School Panel to Weigh New Repair Requests

Responding to students’ complaints about deplorable conditions on some campuses, officials in charge of more than $1 billion in Los Angeles school improvements have quietly promised to consider new requests for repairs that were overlooked.

Although district officials insist that school principals have already had more than one chance to request additional repairs with Proposition BB funds, the new offer appears intended to placate critics who believe that some schools are being shortchanged.

Among those critics were members of the Proposition BB oversight committee who met last month with a South-Central Los Angeles youth group protesting conditions at several high schools.

After the meeting, which fell one member short of a quorum, the committee voted 6-0 to urge a new look at the contracts that list the work that will be done at each campus.

When Los Angeles voters approved the $2.4-billion Proposition BB last April to repair campuses and build schools, they also created the citizens oversight committee to monitor expenditure.

A memo being distributed to school principals this week said any requests for major repairs missing from a school’s bond contract will be considered.

“I’m happy about it,” said committee Chairman Steven Soboroff. “That is what we wanted.”

There was no guarantee, however, that any new requests would be funded.

Instead, the memo from Beth Louargand, general manager of the district’s facilities services division, said only that each request would be reviewed “for possible funding.”

Chronic neglect caused by the inadequacy of the deferred maintenance budget was one of the main reasons the school district sought passage of Proposition BB, the largest school bond in the nation’s history.

The suggestion that the repair of some substandard conditions had been left out of BB spending plans was first raised last fall by South-Central Youth Empowered Through Action, a group of African American and Latino students representing four high schools.

Their complaints were highlighted last month by Times columnist Bill Boyarsky, who visited Fremont and Jefferson high schools with the students, observing “filthy, smelly toilets and burned-out lights” that he said told a story of neglect.

Bond office spokesman Erik Nasarenko said the decision to reopen the BB contracts was a cumulative response to the complaints, the committee vote and numerous calls from principals asking for one more chance to make requests.

“We’re well aware of those concerns and we want to address them by giving what we consider the fourth opportunity to suggest any changes,” Nasarenko said.