$350 Million L.A. High School Finally Opens
A $350 million high school located in downtown Los Angeles is finally open for classes after serious environmental threats led to a decade of construction delays, the Associated Press reports.
The Edward R. Roybal Learning Center was originally touted as a solution to classroom overcrowding, an issue that plagued L.A.in the mid-90s. But when construction site issues including threats of toxic gas emissions and susceptibility to earthquake damage halted construction in 2000 and 2002, the once promising education venture quickly became a symbol of government failure and wasted taxpayer dollars. In 2003, District Attorney Steve Cooley defined the construction project as "a public works disaster of biblical proportions."
Today the school looks much like a college campus and comprises several buildings surrounding a grassy courtyard. Highlights include a gymnasium that can hold 3,000 people, a dance studio with padded, maple flooring, and nearly 500 underground parking spaces.
To keep the threat of toxic gas emission in check, the city also installed a $17 million toxic gas mitigation system that costs $250,000 a year to operate and light poles topped with vents designed to help harmful methane and hydrogen sulfide gases escape.
Tags: Los Angeles | high school
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$350M wasteful spending
For the cost of yet another public school to house primarily the children of illegal aliens, we could have given 3,500 native born Americans full $100,000 scholarships to Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Columbia, or even to USC. This school was build amidst allegation of poor regulatory oversight, potential contractor irregularities and possible bureaucratic corruption in the awarding of State Bond money contracts. It's built on an earthquake fault (that also runs under LAUSD Headquarters Building at 333 S. Beaudry - 2 blocks south). According to the most recent geological simulations, a 7.8 earthquake would likely collapse 7-8 major downtown high rises. Both Roybal Learning Center and District Headquarters will likely be among those to fall (concrete floors for the HQ foundation and floors were poured by scab labor during a strike and is a building bought from a close friend of ex-superintendent Roy Romer). The type of welding in the HQ building is sub-par based on current building standards and its floors can not handle excessive weight load due to insufficient tensioned steel cables through the floors. The weight load of Floors 1-9 is exacerbated by vehicles parked on these garage levels, and when the 7.8 quake hits (overdue according to the USGS), it will fall like the WTC buildings on 9/11 as top floors will bring all subsequent floors down due to the excessive weight load. Roybal may weather a bit better than District HQ, but what short-cuts were taken and undiscovered at this highly controversial site? It was wasteful to buy the District HQ building and to put all the brain trust of the School District in one building that is subject to catastrophic failure... but then again if it went down, Mayor Villarigosa will have a mandate to build things up from scratch.
alsome
wow that is alsome
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