Conservancy Draws Fire Over Deals Outside Santa Monicas

With far-flung land deals pending in Santa Barbara County and the southern end of Los Angeles County, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is on the verge of outgrowing its name once and for all.

The Malibu-based state agency has long operated outside its namesake mountains, expanding by legislative fiat and legal consent into the Antelope Valley and the Rim of the Valley Corridor that encircles the San Fernando Valley.

But in an acceleration of the trend, the conservancy is now poised to divert $3.7 million in voter-approved park funds--that were to be spent locally--to purchase property outside its normal base of operations.

Critics acknowledge that the deals would preserve valuable wildlife habitat, but contend that the conservancy is legally obligated to spend the money locally. Opposition is expected to intensify following last Tuesday’s defeat of a $2-billion park bond measure, a loss that severely limits the conservancy’s ability to buy land within its usual sphere of operations.

“This is an outrage,” said Mary Wiesbrock, president of Save Open Space-Santa Monica Mountains, a local environmental group. “It’s just the wrong use of this money. The public is getting ripped off.”

But conservancy officials defend their actions, saying they did not seek to expand their domain but are doing so at the behest of powerful state politicians who control the agency’s purse strings. They hasten to add that they also support the acquisitions.

“If you only focus on the Santa Monica Mountains and don’t worry about other areas, you end up with a biological island,” said Liz Cheadle, the conservancy’s attorney.

Buried in the state budget, the conservancy’s two pending land deals were approved earlier this year by both branches of the state Legislature. Unless Gov. Pete Wilson issues a line-item veto later this summer, the conservancy will have the authority to negotiate the purchase of:

* A 780-acre swath of Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley that would become part of a 6,000-acre outdoor laboratory affiliated with UC Santa Barbara.

* A 546-acre parcel near the city of La Habra Heights that is considered a key wildlife corridor between the San Gabriel Mountains and Cleveland National Forest.

Funding would come from the conservancy’s share of Proposition 117, a statewide wildlife protection initiative approved by voters in 1990. The law guaranteed the conservancy $50 million over a five-year period, to be spent “within the Santa Monica Mountains Zone, the Rim of the Valley Corridor and the Santa Clarita Woodlands.”

But conservancy officials said they may legally spend the money outside the designated area with the approval of the Legislature, an opinion disputed by critics. The two proposed acquisitions would divert about 37% of the conservancy’s annual Proposition 117 allocation of $10 million from the agency’s normal operating sphere.

The money would be funneled through the conservancy’s two sister agencies in Whittier and Ventura County, which may purchase parkland outside their prescribed base of operations, according to an attorney general’s opinion obtained by the conservancy two years ago.

Even if diverting such funds out of the Santa Monicas is legal, some state parks officials are also critical of the proposed deals.

“We’re trying to save an ecosystem in the Santa Monicas, and by no means is the work complete,” said Suzanne Goode, associate resource ecologist with state Department of Parks and Recreation. “If the money gets spread too thin, we won’t be able to do that.”

The proposed deals also anger local property owners who were counting on the conservancy to buy their land with funds from Tuesday’s failed bond measure.

“They keep promising us they’ll buy our land, and they keep breaking their promises,” said one landowner who asked not to be identified. “The problem with them is they’re very political.”

Conservancy officials said they had little choice but to accede to the desires of state Assemblymen Jack O’Connell (D-Carpinteria) and Ross Johnson (R-Fullerton), who approached them for technical and financial assistance in purchasing the Santa Ynez Valley and La Habra Heights parcels. The Legislature created the conservancy and can also abolish it. The conservancy also needs political support for its controversial effort to acquire Soka University in Calabasas by eminent domain.

“We have a lot of battles to fight in the Legislature, and you have to pick and choose which ones to fight,” said Cheadle, adding that the conservancy was fending off an attempt by Soka to have the Legislature restrict its condemnation powers at the same time as the deals were proposed.

“They’re trying to protect themselves by being good soldiers,” said Jim Collin, a senior consultant to one of the Assembly committees that oversees the conservancy.

But proponents of the sales in Santa Barbara County and near La Habra Heights said the proposed acquisitions would be of tremendous benefit to all Southern Californians.

The Santa Barbara property, for instance, would be deeded to the University of California’s Natural Reserve System, producing ecological research that could aid the entire region, said Bruce Mahall, a UC Santa Barbara professor involved in the preservation effort. The land is part of Sedgwick Ranch, a former cattle ranch with breathtaking views, most of which is already owned by the university.

The parcel is for sale for $2.9 million, and environmentalists fear that a developer will buy it and build “ranchettes” there unless the conservancy helps acquire it.

In La Habra Heights, residents are so eager to preserve Powder Canyon as a wildlife corridor that they voted in November to deny a developer permission to build a golf course and housing tract there.

“It’s not a matter of preserving mountains here or mountains there,” said Claire Schlotterbeck of Hills for Everyone, an environmental group composed of residents of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties. “We’re all in this together.”