BEVERLY HILLS—The Beverly Hills Unified School District and the City of Beverly Hills filed an appeal of a trial court decision on May 29, that would allow the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) to move forward with plans to tunnel underneath Beverly Hills High School.

According to a press release from the City of Beverly Hills, on March 28, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John A. Torribio denied challenges to Metro’s decision which was filed by the School District and the City. The appeal will result in the cases being taken to the California Court of Appeal.

The BHUSD and the City are in support of the extension of the Purple Line (the Westside Subway Extension), where two stops will be constructed in Beverly Hills, but are against the alignment that will have the subway tunnel right underneath BHHS before leaving the city.

“Unfortunately, Metro did not give the School District, the Beverly Hills community, or the public a fair opportunity to comment on the seismic information that purported to drive its ultimate decision,” said Doug Evertz, counsel for the School District. “We now know that much of the information relied upon by Metro was simply incorrect. Metro’s rush to approve the revised alignment before all studies were finalized has left the School District with no choice except to continue the legal challenge.”

A year after Metro circulated their Environmental Impact Report for public review, new seismic reports were developed outside the public participation process.

“We continue to believe that Metro did not properly examine and mitigate impacts on our local community, as it is required to do by State law,” said Beverly Hills City Attorney Larry Wiener. “There are important issues at stake that merit review by the Court of Appeal.”

Metro shifted the location of the Century City Station to route the tunnel underneath the high school. Their new seismic reports noted that active faults did exist in the area of the original Santa Monica Station location and below the high school. The BHUSD was forced to spend millions of dollars researching these faults allegedly discovered by Metro, but were unable to find a single active fault.