L.A. Board Votes to Finish Troubled Belmont Project

Six years and $175 million since construction began on the Belmont Learning Center, the Los Angeles Board of Education narrowly voted Thursday to put another $111 million into completing the troubled high school, which sits above an old oil field and a recently discovered earthquake fault.

The 4-3 vote called for demolishing two school buildings directly above the fault line. Four other partly built structures would be kept and finished, two new ones would be added elsewhere on the property and a community park would be created.

The project already is the most expensive high school in state history. Construction began in 1997, but was halted three years later amid worries about underground gases from former oil wells. It was stalled again last year by seismic concerns.

Current district figures suggest the $286-million total projected cost would have been enough to build two other high schools and a middle school.

But supporters of the new plan say it is the best way to address the complicated environmental and earthquake issues facing the 35-acre property and the most efficient way to ease school crowding in neighborhoods near downtown. The reconfigured high school complex would serve 2,600 students, about 1,900 fewer than originally envisioned.

An environmental impact report still must be completed. But Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer said the high school would be completed within four years. “This is over the hump. This is going to happen,” he said.

In the community Thursday, reaction was divided between those who badly want a new school to replace the existing Belmont High School nearby and others who remain suspicious of the district’s promises of safety.

In front of the existing Belmont High, which is slated to become a middle school, students gathered around a depiction of a modern, cream-colored school building next to a spacious green park with a pond. They praised the design, saying it was “cool,” “bomb” and “tight.”

“It’s like a hotel. How long is it going to take?” asked Cindy Flores, 15. When she found out, she rolled her eyes. “We won’t even get to go to that school. Go ahead and build it, but it won’t help me.”

Virginia Leyva, the mother of a Belmont freshman, said that a new campus would help relieve crowding, but that she remains worried about the earthquake fault. “It’s dangerous because it is so close to the kids,” she said.

Earlier this year, after disclosure of the fault line, Romer had suggested that all six of the unfinished buildings be sold or used for purposes other than a school. A smaller school should be built on bedrock at another portion of the property just west of the Harbor Freeway, he said at the time.

This week, he reversed his position and backed a proposal by board member Jose Huizar and supported by other public officials, including Mayor James K. Hahn, Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles).

Under that proposal, called the “Vista Hermosa” or Beautiful View after the proposed hilltop park, two unfinished buildings -- one for classrooms and one for administration -- would be razed. They represent about a third of the original building plan. The other four existing buildings would be completed. They meet state safety rules, officials said, because they are more than 50 feet from the fault. As previously planned, underground gases would be sealed off and vented.

A student union building, with an auditorium, cafeteria and library, would be added, and a space once planned for retail stores would be made into a parents center. Another structure, for a 500-seat magnet-like academy, also would be constructed, for a total of 2,600 student seats.

Between 10 and 12 acres at the northern part of the property would be reserved for parkland with a fishing pond. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy would develop and administer the park and pay a nominal rent.

Money for the construction would come mainly from districtwide developer fees. The $20 million for the academy portion might be paid with bond money, officials said.

But the environmental and cost issues that long have divided the school board emerged again Thursday. Board members Marlene Canter, Genethia Hudley-Hayes, Mike Lansing and Huizar voted for the project. Julie Korenstein, David Tokofsky and board President Caprice Young voted against it.

Young, who lost a bid for reelection in March and will leave office July 1, said she was reluctant to approve something over which she will have no oversight.

“I’m not going to be here and I’m worried that people will be swept up in the vision of what is going to be a beautiful school and park, and not pay attention to making it safe,” she said. “A thousand things could go wrong. I mean, this is Belmont, after all.”

Tokofsky said he was not convinced that Huizar’s option is the best way to go. “The two biggest concerns, safety and price, are still unanswered,” he said. In addition, Tokofsky said he feared the extra money for Belmont would take funds from new schools elsewhere in the district.Huizar said the gas and seismic problems can be solved. “We are looking at probably the most studied property in Los Angeles, possibly the state,” he said. “We know what’s there. We know the unanswered questions out there.”

The Huizar concept, Romer said, “is better than any of the other options. It allows us not to force all of the facility into one rectangular structure.... It makes it into a campus.”Hector Villagra, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the decision to proceed was a victory for the community.

“It took too long, but they finally did the right thing,” he said. “They are providing seats as quickly and as cost-effectively and as safely as possible, and ... the community is getting a stunningly beautiful park out of it.”

He said the district had been appropriately cautious in studying the earthquake fault, and in the end had realized that “there is no reason not to put students on that site, given the overcrowding in that neighborhood.”

The Belmont Learning Center was one of four high schools planned for the central Los Angeles area. Two are under construction. The school board abandoned Belmont in January 2000 amid concerns about the extent of methane and hydrogen sulfide vapors in the ground.

The project then sat idle, a prominent eyesore partly swathed in plastic and plywood, as other new downtown landmarks, such as the Disney Concert Hall and Our Lady of the Angels Roman Catholic Cathedral, progressed. Its looming presence over the Harbor Freeway was a continuing embarrassment to the district.

Romer, a former Colorado governor, became Los Angeles schools chief three years ago and made the completion of Belmont a prime goal. In March 2002, he persuaded the board to finish the school with what was expected to be an $80-million plan for a system to seal off and vent the underground gases.

But as exploration was going forward, engineers discovered the small fault line in the Elysian Park seismic system. The researchers could not determine whether the fault is active. State law forbids the construction of a public school within 50 feet of an active fault, and district officials decided to act on the conservative assumption that the fault could be active.

Several prominent geologists argued that the district had panicked and pointed out that the entire Los Angeles Basin is crisscrossed by such faults, yet few sites are actually at risk of ground-level ruptures that can cause extensive damage.

The project also has had a tortured legal history, with lawsuits between the school district and its previous developer and law firm. In September 1999, the district’s inspector general, Don Mullinax, concluded that nine senior district officials, in addition to the law firm and the developer, were to blame for allowing construction without adequate environmental assessment.

Four employees left the district or retired, and five were placed on paid administrative leave for more than a year.

Three months ago, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley concluded a two-year investigation of possible violations of environmental laws, but said he would not file charges. Cooley, however, sharply criticizing decisions about Belmont’s planning and construction.

On Thursday, David Lugo, a community activist who advocated the school, said he is opposed to the park concept.

“I think the park is dangerous because we have a lot of gangbangers and drug dealers,” he said, who would mingle with students and cause problems.

But Joe Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, praised the decision to include a park as “precedent-setting.”

“It is about time that we start to introduce nature into the urban area,” he said. “And to do it adjacent to a school just means that it is going to be two of the best things that governments do: schools and parks.”