Santa Monicas Review OKd : Lawmakers Protesting Plan to Shut Park Office

National Park Service Director William Penn Mott, responding to protests from six California Congress members, has agreed to review a decision to abolish the local land acquisition office of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and transfer its duties to the regional Park Service office in San Francisco.

Park Service spokesman George Berklacy said Monday that Mott has ordered agency officials in San Francisco and Washington “to submit to him a complete analysis of the impacts” of the land office closure, which was ordered two weeks ago as a cost-cutting move. Berklacy said Mott may make a decision within a few days.

In a letter to Mott, U.S. Sens. Alan Cranston, a Democrat, and Pete Wilson, a Republican, and four House members from Los Angeles argued that closing the land office in Woodland Hills could result in “the irreversible loss of desirable parkland” and might not save money.

The letter, delivered to Mott late Friday by Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), also was signed by Reps. Howard Berman (D-Studio City), Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge) and Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica).

Woodland Hills Office Affected

The land office closure, ordered by Park Service Regional Director Howard Chapman, would eliminate the eight-person staff in Woodland Hills and $341,000 budget devoted to inspecting property, reviewing appraisals and negotiating the purchase of mountain tracts for the national recreation area. Those duties would be handled by regional staff in San Francisco, who administer 44 national parks, monuments and historic sites.

Land acquisition for most national parks is managed from regional offices, Park Service officials said.

Abolition of the local land office will not affect other activities at the national recreation area headquarters at 22900 Ventura Blvd.

Beilenson, who met with Mott for about 15 minutes, said the former California state parks director “sounded open-minded” but did not say “whether he agreed with those of us who signed the letter.”

Preserves Cover 150,000 Acres

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area is a network of county, state and federal preserves, interspersed with private holdings, that covers 150,000 acres from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County.

During the last seven years, the National Park Service has acquired 11,600 acres for the mountain park--one third of the nearly 35,000 acres it eventually plans to buy.

In their protest letter to Mott, the lawmakers said that, without the local lands office, “it is likely that purchases will be delayed (and perhaps lost altogether), opportunities for acquisitions at good prices will be missed and relations between the Park Service and local landowners will deteriorate.”

Because “development pressures in the Santa Monicas are great,” the letter said, the local office also is needed “to respond quickly in the event that a planned purchase is threatened with development.”

Question Cost-Cutting Claim

The lawmakers also said that the cost-cutting rationale is “questionable” because some expenses would increase, including the cost of “transporting land acquisition officers back and forth between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and paying for their lodging in Los Angeles.”

Moreover, with the cost of land in the mountains “continuing to appreciate, the longer the Park Service waits to purchase the land, the more expensive it will be,” the letter said.

“An on-site acquisition office can more readily negotiate land transactions in advance of the appropriations the NRA (national recreation area) will receive and be prepared to make the desired purchases as soon as the funds become available.”

Chapman, in defending the office closure, said that, under current budgetary constraints, there will not be enough work at a single park to keep a land staff fully occupied. He pointed out that the Reagan Administration is not seeking any money to buy land in the Santa Monicas next year and has asked Congress to take back the $3.6 million remaining in this year’s land acquisition budget.

In their letter to Mott, however, the California lawmakers noted that Congress almost routinely rejects “the Administration’s perennial requests for no funding for land purchases” for the mountain park.

“So long as Congress continues to appropriate money for the Santa Monicas, we believe that there will be a need for a local land acquisition office,” the letter said.