Appropriation to Help Pay Landowners

Congress has appropriated $1.5 million to help pay off a long-standing debt to landowners along the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains, officials said Tuesday.

The money was part of a $44-million appropriation for federal parkland acquisition that had been hung up in congressional subcommittees.

“We are very glad,” said Melissa Kuckro, a legislative aide to Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills). “The congressman has been pushing very hard for this for many months.”

The popular hiking trail runs from the Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles County north along the coast of Ventura County.

U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt had originally requested $2.9 million--the purchase price of the land.

To make up the difference, Babbitt and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy have asked for a $1.4-million bridge loan from the Trust for Public Land, a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, said Joseph Edmiston, the conservancy’s executive director.

The landowners had threatened to foreclose if the money wasn’t repaid, Edmiston said.

“If we get the bridge loan of $1.4 million, we’re home free,” he said Tuesday.

The conservancy would be responsible for repaying the loan, Edmiston said.

The fiscally strapped agency hopes to repay the loan through the anticipated passage of a November ballot proposition--the Los Angeles County Park and Recreation Act of 1996--which Edmiston said would raise $270 million for acquisition and development of parkland. He said his agency would be entitled to $23 million of that.