School building project delayed in Wilmington

It’s not unusual for a new school to be opposed by those whose homes, businesses, jobs or favorite market would be bulldozed in the process.

What’s unusual is for them to stop an ongoing school project in its tracks, and that’s what happened Tuesday, when a sharply divided Los Angeles school board put a badly needed 1,278-seat Wilmington campus on hold.

The project is already two years and $4.3 million along -- and had once enjoyed unanimous board support at the Los Angeles Unified School District. But it fell before the buzz saw of a campaign promise by Richard Vladovic, who joined the board in July, representing the Watts-to-harbor area district. While campaigning in Wilmington, he’d pledged to take on the planned location for the kindergarten-through-eighth grade school.

“The vision of this community has not been heard to the extent it should have,” Vladovic told his board colleagues.

The project would erase a handful of homes along with a supermarket, a bank, a restaurant and several other businesses. They’re part of a plain but useful shopping strip fronted by a treeless asphalt lot at the corner of North Avalon Boulevard and East M Street. Project opponents, along with Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn, mobilized by the dozens to request a renewed search for alternate sites.

“The community around this center is the type we try to build in Los Angeles,” Hahn said in an interview, “a sustainable community where people can walk to the bank and grocery stores and restaurants.” Such conveniences are particularly welcome in an underserved minority community where many residents lack cars.

The school would take three overcrowded elementary schools off a year-round schedule and return them to a traditional September-through-June calendar.

“The children and families to be served by this aren’t asking for the project to be canceled,” said Mike Lansing, Vladovic’s predecessor. Lansing chaired the board’s facilities committee during most of his eight years in office and said his staff devoted hundreds of hours to selecting the best location for the campus.

“You need community leaders and elected officials to represent the voiceless majority,” Lansing said, “especially in a community like Wilmington, with its highly immigrant and transient population.”

The largest displaced business would be the refurbished Northgate Market, where a table is set up to gather signatures behind a sign that implores: “Save Our Shopping Center!” The effort snared more than 3,000 in one weekend, said Northgate spokesman Michael Stockstill.

“This is the only market that has done anything for schools without us asking first,” said Carlos Prinzen, a community activist and volunteer at nearby Banning High School, who wants to see the new school built elsewhere.

Also demolished would be Birrieria Tepechi, where Rigoberto Castaneda showcases his grandfather’s recipe for birria, or goat. He lives in a house behind the 21-year-old restaurant, which employs his wife, two sons, two siblings and a niece.

And Jose R. Meza would lose the five-bedroom “dream house” that he chose to build in the town where he started off as a paint wholesaler -- after arriving alone as a penniless 14-year-old immigrant from Ixtlan Nayarit in Mexico.

Such tales of loss have become familiar -- the school district has finished 67 new schools in a 140-school, $20-billion construction and modernization program. Officials acknowledge that some losses can’t be accounted for by the legally required compensation.

But there’s also a price to pay for delay: New building codes kick in Dec. 31, which would add an estimated $250,000 in costs, said district regional development manager Roderick Hamilton. And construction prices are rising at 1% to 2% a month. Finding and fully evaluating another site is typically a two-year process, escalating brick-and-mortar costs by as much as $10 million and writing off much of $4.3 million invested to date. Available state construction funds -- as much as $50 million -- could be at risk.

Tuesday’s board vote left some fretting over whether board members would now revisit old decisions, letting political prerogatives impede the nation’s largest school construction program.

“As fragmented as the school board was on other issues, they were rock solid in support of construction,” said former district facilities chief James McConnell, who now works for a private construction management firm. “All of the board members felt it was in the best interest of their constituency to get these schools built, and we had a historic opportunity to do that.”

In industrial Wilmington, the district is limited because many sites are more expensive or would result in a greater loss of homes. Or else they are too toxic, too close to pipelines or too far from students.

District staff did not come forward to express this contrasting view, out of deference to Vladovic, said Guy Mehula, the district’s head of construction.

But other board members drew them out on the dollar risks, which momentarily angered Vladovic.

“To put a price on the community, I’m disgusted with that,” he shouted at staff before regaining his composure.

Postponing this project also runs another risk given a $2-billion construction deficit: It’s possible that there won’t be any money left. Officials already have terminated about 20 once-planned schools.

Vladovic insisted he would not let that happen in Wilmington.

The board’s vote broke down along old and new; the longer-serving board members voted against Vladovic’s motion. The newer board members -- part of a majority known for its alliance with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that includes Tamar Galatzan, Monica Garcia and Yolie Flores Aguilar -- sided with Vladovic.

Vladovic made one concession, agreeing to a temporary halt rather than an indefinite one, while other options are considered.

Project supporter Jo Ann Wysocki, a Wilmington resident since 1942, was discouraged by the board’s vote. Her home is part of a different tract that had been considered and dropped early on because of community opposition.

“This site is a result of discussions at community meetings,” said Wysocki, a retired teacher. “This has been going on for three years.”

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howard.blume@latimes.com