Environmental Group Feels Heat From Former Backers : Oak Park: Save Open Space is opposed in its attempt to block plans for ball fields and tennis courts in a canyon.

Save Open Space members have been hailed as environmental do-gooders, the saviors of the Santa Monica Mountains that buffer Ventura County from Los Angeles-style urban sprawl.

But in Oak Park, the group’s efforts to block the building of ball fields and tennis courts in a tree-studded canyon have turned once-loyal backers into embittered foes.

“I supported them when they were trying to stop Jordan Ranch being built in Cheeseboro Canyon. I thought that was a terrible concept,” said David Ross, an Oak Park resident who was endorsed by Save Open Space when he ran for the school board three years ago.

Ross said he and other locals have had a change of heart and some have coined a new name for the group: “environmental bullies.”

“They’re trying to disrupt plans that I believe are environmentally sound,” he said.

Some residents talk of forming an organization called Save Oak Park. Its primary mission: to tell Save Open Space to butt out of their unincorporated Ventura County community just east of Thousand Oaks.

Before the Oak Park dispute, the Agoura Hills-based group targeted large-scale developments that it said would transform untouched hills into a congested replica of Los Angeles, complete with smoggy skies and wall-to-wall subdivisions.

“We’ve become the conscience of the Santa Monica Mountains,” said Mary Wiesbrock, director of Save Open Space. “We’re the only group that some people can turn to.”

Save Open Space successfully opposed entertainer Bob Hope’s plans to develop the 5,800-acre Jordan Ranch. When the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy suggested loaning money to Hope’s developer, Save Open Space sued that agency and called for the ouster of its director, Joseph T. Edmiston.

In May, the group sued Calabasas in an attempt to block Micor Ventures from destroying about 300 acres of environmentally sensitive canyons in order to build 250 houses.

Unlike these bigger targets, the group’s newest quest is halting a 12-acre park planned at Deerhill and Doubletree roads in Oak Park. Save Open Space has intervened at the request of neighboring homeowners.

Virginia Pollack, an Oak Park resident and a longtime member of Save Open Space, said the group became involved in the Deerhill Park dispute over the ball fields and tennis courts because the project would destroy about an acre of wetlands, two endangered plants, three oak trees and a small grove of oak saplings.

But Save Open Space has encountered resistance rather than its usual widespread support.

Four months ago, residents began to attack Save Open Space members in letters to local newspapers and at public meetings.

At one meeting, an angry resident interrupted Wiesbrock to point out that she lives in Agoura Hills, across the line in Los Angeles County. Save Open Space has about 500 members, about 300 of whom live outside Ventura County.

Later, an anonymous flyer circulated around the community denounced the organization as “open space bullies” and accused Save Open Space of “trying to push their self-serving interests onto our community.”

Tami Lawler, an Oak Park resident, denied responsibility for the flyer but said she agrees with the message. She said Save Open Space’s well-organized public relations campaign has succeeded in putting a much-needed park on hold.

Lawler talks of forming a group that would get park construction back on schedule. Deerhill Park will be reviewed later this year by the county Board of Supervisors.

Save Open Space “has delayed projects that would be beneficial to our community, and I don’t think we can stand by any longer and wait,” Lawler said. “I just don’t think they speak for the 2,000 school-aged children that live in Oak Park.”

Some government officials also question the group’s tactics.

“None of these people in S.O.S are stupid. They’re very smart and they’re very dedicated,” said Jerry Daniel, chairman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency. “But they look at things in a black-and-white way, and if they can’t get it, they start attacking those who might fall in the gray.”

Others say the group’s interests have strayed from environmental causes.

Ron Stark, a member of the Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council, said Save Open Space has become an effective lobbying group more interested in power than the community’s welfare.

“They do things in half-truths and take things out of context,” Stark said. “What do you call them, spin-doctors? They’re masters of doublespeak.”

During a debate on ball field lights, he said, Save Open Space misrepresented the intensity of lights proposed at Deerhill Park. And some Oak Park residents resent the influence that the Los Angeles County-based group has on Ventura County politics, Stark said.

Supervisor Maria VanderKolk owes her seat largely to Save Open Space volunteers who contributed time and money to her campaign.

She has never belonged to the group, but her aide Lenora Kirby of Agoura Hills and her county Planning Commission appointee, Sue Boecker, were members until they resigned shortly after VanderKolk took office.

Ironically, VanderKolk said she has fallen out of favor with the organization.

When VanderKolk offered a compromise to save Jordan Ranch from development by proposing that Hope’s planned housing development and a golf course be moved to Ahmanson Ranch, Save Open Space refused to back her proposal.

“S.O.S.’s position has always been to save everything,” VanderKolk said. “The unfortunate thing is . . . continuing to criticize and to hold (the project) up as much as they can may end up causing some severe problems.”

VanderKolk said she still believes in the environmental values that Save Open Space espouses.

“If it wasn’t for S.O.S., there would be a development on Jordan Ranch right now,” VanderKolk said. Oak Park residents “better sit back and remember that,” she said.

Wiesbrock dismisses the critics who say the organization has no right to interfere in Oak Park politics. She vows that her organization will continue to push for a redesign of Deerhill Park, perhaps moving it several miles away to another canyon.

“You can redesign a project and save the natural habitat,” she said. “Some people don’t even want to consider it.”

One day last week, Wiesbrock walked up her street to view where the county line divides Agoura Hills from Oak Park.

“Some people say I don’t belong there,” she said, referring to the Oak Park community that can be seen from her house. “But I have to say, I’m director of an organization that has 150 members from Oak Park. We all share the traffic and the air.”