Cranston Vows Effort to Kill Land Swap Deal

Environmentalists, bitterly divided over a land swap endorsed by comedian Bob Hope, clashed once again Saturday when U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) promised an appreciative Malibu audience that he would try to kill the plan in Congress.

Cranston told about three dozen environmentalists and neighborhood activists that the controversial land exchange would set a dangerous precedent and could endanger the future of other national parklands.

Under the plan, Hope would sell and donate a total of 5,700 acres in the Santa Monica and Santa Susana mountains to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In return, the National Park Service would relinquish 59 acres in Cheeseboro Canyon so that a developer, who has optioned another of Hope’s properties, could build a road to a landlocked tract.

“Once you put into permanent trust a beautiful part of the land or the water, it stays that way forever,” Cranston told the crowd gathered in the back yard of a Malibu estate.

To hand a developer a “jewel of land,” Cranston said, “is a very inappropriate matter for the Park Service to engage itself in. The Park Service is supposed to be interested in protecting the land.”

But supporters of the land swap were not content to let Cranston and his backers receive all the publicity on Saturday. A handful of pickets, carrying bright placards, mingled in the street in front of the home of Margot Feuer, the event’s hostess and a longtime environmentalist.

Meanwhile, Cranston, clad in a dark suit and sitting on a straw mat, listened to speakers in the back yard. At one point, an uninvited guest--a staffer from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy--interrupted the event, loudly announcing that she was inviting him to take a helicopter ride later that day.

“Mr. Cranston has not seen those 5,700 acres, and we feel it is of great importance for him to support giving the public this much acreage of land,” said Julie Zeidner, a temporary employee of the conservancy. “Fifty-nine acres is not a great price to pay for 8.9 square miles of the most beautiful parkland left in Southern California.”

Her message was drowned out by shouts from the audience.

“I think that this is really arrogant since you have not been invited,” said Feuer.

“You can see the polarization that the conservancy has created with this issue,” Feuer said after she told Zeidner to leave. “It has put group against group, neighbor against neighbor . . . friends against friends. Yes, indeed, it has done that, because of the arrogance of the conservancy determining what the national park should be.”

Cranston, unphased by the incident, told his supporters that he “was delighted to be with you in the Pandora’s Box.” Later, he said he would like to tour the 5,700 acres, but his schedule would not permit it this weekend.

Cranston reiterated his intent to insert language into the Department of Interior’s appropriations bill that would effectively block the swap. The senator said he would work to obtain $33 million in next year’s federal budget to buy parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains so that a swap would not be necessary.

But conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston, who held a news conference nearby Saturday, said the chances of the Park Service receiving such a windfall for land acquisition in this area were remote.

“I wish Alan well, but the question is, if you don’t get everything you want, then are we still prepared to throw overboard the 5,700 acres?” Edmiston asked.