Land Swap Backers Use Same Firm : Parks: A nature group supporting the Bob Hope land exchange has hired the developers’ attorneys in Washington to sidetrack two other projects.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which has drawn fire from some environmentalists for its support of a controversial private-for-public land exchange, has used the services of the same Washington law firm as the developers who are pushing the land exchange.

The law firm of Cutler & Stanfield is representing Potomac Investment Associates (PIA), which has proposed exchanging private land for federal parkland in Cheeseboro Canyon. The swap, which the conservancy supports, would provide access to the Jordan Ranch, where Potomac wants to build a golf course and 750 homes.

The conservancy has since hired Cutler & Stanfield for advice on how to sidetrack two other development proposals.

An opponent of the exchange said he was troubled by the relationships. It suggests “a chumminess where a professional distance ought to prevail,” said Siegfried Othmer, a member of the Save the Mountain Park Coalition.

“The conservancy should have the discretion not to use a law firm being employed by a party, namely PIA, with whom they should be acting at arm’s length,” he said.

Conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston and attorneys with Cutler & Stanfield said the relationships did not pose a conflict of interest because the firm was giving each party advice on different issues.

“It didn’t cross my mind that anyone would” consider it a conflict, Edmiston said. “It would raise questions if we deprived ourselves of the best legal advice” on derailing the other two projects, Edmiston said.

But a Cutler & Stanfield attorney acknowledged last week that the firm also discussed the Jordan Ranch deal with the conservancy, which has joined with Potomac in urging the National Park Service, owner of Cheeseboro Canyon, to approve the swap.

“We have had conversations on behalf of PIA with the conservancy regarding our joint efforts to gain approval of the land-exchange proposal,” said Eliot R. Cutler, a partner with the firm. He declined to discuss those talks in detail, citing attorney-client privilege.

Potomac wants to acquire 59 acres in Cheeseboro Canyon from the National Park Service to build an access road to the 2,308-acre Jordan Ranch.

In return, Potomac would deed the Park Service and the conservancy about 1,100 acres of the Jordan Ranch, including an area of oak meadows and panoramic views known as China Flat. Jordan Ranch is now owned by entertainer Bob Hope but is under option to Potomac.

Opponents of the exchange have said it would put the Park Service in the role of promoting development and would eliminate flickering hopes of public acquisition of the entire Jordan Ranch, as envisioned in Park Service plans.

Edmiston said negotiations leading to the conservancy’s support of the Cheeseboro-Jordan Ranch exchange were directly with Potomac general partner Peter Kyros, rather than with Cutler & Stanfield.

Those negotiations were in effect reopened this spring and ended in a deal approved last month under which Hope agreed to transfer about 5,700 acres in the Santa Susana and Santa Monica mountains--including the 1,100 acres of Jordan Ranch--to parks agencies for a below-market $20 million, so long as the Cheeseboro-Jordan Ranch land exchange eventually is approved. The agreement has split the ranks of environmentalists, with some lionizing and others criticizing the conservancy.

Potomac hired Cutler & Stanfield about 18 months ago. The conservancy retained the firm late last year for advice on a proposed land swap involving Elsmere Canyon near Santa Clarita, Edmiston said. He said the firm was retained “because they are the premier firm that deals with federal land exchanges.”

The Elsmere land, owned by the U.S. Forest Service, has been sought by Los Angeles county and city officials for use as a public landfill. They have proposed trading other lands adjoining Angeles National Forest to the Forest Service for the canyon.

The conservancy hired the law firm to gain legal ammunition to defeat such a transfer if it did not include sufficient environmental trade-offs, including agreement by the county to deed the conservancy undeveloped canyons in the Santa Monica Mountains for preservation as parks.

The conservancy also hired Cutler & Stanfield this spring to find legal ways to block a golf course project proposed for Corral Canyon in Malibu, Edmiston said. That 339-acre tract was also owned by Hope.

Cutler & Stanfield attorney Peter Kirsch drafted a memo detailing how provisions of the Clean Water Act that restrict alteration of stream channels could be used to kill the controversial project.

The memo, Edmiston said, was used “to advance the anti-development interest” and figured in negotiations with Hope that ended in the sweeping deal, in which Hope agreed to abandon the Malibu golf course.

Although Cutler & Stanfield helped the conservancy oppose Hope’s Corral Canyon interests at the same time the firm advanced his Jordan Ranch interests by working for the land exchange, the firm said it had no conflict because its clients were the conservancy and Potomac, not Hope.

Cutler, who was associate director of the Office of Management and Budget under former President Jimmy Carter, said of the arrangements with the conservancy and Potomac:

“It is perfectly proper and both clients have been aware of it. We were asked by both clients in the beginning . . . to determine if there would be any conflict. We did consider that, determined that there was neither the appearance nor the fact of a conflict and proceeded on that basis.”

Alan C. Miller reported from Washington and Myron Levin reported from Chatsworth.