Conservancy Renames Park After Former Foe Ed Davis

“They could have named a jail for me,” said retiring state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita), the former Los Angeles police chief famous for suggesting that skyjackers be hanged at airports.

“Or a police station--or a gallows in an airport.”

Not, the 75-year-old Republican mused, a park--particularly a park established by an agency he had once opposed, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

But name it after him they did, and on Friday a 170-acre parcel off The Old Road in Newhall--formerly Towsley Canyon Park--became “Ed Davis Park in Towsley Canyon.”

The new park is the first step in what the conservancy hopes will become a 6,000-acre preserve.

In naming the park for Davis, who sponsored legislation to allow the conservancy to purchase the site, the conservancy created a surprising legacy for a man remembered by many environmentalists as an opponent.

The name was chosen, conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston said, as a way of thanking the outspoken conservative for abandoning his staunch anti-environmentalist stance to fight for the park’s creation. And the establishment of the park, local officials say, means that it might be more difficult for the city of Los Angeles to build a dump on adjacent land.

“Generally in my life, people with whom I have some conflict in the beginning wind up being among my best friends,” Davis said during a ceremony at the park.

Indeed, according to Edmiston, the first time the conservancy came in contact with Davis was in the Legislature, when the senator compared the agency’s leaders to child molesters.

Now, Edmiston calls Davis a statesman.

“Ed is opposed to what he calls extreme environmentalism,” Edmiston said. “But the issue of parks cuts across those lines.”

For his part, Davis insists he has not begun supporting environmentalists, whom he has in the past called “environmental fascists.”

Instead, he said, he is merely carrying on the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, comparing his support for the park with Roosevelt’s dedication to preserving wilderness for hunting and other manly pursuits.

“I’m not for environmentalists,” Davis said, sporting a park ranger’s hat presented to him by Edmiston. “I am for conservationists. I believe in conserving nature for the use of man.”

But not all of the supporters of the park believe that it should have been named for Davis.

Santa Clarita Mayor Jill Klajic said she was too offended by Davis’ previous support for developers in the region to favor naming the park for him.

“During our recent campaign for slow growth, he supported propaganda the pro-developers were pushing,” Klajic said, helping to defeat a slow-growth ballot measure. “Prior to the development community spending almost $400,000 on defeating our measure, the community was in support of it.”

In a letter to The Times last week, Klajic ridiculed the conservancy’s choice of a name.

“If the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy must find some reason to honor Davis,” she wrote, “they should rename the Santa Monica Mountains the Sen. Ed Davis Mountains and leave the naming of our parks to the citizens of the Santa Clarita Valley.”

But Davis, who once worked as a tree surgeon and whose childhood wish was to become a park ranger, said he’s proud of his support for the park, and glad that it bears his name.

“This is better than any building,” he said, referring to his quip about giving his name to a police station. “This is the fulfillment of a dream.”