Officials Sue to Bar Construction of School on Alleged Toxic Site

Alleging that a proposed school site in Signal Hill contains unsafe amounts of toxic waste, city officials sued the Long Beach Unified School District on Monday to prevent construction of a remedial school for eighth-graders.

The lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges that the school district misrepresented problems at the proposed school site, a former General Telephone maintenance yard.

“We believe there are still significant contaminants and hazardous materials on the site,” Mayor Richard Ceccia said in a statement.

The suit also accuses the district of violating competitive bid requirements and failing to properly inform the public of changes to the school plan.

A spokesman for the school district said the school meets all legal requirements.

Monday’s announcement of the lawsuit comes less than a week after the Signal Hill City Council voted to spend $10,000 to study whether to break from the Long Beach system and form a separate district.

Signal Hill residents have complained that the campus, scheduled to open this fall for about 500 underachieving eighth-graders, would leave students to roam the surrounding neighborhoods after school.

A recent survey indicated that Signal Hill residents oppose the remedial school by a margin of 2 to 1. Among about 600 who responded, 44% said they favored creating a separate school district, 34% were opposed and 22% said they were undecided.