An additional $1.5 million dollars was approved last week in a 4-2 vote by the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education to pay Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, the law firm hired to defend the school district against litigation that would force remediation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
“I hate to see us spending money on lawyers, when at this point I think we all agree that remediation is the right path forward,” Board Member Craig Foster said. Foster made up one of the two dissenting votes against the funds, along with Board of Education Member Oscar de la Torre.
Pillsbury was hired at a rate of $695 dollars per hour to defend the school district from a lawsuit filed by Malibu-based America Unites For Kids that alleged the school district violated the federal Toxic Substances Control Act and some state laws.
America Unites For Kids’ lawsuit is not seeking monetary damages, but instead is hoping to force the school district to implement a remediation plan to completely remove all PCBs from Malibu schools.
President of America Unites for Kids Jennifer deNicola claims a complete remediation could be accomplished for roughly $1.6 million dollars, citing a comparable case in Glastonbury, CT.
Currently, the school district has spent over $5 million in legal fees, including the recently approved $1.5 million.
“It is unfortunate that we were sued,” District Spokesperson Gail Pinsker said. “This is money that could have been used for other uses or facilities, but we had to use it for legal fees.”
Multiple sources confirmed that the $1.5 million dollars was already spent before it was approved by the district’s board on June 29. Only $250,000 will be used for future work. Considering Pillsbury charges hourly, it is likely that their fees accrue gradually and are approved in a lump sum at once; however, this information has not been confirmed.
Despite the district’s fight against the lawsuit, the school district announced through a letter sent to parents on June 9 plans for “major facility improvements” on Malibu High School and Juan Cabrillo Elementary School throughout the summer. The improvements would specifically “remove and replace certain building materials that have been the subject of concern due to the potential presence of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).” To some, this sounds too good to be true.
“It doesn’t solve the PCB problem in its entirety,” deNicola said. “It’s not an end-all solution. For the children and those that educate them, they deserve an end-all solution. They deserve PCBs being removed from their school so they never have to worry about it again.”
Currently the improvements test for PCBs by removing all material from the floor to the ceiling of any door or window that is replaced, then the porous material within one foot on either side is “bulk tested.”
As of a Facilities District Advisory Committee meeting on July 11, all testing has been under 1 part per million (ppm), which is the Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limit.
The point of contention is that PCBs are capable of spreading, and there could potentially be higher levels of PCBs in other parts of the school that the district is not testing. Still, many see this as a step in the right direction.
“This — for me, in three years, this is the first huge step in the right direction that’s really showing that things are happening that parents want,” Chair of Malibu’s Facilities District Advisory Committee Caren Leib said.
The lawsuit between America Unites and the school district required all documents to be submitted by midnight on June 27. Currently, both sides are waiting for the judge to make his decision, which could take weeks or months.
Some members close to the case anticipate a decision in July, but the judge is not bound by a specific time limit.