COSTLY DELAYS, LITIGATION LOOM IF BOARD FOLLOWS RECOMMENDATION.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

By approving completion of the Belmont Learning Center, a citizen's commission Wednesday could send Los Angeles Unified on a multiyear course of costly environmental tests, unknown delays and possible litigation.

``Basically this is a decision that tears apart the community for another six or seven years as costs escalate, a whole round of tests are done, consultants and attorneys are paid - and the kids may still not have a school,'' said state Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Glendale, who opposed building the high school on top of an old oil field in 1997.

Yet many Belmont students, teachers and community members said they were willing to pay the price after waiting nearly two decades for a new local high school. They said they hope it will put an end to busing their children to distant schools, many in the San Fernando Valley.

``It's better than nothing at all,'' said Ana Fernandez, senior class president at the old Belmont High School, where students complain of large classes, jammed hallways and poorly maintained bathrooms.

``We know they won't give us another school in five years,'' said Fernandez, among several hundred students who walked out of class to speak before the commission. ``Maybe they can give us this high school by then.''

Augustine Herrera, the principal assigned to the Belmont Learning Center, said many in the community are willing to risk the difficulties ahead rather than to give up on a school that is more than half completed and that stands as a symbol of educational progress for many.

``This has been a generational dream, and the community saw it about to go down the drain. They are very passionate about this.''

The recommendation to the school board, however, unleashes a series of problems.

Finding space

One of the most pressing is finding high school space in the short term for Belmont students who had expected to enter the new academy-style center in a year or so.

District and state officials have been working on interim plans, with the leading candidate being the conversion of LAUSD headquarters at 450 N. Grand into classrooms.

Jim Bush, assistant director of school facilities for the California Department of Education, said a conference call was held last month with Belmont Commission executive director Ira Reiner and state toxics officials to discuss using the site in the short term.

Bush said there is a series of problems because the former school complex is so old, it would require a battery of structural tests, as well as toxic, seismic and environmental reviews to meet building code and California Environmental Quality Act standards. State toxics officials said they also would want to test for possible lead paint and asbestos.

All of those evaluations could take nine months or more, while district officials acknowledge thatextensive renovations would have to be made to get the buildings ready for some 2,000 students, Bush said.

``They will have to go through the approval process, and that probably will set them back a couple of years. Kids will continue to be in overcrowded classrooms or bused until then.''

Changes promised

The district's new chief executive officer, Howard Miller, has promised a change in the way schools will be constructed in the future, and the district has just received a new facilities study by the architectural firm Gensler of Los Angeles that considers several options for new schools.

Board member Victoria Castro, whose district contains Belmont, said she's frustrated that there isn't a clearer interim plan. ``Using district headquarters for an interim school is a Band-Aid approach. There is no other contingency plan that I know of.''

While the district looks for classroom space, the commission's recommendation sets in motion a series of new tests at the 35-acre Belmont compound, which sits atop potentially explosive methane and deadly hydrogen sulfide gases.

The district's consultants, Environmental Strategies Corp., is ready to do extensive seismic testing to determine where there are cracks in the earth that might allow the gases to escape to the surface. Those tests will lead to additional soil sampling, said Hamid Saebfar, the state Department of Toxic Substances Control's regional chief of cleanup operations.

Test results are due by June, serving as a base line to decide how to design a remediation system, which could cost $50 million or more, depending on how extensive and complex it needs to be.

The system needs to run for up to a year before the Belmont site could be certified, Saebfar said. That would likely move the project back more than two years, to December 2001. Experts have indicated the total cost of the school could reach $282 million.

Wildman said the project also may face legal challenges. ``I think there will be a good deal of litigation.''

With their lives in limbo, many students said they could not believe the district's miscues.

Claudia Pineda, a junior, was among hundreds of students to enter an academy-style program this year just to be eligible for the new Belmont Learning Center. She expected to go to the new science and technology academy there next fall.

``I thought I'd be in the first class to graduate. I feel like we've all been betrayed.''

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Photo: Parent David Lugo celebrates the commission's vote to complete the Belmont Learning Center.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News