Let Middle School Be Built

It’s the grown-up version of a lunchtime food fight, but in place of milk cartons and squished bananas, Los Angeles Unified School District bureaucrats and L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency officials hurl threats of lawsuits and tangled streamers of red tape.

The battle’s been brewing at least since 2000, when the district proposed building a new middle school for 1,620 students to relieve three overcrowded campuses. Madison Middle School, a North Hollywood campus built for 1,500 students in 1955, holds 2,438. At Sun Valley and Walter Reed middle schools, 5,196 children squeeze into desks so close together there’s barely room for them to drop their backpacks on the floor.

Naturally, in 2000 these students and their parents were all for the change. Naturally (given this city’s inertia), three years later the community is still waiting for a new campus near Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards.

The stalemate ostensibly centers on which part of a larger 30-acre redevelopment plot the east Valley school should occupy. But the site fight is really a childish power struggle. For years, the CRA has eyed this faded corner of North Hollywood without managing to stimulate construction of the office buildings and stores it believes will revive the area. Meanwhile, the LAUSD’s facilities management team is itching to bring in the cranes and hard hats.

District officials want to build in the middle of the plot, not at a corner as the redevelopment agency envisions. The central location would give the school more space, cut $4 million in costs, preserve the neighborhood’s grocery store and put the school next to a recreation center, allowing for joint use.

The agency objects because it wants an unbroken tract for its project -- even though the redevelopers have no firm plans. This year, the city said it might sue if the school-raising proceeded. Fortunately -- with pressure from the mayor’s office and City Council member Wendy Greuel -- the district and agency have been drafting a cease-fire that would let work on the school begin. This agreement could serve as a template for 40 other schools planned in or near redevelopment agency projects.

At its meeting this week, the agency can show a true commitment to the city’s future by dropping its preposterous threat to sue to block the construction of a desperately needed school.