Chatsworth : Park Advocates Mark 25th Anniversary

Charlie Cooke, a hereditary chief of the Chumash tribe, lit the bundle of white sage leaves and turned to the four directions of the wind.

Then he blessed the leaders of the Santa Susana Mountain Park Assn. with the smoke. “Just think positive about the Earth. It’s up to us to preserve it,” said Cooke, who also heads a learning center for Native American culture in Newbury Park.

On Sunday, the park association that has worked to preserve the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains celebrated its 25th anniversary in Chatsworth. About 40 people attended along with representatives of several environmental and community groups, including the Chatsworth Historical Society, Friends of the Chatsworth Library and the Sierra Club.

The association first met Nov. 20, 1970, at the home of founder Jan Hinkston of West Hills. “Twelve people showed up,” Hinkston said Sunday at the Chatsworth Park South recreation building where the anniversary celebration was held.

Since then, the group’s influence has grown. In the early 1970s, the association organized 10,000-person hikes in the mountains and over time helped the state Department of Parks and Recreation acquire 670 acres for a historic park that has yet to open.

“Charlie’s blessing made me feel good because I have a sinking feeling,” said Hinkston, who is worried that donations needed to acquire more land for the park and pay for rangers will not come through. With so many cuts in government funding and declining donations, she said, the effort to finally open the park could fail.

The parks group also wants to have the area listed in the National Register of Historic Places to recognize the Chumash Indian archeological sites and pre-Civil War stagecoach trail there.

The group is also trying to raise money to remove graffiti that vandals have left on the rocks around Chatsworth.

Contributions to the fund-raising campaign for the park and to fight graffiti should be sent to the Foundation for the Preservation of the Santa Susana Mountains, P.O. Box 4831, Chatsworth, Calif. 91313.