Rally Supports Bill to Avert Forced Sale of Wilacre Park

Under the shade of a stand of cypress trees and oaks, more than 70 people rallied in Wilacre Park Saturday in support of legislation that could prevent its hills and fields, with pristine hiking trails, from being sold.

The park, 134 acres of wooded trails linking Laurel and Coldwater canyons near Studio City, has been owned and managed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy since 1981. But the conservancy may have to sell the property to help pay for a loan from another state agency.

The conservancy borrowed $5.85 million from the state Coastal Conservancy in 1987 to purchase the scenic Circle X Ranch from the Boy Scouts of America and head off a possible sale to developers.

Under the loan agreement, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy promises to sell Wilacre Park by July if the remaining $4.55 million of the loan is not paid off. Wilacre Park is one of three mountains conservancy properties that are threatened with sale to pay the loan.

‘No Choice’

“We had no choice but to agree to their terms,” said Joe Edmiston, president of the mountains conservancy. At the time of the Circle X Ranch purchase, mountains conservancy officials were desperate for funds to buy the ranch for parkland.

“That was a last-ditch effort. But when you’re talking about the last open space around here, we’re not going to give it up without a fight.”

To a small band of hikers who walk the parks’ trails every morning and to residents who picnic, run and bicycle there, Wilacre Park is a natural haven in the middle of the city.

“I’m here on the trail every day to get rid of the stress, get some exercise and walk out some problems,” said Joyce Forest, who lives in Laurel Canyon and has been going for walks in the park for 15 years. “It’s unique in that it’s a soft trail, there are trees and shade. This is it. If they take this away, we’ve got nothing that compares.”

Richard Bliven, executive vice president of the Studio City Residents Assn., took his 10-year-old son, Paul, on a hike in the park’s hills before the rally began.

‘Just Beautiful’

“You walk back in the hills, you see the oaks there. It’s just beautiful,” Bliven said. “We have so little in the city that when you have something that’s currently a resource, you don’t want to see it lost.”

A bill introduced by Assemblyman Bert Margolin (D-Los Angeles) earmarks a portion of a $776-million bond issue to pay off the loan. The issue will go before voters in June.

At the rally, families picnicked on the grass, homeowners group members passed out multicolored helium balloons and speaker after speaker urged residents to support the bill and vote for the bond issue, Proposition 70.

“It is not only the key to Wilacre, it’s the key to the future here in Los Angeles,” Margolin said. “Without open space like this, without parkland like this, living in the Los Angeles area would be far less desirable.”

The agreement between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Coastal Conservancy is part of a two-year financing dispute that began when the mountains conservancy sought the funds to buy Circle X Ranch.

The ranch, which is south of Newbury Park in Ventura County, includes Sandstone Peak, the highest point in the Santa Monica Mountains. It is the largest property ever purchased by the mountains conservancy and is considered one of the most scenic portions of the mountain range.

Legislators sympathetic to the mountains conservancy’s wish to buy the ranch had arranged to use money from the Coastal Conservancy’s budget. But officials of that agency complained that they hadn’t been notified of the deal.

After a series of delays, the Coastal Conservancy Board finally approved the loan. In return, the mountains conservancy immediately sold some surplus property in Camarillo for $1.3 million and agreed to promise as collateral, and sell this year if necessary, its Deer Creek Ranch property in Ventura County, land in Zuma Canyon in Malibu and Wilacre Park.