State Buys Big, Scenic Santa Monica Mountain Ranch, Opens It to Public

Months of squabbling between two state agencies officially ended Friday when authorities paid $5.85 million for a scenic ridge-top tract in the Santa Monica Mountains.

At his Hollywood district office, state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) delivered a king-sized check to the Boy Scouts of America, previous owner of the parkland known as Circle X Ranch, located south of Newbury Park.

The ranch, at 1,655 acres, is the largest property ever purchased by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that acquires parklands and trails in the mountains flanking the San Fernando Valley.

‘In the Nick of Time’

Joe Edmiston, director of the mountains conservancy, said the purchase came “just in the nick of time” to prevent the park from being developed.

The Boy Scout organization, which sold the land to raise funds for construction of a waterfront sports center in San Pedro, almost was forced to sell the land to builders to pay for its new facility, officials said.

“This purchase will prevent the land from being the exclusive property of wealthy landowners,” Roberti said.

The Boy Scouts will still have access to Circle X, but the grounds will be open to the public starting today, Edmiston said.

600 Camping Sites

With more than 600 camping sites, the newly acquired land doubles public camping facilities in the Santa Monica Mountains. The Circle X Ranch also has 22 miles of hiking trails, a swimming pool, an archery range and basketball and volleyball courts.

The interagency fighting over the acquisition began when the mountains conservancy, which did not have enough money for the Circle X purchase, persuaded the Legislature to lend it money from the budget of the state Coastal Conservancy. That displeased officials of the Coastal Conservancy.

“All of a sudden we found out about this line item inserted in the state budget,” said Don Coppock, the Coastal Conservancy’s project manager. “There wasn’t a phone call or a written request concerning the expenditure. It just appeared.”

Demand Guarantee

The Coastal Conservancy then angered the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy by demanding in December that the mountains agency use $900,000 of its cash reserves to guarantee the loan. Edmiston’s group said it could not afford that.

The stalemate was resolved last month when the Coastal Conservancy dropped that requirement.