a threat to the school or the political barrage it faces? How long has that rundown neighborhood, where the construction sits unfinished, waited for a solution to the overcrowding in nearby schools? Now that the construction has begun--and was later halted due to political insecurities--it must continue for the sake of the students.

If the politicians really want to get involved in the issues of the people who live in rundown neighborhoods trying hard to get their children a good education, then why don’t they do something about the crime, instead, or clean up the community, or do something that will benefit all of us? If the overwhelming support of the people goes to the completion of the school, then that’s the way it should be.

Hugo Romaldo

Los Angeles

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In your Oct. 28 editorial, “School District Gets Smart,” you use your old refrain, “the botched and unfinished Belmont Learning Complex.” When are you going to admit that it was politics that killed Belmont? If it was, as you claim, a health issue, then why has nothing ever been said in your articles about the current Belmont site, which is on the same defunct oil field and which contains the same toxic chemicals? How can you profess to care so much about the health of prospective students on a new site and care nothing about the health of current students on the old site?

Neil Barembaum

Burbank