Votes Bolster Opposition to Soka Plan : Parkland: Supervisors turn down attempt to influence federal park purchases. Calabasas City Council votes to oppose university expansion.

Park supporters won two victories last week in their quest to prevent a vast expansion by Soka University at its campus in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in a vote that one park advocate characterized as a gauge of the board’s overall sentiment on the Soka issue, turned down an attempt Tuesday to influence federal parkland purchases in the Santa Monicas.

Supervisor Deane Dana had suggested that the board ask federal legislators to force the National Park Service to confine its land purchases to properties owned by willing sellers. Opponents said the measure could have crippled a drive by the Park Service to acquire via condemnation the Japanese university’s 580-acre property in the mountains above Malibu.

Early Thursday morning, the Calabasas City Council voted to oppose Soka’s expansion, saying it would cause gridlock in the West San Fernando Valley and cause significant damage to the mountain environment.

Calabasas was the second neighboring city to oppose the school’s proposal to grow from 100 to 4,400 students. Opposition by the Malibu City Council came in mid-July.

Because of suggestions and concerns raised at the hearing in Calabasas, a final vote will be taken at the council’s Oct. 2 meeting.

Soka University is outside both Calabasas and Malibu, so the two cities have no formal say in whether the school receives a necessary zone change from Los Angeles County. But county planning commissioners and supervisors tend to consider the opinions of surrounding cities.

Soka representatives who attended the meeting criticized the council for prejudging the project, which does not reach even its first public environmental review until mid-October.

“We’re looking at people making decisions based on a whole lot of unknowns,” said Soka spokeswoman Bernetta Reade.

Soka representatives had tried unsuccessfully at the Calabasas hearing to persuade the council to postpone a decision for at least two months, during which time initial environmental review meetings are planned. Reade said that in spite of the council’s vote, Soka administrators hope that “the door for communication gets left open” between the city and Soka.

The school sits on rural land near the corner of Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road. Its northern boundary is more than a mile from the Calabasas city limits, although planned annexations could extend city boundaries to within several yards of the property.

Currently, only Japanese students from the group’s Tokyo campus study English there, but Soka officials want to gradually turn the campus into a four-year international college for American, Japanese and other foreign students.

The Park Service, meanwhile, wants about half of Soka’s land for the headquarters of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Park representatives and environmentalists who oppose the school’s plans characterized the supervisors’ 3-1 vote as a significant blow to Soka’s expansion proposal. Joseph T. Edmiston, director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, said it was a “straw vote” on Soka, indicating how the board may split when the project comes before it in a year or two.

“These are trial jousts over the ultimate battle . . . it’s encouraging,” said Dave Brown, chairman of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force of the Sierra Club.

Edmiston, Brown and others said they suspected Soka was behind Dana’s proposal and a similar effort to outlaw land condemnation in the Santa Monicas that was overturned last week in the U.S. Senate.

Dana, however, insisted that his motion had “absolutely nothing to do with Soka” and was motivated instead by a desire to treat other mountain property owners fairly, especially if their properties had been languishing on the Park Service’s wish list.

Tuesday’s vote featured an about-face by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. Initially, Hahn sided with Dana, saying that the Park Service’s inaction on buying land owned by willing sellers was “bureaucracy at its worst.”

Supervisor Ed Edelman, who took over representation of the mountain region from Dana after last year’s court-ordered redistricting, implored Hahn to change his mind, saying he was letting pity get in the way of good public policy.

“It’s a ploy to use up the money for willing sellers and not have enough for Soka,” Edelman said. “We ought not to get involved in this.”

When the roll call for the vote was taken, Hahn hesitated while Edelman mouthed, “No! No!” But Hahn instead voted yes with Dana, while Edelman was joined in opposition by Supervisor Gloria Molina.

Seconds later, Hahn’s aides huddled with Edelman’s aides, explaining that the supervisor had gotten flustered and made a mistake. At the end of the board meeting, Edelman called for a second vote and Hahn voted no, ensuring the proposal’s failure even if it were raised for reconsideration by board Chairman Mike Antonovich, who was absent Tuesday.