How much is enough, LAUSD?

I have had frustration and anger with the LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) for years over their attempts, and eventual success, in obtaining and destroying the Ambassador Hotel in order that schools can be built on the site.

The Los Angeles Times for Sunday April 1 2007, had an excellent, if alarming op-ed piece by Marcos Villatoro titled Don't destroy my neighborhood, LAUSD regarding LAUSD’s desire to forcibly condemn homes in his Van Nuys neighborhood, for yes, yet another school.

I don’t care about the “greater good” and am unmoved by cries of “but it’s for the children!”. People who move into any of the neighborhoods where LAUSD currently buses students to the Valley have made this situation for themselves and for their children through CHOOSING to live there, well knowing that there is no room in the schools for their kids. What I do care about are the rights of individual property owners and the value provided to a community by its historic landmarks, neither of which should be sacrificed in the name of imminent domain.

LAUSD can have their schools, by building upon whatever vacant land there is – or by purchasing the land of willing landowners at the market price stated. Not through forcible destruction of a city’s homes and history. After all, don’t they preach against bullies in school?