Conservancy Extension OKd by State Senate

The state Senate by a wide margin Tuesday passed a bill to extend the life of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy until July, 1995.

The measure by Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles) now goes to the Assembly.

In arguing for passage of his measure, Rosenthal said the conservancy, now scheduled to go out of business in 1990, has protected sensitive land from growth and development, especially in areas where open space is scarce.

Rosenthal said his aim is to help the conservancy “complete high-priority parkland expansion.”

Since the agency--championed by Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), who was then an assemblyman--was established in 1979, it has purchased or helped pay for acquisition of about 10,000 acres of open space and parkland at a cost of about $38 million, according to conservancy figures.

The life of the agency has been extended twice before, in 1981 and 1986.

Besides Rosenthal, Sen. Ed Davis (R-Valencia) hailed the agency, declaring: “I started out as an opponent of the conservancy. It came from the liberal Mr. Berman . . . and I was a conservative.”

‘Constructive Force’

But Davis acknowledged that “I’ve looked at what they’ve done around my district . . . and they’ve been a very constructive force” for parkland acquisition, especially in fast-growing areas.

According to the Senate floor analysis of the bill, it was opposed by the state Department of Finance, which maintained that the agency is “acquiring land within the Santa Monica Mountains . . . without provisions for the future development and staffing needed to provide public access and increase recreational uses.”

The department said that since the conservancy “is not a park or land-management agency,” it should be allowed to go out of business and its job turned over to the state Department of Parks and Recreation.