Bill Seeking to Block Reseda Boulevard Link Sent to Governor : Traffic: Encino supporters of the road through Topanga State Park say the Legislature should not be involved.

A bill aimed at blocking construction of a four-lane extension of Reseda Boulevard through Topanga State Park, south to Mulholland Drive, has won final legislative passage.

The state Assembly sent the bill to Gov. Pete Wilson late Friday on a 59-16 vote. Bill Livingstone, the governor’s press secretary, said Saturday that Wilson has not taken a position on the proposal by Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles).

Friedman’s bill was among the last acted upon by the Legislature as it finished most of its regular business for the year and cleared the slate to focus on drawing new district boundaries.

The measure, also approved late Friday by the Senate on a 23-9 vote, authorizes the state Department of Parks and Recreation to block construction of the 60-foot-wide thoroughfare if park officials find that the road would destabilize mountain slopes around Topanga State Park.

In a Senate analysis of the bill, Friedman’s office contends that the roadway, approved more than a decade ago when major development in the area was anticipated, is unnecessary because most of the property now is publicly owned.

The tract map for one remaining development, however, requires that Reseda Boulevard be extended to Mulholland Drive and paved. The development now under construction by Harlan Lee & Associates ends at the boundary of state parkland north of Mulholland Drive.

Opponents of the bill, including the Encino Hillside Traffic Safety Organization, say that the Legislature has no business interjecting itself in what they describe as a local dispute. They contend that the Reseda-Mulholland connection would establish an alternative cross-mountain route that would siphon off many motorists who take shortcuts through residential neighborhoods of Encino.

In the Senate, their cause was championed by Don Rogers, a Republican from Bakersfield, who sought amendments to the bill that critics of the proposed road said would have allowed construction to go forward. His amendments were defeated.

During debate on the measure, Rogers argued that the Legislature should let local officials “sort it out . . . rather than make us act as a big planning commission in Sacramento for the city of Los Angeles,” because local officials have better knowledge of the issue.

Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) countered that the roadway was a proper issue for the Legislature to be reviewing because it would cut through state parkland.

“It’s a false hypothesis that we are interfering with local planning,” Davis said.

Moreover, he said, a lobbyist hired by homeowners opposing the legislation “has caused more damn trouble than I’ve ever seen on something that everyone else agrees on.”