In Santa Monicas : House Earmarks $8 Million for More Parkland

Continuing the pattern of recent years, the U.S. House of Representatives has appropriated $8 million to buy more parkland for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, rejecting a Reagan Administration request that no money be spent next year on expansion.

The $8 million represents nearly one-sixth of the $51 million approved by the House to increase park holdings nationally during the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. The money was included in the budget for Department of Interior programs that the House adopted Wednesday.

The Republican-controlled Senate has yet to approve a budget for Interior programs, but is likely to provide less money for them than the House.

In most years recently, the Senate has gone along with the White House to deny funds for the mountain park. The acquisition budget for the Santa Monicas and other parks then has been determined by House and Senate conferees.

A Compromise

Last fall, for example, the mountain park got just under $8 million for land acquisition, a compromise between the $12 million sought by the House and the zero allotment by the Senate.

Although the size of next year’s allotment remains uncertain, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles) said the House version “is a solid indication that we did a good job of convincing members of the compelling need for continuing the land-acquisition program.”

The House bill also included $200,000 above the Administration request for operation and maintenance at the national recreation area, which took a large cut in that category two years ago.

The House further provided $300,000 to re-establish the Santa Monica park’s local land-acquisition office, which earlier this year was disbanded. Its functions were absorbed by the regional office of the National Park Service in San Francisco.

Decision Criticized

That move, defended as cutting costs, was bitterly assailed by local environmentalists and lawmakers, and was criticized by some Park Service staff at national recreation area headquarters in Woodland Hills.

Beilenson, a sponsor of the 1978 legislation that created the mountain park, said bringing back the land-acquisition office would “expedite land purchases, save some parcels from being lost to development and keep relations between the Park Service and the more than 3,000 landowners in the mountains in good stead.”

These were the same arguments he and others used last winter in an unsuccessful effort to persuade William Penn Mott, Park Service director, to veto the closure of the office.

The national recreation area is a 150,000-acre network of federal, state and local preserves, interspersed with private holdings, and extending from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County.

The federal land-buying program is only one-third complete, with the National Park Service holding 11,800 acres of the 36,000 acres it plans to own.