Belmont: Bad Decisions Mount

The controversy about the Belmont Learning Center just won’t go away. The latest brouhaha, the school board’s refusal to turn over confidential documents that it says are protected by attorney-client privilege, adds to the problems that from the beginning have plagued the ill-conceived “learning center” (what the students needed was a school). As if the nation’s most expensive high school doesn’t have enough problems, the tab right now is $80 million. The figure alone is breathtaking.

There is no question that a new high school is badly needed to serve the crowded neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles. But there are plenty of questions in Los Angeles and Sacramento about the outrageous cost.

Why is the cost so high? In large part, because it isn’t merely a high school that the school board chose to build. The expansive design includes room for shops and space for affordable housing. Small businesses and affordable housing are needed, but the school district, encouraged by the city, should never have been foolish enough to think it could do a complex development deal when it has a hard enough time just running the schools. Add to all that the controversy over the fact that the lucrative deal was awarded to a developer that was not the lowest bidder.

A state probe led by Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee, had been going well until a majority of the board--with the noteworthy exception of David Tokofsky and Valerie Fields--refused to hand over confidential documents. According to Tokofsky, board members didn’t even know which documents they were voting to keep secret. If that is true, the board could not have made an informed decision. Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be the first time.

Wildman can still get the information if his committee approves a state audit of the Belmont deal. The documents would not be made public, but state auditors would review every detail of this sorry deal and make their findings public. A state spotlight is needed.

Because of the ongoing concerns, the State Allocation Board won’t commit funds for half the cost of construction and the Proposition BB citizens oversight committee won’t allow the school district to use any of the proceeds from the $2.4-billion construction-and-repair bond measure.

Done smartly, the Belmont high school could have become a model for the state. Instead, it apparently will become a monument to how the decisions about the construction of a much needed school were driven by just about everything except education.