Panel OKs $5 Million to Purchase Parkland

An influential House panel approved $5 million Thursday to purchase land next year for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area--the same amount included by President Clinton in his budget proposal but far less than park advocates had requested.

Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), the park’s leading advocate, had asked the Appropriations subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies for $15 million last month. This was the same figure recommended by a coalition of 39 environmental groups.

The $5 million is nearly 10% of the $49 million approved for park purchases nationwide--a smaller percentage than the sprawling Southern California park has received previously. In addition, the recreation area was not given the largest sum of any unit of the national park system; the subcommittee included $6.5 million for Saguaro National Monument in Arizona.

In the Santa Monicas, the National Park Service is seeking funds to acquire 19 properties, totaling 500 acres along the Backbone Trail, which are estimated to cost $10 million. The 43-mile trail winds along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains from Will Rogers State Park to Point Mugu.

Beilenson, nonetheless, sought to cast the subcommittee’s decision, the first in the annual congressional budget process, in a positive light.

“I am very pleased that the subcommittee continues to place a high priority on acquiring more park land in the Santa Monicas,” Beilenson said in a prepared statement.

Beilenson had noted that the lingering California real-estate recession has created temporary buying opportunities. He also pointed out that, given the vulnerability of the mountainous land to wildfires and mudslides, buying property for open space could save large sums in future disaster aid.

Yet, for the second consecutive year, the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area appears to be positioned to win a smaller share of the scarce parkland acquisition funds than it has in many earlier years. If this occurs, it will fare worse during these two years under Democrat Clinton than it generally did under Republican President George Bush.

The Santa Monicas received $4 million last year, which was far less than it had received for any fiscal year since 1988.

The figure approved by the Appropriations subcommittee becomes the figure adopted by the full House. The Senate generally approves less money than the House; the two sums are then reconciled in a conference committee of lawmakers from each chamber.

The key House panel’s action came two days after voters rejected a $2-billion bond proposal to buy parkland that would have directed more than $85 million to the Santa Monicas Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys and manages land in the national recreation area.

As a result of the bond measure’s defeat, the conservancy and a sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, will be forced to lay off more than a third of their employees and postpone significant property acquisitions, officials said.