State Senate Votes $975,000 for Preservation : Bill on Encino Artifacts Advances

Two state agencies would be given $975,000 and joint responsibility to preserve and display Indian artifacts found at the “Lost Village of Encino” under a measure approved Tuesday on a 29-2 vote by the state Senate.

The bill by Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys), which now goes to the Assembly, directs the Native American Indian Commission to oversee a survey of the artifacts.

The Department of Parks and Recreation is directed to then display the items, which include stone bowls, arrowhead points and glass and shell beads, in state parks.

To accomplish his goal, Robbins last week persuaded both houses of the Legislature to include a separate $50,000 appropriation in the state budget to study the feasibility of expanding Los Encinos State Historical Park to display some of the artifacts.

Along with the bones of about a dozen Indians, the artifacts were found during the excavation for the foundation of an office building on the corner of Balboa and Ventura Boulevards, across from the five-acre Los Encinos Park.

Robbins told his colleagues that the artifacts are the largest single Indian find in the state’s history. “They tell a story of how people lived in California as long as 5,000 years ago,” he said.

If they are not saved, Robbins warned, “many of these artifacts will crumble.”

Sens. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach) and Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim) opposed the measure.

In an interview, Bergeson explained that she did not receive any “substantiation” for the $975,000 appropriation. “I wasn’t sure how the figures were arrived at,” she said.

Bergeson said she is afraid that passage of Robbins’ bill would reduce the money available to save artifacts in her sprawling district, which covers parts of Orange, San Diego and Imperial counties. She said her her district is “rich in Indian lore and artifacts.”

In April, after the Encino artifacts were unearthed, Robbins sought $8 million to purchase about three acres next to Los Encinos Park and another $3 million to preserve the Indian items and draw up plans for a new museum.

But, faced with opposition from the Deukmejian Administration, Robbins scaled back both proposals.

State officials have argued that acquisition of the land is not a high enough priority for park funds, at least this year.

The Parks Department has said that, before any action is taken, officials should determine the significance of the collection and decide who should be the custodian of the items.

Archeologists have said some of the items unearthed in Encino appear to be from a village encountered by the first white men to reach the San Fernando Valley, in the expedition of Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola. The village and its spring-fed pond were described in the diary of Father Juan Crespi, a priest who accompanied Portola, but later researchers could not find the site.