Romer Backs Team to Finish Belmont

A construction team led by a Latino educational advocacy group should finish the environmentally troubled Belmont Learning Complex, Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer recommended Thursday to the school board members.

Alliance for a Better Community, a coalition of Latino activists and businesspeople, assembled the best development team and presented the best plan to finish the high school and solve environmental problems at the 35-acre downtown site, Romer said.

The president of the team is Ed Avila, the former head of the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency and a politically connected proponent of finishing the Belmont campus.

The alliance was recommended over Komex H20, the only other finalist for a job that is expected to cost $68 million to $88 million. A third bidder, Eastridge Cos., was disqualified because of an alleged conflict of interest.

“Overcrowding is the greatest barrier to increasing student performance,” said Romer who said the alliance stood the best chance of completing the project quickly, safely and within the budget. “If we can move forward on Belmont, that will be just one giant step to relieving this overcrowding problem.”

The Los Angeles Board of Education plans to vote on Romer’s recommendation next month.

The Belmont campus, part of which sits on an old oil field, would serve as many as 4,600 students who are now bused to other schools around the city. After $154 million had been spent, construction was halted in 1999 when methane gas and gasoline byproducts were discovered underneath the school. Plans now call for inserting an underground barrier and venting the gas.

Romer said the alliance’s political and grass-roots connections were a “plus” that might help the group communicate better with parents. But Romer said he based his decision on the findings of an expert advisory panel.

“The ABC team, led by Matt Construction, can provide strong, capable, experienced project management for this complicated project,” the panel’s evaluation stated. Matt Construction, which would manage the Belmont project for the alliance, is one of the oldest and biggest firms in Southern California.

Matt built the Crystal Cathedral, the Bonaventure Hotel, the United California Bank building and several schools.

The alliance group began as an informal network to improve education for Latino youths. Its president, Avila, said the Belmont controversy inspired its formal incorporation 18 months ago.

“We thought Belmont was such an important issue to the Latino community that we became a legal entity and hired a staff,” Avila said. The group was worried that the district might sell the Belmont property and scrap plans for a school there.

The alliance’s board of directors includes leaders from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Central American Resource Center and the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, as well as several prominent Latino businesspeople.

School board member Jose Huisar said he was impressed that “ABC represents some Latino leaders that have been working on this issue for a long time and are in tune with the population of students and parents there.”

Tim Buresh, spokesman for the expert review panel, said that Komex’s team, of Westminster, seemed too large and inflexible compared to the alliance’s. Komex CEO Anthony Brown said Thursday that he had not heard about Romer’s recommendation and complained that he and his partners were out of the loop.