PUBLIC FORUM READERS' OPINIONS MIXED ON BEST WAY TO GO ON BELMONT.

For today's Public Forum, the Daily News asked readers what they think of the proposal to continue environmental studies of the Belmont Learning Center. Should the site be studied to see what if it could be used, or should the board stick to its decision to abandon the site?

I think Roy Romer's proposal for a new study is an excellent idea. If the study is to be made without bias and politics, it will go toward a final answer and solution for the survival of Belmont.

If a practical and satisfactory solution can be found for the completion of Belmont, for all practical purposes, it would be cost-effective to complete the construction of Belmont, rather than seek a new location and build a new school.

This area was formerly residential (I lived in the area during the '30s and '40s and went to Belmont High) and I equate this problem with area around the La Brea Tar Pits and Fairfax. Remember the ``burning sidewalks''?

If we can eliminate the mass hysteria that now exists, I am sure that a competent solution could be found.

- Jack Rogo

North Hollywood

Funny you should ask. On the same day that readers' views were invited about the contaminated ``Belmont problem,'' the entire page was dedicated to the tobacco industry. In its many forms of ingestion, we have had hundreds of thousands of deaths and incapacitations, but tobacco is still legal and tolerated.

The area surrounding Belmont has not had any history of problems of any general knowledge. If you consider Los Angeles from the geological standpoint, what about the Baldwin Hills area near Stocker Street and La Brea Avenue?

Major oil activity is occurring in the midst of a large community. Does anyone realize the Beverly and Fairfax area down to Wilshire was called Gilmore Island and is completely over land similar to the Belmont location? All we have in that area is CBS, Farmer's Market, county museums of art and history, and La Brea Tar Pits.

Perhaps this would be a more appropriate study to spend a few million on, or maybe we should just finish the darn school and educate our children.

- Robert Safran

Winnetka

So, School Superintendent Roy Romer wishes to have the Belmont Learning Center reconsidered - no doubt under great pressure from Mexican-American organizations. Well and good. Most of the center is complete anyway. Just one thing - I don't want any of my tax money to pay for any death or illness caused by gas seeping into the buildings.

The city (meaning me), should be indemnified by any parents sending their children to Belmont. Let them (and the pressure groups) pay the piper.

-Paul Wasserman

Northridge

The Belmont complex fiasco has become so complex, Superintendent Roy Romer has trouble seeing the forest for the trees, no less thinking money grows on them. The major concern now is to locate new school sites as they are proceeding to do with the district headquarters - not to sink more money into another study to find out what has already been established.

The original architect was quoted last year as saying lots of construction existed over former oil field - a mind-set that was carte blanched all along.

It was reported that school officials were warned by Geoscience Analytical a decade ago against building without proper safety precautions. Last year, Geoscience was to have submitted alternative mitigation costs, pointing out that similar problems had been mitigated at Hoag Memorial Hospital in Newport - however, Hoag Hospital is on six acres and Belmont has 35 acres with different soil conditions and there would be yearly costs of ongoing maintenance. The original Belmont developer's mitigation plan had been deemed inadequate by all the environmental experts involved.

This all would require expensive, complicated and sensitive equipment along with time and risk (not the place for a school) and the children need schools now to learn under safe conditions.

- Vivian Griffin

Chatsworth

In an already fragmented, disconnected and overburdened school district, LAUSD is faced with the dilemma of, ``What do we do about the Belmont Learning Center?

Standing like a white elephant on contaminated ground, this monstrosity is a testament to stupidity and poor planning. Having already cost billions of dollars and man hours, Superintendent Roy Romer thinks that the district can bleed more money on the project.

When gases and contamination were first discussed, the construction should have been stopped dead in its tracks, but no, it was not.

Now sits an empty edifice with a major problem. I say, find another site and get with ``reality,' Romer, or your tenure could be short.

- Gary Traxler

Oxnard

Regarding Superintendent Roy Romer's continued studies of the Belmont Learning Center:

I lived in that area from 1948-1956, near Bixel and Colton, pretty close to center of that development. My mother-in-law moved her family of eight children there in 1945, being one of the last families to move out of the area. Five of her children and nine grandkids attended school from grade school through high school.

She died last year at age 99, survived by 62 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. To my knowledge, not one of them has had a life-threatening illness due to living and playing in that so-called polluted environment. (Cartoonist Patrick O'Connor, please note.)

Romer should maybe talk to some of them instead of the birdbrains that killed the project.

- Manuel Hernandez

Glendale

Superintendent Roy Romer is beginning to sound a lot like his ineffectual predecessors.

Before wasting a million dollars on yet another environmental study, Romer should start soliciting bids from contractors with engineering and technical expertise who guarantee neutralization of potential dangers at the Learning Center. (Bids are free.)

If the problems cannot be corrected by experts, sell Belmont to the highest bidder who is capable and willing to safely convert the property for other purposes.

L.A. tax payers need education for their children, not endless, costly environmental studies re Belmont.

- N.J. Herron

Van Nuys

There is no doubt in our minds that if the Los Angeles Unified School District walks away from the new Belmont site and disposes of it for pennies on the dollar already invested, someone will be ready and waiting to snap up the already improved property. There are too many structures, from public buildings to freeways, situated within yards of the oil field that are used successfully and safely every day.

Another organization will ``take the Belmont property off the district's hands'' and turn it into a multimillion-dollar bonanza for the company. We are not convinced that this other group of entrepreneurs is not already ready and waiting for the final shoe to fall to come in and make an offer for the property as it stands.

Our reading on Superintendent Roy Romer is that he is a politician and businessman who wants to have shown to him that the property is unsalvageable. He is astute enough to be unwilling to accept the findings of previous studies, which have already been shown to be of questionable validity. Romer is, after all, the superintendent and wants to have some control over such a massive outlay of money going down the drain once and for all. He certainly is showing leadership in this matter, something that has been sorely lacking at the district headquarters for a long while.

- Richard J. and Socorro Warren

Van Nuys

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LAUSD Superintendent Roy Romer has asked the school board to continue environmental studies to determine what can be done with the Belmont Learning Center.