Soka Breaks Out of Shell Amid Battle Over Land : Parks: University denies new programs are a ploy for public support against Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s bid to acquire the scenic campus.

Soka University still doesn’t have a library or a student union, but the embattled school is building something else it dearly needs: goodwill and respect.

Embroiled in a legal and political fight with state parks officials over use of its scenic Calabasas campus, the once-reclusive Japanese school now welcomes the public with open arms. Critics say it’s a cynical effort by a wealthy institution to buy favor, but nonetheless are impressed by the sheer scope of Soka’s programs, which include:

* Six free tours of the campus a month, with special attention to the sycamore-lined drive, used as the entrance to the plantation Tara in “Gone With the Wind.”

* Free or low-cost weekend retreats for nonprofit groups and their members.

* Evening classes in Japanese and other languages taught by highly credentialed instructors at low tuition rates.

Then there’s the new botanical garden with an enormous California-native seed bank and free gardening classes. And on the academic front, a free human rights lecture series studded with Nobel laureates and a prestigious research program affiliated with Harvard University but funded solely by Soka.

While some community groups praise the avalanche of offerings, others are suspicious.

“If this isn’t an organization trying to buy off the community, then what is?” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that acquires parkland. “They have enormous resources, and they’re using them to attempt to build a constituency base they would not otherwise have. What worries me is that, at a certain point, money talks.”

Soka University spokesman Jeff Ourvan dismisses that notion with a snort. “We’re not that Machiavellian.”

Ourvan said the open-door policy and new academic programs are simply part of Soka’s plan to expand the small language school for Japanese exchange students at the corner of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway into a liberal arts college with 3,400 students. They have nothing to do with Soka’s effort to ward off an attempt by the conservancy to seize the campus for a park visitors center, he said.

“This is what universities do,” Ourvan said. “We are a nonprofit, public benefit corporation, so we feel it is incumbent upon us to serve the community.”

The school wasn’t always so community minded, Ourvan conceded.

“The first three years, starting in 1987, this place was run by all Japanese, and they didn’t talk to anybody,” he said. “Then we suddenly announced our expansion plans and no one knew who we were.”

The ensuing criticism by local residents, environmentalists and parks officials mobilized Soka, which spent more than $935,000 on public relations and lobbying, not counting legal fees, during the two-year period ending April 1, 1993, according to the latest federal tax returns available. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and its nonprofit foundation have spent about $834,000, including legal fees, lobbying and public relations, to obtain the land during the past seven years.

Soka’s public relations effort includes deluging news organizations with press releases announcing its nature talks and other activities and publishing a newsletter that touts several of its programs, including some sponsored by its sister campus in Japan.

One academic program, a post-doctoral research center on Pacific Rim policy issues, is based at Harvard University. Soka, the program’s sole benefactor, spent more than $438,000 on it during the two-year period ending April 1, 1993, according to Soka’s latest federal tax returns.

“Harvard is for sale,” said John D. Montgomery, the Harvard professor emeritus who agreed to head the program after being approached by Soka officials. “How do you think we got to be the richest university in the world? But the question is, ‘Who’s buying whom?’ We don’t take any money for anything unless we want to do something in the field.”

The most recent edition of the newsletter mentions an exhibit that critics say is designed to improve Soka’s image, particularly among American Jews. The free newsletter is mailed to about 30,000 households in Calabasas, Malibu and Agoura Hills.

Worried about anti-Semitism in Japan, the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center looked for years for a Japanese sponsor of its traveling exhibit on the Holocaust. It recently found one in Soka University in Japan, which underwrote the $150,000 cost of bringing the exhibit to Tokyo City Hall in May, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the center.

“Even the best American institutions find it hard to ignore the blandishments that Soka can offer,” said Edmiston, of the mountains conservancy. “That means that our task is all the more difficult.”

But Ourvan insists the programs have nothing to do with Soka’s legal and political battles.

“We would do all this even if we weren’t trying to defend ourselves against the conservancy,” Ourvan said. “These programs will continue when the fight is over.”

Regardless of Soka’s motives, the school’s investment appears to be paying off in some quarters.

Although Soka has not formally asked groups to endorse its expansion plans, one private, nonprofit group that saved more than $14,000 by using the campus for free weekend retreats has become a staunch supporter.

“After they’ve been so generous, yes, we would testify for their expansion before the Board of Supervisors,” said Paula Crisostomos, a spokeswoman for the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee, a Los Angeles-based group that has taken about 75 poor children up to the campus twice in the past two years. “They’re a valuable community resource.”

The California Traditional Music Society, which holds an annual weekend-long festival on the campus, is another avid fan. The society was in danger of canceling its festival four years ago when Soka offered to rent the campus for $2,000 per weekend, a low rate considering the event draws some 5,000 people.

“We looked at 42 sites--everything from the Queen Mary to Malibu Lake--before we found Soka,” said Elaine Weissman, the society’s executive director. “They’re the most professional, up-front people we’ve ever had to deal with, and we love them.”

Even so, not all recipients of Soka’s generosity are stepping up to support the school’s expansion plans.

Earlier this year, the school treated 70 clients of Educare Foundation, another private, nonprofit group that helps disadvantaged children, to a free weekend retreat at the campus.

“They even cooked us meals,” said Stu Semigran, vice president of the Calabasas-based group.

But the group is not taking sides.

“We have a lot of respect for what the conservancy does, too,” Semigran said.

Soka has also donated about $10,000 worth of computer equipment to the nearby Las Virgenes Unified School District. Grateful as school administrators are, the gifts will not affect the district when it comes time to take a position on the possible traffic impacts and other effects of Soka’s expansion, said Leo Lowe, an assistant superintendent.

“They can’t expect it as a trade down the line,” Lowe said. “We’ll just consider the direct impact on our 13 schools.”