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LAUSD BUYS GALPIN LAND FOR SCHOOL $12.9 MILLION PAID FOR SITE.


Byline: Sonia Giordani Staff Writer

The Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population.  agreed Friday to pay $12.9 million for the site of the former Van Nuys Drive-In Theater A drive-in theater is a form of cinema structure consisting of a large screen, a projection booth, a concession stand and a large parking area for automobiles. The screen can be as simple as a wall that is painted white, or it can be a complex steel truss structure with a complex , where LAUSD LAUSD Los Angeles Unified School District (Los Angeles, CA)  plans to open a 1,630-student middle school by September 2004.

The school district entered into escrow for the 14-acre parcel with Bert and Jane Boeckmann, owners of Galpin Ford, who bought the land 20 months ago as the district was conducting soil testing and environmental reviews to determine whether the vacant lot would be safe for a new school.

The Boeckmanns originally intended to use the land for auto storage and preparation space near their dealership. But after months of negotiations, they agreed to sell the property for about $10.4 million, as well as taking ownership of a 3-acre LAUSD maintenance and operations yard across the street from Galpin that's worth about $2.5 million.

``The school district indicated it wanted the land for a school - which would be fine except for the fact I still need to store cars,'' Bert Boeckmann said in an interview. ``But they have the right of eminent domain that superior dominion of the sovereign power over all the property within the state, including that previously granted by itself, which authorizes it to appropriate any part thereof to a necessary public use, reasonable compensation being made.
(Law) See under Domain.
, and we agreed to work together to find a solution.''

Boeckmann said the school district and the city of Los Angeles
For the city, see Los Angeles, California.
The City of Los Angeles was a streamlined passenger train jointly operated by the Chicago and North Western Railway and the Union Pacific Railroad.
 are helping him to find alternate locations for storage.

Superintendent Roy Romer Roy R. Romer (born October 31, 1928 in Garden City, Kansas, United States) was the 39th governor of Colorado and served as the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District from 2001 to 2006.  said the sale marks a major step for the district as it ``continues to battle the overcrowded o·ver·crowd  
v. o·ver·crowd·ed, o·ver·crowd·ing, o·ver·crowds

v.tr.
To cause to be excessively crowded: a system of consolidation that only overcrowded the classrooms.
 classroom conditions that are making it extremely difficult to provide the classroom education our students deserve.''

The new school will have 67 classrooms and will help relieve overcrowding overcrowding

overcrowding of animal accommodation. Many countries now publish codes of practice which define what the appropriate volumetric allowances should be for each species of animal when they are housed indoors. Breaches of these codes is overcrowding.
 at Fulton, Sepulveda and Van Nuys middle schools. It will feed students into Monroe and Van Nuys high schools, and into a new high school planned at the former Carnation carnation: see pink.
carnation

Herbaceous plant (Dianthus caryophyllus) of the pink family, native to the Mediterranean, widely cultivated for its fringe-petaled, often spicy-smelling flowers.
 site.

``We are facing the largest increase in students at the middle and high school levels now, so it is extremely important to see this project move forward,'' Romer said in a statement released Friday.

The district has been looking to buy the property for more than three years. It was owned by CarMax Auto Superstores West Coast Inc. in October 1998, when LAUSD first authorized a feasibility study "A Feasibility Study" is an episode of the original The Outer Limits television show. It first aired on 13 April, 1964, during the first season. It was remade in 1997 as part of the revived The Outer Limits series with a minor title change.  to determine whether it could be used for a school.

State law bars the district from negotiating for land until after clearing environmental questions, but district officials said they indicated they were interested in buying the land from CarMax.

When the company wasn't interested in selling, LAUSD had to go to court to gain access to the property to conduct the environmental reviews, and school officials said they were surprised when CarMax ultimately sold the land to the Boeckmanns in September 2000.

Some blamed CarMax broker Steve Soboroff, a mayoral candidate and chairman of the district's Proposition BB Citizens' Oversight Committee, for selling the district short although he knew of its interest in the land.

But Soboroff maintains that LAUSD was simply unprepared to move on the land in summer 2000 and repeatedly turned down offers from the company.

He said Friday he was surprised to hear of the news.

``We kept saying, come on, guys, you've got a need for a school. But the district wasn't as organized then as it is now,'' he said.

``Godspeed, they bought it. I hope they can build a school there quickly. It's a good location for a school. That's really the issue.''

Roderick Hamilton, consulting senior facilities executive for LAUSD, said the district started negotiating with the Boeckmanns last fall after the Department of Toxic Substances Control determined in July that no action was necessary to investigate or remediate the property. The environmental impact report was certified in December.
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Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date:May 4, 2002
Words:610
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