The Belmont Stakes

First they brought in the kids. By the dozen, the little creatures streamed into the auditorium, cheering on cue for their “school,” doing their best to serve as political cannon fodder for the TV cameras.

Then, also on cue, board member Mark Slavkin went apoplectic. Waving documents in the air, his voice rising, Slavkin blamed the press for last week’s days of rage over the Board of Education’s plan to build the $140-million-and-maybe-more Belmont High School next to downtown.

Whoops. I misspoke. Belmont is not a high school. It’s a “Learning Center.” We don’t seem to make high schools anymore.

Anyway, Slavkin waved his documents at the mostly-kid audience and said the whole thing could be laid to the “yellow press.” He got a big round of applause.

But probably the best moment at Monday’s board meeting came when oversight committee member Steven Soboroff sidled up to the speaker’s podium and gave the board a string of A-pluses for its concept, design and contract negotiations at Belmont.

Now there’s oversight for you. Actually, Soboroff did give the board one failing grade. The board, according to Soboroff, gets an F for public relations.

Let me tell you: The one thing this board does well is public relations. I mean, this outfit has its own TV channel. All day long the board members played to the cameras, twisting the Belmont debate into “you’re-either-for-the-kids-or-against-them” territory.

Actually, the Belmont issue is easy to twist because the project managers have made it so complex and opaque that virtually no one understands it. But, as a member of the yellow press, let me try to simplify.

First, the issue is not whether the Belmont area should have a good school. It should, and no one has argued otherwise.

Second, the issue has little to do with whether we use Prop. BB funds to repair schools, as many voters expected, or build Belmont. One way or the other, we will spend local tax dollars for our part of the costs, and Prop. BB is probably the cheapest source of those dollars.

Supporters of the current scheme would like to keep the frenzy focused on the above because they know they can win there. And it diverts attention from the real issues, which are, to wit: Why is Belmont the most expensive high school ever built in this country, and why is the board proceeding in spite of warning flags being waved frantically from all sides?

First, the cost. Belmont promoters repeatedly say the “Learning Center” will not cost more than other high schools. That claim is hogwash if any standard measurement is used.

State Sen. Leroy Greene, who has made a career of building schools in California, says current construction costs for a high school in this state run somewhere between $125 and $140 per square foot. The school district’s own figures put Belmont’s costs at $262 per square foot.

Why so high? No one has ever explained the numbers, but perhaps it stems from the concept itself. Belmont, you see, was never designed as a mere high school. It’s a throwback to the 1960s when big government believed it could solve all social ills with great, bold strokes.

Thus, Belmont-the-school was conceived as the core of a grander development including retail stores, restaurants, child-care centers, low-cost housing, city recreational facilities and, as they say, much more.

In this fantasy, Ralphs and the Gap would flock to Belmont and pay rent to the school district. Neighborhood grandmoms would run the day care. And the city of Los Angeles would pony up millions for Olympic-size pools, basketball courts, running tracks, the whole kazoo.

Haven’t the Belmont designers ever watched those videos of the mega-projects of the 1960s being blown to smithereens with dynamite because they never worked the way the dreamers thought? I guess not.

Anyway, the Belmont concept was so complex that it required a new process to build it. Which is to say, a no-competitive-bid “team” process. For reasons never fully explained, Kajima Corp. won the contract and promptly began to increase the final price.

“First we were told building costs would run $70 million. Then it went to $75 million, then 78,” said George Kiriyama, one of the dissenting board members, at Monday’s meeting. “When it hit 85, I said, whoa . . . “

Finally--and pathetically--after two years of planning, the retail never materialized. No Ralphs, no Gap.

The city of L.A. never got on board. No pool, no running track.

No day care. No housing.

But even as the concept disintegrated, it steamed forward with the board’s blessing, growing more expensive by the month. At last count the building costs stood at $87 million and land costs at $61 million. That’s a total of $148 million.

As they cast their vote to go ahead with Belmont on Monday, board member and big-time Belmont supporter Barbara Boudreaux said she had a message to all those “who are mean-spirited about building this school: Back off and back out.”

That was the tone of things on Monday. The board was not to be stopped by bad news of any kind, even the possible withdrawal of the state of California’s matching funds. The state has had the gall to suggest that a $90-million construction contract be put out to competitive bid before state taxpayers pony up half the bill.

One board member, in fact, did worry about the possible loss of $45 million. David Tokofsky proposed an amendment saying that the board would halt the project if the state pulled out and left the district holding the entire $90-million construction bag.

The Belmont supporters on the board looked at Tokofsky dumbly, as if he didn’t get it. Some mumbo jumbo discussion followed and the amendment was promptly batted down.

In for a little, in for a lot. It was that kind of day.