Soka Seeks to Halt Seizure of Calabasas Campus : Parkland: The school sues to challenge a Ventura County vote approving a condemnation request. A protest has also been lodged with Gov. Wilson.

Soka University has launched a two-pronged attack, in the courts and the governor’s office, against an attempt by park authorities to seize 244 acres of its Calabasas campus through condemnation proceedings.

The school, which owns nearly 600 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains, filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging a Nov. 17 vote by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors approving the condemnation request.

In a separate action, one of Soka’s consultants sent a five-page letter to Gov. Pete Wilson asking him to intervene.

The suit, filed in Ventura County Superior Court, is aimed at the board’s vote to authorize the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority to condemn the land for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys property for state and federal parks.

The conservation authority is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to file a “notice of taking” against the school, which would kick off eminent domain proceedings for the most level portion of the property, at Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway in Los Angeles County.

Hodge Dolle, the school’s attorney, said he has requested a court hearing before the authority’s vote.

“We will ask the court to freeze-frame everything until there has been full evidentiary exposure,” he said.

Such a delay could complicate the conservancy’s plans to start the condemnation action before Jan. 1, when a new state law regarding condemnation of some public land takes effect, which could increase the cost of the Soka land by millions of dollars.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the supervisors and the conservation authority, a joint powers agency made up of the conservancy, the Conejo Recreation and Park District, and the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District. Although the Soka campus is in Los Angeles County, the Ventura supervisors oversee the joint agency.

In the letter to Wilson, dated Dec. 14, Soka engineering consultant Hans Giraud criticized conservancy Director Joseph T. Edmiston for “using rather questionable tactics to achieve his goal.”

The letter says that obtaining condemnation approval from the Ventura supervisors--as allowed by the joint powers authority--circumvented state law, which requires that most such actions be approved by the state Board of Public Works.

Giraud enclosed letters from Los Angeles County Supervisors Mike Antonovich and Deane Dana delivered to Ventura supervisors the day before the Nov. 17 vote, in which both men asked their Ventura counterparts not to “set a dangerous precedent” by authorizing condemnation of land in Los Angeles County.

Giraud also criticized Edmiston for opposing Soka’s expansion, while supporting other large-scale projects that included large land transfers to the conservancy, such as the Ahmanson Ranch development.

“Governor Wilson,” he wrote, “the time has come to put a stop to Mr. Edmiston and his harmful arrogance in this area. He has supported projects which are environmental disasters . . . all for the stated purpose of obtaining remaining open space areas.”

In the lawsuit, the school also claims that the Ventura board is the supervising agency only for the two park districts and that the supervisors do not have the power to authorize condemnation in another county.

The lawsuit also questions whether the supervisors properly determined that the land is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. The conservancy, which has been trying to acquire the school’s main campus for the past six years, wants to turn the site into the headquarters for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

The suit also says the Board of Supervisors misled the public by its description of the item on its agenda.

Park agency interest in acquiring the site grew more urgent when the school applied for Los Angeles County permits to expand from a 175-student campus to a high school and four-year liberal arts college for 3,400 students.

Edmiston, who is also executive officer of the authority, said he had anticipated the lawsuit. But he insisted that the supervisors acted properly in authorizing the condemnation and pointed out that “unless they get a temporary restraining order,” the lawsuit “won’t have any effect on the proceeding Dec. 22.”

He said the joint powers agreement among the agencies gives condemnation powers to the two park districts and the conservancy, and the Board of Supervisors is the supervising body for such action. It also authorizes condemnation outside Ventura County, he said.

On Dec. 8, Soka asked the supervisors to rehear the case, but the request was denied. When the board heard the case in November, several supervisors said they were not voting for or against condemnation, but merely clearing the way for another agency to make that decision.