Romer Seeks Proposals on Making Belmont Safe

Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer said Tuesday that he will seek proposals from the engineering community on how the abandoned Belmont Learning Complex can be made safe enough to open.

The district is drafting a safety standard as a yardstick against which those companies can develop proposals and cost estimates for protecting the downtown school from environmental hazards, Romer said.

The companies would have several months after the standard is published to present conceptual plans for dealing with explosive methane and toxic hydrogen sulfide on the campus atop a former oil field.

A scientific review team would examine those proposals and eliminate any that failed to meet the standard. The others would be presented to the board for consideration.

“That gives the community a way to finally get all the facts on the table . . . and to make a decision up or down,” Romer said. “Then the school board can say now we know all that we can possibly know.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, who was reported early this week to be weighing in on Belmont, went public Tuesday with his efforts to get action on the project, which has been in limbo for 11 months.

A spokesman for Riordan said he is taking no position on whether the school should be completed, but that he wants to provide the district help either way.

“What the mayor is saying is that if you want to finish the school, we’ll help you do that, and if you want to sell the property and build another school, we’ll help you do that,” said Deputy Mayor Ben Austin. “But if you want to embrace the status quo and do nothing, we’ll make that a very uncomfortable and untenable position.”

Riordan proposed state legislation that would protect the district against lawsuits if it opened the school under adequate safety controls.

Romer also stressed the need for some form of liability protection. He said the standard, which is currently in draft form, would be “very high, very strict.”

Board President Genethia Hayes said last week that she thinks some schools in the Belmont area might have to be closed because of similar environmental problems. But on Tuesday she said she had no evidence of that need.