Governor Shifts Land-Purchase Funds to Parks Agency

The $44-billion state budget signed Friday by Gov. George Deukmejian authorizes the expenditure of $10 million in bond funds to buy parkland in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains between Simi Valley and Granada Hills.

But in a move some say could stall preservation efforts, Deukmejian reversed lawmakers by shifting the $10 million from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to the California Department of Parks and Recreation.

The conservancy had been working for months with local residents to select prime acquisitions in the rugged canyons and woodlands at the northern rim of the San Fernando Valley. With its long head start, aggressive style and streamlined procedures, the conservancy was seen by area conservationists as better able than the state parks department to move quickly to save scenic parcels from development.

Valley-area projects were not especially hard-hit, however, in the $472 million in spending cuts Deukmejian made Friday. But the governor did trim nearly $1.3 million in improvements for the newly approved Los Angeles-to-Santa Barbara rail service and $428,000 for installation of a roof over the courtyard at the Van Nuys State Office Building.

Jan Hinkston, a Chatsworth resident and founder of the Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn., said she was very disappointed at the decision to give the state parks department the land-buying money. Because of the department’s lengthy review process, worthhile tracts could be lost to development or because of escalating costs, Hinkston argued.

“Our experience has been that they end up paying a lot more for the land than the conservancy would,” Hinkston said.

State parks department officials could not be reached for comment.

The $10 million for the Santa Susanas was included in the $776-million state parks and wildlife bond act that voters overwhelmingly approved June 7. The bond act specified that Santa Susana purchases could be made by the state parks department within five years but that the Legislature at any time could give the job and money to the conservancy. In the proposed budget sent to Deukmejian last week, lawmakers assigned the task to the conservancy.

In his veto, Deukmejian said that the “reallocation is premature” and that state parks should have a chance to buy the land.

Although he did not say so, the governor has clearer authority over the state parks department than the more free-wheeling conservancy. But the Santa Susana project must stand in line at the parks department, which has a statewide parks system to administer and its own bond windfall of $153 million--apart from the Santa Susana money--to expand and improve state parks.

The conservancy, which buys parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains and the canyons and foothills ringing the San Fernando Valley, was given $30 million by the bond act, which Deukmejian’s budget authorizes it to spend.

Joe Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, agreed with Hinkston that acquisitions in the Santa Susanas and Simi Hills “will go slower because we had everything ready to go.” The conservancy had met with local environmentalists, had identified prime parcels and had worked up telephone lists to begin contacting owners, he said.

But “it is not the end of the world in terms of the Simis and Santa Susanas,” Edmiston said. The governor has told the parks department “here’s the football, run with it,” Edmiston said.

Contributing to this story were Times staff writers Jeffrey L. Rabin and James Quinn.