Robinsons-May Exec Says LAUSD Misled Him on Site Plans

In a harshly worded letter to top district officials, the chairman of Robinsons-May complained that the Los Angeles Unified School District went back on its word by continuing to pursue the department store’s corporate headquarters for a high school site.

Citing his “extreme disappointment,” Robinsons-May Chairman Robert M. Soroka said the company had been told by interim Supt. Ramon Cortines that the 24.7-acre property on Laurel Canyon Boulevard had been temporarily taken off the list of prospective school sites.

In November, Cortines wrote that he and Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller had made the “mutual decision” to focus on alternative locations, saying that it was in the community’s best interest.

After the Robinsons-May site was discussed at a board committee meeting last week, however, company officials learned that the district is still considering seizing the property by eminent domain to relieve school overcrowding in the east San Fernando Valley.

“It is now clear to us and to the community that all of our efforts to find truly meaningful solutions to overcrowding in East Valley schools . . . were completely discarded,” Soroka wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Los Angeles Board of Education member David Tokofsky, who chairs the facilities committee, agreed that the district had not been forthcoming with Robinsons-May. Tokofsky said he “purposely” scheduled the matter for a staff update last Thursday because he realized “that there was a disconnect between [Cortines’] letter and what was happening at the district.”

“It was being considered at the highest levels of the school district, and I thought that it was disingenuous, if not immoral, to say one thing and do the other,” said Tokofsky, who favors a site in Sun Valley for the region’s much-needed high school.

Miller said Tuesday that department store officials have closely followed the district’s deliberations and were always aware that the North Hollywood site “would continue to be a possibility unless and until other sites were found.”

“No one is anxious to take the Robinsons-May site,” Miller said. “We’re aware of all the consequences of that, but we still haven’t found alternative sites for students.”

The North Hollywood complex is headquarters for the 56-store Robinsons-May chain, a division of St. Louis-based May Department Stores Co. A department store is also located on the property.

The complex employs 1,800 people, and local business leaders are concerned that North Hollywood would suffer if the district were to seize the property for a school.

Faced with a massive crunch for space in a crowded metropolis, the district has been criticized for failing to inform the public that it was considering sites in Arleta and Panorama City for new schools, prompting state legislators to launch an audit of LAUSD’s site selection process.

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Caprice Young, the Los Angeles Board of Education member who represents the North Hollywood area, had indicated last month that the Robinsons-May site was costly and that other alternatives were being studied. But she said Tuesday that the property was never off the table, noting that Cortines sent the letter last November without a formal vote of the school board.

“It was never off the list,” said Young, who once described the property as “golden.”

Young acknowledged that the Robinsons-May site briefly faded from the radar screen as officials considered converting middle schools into high schools to provide more seats. That conversion plan is still on the table, she said, but the demand for school space is so great that the Robinsons-May site may be needed as well.

“It would have been great if we would have been able to make the conversion plan work, but what we’re hearing from staff is that’s not going to be enough seats,” Young said. “The thing that we have been absolutely consistent on is that our No. 1 priority is getting classrooms for kids.”