CHANNEL ISLANDS : House Names Center After Lagomarsino

The House of Representatives honored Wednesday the man credited with bringing national park status to the Channel Islands, former Rep. Robert J. Lagomarsino, by naming the park’s visitor center for him.

Lawmakers approved the bill unanimously after several minutes of bipartisan praise for the lifelong Ventura County resident.

“If we felt about so many more issues in this body in the bipartisan way we feel about Bob Lagomarsino, we’d get a lot more done around here,” said Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

Gallegly, whose 23rd District overlaps part of Lagomarsino’s old 19th District, sponsored the bill. Gallegly sponsored a similar bill last year. It died, however, because the Senate never took it up.

Gallegly hopes that will not happen this year, and says Sen. Dianne Feinstein has already promised to sponsor the bill in the Senate.

Feinstein has assured him “she’s going to try and move it through expeditiously,” Gallegly said.

A member of Congress from 1974 to 1992, Lagomarsino wrote the bill establishing the Channel Islands National Park in 1980 and helped round up federal funding to build the visitor center, Gallegly said.

Lagomarsino represented the 19th District, which stretched from Ventura to Santa Barbara before reapportionment, for 18 years. He lost the 1992 Republican primary to Mike Huffington.