Funding for Conservancy Drying Up : Recreation: For years, federal money to buy Santa Monica Mountains parkland was plentiful. But now the fiscal landscape has changed.

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 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 Southern California’s most populous region seemed destined to fare even better.

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, the park could receive even less. This decline is reflected both in dollars and in 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.

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Lawmakers, congressional aides and supporters of the recreation area point to several factors: first and foremost, the tight budget caps under Clinton’s five-year deficit-reduction plan that have cut funds for land acquisition generally; second, 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 recreation area 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 recreation areas.

And some Santa Monicas supporters say vagueness, or even conflicting views, about specific target properties, costs and time lines 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 is not going to get any easier to reprise the flush funding enjoyed during the presidency of George Bush. In addition, the prospective creation of three 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), 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.”

Recreation area 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. The plan would have directed more than $85 million to the 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 President Ronald Reagan did not request funds during the recreation area’s initial years, and, simultaneously, land prices soared. Now, 15 years after the recreation area was founded, Congress has appropriated $145 million, and 21,012 acres have been purchased.

In recent years, large, ecologically important properties have been acquired. These include Palo Comado Canyon in eastern Ventura, a scenic 2,329-acre tract formerly known as Jordan Ranch that provoked five years of bitter sparring among local, state and federal officials and recreation area 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 the right of eminent domain 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.

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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 dollars from being spent on condemnation proceedings--a process that some Republican senators oppose as an infringement of property owners’ rights.

None of the recreation area’s advocates are pleased with the sharp diminution of funding. But some acknowledge that they do not 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 ridge lines” that face development pressures.

Recreation area 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.

Park Supt. David E. Gackenbach said, “We could make a major dent” for about $50 million.

Based on an average price of $6,213 an acre over the recreation area’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 represent critical linkages between wildlife corridors 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 habitats.

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 funds shrinking, other parks have presented more urgent needs in the past two years, congressional staffers said. One example is Golden Gate National Recreation Area, for which 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.

Clinton has 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.

Federal Funding

Here is a look at funding for land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area over the last 15 years.

Funds for National Fiscal Santa Monicas Parkland Funds Percentage 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 -- 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