>
> walking down the ancient sidewalks next to
>Belmont High School where the Mexican girls fought with razor blades.
>
>Tripping on carbon footprints in old Los Angeles.
>
>CG
Belmont High is the largest school in California. In new Los Angeles, the school can't get no relief. But it's only hazardous gases, what's to lose sleep over?:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Learning_Center
>Belmont Learning Center was expected to split
>the enrollment of Belmont High School in half,
>accommodating around 2,100 students (compared to
>the approximate 5,500 students at Belmont High).
> From the very beginning of the plans for the
>school in 1988, it was known to be contaminated
>with hazardous gases from the oil field that
>used to be in the area. LAUSD started
>construction anyway, and it was not until 1999
>that the seriousness of the gases was realised.
>Construction was partially halted for most of
>1999. The project as a whole was abandoned in
>2000, when the LAUSD voted that it was not a correct area for a school.
>
>
>Later that year in December, Superintendent Roy
>Romer [3] proposed finishing the project using a
>private developer. In 2002, "An Alliance for a
>Better Community" was selected to finish the
>project. The project would cost $98.3 million to finish.
>
>In September 2002, when the LAUSD felt confident
>about the project being finished, a
>groundbreaking (literally) discovery was made:
>an earthquake fault was detected on the
>northeast portion, further complicating
>construction efforts. The project was again temporarily suspended.
>
>In May 2003, the LAUSD voted to finish the
>school, but with certain modifications: a 10 to
>12 acre (40,000 to 49,000 m²) park, a 500 seat
>learning academy, library, auditorium, and a
>parent center, making it one of the more
>luxurious schools of the urban sections of the
>LAUSD. The project became one of the most, if
>not the most, expensive school projects in the
>United States at $300 million. Part of the money
>to pay for the construction would come from the
>local Measure K bond of $3.3 billion, as well as city money.
>
>In December 2004 approximately 60 percent of the
>new and never occupied buildings on the Belmont
>Learning Center Campus were demolished due to
>being located on top of an earthquake fault. The
>unpublicized demolition was captured on
>videotape by the Full Disclosure Network [4]
>along with interviews of the major players
>involved with the planning, development and investigations of this project.
>
>In late January 2005, the Los Angeles Downtown
>News reported that certain discoveries and new
>ideas for construction brought the price down to
>about $10 million to build the school.
>
>The project is scheduled to open in fall 2008.