Forest Area to Mark 20th Anniversary

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area will celebrate its 20th birthday Friday with a ceremony in Newbury Park.

Retired U.S. Rep. Anthony Beilenson, who wrote the 1978 legislation that created the area, will plant a native sycamore tree with the help of Sierra Club volunteers.

Sierra Club spokeswoman Lenora Kirby said the event will be a homecoming for the congressman. She said Beilenson is one of a small number of Congress members, past and present, who voted consistently to protect the environment.

But Kirby cautioned that work remains to be done on the area, mostly because of congressional cutbacks that have limited the National Park Service’s ability to maintain existing land and purchase more.

“The great vision of 1978 has not come to pass,” she said.

“Every year it’s an incredible struggle to get the money to keep what we have going.”

The park service will hold the ceremony at the Rancho Sierra Vista area near the intersection of Lynn Road and Via Goleta. The planting will begin at 10 a.m.

Call 370-2329 for more information.