Panel Skirts Belmont Bond Question

The school bond oversight committee that fought for the right to review a proposed $87-million high school project punted Tuesday.

The Blue Ribbon Citizens’ Oversight Committee voted to tell a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that it had reviewed the Belmont Learning Center without deciding whether Proposition BB funds should be spent on the development.

But whether the panel’s relatively cursory review of the proposal will satisfy Judge Diane Wayne won’t be known until this morning, when attorneys for the Los Angeles Unified School District and two unions challenging the development project are to return to court.

The oversight committee, formed to watch how the district spends money from a $2.4-billion bond measure, will make a separate recommendation on funding, probably on June 9.

Wayne had issued a preliminary injunction in early May preventing the project from going forward without full scrutiny by the oversight committee.

At the last court hearing, Wayne warned the district that voters would never pass another of its bond measures if it did not restore public trust in the process.

Oversight committee Chairman Steven Soboroff pushed hard for a vote to close the review process Tuesday, motivated in part by district contentions that it could be obligated to pay a developer up to $12,000 a day in penalties.

Soboroff said the panel should not be expected to evaluate the project back to its inception “years and years and years ago.” Questions about why the highest priced developer, Kajima International, was chosen have dogged the process for at least two years. But Soboroff said that decision was outside the committee’s purview.

“I think [the district] made a lot of mistakes, but we weren’t here for that part,” he said, after the 7-1 vote.

Only 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn. representative Cliff Mansfield voted no, saying the review and the funding should not be separated. A representative of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. abstained.

Deputy City Controller Timothy Lynch was out of town, but had previously opposed the move, saying the project deserved further evaluation and seemed financially risky because a purported maximum price could actually escalate unpredictably.

In one of the many odd moments in the three-hour committee meeting, Lynch’s criticisms were dismissed by Soboroff, but also were partially vindicated after a state political aide asked when the district’s penalty of $12,000 per business day would begin accruing.

Attorneys for the district said that was simply an estimate prepared for the court fight. But they were interrupted by an attorney representing Kajima who said the penalties began May 9, four days after the injunction was signed, and would could continue until the school board votes to fund the project, a vote scheduled for June 16. Those penalties would total at least $300,000.

“We did stop work and there will be some costs,” said attorney Martha Jordan. Asked by Soboroff if they could voluntarily waive those penalties, Jordan responded: “We’re not voluntarily waiving them right now.”