Supervisors Unswayed on Jordan Land Swap : Development: Officials remain concerned about Bob Hope’s offer despite support from the interior secretary and governor.

Ventura County supervisors, who will decide this year whether Bob Hope can develop scenic Jordan Ranch, say intervention by Gov. Pete Wilson and U.S. Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan Jr. on behalf of the faltering project has done nothing to improve its chances of approval.

Four of five supervisors said last week that they still have grave concerns about building 750 houses and a golf course on the 2,308-acre ranch in the hills south of Simi Valley.

“I don’t think that because you are the governor or the interior secretary your opinion ought to take on any special moment,” Supervisor Susan K. Lacey said. “The project absolutely breaks every planning guideline we have in the county of Ventura. You name it, and it doesn’t work.”

And board Chairwoman Maggie Erickson Kildee said of Wilson’s position: “It’s probably irrelevant. This is still a local decision.”

Supervisors expressed surprise that Wilson and Lujan declared support for a complex land swap that would turn 5,700 acres of Hope’s land over to state and federal park agencies while giving developers 59 acres of federal parkland needed for a road into the housing project.

Both officials revealed their positions on the same day, March 6.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if President Bush ends up taking a position,” Supervisor Maria VanderKolk said. “Bob Hope is a big Republican supporter. . . . He knows Pete Wilson and he knows George Bush, and this is probably the utmost issue on Bob Hope’s mind. I’m sure he’s mentioned it to them.”

VanderKolk said, however, that she did not know whether Hope, his attorney or development company had called Wilson or Lujan and asked for help.

A spokesman for Hope and his attorney did not return telephone calls Friday. But Peter Kyros, a partner of Potomac Investment Associates, the Jordan Ranch development company, said no one involved in the project asked Wilson or Lujan to intervene.

“I think all this is an honest genesis on behalf of everyone who has watched this process for three years to see if something sensible can be worked out,” Kyros said.

Richard P. Sybert, director of the governor’s Office of Planning and Research, said Wilson’s interest in Jordan Ranch has nothing to do with Hope’s longtime support of Republican politicians or his assistance in the governor’s campaign last fall.

At one rally the weekend before the November election, Hope described Wilson as “a wonderful man I’ve known for about 50 years. He’s just a standout in my heart.”

But Sybert said the Jordan Ranch issue is important to the governor not because of Hope’s politics, but because the land swap “is potentially something good for California. This would affect the recreational activities for millions of Southern Californians.

“People say, ‘Why now?’ The clear implication is that somebody called up,” Sybert said. “And that’s not the case.”

Wilson stepped into the debate over Jordan Ranch 11 days ago by hosting a meeting of officials from Ventura County, cities near the ranch, state and federal park agencies and the Jordan Ranch development team.

At the meeting, the governor stressed that the land swap is a state and national issue, not only a local one.

“No one is being strong-armed here, but I do want to make it clear to you that there is a great interest . . . on the part of people who are not immediate parties to this issue,” Wilson said.

Wilson’s staff brought to the meeting a letter from Lujan, faxed to Sacramento from Washington that morning, in which Lujan said he found the land-swap proposal to be potentially “a model of intergovernmental cooperation as well as public-private partnerships.”

Because Lujan’s letter was dated March 6, the same day as Wilson’s meeting, VanderKolk and other project opponents have speculated that there may have been a coordinated effort by Hope allies to save the Jordan deal. The project has been in jeopardy since the California Coastal Commission rejected a small but lucrative part of it in December.

But Sybert, who organized the Wilson meeting, said he made no effort to coordinate the meeting with release of Lujan’s letter. “So far as I know, this was not a coordinated full-court press by the Feds and the state,” he said.

Sybert said he did not tell Lujan or the National Park Service’s Washington office about Wilson’s meeting. He did invite a representative of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, in which Jordan Ranch is located. And Steven Goldstein, a spokesman for Lujan, said the secretary heard about the meeting from the park service.

Two weeks before the Wilson meeting, Lujan directed that a letter be written to the governor informing him of Lujan’s support for the land swap, Goldstein said. And when Lujan assistants heard about the Wilson meeting, they faxed the letter to the governor instead of mailing it, Goldstein said.

Lujan has not talked to Wilson about Jordan Ranch, Goldstein said. Nor has the secretary spoken with Hope or Bush about the project, the spokesman said.

“The difference is not that Bob Hope is involved in this project,” Goldstein said. “The difference is that because of its size, it has attracted a lot more attention than normal.”

If the deal is approved, the park service would swap 59 acres of Cheeseboro Canyon--land Potomac needs for an access road--for 864 acres of the ranch. Hope has also offered to sell or donate an additional 4,836 acres in the Santa Monica and Santa Susana mountains for a below-market price of $10 million.

Hope’s offer is contingent both upon approval of the land exchange by the park service and of the Jordan Ranch development by the Board of Supervisors. Environmental studies of each are now being conducted.

Both Lujan and Wilson have said that while they hope the land swap can be saved, it is strictly a local decision as to how much development should be allowed at Jordan Ranch.

Wilson’s recent meeting should not have come as a surprise, Sybert said, because he has supported the land-swap aspect of the project since last summer. While still on Wilson’s Senate staff, Sybert said he tracked the project. The issue has been a high-ranking item on the governor’s agenda since election, he said.

Sybert said Wilson recognizes that the Jordan deal must be scaled down from 750 houses to keep it alive. At the March 6 meeting, “there seemed to be a consensus that the deal as presently structured wasn’t going to fly,” he said. “My role is to keep the parties talking to see if something can be worked out.”

However, Wilson’s meeting apparently did not help Hope’s chances of having the Jordan Ranch deal approved. Some local officials said they feel they are being pressured to fall into line with the governor’s wishes.

VanderKolk, who characterized the meeting as “an attempt to influence us,” said she took exception to what she said were Sybert’s efforts to get ranch developers and county officials to disclose what they might accept as a compromise.

“He said basically, ‘Is there a number you can live with? Is there anything we can do?’ ” she said. “We just said they should come before the board and take their best shot. They don’t have a right to have some sort of implied promise that everything’s going to be OK.”

Erickson Kildee, the county board chairwoman, did not attend the meeting, but she said she does not think it was “particularly appropriate.”

“It’s highly unusual for people outside the county, for a governor, to intrude into local land-use planning,” she said. “This project has far-reaching implications, but the board is aware of those.”

However, Supervisor Vicky Howard, who attended the meeting and is the only board member who has not harshly criticized the project, said the meeting may have helped.

“All the viewpoints were put forward in the same room, which I don’t think happened before,” she said. “Everyone always is off in their own corner making statements.”

And Supervisor John K. Flynn, a longtime opponent of the project, said: “I’m still an opponent of it. But it certainly makes the project more significant when you have people like the governor and the secretary of interior involved in it.”

Nevertheless, the Wilson meeting left some hard feelings.

“The name of the game was show the people from out in the woods the governor as they got off their onion truck,” said one county official. “It was like, God, this is really the governor. And Wilson gives his five-minute pitch and he’s gone.”

A state official close to the governor expressed irritation with VanderKolk.

“I have concern about absolutists,” he said. “There are a lot of different interests at stake here. When someone says their interests are more important here than others’--that is not the way to make friends in politics.”