2-YEAR BATTLE OVER SIDEWALK GOES ON.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY

This is National Public Works Week. Do you know where your sidewalk repairman or pothole filler is?

Margie Hawkins doesn't - and she's been looking for two years.

The principal of Bassett Street Elementary School has been trying unsuccessfully to get the Los Angeles Public Works Department to repair the buckling sidewalk fronting the Van Nuys campus.

I stopped by Wednesday morning to take a look. Buckling doesn't even begin to describe the problem. Overgrown tree roots have created more twists and turns, lifts and drops than Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland.

``My poor mothers pushing their strollers, my students and neighbors have a difficult time walking over it safely,'' Hawkins said. ``It's a major safety hazard for my community.''

Her community - the 1,300 kids living in this low-income neighborhood who walk and ride their bikes along that sidewalk every day.

At night, it's worse, says neighbor Anita Alexander. ``At least during the day you can see the hazards when you're walking, but at night it's dark and really dangerous.

``There are kids riding their bikes and families taking walks on hot summer nights. They can't see the hazards in the dark. People trip and fall.''

Hawkins thought her problems were over last year when she learned her school was one of 15 in the city adopted by the Department of Public Works - one from each City Council district. Bassett Street School was chosen from Councilman Tony Cardenas' 6th District.

The idea is to match schools with public and private businesses and agencies that can provide role models and mentors for the kids, said Eiko Moriyama, interim director of the Los Angeles Unified School District partnership program.

Surely, public works officials wouldn't allow the kids in their newly adopted school to have to walk through a cement minefield, would they?

``I thought the problem had been addressed by now,'' said Richard Lee, who heads the Adopt-A-School program for public works.

``I talked to our Bureau of Street Services, which fixes the streets, but I didn't know the project wasn't completed yet. It's National Public Works Week. I'll follow up again.''

Not only isn't it completed, Richard. It hasn't even begun - and here's why.

``The four trees creating the problem are actually on school property, not the city's,'' said Linda Levitan, a field deputy for Cardenas.

``We can't replace the sidewalk until something is done by the school district to address the tree-root problem. But we're going to get on it because the safety of those kids is extremely important.

``I didn't realize it hadn't been taken care of already,'' Levitan said.

Nobody, it seems, was aware the problem hadn't been resolved. Maybe they would have if they had returned any of Hawkins' phone calls.

Late Wednesday, word came from the school district that its facilities department was going to bid out the job of fixing the tree problem soon.

``We'll coordinate the project with the Department of Public Works,'' said district spokeswoman Ellen Morgan.

That's all Principal Hawkins has been asking - for two years.

Dennis McCarthy, [phone]

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Silvia Medina walks over a cracked, uplifted sidewalk in front of Bassett Street Elementary School in Van Nuys. The school principal has been asking the city to fix the unsafe sidewalks for the past two years.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer