Cranston Vows to Fight Hope Parkland 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 threaten 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 presently inaccessible 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.

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.

“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.”