EL PUENTE IS A POISONOUS SITE September 27, 2008 6:37 AM El Puente was borne out of the District Attorney's Truancy Prevention Program, created in 1997 from a grant. Oddly, this school for truants and troublemakers mixes juvenile delinquents with students suffering from undiagnosed learning disabilities -- transferred to El Puente perhaps because they might otherwise bring down public school testing scores. If county test scores rise because underperforming kids with learning disabilities are parked elsewhere, the county qualifies for increased funding through a federal program called No Child Left Behind, and it makes the county school district and its superintendent look good. (So no one is left behind, but sentenced to El Puente.) To add injury to insult, once inside El Puente, student learning disabilities, including dyslexia, may never be diagnosed. It's a long story, but The Investigator has boiled it down to some basic facts -- and it should boil the blood of any parent whose child is compelled to spend significant time on El Puente's premises at 430 East Gutierrez St., opposite Ace Hardware. Steven Hariri, a project manager with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), told The Investigator that comprehensive testing was not conducted before the school moved in a decade ago because DTSC did not, at that time, have a school program -- and legislation required nothing more. (Loophole No. 1.) Results from recent tests, added Mr. Hariri, will be released imminently. Test results to date show toxic levels below legal limits, although the effects of long-term exposure remain unknown. So while there may be no legal issue here, we might still ponder the morality of running a school on contaminated land. The site, once home to leaky underground fuel tanks, is held by Laguna Industrial Partners, the limited partnership of William Levy (a bankrupted property developer) and Richard Berti -- until Mr. Levy sold his share a few years ago, apparently to pay off a divorce settlement. Child advocates accuse SBCS Superintendent Bill Cirone of failing to notify monitoring agencies (HAZMAT and DTSC), though he had to know that toxic substances were present in this area -- a dumping ground since 1925, when debris from the great earthquake was deposited on this site. Why do we believe Mr. Cirone must have known? The Investigator obtained a copy of the lease agreement between LPI and John Price, which includes this Environmental Disclosure: "Lessors' agents have disclosed to Lessee the presence of contamination in soils and groundwater at and beneath the Premises." Further, the Lessee demanded indemnification "against any liability arising from the presence of Hazardous Substances in, on, under or about the Premises." So all parties knew. Thea Tryon, an Engineering Geologist with the Central Coast Water Board, told The Investigator, "There are contaminants in the ground water. No one made us aware that a school would be on this site. When we found out, by a member of the public in 2006, we referred the indoor-related investigation to the DTSC. We continue to monitor and review groundwater and soil gas from this site." Every school in California is required by law to be certified as safe by a qualified structural engineer. Attorney Karolyn Reneard represented an El Puente student who suffered allergic reactions to the toxic plume (he is now home-schooled) and has been trying for almost one year to get a straight answer on El Puente's certification. The Investigator interceded to verify whether El Puente has been certified as safe, as required by the Field Act. It has not. Reason: El Puente is exempt from the Field Act because California Education Code 17285c allows that the county may lease a one-story building for up to 10 years, with a 10-year extension, without having to certify the structure as safe. (Loophole No. 2.) So let's add it up: LPI exacts rent for a toxic site, John Price pulls a profit as middleman, SBCS receives more funding from No Child Left Behind -- and Santa Barbara's juvenile delinquents recruit or victimize underperforming kids in an ecologically tainted environment.
One might charge cronyism: The parties all know each other well and were on good terms at the time this deal was inked in 1999. Elizabeth Sorgman, a local children's advocate, told The Investigator, "El Puente School was constructed on a contaminated site without a building permit. As an architect who knows the importance of permits, especially where child welfare is concerned, I was shocked." Some permits were issued for minor work, including a fire sprinkler upgrade, but here one enters a murky zone not unlike Rick Caruso's endeavor to masquerade his Miramar construct as an "extension" of an already approved plan in order to evade Environmental Impact Review. Joan Esposito, founder of the Dyslexia Awareness and Resource Center, told The Investigator, "I object to schools that refer students to a truancy program while ignoring their responsibility and duty to recognize behaviors that legally demand a special education assessment." You know what? The Investigator objects, too -- and so should you, as taxpayers and parents. We further object that students at El Puente are forced to waive their Fourth Amendment search and seizure rights and are questioned by police without their attorneys present. Their parents may be too poor and uneducated to understand the Constitutional rights they have been compelled to relinquish. Phone calls from The Investigator to El Puente Principal Cecilia Molina and Superintendent Cirone for comment were not returned. Pipe the culpable to John and Todd's methane mill for recycling (a second such trip for John Price).
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