City of Hermosa Beach, school district ink deal over North
A southwest facing view of the North School campus. A deal between the city and school district may prevent delays in North’s construction. Rendering courtesy Hermosa Beach City School District
The city of Hermosa Beach and the Hermosa Beach City School District will continue to negotiate over traffic issues surrounding plans to reopen North School, in an agreement that both sides hope will avoid litigation and construction delays.
The agreement, announced Monday afternoon, gives the city until Feb. 28 to file a challenge to the Board of Education’s approval of the North project, which has generated concerns about congestion and associated public safety impacts. Letters exchanged between the city and district in recent weeks raised the possibility of a lawsuit that could have delayed construction at North, and cut into proceeds from the school facilities bond intended to pay for it.
Mayor Stacey Armato said in a prepared statement that the agreement embodied the city’s ongoing support for local schools while fulfilling its duty to safeguard its residents.
“The city’s obligation is to protect public safety, and with this agreement, we can work in collaboration with the district to refine and develop plans for the neighboring streets and public property that will protect public safety while the district moves forward with school construction,” Armato said.
North is the centerpiece of Measure S, a school facilities bond that Hermosa voters passed in 2016. A former elementary school that the district shuttered in the 1980s, North had until recently been leased to a preschool and an adult school, but will be rebuilt and reopened to address overcrowding in the district, and will ultimately serve district students in third and fourth grade.
The school board unanimously voted to approve the North project and associated planning documents, including a Final Environmental Impact Report, at its meeting last month. In the weeks before and after board’s vote, residents, including some who had supported Measure S, voiced displeasure with how the EIR had dealt with traffic issues for the campus, which is surrounded by narrower streets than the district’s other two schools.
Under a timeline laid out in the California Environmental Quality Act, anyone wishing to appeal the approval of the EIR had until Monday of this week to do so. On Jan. 23, the city sent a letter to the district asking for it to “toll” this time period for as long as six months in order for staff to prepare a possible appeal, which the district declined to do.
No appeal was filed by Monday’s deadline, said Superintendent Pat Escalante, so the agreement gives the city, and only the city, an additional 17 days to file a potential challenge.
The hope from both ends is that such a challenge is unnecessary. School Board President Doug Gardner said that the agreement was the result of discussions between himself and fellow board member Maggie Bove-LaMonica, and Armato and City Councilmember Justin Massey. The group had met on each of the past two weeks, and again on Tuesday afternoon. Gardner described the mood as one of “cautious optimism,” and said that the two sides had shown themselves able to work together.
Between now and the end of the month, the city and the district are expected to work on a memorandum of understanding that would focus on issues that the city felt were not adequately addressed, including the role of off-site drop offs. The district’s own EIR estimates that, with parents eager to avoid campus-adjacent bottlenecks, as many as 55 percent of North students may be dropped off in locations other than the two designated drop-off zones on 25th Street and Myrtle Avenue. The city would like greater study of the possible locations and how students might safely arrive for class.
“We have an approved plan. Now it’s how to make the approved plan work as safely as possible.” Gardner said.