State Lawmakers Grill Conservancy Director Over Operations : Parkland: Senators question use of joint agreements with local governments. Agency has purchased property well beyond its Santa Monica Mountains jurisdiction.

Issuing stern warnings that the Legislature could strip away funding, two state senators questioned the head of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy on Tuesday over whether the agency is overstepping its authority.

In the Senate’s first daylong oversight hearing of the parklands agency, Sens. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) and Dan McCorquodale (D-Modesto) grilled executive director Joseph T. Edmiston about the agency’s operations and money trail.

Of paramount concern, the two lawmakers said, was whether the conservancy had been casting its net too far by joining with local governments in forming five so-called joint-power agencies.

Through these entities, the conservancy has purchased property or launched projects in areas that reach well beyond its Santa Monica Mountains jurisdiction--in eastern Ventura County, Antelope Valley, the San Gabriel Valley and South-Central Los Angeles.

“I urge you to be very cautious about your increased number of joint-power authorities that also increase the power of the conservancy,” McCorquodale warned.

Defending the agreements, Edmiston said the separate entities enable the conservancy to move more quickly on land purchases and that the agency has been responsible in its use of them. In addition, he said, the conservancy attracts more federal funding through the agencies, calling them “a magnet for federal money.”

In Ventura County, Edmiston said, the conservancy has been instrumental in acquiring several vital open space properties, including Jordan Ranch, Sage Ranch and the Circle X Ranch in Thousand Oaks.

The compromises that are forged with local agencies are important “because the folks in Ventura County are fiercely independent, and are notably resistant to state government mandates swaggering in and saying, ‘This is what you have to do,’ ” Edmiston said.

But Harold F. Warras, assistant secretary of the state Resources Agency and one of several witnesses to praise the conservancy’s work, said even he was nervous about the joint-power agreements.

“I don’t think we should be encouraging that,” Warras testified. “That seems to be going beyond where the conservancy should be going.”

At times Edmiston has engineered deals that, while they preserve the scenic wilderness, have irked critics. One such case occurred in Thousand Oaks, when in a joint-powers agreement, he relied in part on the city to dip into its golf course fund to help buy the 640-acre Broome Ranch. Consequently, there are now plans to build a golf course on a portion of the property.

Another issue raised in Tuesday’s Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee hearing was whether the conservancy has acted properly in trying to condemn a portion of Soka University’s Calabasas campus in order to acquire it as parkland.

“The fact is, it’s private property,” Wright said. “I have a real hard time having government come in, condemn and take private property.”

In a scolding tone, McCorquodale told Edmiston: “If you run willy-nilly on condemnation, we can always pull you back. It only takes a simple majority of the Legislature to eliminate you.”

McCorquodale said that while the conservancy has won his support in the past, in the future, it needs to be more accountable to the lawmakers who approved it.

The conservancy was created by the Legislature in 1979 to purchase parkland and trails for preservation and public use in the Santa Monica Mountains. Over the years, it has acquired about 20,000 acres at an average cost of about $5,000 an acre, nearly half of which was done without state funds.

Noting that tough fiscal times call for a tighter review of state spending, McCorquodale warned, “We are constantly looking at reinventing government, and at some point you may get reinvented.”