Mountain Assignment

When the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was created, the goal was to acquire the land for the park in five years. That was more than 10 years ago; the park is still less than half finished. To try to move the park closer to completion, several California members of Congress are asking their colleagues to spend $30.7 million this next fiscal year to buy more land in the mountains. Congress is having to mind its money, but it should pledge as much as it can because the land in question will never get any less expensive.

Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) will make a bipartisan appeal for the land acquisition money to a Senate subcommittee today. They have joined with House colleagues Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles); Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City); Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), and Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica) in writing their colleagues about the park’s popularity and the need to complete it before inflation makes the task impossible.

“In terms of providing outdoor activities for the greatest number of people now and in the future, there is probably no better use of limited federal park funds than continuing the land acquisition program in the Santa Monicas,” Beilenson told a House subcommittee last week. Top land priorities now include property in Corral Canyon along the important Backbone Trail through the mountains, as well as land in Zuma and Trancas canyons.

The National Park Service also needs $613,000 to help maintain Lower Zuma Canyon and Circle X Ranch in the recreation area. Both properties were acquired recently.

Last year California legislators finally pried loose the first sizable chunk of money in recent years. People from all over Southern California must hope Congress has been cured of its indifference to urban parks and will protect the mountains from threatened development.