Budget to Benefit Women’s Shelter : Spending: State plan includes money for a Valley facility for the battered, but not for Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy request.

As the result of some behind-the-scenes state budget maneuvering, the San Fernando Valley moved a step closer Friday to receiving its first long-term, subsidized housing for battered women.

At the same time, Gov. Pete Wilson’s blue pencil spelled out bad news for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which was dealt a blow when Wilson vetoed more than $7 million for funding and programs outside the mountain ranges rimming the Valley.

Though the state budget outlook for abused women’s housing was touch-and-go, the spending blueprint Wilson signed Friday retains a $100,000 allocation to the private, nonprofit group trying to establish the Valley’s first such program.

“As to why the Valley hasn’t had this until now, that’s a real good question,” said Betty Fisher, executive director of Haven Hills, a provider of a 30-day emergency shelter for Valley domestic violence victims since 1980.

Aware that the project benefited from the notoriety of the O.J. Simpson double-murder case, Fisher said her organization is hoping to move forward quickly with construction plans. “This little window could close on us any minute,” said Fisher, “so we’re shooting for a spring opening. That’s our target.”

Although the price tag of the new transitional housing Fisher envisions--a 25-unit structure with apartments of up to four bedrooms apiece--could ultimately reach $2 million, the state’s gift of $100,000 serves as valuable seed money. Fisher said it will ensure enough funds so Haven Hills can close escrow on land.

“We were just about that much short on the land money,” she said, “so this will really help nail down the property.”

Haven Hills has already submitted its proposals for review to the Los Angeles community development department. Plans include transitional housing for up to 18 months for women who need assistance so they don’t return to abusive partners or end up homeless.

As part of the total picture of helping battered women break from their abusers, Haven Hills also wants to provide long-term emotional counseling, job training, career advice and child care.

Fisher said the program, while long overdue, will put the Valley in the forefront of a growing movement to establish follow-through treatment for victims of domestic violence. Only a handful of such comprehensive programs operate nationwide, she said.

At one point during the Legislature’s budget negotiations, lawmakers trying to reduce California’s red ink crossed out the Haven Hills allocation. But Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) approached the governor’s office for support in getting the budget item restored.

Wilson agreed, and Friedman--armed with the governor’s backing--succeeded in getting the $100,000 placed back into the state’s spending plans.

“Even before O.J. Simpson, I thought there might be a chance the governor would keep this in because it’s an area he decided to highlight this year,” said Friedman, who sought the funding in the first place. “So I thought there might be an opportunity.”

But it was after the Simpson case broke--with headlines blaring about a 1989 assault of his then-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson--that a budget conference committee agreed to Friedman’s request to restore it.

“One reason I’m especially pleased with the outcome is because the allocation survived even after the governor and Legislature committed $30 million” for a separate fund to fight domestic violence, Friedman said. “This is an added bonus for the San Fernando Valley.”

Officials at the Department of Finance, which advises the governor on budget issues, said it was evident that Wilson wanted to preserve the transitional housing funding even as he vetoed numerous other line-item requests.

“It’s clear that this $100,000 is a very high priority . . . at a time when we’re reducing expenditures in other areas,” said Diane Cummins of the Department of Finance.

One agency feeling the pain of the governor’s budget ax was the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which saw an end for now to its dream of acquiring property far beyond the mountain ranges it was created to preserve.

The conservancy’s funding requests, in fact, amounted to an attempt to engineer a change in the law without going through the customary review process, Wilson said.

Fred Klass of the state Department of Finance said the governor was concerned that the conservancy was losing sight of its original mandate--to preserve and protect public access to suburban land in the Santa Monica Mountains zone.

Budget requests that Wilson vetoed included purchase of hundreds of acres in the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County and hundreds more near Chino Hills State Park. All told, the governor struck $7 million worth of conservancy wish-list items from the budget.

“They were vetoed because they were out of the boundaries of the conservancy,” said Klass “The statutes that created the conservancy didn’t envision them buying property in that area.”

Conservancy officials did not return calls for comment.

* WILSON SIGNS BUDGET: Governor approves $57.5-billion state budget. A24