SCHOOLS DO NEED OVERSIGHT

Editorial: LA Downtown News

A couple of weeks ago Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was handed his hat and shown the door by the Second District Court of Appeal on the issue of his involvement in L.A. Unified School District.

The flurry of political posturing and angst in the wake of the court's decision almost obliterates a key point: Los Angeles Unified School District does indeed need strong oversight, though perhaps not for the reasons the mayor has put forward.

To be clear, regarding this court decision, we don't dispute much of what he has said and done in the aftermath. We just don't think it is all that relevant.

Yes, perhaps the court case could have been decided differently, and maybe there should be an appeal. Yes, it's good for him to reach out to the existing school board president and the superintendent in an effort to work together. And it may or may not be a good idea if the upcoming school board election puts the seven-member board in Villaraigosa's camp.

It's difficult to focus on the meat of the matter because the politics get in the way. There is so much noise from our ambitious mayor that it takes a conscious decision to rise above the din. He becomes a whirling dervish when he loses, jumping this way and that, trying to see what other issues might get him attention in his quest for the governorship (notice how the schools loss was quickly followed by a headline-grabbing plan to fight gangs). Frankly, we might not mind his being governor (this is not yet an endorsement, and may never be), but we want him to focus on the city's problems while he's here, whether or not those efforts or solutions affect his career advancement.

As we say, his instincts, and those of his advisors, are right with regard to the schools, but not for the reasons they promoted. While his detractors make sense when they say that a politician has no business overseeing academic matters, it absolutely, positively, undeniably, unequivocally makes no sense at all that the school district is allowed to ignore the policies and development regulations of the city of Los Angeles - or any other city for that matter.

L.A. Unified currently answers to no one with regard to land-use decisions. Historically that has provided the District with bully status in the community.

Its actions do not have to conform to any city agency, not in any substantive way. L.A. Unified is not required to follow City Planning regulations or Community Redevelopment Agency policies or traffic mitigation requirements or the restrictions of any other governmental agency that controls city policy. There is a purely ceremonial dance in which LAUSD plans pass by City Council in a rather ethereal waft of air, but City Council is the secondary power. The plans cannot be disapproved.

Los Angeles Downtown News has applauded the LAUSD school-building efforts on many occasions, and recently the paper gave the district an important award at its Downtowners of Distinction event. But that doesn't mean we approve of everything they do. Somewhere in their process an essential truth gets lost that city ordinances should not be disdained. They are the laws made by representatives of the people of the city, a very different reality that ought to be an imperative. Our representatives should have the right to control what happens here.

If it makes sense for you and me to be required to follow the regulations as we build a playhouse for our kids in our backyard, and if it makes sense for a developer to follow the law while, say, building low-income housing, it makes sense for the school district to follow the rules, too. They do not. They do not even pay lip service to the rules. They swagger their way toward their school-building goals.

LAUSD has the right of eminent domain, and they have used it ruthlessly.

Two quick cases in point: the Ambassador Hotel site and the Belmont Learning Complex site. Carefully thought-through and vetted land-use policies had sensibly and obviously designated the Ambassador site for high-rise development because it is on Wilshire, the city's most well known metropolitan street, one with sky-high land values. The school district snapped up the Ambassador with appalling disregard for any kind of good urban planning or the dollars involved. They decided it should be reassigned as a school site, and there was nothing the city could do to stop them.

In another part of town, the City West Specific Plan locked in the corner of First and Beaudry for a massive residential development, one essential element that made all the other aspects of the plan work. The City West Specific Plan took years of discussion, planning and compromise among neighbors, landowners, political leaders and stakeholders of many descriptions.

After dozens of parcels had been assembled for the eagerly anticipated housing, the LAUSD sauntered in and took the whole thing for the new Belmont Learning Complex (now part of the Vista Hermosa project). Again, it didn't matter that City Council had approved the City West Specific Plan after years of wrestling with pertinent issues. The school district had the right under state law to take it by eminent domain, and they did. Yes, the school was needed, too, but LAUSD ignored serious effort and investment by the citizens of the city in plans for its own future. The fact that the district failed to adequately test the land for toxicity and earthquake faults - resulting in a school that is still under construction nearly a decade later and will cost more than $300 million once complete - only adds fuel to the fire.

Currently the district is in a huge brouhaha in Echo Park over a similar conflict involving eminent domain, so there is a new battle on the horizon.

The mayor and his policy makers should keep at it. They should continue to try to find ways to solve the issue of LAUSD oversight until they get it right. The behemoth is capable of great damage, as is the mayor if he doesn't pause, listen, think and try something new.

▲ The Downtown News is absolutely right that LAUSD, the mayor, the Board of Ed and the City of LA are in need of oversight. That’s why there’s a Construction Bond Oversight Committee, public meetings and regular elections for elected officals. That’s why there are courts of law and an editorial board at the Downtown News.

However the DN is beating a dead horse on a bridge over troubled water long since past to the sea on its "two quick cases in point!"

Both the Belmont Learning Complex and the Ambassador/RFK-12 are land acquisition projects over a decade past …good grief, LAUSD gained title to both in the past millennium! LAUSD publicly followed all the proper land acquisition procedures in both. Yes, corners were cut on the DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION of the woebegone Belmont project …but not in OBTAINING the land! The Ambassador site is one of the most adjudicated property transfers in the history of land deals. In both cases the land was purchased with the very public goal of building much needed schools. Eminent domain is not some dead-of-the-night/back-room- deal forfeiture – they are legal actions where courts insist on being convinced of the overriding public necessity …and they insist that fair market value be paid. - smf