Assembly Panel OKs Museum School Quake Bonds

A proposed elementary school on the grounds of the California Museum of Science and Industry gained important early support Tuesday when an Assembly committee approved a bill to guarantee the project at least $18 million in earthquake safety bond funds.

The 7-1 vote by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee sent the measure, sponsored by Assemblywoman Teresa Hughes (D-L.A.), on for floor action. The state Senate has taken no action on the bill. The school would probably not open for at least five years.

The school, housing more than 1,000 students from kindergarten through sixth grade, would be a partnership of the museum and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The school district already had been guaranteed $30 million in unrelated state funds for the project.

The Hughes legislation earmarks money from a 1990 ballot measure that provided a total of $300 million to repair quake-hazardous public buildings for the museum’s share of the construction cost.

Committee passage had been thrown into question late last week after the state Seismic Safety Commission formally opposed giving the museum school project priority for quake bond issue money. More than half of the museum’s exhibition space was closed last October after a structural evaluation found two buildings at risk of collapse in a major temblor.