Senate Panel OKs $12.5 Million for Santa Monicas

A Senate committee voted Wednesday to allocate $12.5 million to obtain parklands next year in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area--but only after two Republican senators were assured that none of the funds would go to acquire Soka University’s coveted property.

Support for the $12.5 million was good news for park advocates. The House had previously approved $14 million for the Santa Monicas but the Senate traditionally provides a significantly smaller sum ranging from zero to half the House figure.

The full Senate is expected to approve the Appropriations Committee’s recommendation. A conference committee of lawmakers from each chamber will then negotiate a compromise. The funds would go toward purchase of the oak-studded Paramount Ranch tract in Agoura.

“It puts us in a good position,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys and manages parkland in the national recreation area.

Edmiston was less sanguine, however, about the latest round of high-profile lobbying by Soka, which is locked in a tug of war with park supporters over its centrally located Santa Monica Mountains property.

The school, based in Japan, is seeking approval from Los Angeles County to expand from a program that teaches English to 100 students to a facility for 4,400 high school and college students. The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, however, wants to acquire Soka’s scenic property and historic buildings in the Las Virgenes Valley for a visitors’ center and park headquarters.

Soka has steadfastly refused to sell but has offered to donate 71 acres of its 580-acre parcel and various buildings to the park system. Park advocates have rejected the offer because of the expected effects the proposed expansion would have on traffic and wildlife. They have raised the prospect of condemning the land for public use if necessary.

Soka, in turn, has aggressively lobbied in Congress--particularly in the Senate--to withhold any funding for land in the Santa Monicas that might be used for condemnation. Many Republicans are philosophically opposed to the costly, protracted process under which the government can seize land for the public good from unwilling sellers.

During Wednesday’s consideration of the spending bill, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Santa Monicas’ advocate on the Appropriations Committee, assured Republican Sens. Ted Stevens of Alaska and Don Nickles of Oklahoma that none of the $12.5 million would go for condemnation.

State and federal park officials say they would put the 1992-1993 appropriation toward purchase of Paramount Ranch, a top priority in its own right that could be lost to foreclosure unless a $17.6-million note is paid. Edmiston said park officials would seek to cover the remainder of the note the following year.