Local News in Brief : Chief of Mountains Park Takes New Job
The superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area who headed the park during a turbulent period of growth announced Friday that he will leave to head a national park in Pennsylvania.
Daniel R. Kuehn said he is “very much looking forward” to becoming superintendent of the Gettysburg National Military Park on Oct. 9.
During Kuehn’s five years at the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area, rising land prices and lean budgets hampered efforts to expand the park to what Congress had envisioned in 1977: a system of federal, state and local parks encompassing about two-thirds of the 150,000 acres of mountains from Ventura County to Griffith Park.
Nevertheless, federal park holdings increased from 4,000 to 13,000 acres under Kuehn.
“There’s still a lot to be done,” Kuehn said Friday.
Congress has appropriated $79 million of the $155 million authorized in the park’s enabling legislation. This month, Congress agreed on an $11-million, 1989 appropriation to expand the park, the largest amount in five years.
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