New Rangers Make Mountains Cleaner

Four new rangers hired by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to patrol the agency’s 17,000 acres have helped stem the tide of trash dumping and graffiti in the mountains, the conservancy’s chief ranger said Monday.

“Citations are up. They’re really making a difference,” said Gary Moser, who manages the conservancy’s 18 rangers.

Before the rangers came on the job this fall, the sprawling park system was woefully understaffed.

“We’d become short-staffed due to attrition and the agency continued to acquire properties,” he said. “There were so many things to handle that we couldn’t keep up.”

He said the new rangers have made a visible difference along the unpaved stretch of Mulholland Drive between Encino and Woodland Hills, a popular dumping ground for litterbugs.

Besides cleaning up more than a dozen dump sites, Moser said the ranger responsible for the area has increased citations 100% over the past 90 days.

“We’ve got a guy out here who has already chased down and issued citations for four dumpers,” Moser said. “Believe it or not, some of these people are dumb enough to leave their mail in their trash.”

Paid for with funds from Proposition A, the 1992 Safe Neighborhood Parks Act, Moser said the increased staff will make the park a better place for visitors.

“With more people in the field, there is an automatic decrease in graffiti tagging and vandalism,” he said. “That’s what’s good about maintaining high visibility.”