D.A. Drops Newhall Land Probe

Los Angeles County prosecutors agreed Thursday to drop a criminal investigation of Newhall Land & Farming Co. in exchange for the firm’s promise to set aside a 64-acre preserve for an endangered plant the company allegedly destroyed to clear the way for a 22,000-home development.

Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay called the settlement “a major step to preserve a species of plant life once believed extinct” -- the San Fernando Valley spineflower.

“We’re very happy this has been resolved,” said Steve Martarano, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game, which participated in the investigation and settlement. “It provides permanent protection for the spineflower where there wasn’t any at all.”

The overall settlement represented a vindication of Newhall Land, according to spokesman Marlee Lauffer. After finding the plants on its property in 2000, the developer was accused by state investigators of plowing up spineflowers and enticing cattle to eat the plants. Newhall Land officials argued state law allowed them to destroy the plants as long as the actions were part of ongoing farming operations.

Newhall Land did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, under which it also promised to restore part of a streambed it was accused of altering.

“This agreement is a positive resolution to a very complicated issue that could have been a very protracted court case,” Lauffer said.

But critics contend Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley mishandled the investigation, let the developer off easy and failed to do enough to protect the plant.

Ventura County Supervisor Kathy Long, long a foe of the planned development, derided the size of the spineflower preserve. “I think the L.A. D.A. is doing an injustice to environmental protection,” she said.

The preserve, to be funded by Newhall Land and administered by the state, is half as many acres as the company last year proposed to leave undeveloped to protect the spineflower.

The preserve is also far smaller than the only spineflower preserve in existence, 300 acres created voluntarily by developers of the nearby Ahmanson Ranch subdivision in eastern Ventura County, where the diminutive plant was rediscovered in 1999.

“I think the preserve is good, but I don’t think it was enough,” said Lynne Plambeck, president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Preserving the Environment, a group that has repeatedly fought Newhall Land in court over land-use issues.

The settlement -- negotiated in part by former Dist. Atty. Robert Philibosian, who strongly backed Cooley in the last election and now represents Newhall Land -- concludes a rancorous and embarrassing episode for the district attorney’s office.

Two environmental prosecutors in Cooley’s office said they were pursuing a perjury and conspiracy investigation into whether Newhall Land had adequately disclosed the extent of the flowers in environmental documents filed by the company. But Livesay blocked the prosecutors’ planned search of Newhall Land’s offices, replaced them with new prosecutors and filed a single misdemeanor charge against Newhall Land, which was dropped as part of the deal Thursday.

That deal, the environmental prosecutors said, proved that their superiors wanted to bury the case.

“This whole idea that they’re doing something great by saving the spineflower, that was never their intent,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Diana Callaghan said. “Their intent was to handle this case in a way to make prosecution impossible.”

Callaghan’s supervisor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Sullivan, said the agreement not to pursue other charges shows his bosses were never interested in fully investigating Newhall Land, and never wanted to pursue serious criminal charges.

District attorney officials have called Callaghan and Sullivan disgruntled employees while dismissing their criticism.

Lauffer said the spineflower preserve could be expanded if the Newhall Ranch project, the largest development in county history, is approved by Los Angeles County supervisors.

It is slated to be built on 12,000 acres in northwest Los Angeles County near the Ventura County line. It was initially approved by Los Angeles County supervisors in early 1999, but has been stalled by a Ventura County lawsuit that has forced the developer to demonstrate it has enough water to supply the project and to rewrite some key environmental documents.

L.A. County supervisors are scheduled to vote on the project March 25.

Recently, Ventura County officials have contended Newhall Land did not fully report the number of spineflowers on its property, a claim the developer denies. Last month Ventura County called on Los Angeles County supervisors to reconsider all of the project’s environmental reports.

On Thursday, the head of an environmental group that joined Ventura County in its initial lawsuit said he was unimpressed with the 64-acre preserve. Friends of the Santa Clara River Chairman Ron Bottorff compared the site to the 300 acres that Ahmanson Ranch developer Washington Mutual Bank has agreed to turn over to Ventura County for a similar spineflower preserve.

“It sounds like a totally inadequate settlement from our viewpoint,” Bottorff said.