Belmont Failure: LAUSD's Risky Scheme

Los Angeles, CA—4/30/04 Scott Wildman, former Chair of the California Joint Legislative Audit Committee whose reveals how the Los Angeles Unified School District evaded environmental laws on commercial developments by promoting the Belmont Learning Center as a “Joint Use” project. “Our report fairly clearly demonstrated that the real goal of the school construction project during that period of time was NOT to build schools. It was to try to generate more money for the District. “There were seven projects like this in LAUSD and none of them—NONE OF THEM have ever generated very much money for the District. And ALL of these project essentially failed.”

The Wildman interview is set to air world-wide on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting on Thursday, June 24, 2004 on the STREAMING page at http://www.fulldisclosure.net The first 30 days the program will be provided to viewers FREE as a public service and thereafter available online in the program catalog. The program will also be featured on and on 40 cable systems throughout California for the next six months.

Wildman told Full Disclosure “you have to realize that school districts were not accustomed to swimming with sharks, with developers, and in many cases developers were able to sell them a bill of goods which actually cost the districts money instead of generating the kind of money they had anticipated.

Full Disclosure host Leslie Dutton has been conducting a series of interviews entitled “BELMONT: The World's Most Expensive High School". Costs to date for the development are $175 million, which was financed in 1997 with non-voter approved, tax-exempt bonds known as Certificates of Participation (COP's). The Los Angeles Unified School Board has already approved an additional $110 million for remediation of environment hazards on the Belmont campus, which was built on top of one thousand closed oil wells and is plagued with methane gas and other toxic substances. On Tuesday, June 22nd the school board approved the project’s environmental impact report, paving the way for the project to be completed.

You can view this program and other Belmont programs at our website at http://www.fulldisclosure.net/via media streaming media. A cable channel guide with airtimes is available on the website.

Investigators Shutdown Belmont??

Los Angeles, CA— David Cartwright, Senior Partner of O’Melveny & Myers, who served as outside counsel to LAUSD on the Belmont Learning Center development told Full Disclosure that the LAUSD Inspector General, his legal counselors and Board member David Tokofsky caused the costly shut-down of the Belmont Learning Center project. He also claimed “they didn’t have a clue about school construction or oil and gas”.

In this two-part interview with Emmy Award winning host Leslie Dutton, David Cartwright described the LAUSD legal actions on the controversial Belmont Learning Center project and the circumstances leading to dismissal of the law suit against him and O’Melveny & Myers. The program is set to air world-wide on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting on Monday, June 14, 2004 on the STREAMING page at http://www.fulldisclosure.net For the first 30 days the program will be provided to viewers FREE as a public service and thereafter available on DVD, VHS and transcripts, online from the program catalog.

Full Disclosure host Leslie Dutton is conducting an on-going series ( eight to date) of one-hour interviews entitled “BELMONT: The World's Most Expensive High School". The interviews have revealed costs for the development were $175 million, which was financed in 1997 with non-voter approved, tax-exempt bonds known as Certificates of Participation (COP's). The Los Angeles Unified School Board has already approved an additional $110 million for remediation of environment hazards on the Belmont campus, which was built on top of one thousand closed oil wells and is plagued with methane gas and hydrogen sulfide. The LAUSD Facilities and Safety committees recently held hearings to pave the way for completion of the Belmont campus.

You can view this interview and other Belmont programs at our website at our website http://www.fulldisclosure.net/ via media streaming media and on 40 cable channels throughout California. A cable channel guide with airtimes is available on the website. (6/10/04) In addition to the Inspector General, DAVID CARTWRIGHT, LAUSD outside counsel

Law Firm Strategy "Knock Them Down"

Los Angeles, CA—David Cartwright, Senior Partner with the politically powerful law firm of O’Melveny & Myers was a major force in planning strategy for the Belmont Learning Center development as the "Chief outside real estate counsel" to the Los Angeles Unified School District. . In part one of a two-part interview on the Emmy Award winning Full Disclosure public affairs cable television program. Mr. Cartwright describes his role as being a "part of a project team that was specifically created to start knocking down the barriers to school construction." He further emphasized, "And when I say 'knocking down,' I'm very serious about that. It was not to get around them or to go under them. It was to KNOCK THEM DOWN..."

The Cartwright interview will be featured on 40 cable systems throughout California and is set to air world-wide on the Internet 24 hours a day, 7 days a week starting on Thursday, June 3, 2004 on the STREAMING PAGE at http://www.fulldisclosure.net/StreamingMedia.htm. For the first 30 days the program will be provided to viewers FREE as a public service and thereafter available online in the program catalog.

In fact, Cartwright says they wrote new state legislation known as the Joint Ventures Act, which allowed for combining private and retail developments with public school construction projects. Critics and prosecutors have blamed the Joint Ventures method of financing school construction for contributing to the $175 million fraud known as Belmont.

Full Disclosure host Leslie Dutton has been conducting a series of interviews entitled “BELMONT: The World's Most Expensive High School". Costs to date for the development are $175 million, which was financed in 1997 with non-voter approved, tax-exempt bonds known as Certificates of Participation (COP's). The Los Angeles Unified School Board has already approved an additional $110 million for remediation of environment hazards on the Belmont campus, which was built on top of one thousand closed oil wells and is plagued with methane gas and other toxic substances. The LAUSD Facilities and Safety committees are holding hearings on Belmont in preparation to complete the controversial development. .

You can view this program and other Belmont programs our website at www.fulldisclosure.net via media streaming media. A cable channel guide with airtimes is available on the website.