Park Funding Dries Up for Santa Monica Mountains

When it came to federal dollars to acquire parkland, the good times rolled for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area between the 1989 and 1993 fiscal years, when the spectacular mountain corridor received an average of $12.3 million a year.

The $62-million total was far more than any other national park received.

And with the election in 1992 of a Democratic President and two Democratic senators, one of whom won an immediate spot on the powerful Appropriations Committee, the wildlife-rich domain that cuts a swath through eastern Ventura County and across Southern California’s most populous region seemed destined to fare even better.

But, instead, funding has dropped precipitously and future prospects appear bleak as well. The Santa Monicas received only $4 million last year--after President Clinton included no funds for acquisition of California parkland in his budget. This year, it could receive even less. This decline is reflected both in actual dollars and the percentage of parkland funds nationwide that go to the Santa Monicas.

“It is a truly astounding circumstance that we have a Democratic President and two Democratic senators and we have less funding for a recreation area that serves the greatest number of people in California,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys and manages land in the mountains.

Lawmakers, congressional aides and supporters of the recreation area point to several factors. First and foremost, they cite the tight budget caps under Clinton’s five-year deficit-reduction plan that have cut funds for land acquisition generally. Also contributing has been the intensified competition for high-priority purchases and the apparently less urgent needs of the Santa Monicas, after winning large sums in the past to complete the purchase of major parcels.

Additionally, some advocates contend that the opposition of well-heeled Soka University--whose centrally located campus is being sought by park officials in a contentious condemnation process--has hurt as well. This battle comes amid other squabbles over valuable properties that have imbued the Santa Monicas with an aura of controversy that does not plague other parks.

And some Santa Monicas supporters say vagueness, or even conflicting views, about specific target properties, costs and timelines has fed concerns of influential senators--particularly conservative Republicans on the Appropriations Committee--that the annual pursuit of expensive parcels in the Santa Monicas is a draining, never-ending federal commitment.

Indeed, a Senate aide said the recreation area became “Exhibit A of what was wrong with land acquisition. It was this giant sucking sound slopping up funds from the West Coast.”

Don Hellmann, a vice president of the Wilderness Society and head of the organization’s lobbying arm, put it this way:

“With the Santa Monicas, it’s always, ‘Where’s the controversy? What group’s not going to be happy when we do this?’ And when you put this together with the fact that (lawmakers) can’t see an end in sight and that there’s a small amount of money to give out, it’s much easier for them to avoid the controversy and focus on the projects where the resource protection goals are what’s most important.”

Faced with tightening budget caps over the next four years, all those interviewed agreed that it’s not going to get any easier to reprise the flush funding enjoyed during the George Bush administration. In addition, the prospective creation of three new national parks under the California Desert Protection Act could add a new source of competition for scarce dollars.

“The constraints on discretionary spending have never been tighter in my memory than they are now,” said Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a park advocate who authored legislation that created the mountains conservancy. “And anyone who was hoping for a significant infusion of federal funds is going to have to wait in a very long line.”

Park officials lament the timing of the funding slowdown in the face of a prolonged real estate slump that has driven down land prices and created buying opportunities. A related blow was struck earlier this year when voters rejected a $2-billion bond proposal to buy parkland that would have directed more than $85 million to the mountains conservancy.

The recreation area, which was established by Congress in 1978, covers 150,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains and Simi Hills, extending 43 miles from Griffith Park in Los Angeles to Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County. Initially, the National Park Service, which administers the area, was to acquire 35,000 acres in five years for a total of $155 million as part of a patchwork of private and public lands that included a network of roads and developed areas.

But then-President Ronald Reagan did not request the funds for the park during the recreation area’s initial years, and, simultaneously, land prices soared. Now, 15 years after the park was founded, Congress has appropriated nearly $145 million, and a total of 21,012 acres have been purchased.

In recent years, large, ecologically important properties have been acquired. These include Palo Comado Canyon in eastern Ventura County, a scenic 2,329-acre tract formerly known as Jordan Ranch, which provoked five years of bitter sparring among local, state and federal officials and park activists, and the oak-studded Paramount Ranch in Agoura, the former site of the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which the Park Service plans to buy from the conservancy.

The conservancy is also invoking its power of eminent domain to attempt to obtain Soka’s property east of Malibu Creek State Park--with its stunning backdrop of mountain peaks--as a permanent visitors center and park headquarters. Soka has refused to sell and is pursuing plans to establish a college of 3,400 students in the heart of the recreation area.

This protracted battle has spilled over into the federal funding process in recent years. Soka lobbyists got the Senate Appropriations Committee to insert language into the funding bill two years ago that would have prohibited any acquisition money from being spent on condemnation proceedings--a process that some Republican senators philosophically oppose, calling it an infringement of property rights.

Staffers for Appropriations Committee members said Soka did not weigh in this year, but some park backers say the university’s campaign may have undercut the lobbying effort for the Santa Monicas, particularly in the Senate, where committee members Don Nickles (R-Okla.) and Ted Stevens (R-Ala.) took up Soka’s cause. The Santa Monicas generally fare better in the House than the Senate.

“I’m sure the story that Soka is providing to the Senate and Congress had an effect on land acquisitions,” said park Superintendent David E. Gackenbach.

None of the recreation area’s advocates are pleased with the sharp diminution of funding. But some acknowledge that they don’t need as much money as they once did to pursue the step-by-step completion of the urban park.

Dave Brown, conservation chairman of the Sierra Club’s Santa Monica Mountains Task Force and an activist for 22 years, said that he has told aides to key lawmakers that the recreation area needs “a steady, moderate amount of money” to buy smaller parcels “to save beautiful scenery, magnificent canyons and ridgelines” that face development pressures.

“It’s like you’ve scaled the cliff, and now you just have to keep putting one foot ahead of the other until you get to the top,” Brown said. “But we need to keep moving forward.”

Park officials say they do not have an estimate of the cost of buying the approximately 14,000 additional acres needed to complete the recreation area.

Gackenbach said, “We could make a major dent” for about $50 million. Based on an average price of $6,213 an acre over the park’s history, Brown said the cost would be $86.9 million.

Edmiston said that one of the problems in selling lawmakers on specific target properties is that the current priorities are not postcard picturesque. But he said they nonetheless represent critical linkages between wildlife corridors that would create an unbroken habitat for such animals as mountain lions.

Among the parcels are 19 properties needed to complete the Backbone Trail, which winds along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains from Will Rogers State Park to Point Mugu, and sites in Zuma and Trancas canyons, which are pristine, mountainous, stream-fed habitat.

At the same time, Gackenbach said that lower funding levels would make it difficult to purchase the larger parcels still outstanding, such as 600-acre Corral Canyon above Malibu.

With the funding shrinking, other parks have presented more urgent needs in the past two years, congressional staffers said. One example is Golden Gate National Recreation Area, where Congress approved $5.25 million last year toward the $21-million acquisition of an unspoiled 1,235-acre estate. A conservation group has raised $10.5 million from private sources; Congress is expected to approve another $5 million or so this year.

At Saguaro National Monument in Arizona, park officials are scrambling to purchase land from a private owner who seeks to develop property on the edge of fast-growing Tucson. The park received $6 million in each of the last two fiscal years.

Some say the real aberration in funding for the Santa Monicas was the striking success during the Bush years. As a candidate in 1988, Republican Bush made a commitment to the recreation area; he then included large sums for acquisition in his proposed budgets.

Clinton, meanwhile, focused on park construction and maintenance in his 1994 fiscal year budget in a bid to create jobs. The Santa Monicas received several hundred thousand dollars in increased operational and management funds. Clinton included $5 million for the park in 1995.

In the House, the Santa Monicas’ key ally is Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), chairman of the Appropriations Interior subcommittee, which determines the House funding. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), who sponsored the legislation establishing the recreation area, is close to Yates and requests acquisition money from him each spring.

“We can’t do nearly the amount of acquisitions that we want,” Yates said. “Part of the problem is that more and more units are added to the Park Service, and you have to staff them.”

But, he added, “I’ve always been in favor of funding Santa Monica because it’s such a beautiful area.” And, he promised he would do everything he could for Beilenson.

In the Senate, former Democratic Sen. Alan Cranston of California was the recreation area’s major proponent for many years. This role has fallen to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), a member of the Appropriations Interior subcommittee who has ties to Rep. Berman and California’s two first-term Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, both of whom are from Northern California. Feinstein is a member of the Appropriations Committee.

Several park advocates said they were uncertain about Cranston’s effectiveness, but a knowledgeable Senate aide said that Cranston’s longtime relationship with powerful Senate Appropriations Chairman Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) should not be underestimated.

“They were mutually supportive of each other,” the aide said. “Cranston was one of Byrd’s lieutenants when Byrd was majority leader. That was a very close working relationship. And Feinstein is a freshman senator. She and Byrd barely know each other.”

Linda Marson, a spokeswoman for Boxer, said that funding for the Santa Monicas is a priority for Boxer. Boxer submitted a written request for $15 million for next year--the same sum that Beilenson and environmentalists sought for the recreation area.

The House included $5 million and the Senate $2 million for the recreation area in their respective 1995 budgets. A conference committee of lawmakers from each chamber will negotiate the final appropriation this fall.

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area

Parkland acquisition continues within the 150,000-acre Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, where about 66,000 acres are now preserved.

Parkland Funding

Federal funding for land acquisition in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Funds for National Fiscal Santa Monicas Parkland Funds Pct. for Year (in millions) (in millions) Santa Monicas 1980 $20.7 $138.6 14.9% 1981 $16.0 $80.2 20.0% 1982 $4.8 $93.2 5.1% 1983 0.0 $116.5 0.0% 1984 $15.0 $122.5 12.2% 1985 $8.0 $95.7 8.4% 1986 $7.6 $46.0 16.5% 1987 $6.0 $75.1 8.0% 1988 $1.0 $40.8 2.4% 1989 $11.0 $52.6 20.9% 1990* $11.9 $67.2 17.7% 1991* $11.9 $103.0 11.5% 1992* $13.8 $79.0 17.5% 1993* $13.1 $88.2 14.8% 1994 $4.0 $67.2 6.0% 1995** House--$5.0 House--$60.0 8.0% Senate--$2.0 Senate--$54.0 3.7% Totals $144.8 $1,265.8 11.4%

(through ‘94)

* Santa Monicas received most funds of any unit of national park system that year.

** Final 1995 figure must be negotiated in House-Senate conference committee this fall.

Source: National Park Service