Panel Urges $12.5 Million for Area Parklands : Santa Monica Mountains: The full Senate is expected to approve the plan. Lawmakers have been assured that the Soka University property will not be targeted.

A Senate committee voted $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 proposes 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 would then negotiate a compromise, with the funds going 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 high-stakes 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 will put the 1992-93 appropriation toward the 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 that park officials would seek to cover the remainder of the note the following year.

Stevens, who said he met with Soka lobbyists during the past week, said in an interview that he was adamantly opposed to the use of public funds for condemnation of any Soka property. He praised Soka’s offer as “more compatible with the public’s desire” than park officials’ goal for the property. He also noted that there are other willing sellers in the recreation area.

Stevens criticized park officials for seeking to obtain historic buildings on Soka property because “we don’t have to have mansions for people to run computers and for administrative purposes.” The buildings once were the country retreat of King Gillette, built in 1930 by the razor blade baron and subsequently restored.

Edmiston responded that the buildings are important not only for their historic value but because Congress has stopped approving funds to build new visitor centers. The heart of the project calls for using the Gillette property to house exhibits on American Indians, the Spanish era and the environment, he said.

Edmiston asserted that Soka’s lobbying was making it more difficult to win any money from Congress for purchases in the urban park by their challenging the Park Service’s motives and drawing additional attention to the high cost of land in the recreation area. Edmiston came to Washington with Marc Litchman, a consultant to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Foundation, to counteract Soka’s lobbying.

Melissa Kuckro, a legislative aide to Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Los Angeles), the House’s leading advocate for the Santa Monicas, agreed. “There are enough obstacles anyway, and this one added to it makes it tougher,” Kuckro said.

Mike Lewis, a Los Angeles-based lobbyist for Soka who huddled with half a dozen associates outside the appropriations hearing, said that the university’s sole focus was preventing condemnation of its property with federal funds.

“That’s our only concern,” Lewis said. “We’ve made it clear to everybody that we spoke to that we weren’t asking for any reduction of appropriations” for the Santa Monicas.

Jeff Ourvan, a Soka spokesman, said that Lewis and other lobbyists for the school recently met with most of the members of the Appropriations Committee’s interior subcommittee to brief the lawmakers about Soka and “to make clear that we’re not a willing seller.”