Source: https://www.latimes.com/, April 22, 2024
By: Tony Briscoe

For years, school district officials had grand designs to revamp the campus of McKinley Elementary in Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District intended to build a two-story building with eight state-of-the-art classrooms and a modernized front office. The project had already been funded by a previous bond measure and splashy renderings were publicized by district staff.

Last year, however, a district-hired inspector discovered dangerous levels of toxic vapors percolating in the soil at the proposed construction site, a parking lot on the northeast end of campus. Since then, state regulators have concluded the contaminants likely migrated underground from a dry cleaner across the street. Read more.