Compton Mayor Vows to Seek School Bonds

As calls from parents outraged over the decay of Compton’s public schools poured into City Hall on Monday, Mayor Omar Bradley said he would prod the City Council to issue at least $200 million in bonds to replace one of the city’s dilapidated high schools and repair dozens of others.

Bradley said the City Council is scheduled to vote today on whether to authorize an architect to design conceptual drawings for a renovation of Compton High School and a proposed new campus, which he said would replace Dominguez High School.

He said any excess funds from the bond issue would be used to repair other schools in the decaying district, which has slipped into further disrepair since it was taken over by the state in mid-1993. Bradley said he hoped the bond issue would also pay off Compton’s $20-million debt to the state.

“I think the community realizes at this point that we are in a crisis situation,” said Bradley, who was inundated Monday with calls from concerned parents--including some from his own in-laws. “People want to know what in the hell is going on.”

The mayor said callers demanded that he act to help repair the schools, many of which are more than 45 years old. An article in Sunday’s editions of The Times showed the district has a backlog of about 2,400 requests for repairs, and more than a dozen renovation projects have stalled in the state’s bureaucracy.

Compton school district officials said they are considering a much smaller general obligation bond to defray the costs of repairs, which carry an estimated price tag of $50 million, but have been doubtful voters would be supportive.

Seeking release from the receivership, several members of Compton’s school board have sued the state and are scheduled to take their case to trial Feb. 24. When the Department of Education took the reins as a condition of emergency state loans made to the district, the school board was reduced to an advisory capacity. A state-appointed administrator oversees both the district’s academic programs and finances.

School Board President Saul E. Lankster said the depth of the schools’ decay and publicity in recent days will mean a shift in the board’s courtroom strategy. Lankster had intended to argue that the state law that put the district into receivership was unfair because it did not include specific criteria to let the district emerge from state control. But he said Monday that he would show that the state’s administration of the Compton schools has been incompetent, and that he would present his own plan to repair facilities. Aside from supporting a $20-million bond, he did not provide details of the plan.

Lankster said he hoped state Supt. of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin would be pressured even more to fund major repair and renovation work at the 28,000-student district’s facilities.

“She’s been Teflon up until this point,” he said. “She’s going to answer for not having done anything.”

The district has set aside $8.5 million for maintenance work this year, a large increase over the amount budgeted in earlier years of the receivership. It has nearly finished renovation work at three of the district’s 38 campuses.

But in Compton, solutions are hard to come by.

The district said Monday that it received inquiries from the National Patio Enclosure Assn., a nonprofit group of about 70 contractors, which may offer volunteers and building materials to help repair the neediest schools.

But district officials warned that such an effort could violate its union contracts.

“It’s such a worthy cause,” said contractor Millie Taylor, a member of the association’s board. “I can’t believe the schools are in that kind of shape.”