Conservancy Draws Praise From Governor as Park Opens

Gov. George Deukmejian Thursday helped dedicate a park created with funds from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, an agency he alloted no money for in his proposed budget for fiscal 1987.

At a ceremony with local officials at Cherry Canyon park in La Canada Flintridge, Deukmejian embraced the politically popular cause of saving mountain land, stressing “how necessary it is for us to be able to preserve some recreational areas” in Greater Los Angeles.

And, in a written statement, Deukmejian praised “the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which has been so instrumental in preserving this and other parklands for public use.” The conservancy has acquired more than 6,000 acres of parkland in the Santa Monicas and foothills ringing the San Fernando Valley.

Deukmejian later told a reporter it was “not correct” that he had refused to fund the conservancy next year.

Funding Question

He said the agency was left out of his budget because “there is a question” as to whether it should have continued support from the general fund or should pay its own way through gifts and sales of land.

“That matter is presently under consideration in the Legislature, and I’m very sure that it will be resolved in the usual legislative process,” the governor said. He would not say whether he would go along with any decision by lawmakers to fund the agency.

During the past week, Assembly and Senate budget subcommittees have recommended giving $350,000 in operating funds to the conservancy, which has 17 full- and part-time employees. Both panels also proposed providing the conservancy with enough funds to continue giving grants to local parks departments and nonprofit groups, and to purchase more land for the Cherry Canyon park.

Although the governor left the conservancy out of his budget, conservancy Chairman Roger Gertmenian, Deukmejian’s appointee to the conservancy board, said at the ceremony that he was “delighted” to tell the governor “in front of our many friends here, that we love him and we’re very, very proud of him.”

The conservancy got a new lease on life last year when Deukmejian signed legislation extending it from 1986 to 1990.

$5-Million Request

But the governor’s budget proposal in January rejected the entire $5 million sought by the conservancy.

The conservancy occasionally buys land to hold for other state and federal parks agencies that are temporarily strapped for cash. Deukmejian budget officials have suggested that proceeds from land transfers to these agencies, as well as sale of other tracts on the private market, be relied on to pay for more parks, trail construction and grant programs.

But this is the first time the agency has been called upon to raise its entire budget in this way.

Joe Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director, said land sales would not be a secure fund source and would compromise the agency as well. “We’re supposed to be preserving the natural resources and ending our stay on this bureaucratic earth with a net benefit,” he said.

But Edmiston said the subcommittee proposals, if approved, at least will get “us over the problem of not having an office unless we sell parks.”

He noted that, in some previous years, Deukmejian has sought no funds to buy land, but “has always signed the measures once they have gotten to his desk.”

Gertmenian, the conservancy chairman, said, “The government agencies are simply going to have to make do with what they have.”