BELMONT MAY BE DROPPED; PANEL EXPECTED TO VOTE TODAY ON COMPLEX'S FATE.

Byline: Greg Gittrich Staff Writer

The commission weighing the fate of the environmentally plagued Belmont Learning Center is leaning toward recommending that the unfinished campus be abandoned, the Daily News learned Tuesday.

The Belmont Commission, which finishes its two-month review today, also is expected to recommend the school district convert its downtown administrative headquarters into a high school.

The commission's two environmental experts, Craig Perkins and David Beckman, as well as city Public Works Commissioner Maribel Marin, will vote to abandon Belmont and build a new campus nearby, according to sources.

Former state Sen. Charles Calderon and Janet Humphries, president of the Service Employees International Union, are expected to vote in favor of completing the school, sources said. The views of former state Supreme Court justice Cruz Reynoso and Dr. Ira Monosson are unknown.

All of the commissioners declined to comment on the record. Most of them, however, didn't shy away from making their opinions clear during six hours of public deliberation Tuesday.

A key revelation is that the school district will have to pay about $300 million to complete Belmont or scrap the project and build a new school nearby, commissioners said.

``The action that allows the district to control its destination is the direction of abandoning and going elsewhere,'' said Perkins, director of Environmental and Public Works Management in Santa Monica.

``You choose a clean site. You choose a site that you know is safe,'' he said, and avoid ``a lifetime of unknown risk.''

``I have to assume we can find clean and safe sites for schools,'' Perkins said, with vocal support from Beckman, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Fund.

Belmont would be the country's costliest high school if completed - more than three times what the district said was the maximum price. Designed to feature classrooms, retail space and recreational facilities, it sits atop an oil field seeping explosive, poisonous gas.

The Belmont Commission was formed by the school board in August to determine whether the school could be opened safely without spending an excessive amount of money to remedy toxic and gas problems.

The commission revealed Tuesday that a new school could be built in the same area on a clean site for about the same price and in the same amount of time that it would take to finish Belmont. Furthermore, the commission concluded that neither Belmont nor a completely new campus would be able to open for four to five years.

For nearly two decades, the low-income community around Belmont has been promised a new school to relieve overcrowding on local campuses and eliminate the busing of students to the San Fernando Valley.

Former District Attorney Ira Reiner, the commission's chief executive officer and legal counsel, said construction could not proceed until state toxic officials approve a technical fix for the gas problems at the site.

Reiner, who serves in an advisory capacity and will not vote today, said the safety delays and potential environmental lawsuits could hold up Belmont's opening for as long as seven years.

``That is a huge expense that can't be qualified at this point but has to be factored in as a certainty, not a possibility,'' Reiner said.

Measuring his words, Calderon had previously noted environmental consultants and state officials believe Belmont could be made safe with an extensive gas mitigation system in place. Costs for such a technical fix could approach $60 million, officials said.

Calderon argued all of the costs are ``enormous'' and get ``sort of meaningless.'' The former politician said he has an unrelated legal obligation today, and it was unclear if he would be present when the commission votes at 2 p.m.

The panel's medical expert, Monosson, said he doesn't believe the school district would be able to safely operate the required mitigation system over the expected life of the facility.

``The district is in a state of chaos, and I don't think it would be safe or wise to rely on them,'' said Monosson, a former public health officer with the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

Convert district headquarters

Regardless of the recommendation, Reiner said the district should convert its administrative headquarters back into a high school. The facility, at 450 N. Grand Street, could hold about 2,000 students in Belmont's attendance area and virtually eliminate the need to bus children, he said.

``It makes all the sense in the world,'' Reiner said.

Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, a member of the State Allocation Board, vowed to lobby the state to fund up to 80 percent of the renovation costs with modernization funds available in Proposition 1A.

Reiner said he discussed the modernization plan with the state architect and about a dozen other state officials. He added that the 1,500 administrators using the district's headquarters could be easily relocated to office space in mid-Wilshire or elsewhere downtown.

There appeared to be unanimous support on the commission for the plans.

In a related development, LAUSD officials were scheduled Tuesday to receive a comprehensive asset management study that identifies district headquarters as a potential school site and the historic downtown core as a possible administrative complex.

The report by Gensler, a Los Angeles architectural firm and three other companies, is intended to help LAUSD chart a new facilities strategy after its dismal efforts with Belmont and failure to build schools citywide, sources said.

Neither a Gensler official nor Mike DeLuca, the district's deputy director of real estate and asset management, would comment.

Consolidating district offices

Sources told the Daily News the study includes options for consolidating about 3,000 administrators from headquarters, a leased downtown high-rise and smaller offices into a leased or purchased facility of up to 700,000 square feet, possibly along Spring Street.

Board member David Tokofsky charged the plan was an effort by downtown interests to push ahead with efforts begun several years ago to create a vast government core downtown.

``This is just the same machinations as before,'' Tokofsky said. ``This a patrician fantasy of a downtown zone. The district could look to the San Fernando Valley, to the Wilshire area.''

Staff Writer Beth Barrett contributed to this story.