Friday, August 22, 2008

Outrageous!

Once again the Los Angeles Unified School District has provided evidence that it has its head placed firmly, securely, and completely in a place on a human body where the Sun should never shine.

The Draft Environmental Impact Report for South Region High School No. 15 (SRHS 15) was published today and one of the 'alternatives' is to build the school within the area of the Ponte Vista site.

Now this is such a bad idea for so many reasons that it can only be described as a further attempt to single out the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur (the project's preferred site) as the only one LAUSD is serious about.

It is also another indication that LAUSD is disengenuous to OUR community, ignorant of even their own boundaries, and fairly completely deprived of trustworthiness.

If SRHS 15 was built within the Ponte Vista site, no high school students living within the area would be able to attend because the site currently falls within the Narbonne High School boundaries.

Didn't LAUSD learn anything when they tried to propose placing South Region High School No. 14 (SRHS 14) within Ponte Vista.

Not only did Bob Bisno object to that idea, but he was joined by many many community members, including me and a whole bunch of the members of R Neighborhoods Are 1 in creating such a firestorm for LAUSD, they packed up their bags, placed their tails between their legs and created a phony excuse for leaving that proposed school in limbo.

I just thought everyone interested in issues regarding Ponte Vista should know, now that the SRHS 15 DEIR is out, that we all need to provide our objections to the alternative of placing the new campus at Ponte Vista.

Really, Dr. Vladovic, what was your Facilities Division thinking?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

so the ponte vista site IS still in play!

M Richards said...

Thanks Anonymous 9:17 AM.

The real answer is Yes and No!

Ponte Vista will never have an 810-seat public senior high school built within it if Bob Bisno, myself, and several thousand others have any say about it.

LAUSD is again using their incompetence to attempt to fool OUR community.

The Ponte Vista site has always been and still is "on the books" as the preferred location for South Region High School No. 14, which is now in 'mothballs' but may come back IF we pass the new SEVEN BILLION DOLLAR school bond measure.

SRHS 14 would NOT be built at Ponte Vista unless nothing is built at that site in the short or mid-term future.

The folks at LAUSD needed an Alternative to building the new campus on the Upper Reservation of Fort MacArthur and since they had the Ponte Vista site in very preliminary studies for the old SRHS 14 scheme, they just plopped SRHS 15 into the site, without even noticing that OUR community knows better.

"On the books" Ponte Vista is still listed as the "preferred" site for SRHS 14, a school now concidered to relieve overcrowding at Narbonne.

Now that LAUSD has added to the mix SRHS 15 at the Ponte Vista alternative site, they have yet again, muddied the waters.

Fear not though, it would take more than a Herculean task to ever see any 810-seat high school built within Ponte Vista.

However, once upon a time, Bob did give some indication that he would not necessarily mind a "500-seat" school within Ponte Vista.

This news, I strongly suspect, was just one more way Bob was attempting to find more support to build a development that is simply too big.

Consider LAUSD throwing in another monkey wrench into the pot, but don't consider it realistic by any means.
MW

Anonymous said...

In my humble opinion, LAUSD wants to build both schools, SRHS 15 *and* SRHS14

M Richards said...

Thanks Anonymous 1:48 PM, your humble opinion is probably extremely right on the money.

I use money because LAUSD wants folks to approve another bond measure, this time for SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS of new debt for all of us.

The new bond could be the SIXTH bond approved for building and maintenence in a district that fails so many tests that it more likely needs to be broken apart.

IF SRHS 14 comes back from its current "mothball" status, there is quite enough opposition to keep it out of Ponte Vista.

Also, since the size of SRHS 14 was downsized from its former proposed size of 15.03 acres to between 6-8 acres, there are locations in Harbor City and Harbor Gateway that could be used for that small of a school plant.

I don't feel once ounce of anxiety should be even remotely considered for the prospect of a large school at Ponte Vista.

I also doubt more than very highly that Bob was serious about welcoming a 500-seat school into Ponte Vista.

He was just trolling for more supporters with lines that are strung with no bait left on them.
MW