EDITORIAL SECRET SOCIETY LAUSD BOARD MUST STOP MEETING BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.

THE liquefaction factor of LAUSD board members defies imagination.

Board members were outraged a week ago that Superintendent Roy Romer defied their order and went behind their backs to look for a way to complete the LAUSD's monument to failure, the Belmont Learning Center.

This week the board turned to jelly and voted 4-3 behind closed doors in a meeting the Daily News believes blatantly violated the state open meetings law and agreed to seek bids for completing and opening the nation's costliest _ and most controversial _ high school, finished or unfinished.

It is outrageous that they couldn't stand up to inform the public why they were backing down on their decision last January to abandon this star-crossed project and couldn't vote in open meeting, as required by law.

They couldn't even properly notify the public regarding the meeting.

Even worse is that they are making the exact same mistake that was made at the outset of building a school atop shallow oil fields oozing potentially explosive and toxic gases.

Under Romer's plan, the private sector will be asked to submit bids to mitigate the environmental hazards posed by methane and hydrogen sulfide, finish the school that already cost $175 million and then indemnify the district when students and teachers are sickened or harmed by the inadequacy of the safety measures.

It was the private sector in cahoots with district officials who got LAUSD into this problem in the first place, and we have no reason to believe that the same insider conniving that went on before is not going on again today.

And with the same motivation: to build Belmont no matter what it costs, no matter what it takes to minimize safety concerns, no matter who gets hurt in the end.

The board was elected on public outrage over the Belmont scandal and on a promise to reform the district by raising standards, demanding accountability and changing the LAUSD's culture of failure.

What we're getting is a lot of backtracking. The only thing that has been raised are the salaries of administrators, teachers and janitors. Failing kids are still promoted, failing teachers are still rewarded and failing administrators are still on the payroll.

We started the year 2000 arguing about Belmont. Sadly, we're ending the year on the same dead note.

The new board has reverted to the old board's ways, doing the public's business in secret, double talking about what it's doing and wasting its time and the public's money without achieving anything that will give the 700,000 children a quality education.

Turn out the lights. Cynicism, self-service and insider dealings are once again ruling the roost at the LAUSD.