Park Dedicated While Budget Cut Plan Decried : Funding: Conservancy chairwoman says state’s proposed reductions would greatly hamper the group’s efforts to acquire more parkland.

The chairwoman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy used what she called the happiest of occasions--the dedication of a new park Friday--to call on environmentalists to express outrage at proposed cuts in the state organization’s budget.

“This may be our last dedication,” Carole Stevens told about 150 people who gathered under shade trees to inaugurate Towsley Canyon Park, 145 acres of pristine woodland in the mountains overlooking the Santa Clarita Valley.

Stevens said a proposal by the Assembly Ways and Means subcommittee would greatly hamper the conservancy’s efforts to acquire parkland. The subcommittee proposed paying for measures to be taken under Proposition 117--the Wildlife Protection Act approved by voters Tuesday--by redirecting $1 million from funds gathered to implement Proposition 70, the 1988 Park Bond Act. The money would come out of the conservancy’s budget.

Also, Stevens said, the conservancy cannot spend any of the $10 million in Proposition 117 funds it will receive over the next five years to acquire any lands that are not technically wildlife corridors, as specified in the proposition.

This will hinder the conservancy’s ability to acquire and protect mountain land that does not qualify as a wildlife corridor, she said.

“We need your letters of support, your letters of outrage that when you voted for Proposition 70 you expected parkland” and did not expect the money to go to implement other propositions, Stevens said.

The diversion of money would jeopardize the purchase of land surrounding Towsley Canyon Park, conservancy officials said. Environmentalists and local elected officials see the dedication of the park at the mouth of the canyon as the first step toward creating the proposed 6,000-acre Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park, west of Santa Clarita and north of Granada Hills.

Laurene Weste, commissioner of the Santa Clarita Parks and Recreation Department, called the woodlands proposal an effort to “save California for Californians.”

“We can’t replace this,” she said of Towsley Canyon. “This may not be in the city of Los Angeles, but you know and I know that our residents are going to use it,” said Los Angeles Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

State Sen. Ed Davis, who authored a bill that enabled the conservancy to buy the Towsley Canyon site for $500,000, said he would continue to help the agency acquire land for a larger park.

Davis’ aide, Hunt Braly, said he and his boss would work to make sure parkland and wildlife funds are kept separate, making more money available for land purchases.

Conservancy leaders turned the dedication into a testimonial to Sonia Thompson, longtime conservancy staff member who is moving to Washington. Elected officials from the state, Santa Clarita, Los Angeles, Agoura Hills and Los Angeles and Ventura counties presented plaques and scrolls to Thompson.

“When we’re all dead and gone, there will be trees that will say thank you to Sonia Thompson,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director.

The conservancy also named a building in the park the Sonia Thompson Nature Center.