A Touch of Wilderness: Oral Histories on the Formation of the Santa
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A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A TOUCH OF WILDERNESS Oral Histories on the Formation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area by Leonard Pitt, Ph.D. Professor of History Emeritus California State University, Northridge Los Angeles, California April 2015 A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Report Certification I certify that A Touch of Wilderness: Oral Histories on the Formation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area has been reviewed against the criteria contained in 43 CFR 7.18(a)(1) and upon the recommendation of Phil Holmes, Cultural Anthropologist, and Gary Brown, Cultural Resource Program Manager, has been classified as Available. ____________________________________ David Szymanski, Superintendent Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area _April 23, 2015________________________ Date A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A TOUCH OF WILDERNESS Oral Histories on the Formation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area by Leonard Pitt, Ph.D. Professor of History Emeritus California State University, Northridge Funded under Cooperative Agreement No. 1443 CA8540-94-003 between The Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation and The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, National Park Service, Pacific West Region Los Angeles, California April 2015 A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Dedication To the Memory of Susan Nelson (1927-2003), “Mother of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area” A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area The support necessary to complete and prepare this document for final publication, was provided by the Santa Monica Mountains Fund, thanks to the generosity of Sara Nelson Horner. A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area In Appreciation Dale Lash Pitt 1931 - 2008 The National Park Service and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area appreciate and acknowledge Ms. Pitt’s contribution of transcribing the oral history interviews for “A Touch of Wilderness: Oral Histories on the Formation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.” A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area i “. we have this great system of national parks, monuments, and other areas . because a few farsighted, unselfish, and idealistic men and women foresaw the national need and got the areas established and protected in one way or another, fighting public inertia and selfish commercial interests at every step.” ---John Ise, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (1961), 196 Preface and Acknowledgements This volume contains the reminiscences of 14 public officials who helped create the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) in 1978. In the decade of the 1970s, land developers were aggressively developing open land in the Santa Monica Mountains, an area of great natural beauty, and cultural and scientific importance. Residents of the West Side of Los Angeles who opposed the developers found that local regulations controlling land development were weak and that funds to purchase and preserve land were difficult to come by. They eventually looked to Washington for assistance. In the nation’s capital several proposals were floated on how best to preserve the Santa Monica Mountains. After an intensive study the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, a branch of the Interior Department, recommended that the federal government should designate a national area for preservation that would then be administered by state and local officials. This was the so-called “greenline” proposal. Simultaneously, members of the House and Senate introduced legislation to create a national park or recreation area to be administered by the National Park Service (NPS). The final product was the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-625), also known as the “Omnibus Park Bill,” or, more slyly, as the “Omnibus Pork Bill.” The true author of the Omnibus Park Bill was the late Phillip Burton (D-San Francisco), a larger-than-life congressman considered by some seasoned observers to be a political genius. Burton chaired the Subcommittee on National Parks of the Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs in the Ninety-Fifth Congress. The section of the bill relating to the Santa Monicas was authored by Congressman Anthony Beilenson, a Democrat who represented much of the affected area. The Senate approved the House bill and it was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on November 10, 1978. The law created a 150,000-acre preserve that sprawled from Franklin Canyon above Beverly Hills to Point Mugu in Ventura County. It gave to the Secretary of the Interior the responsibility of managing the recreation area--to protect the scenic, recreational, educational, scientific, archaeological, historic, and public health aspects of the Santa Monicas, as well as its unique Mediterranean chaparral ecosystem. Congress set a ceiling of $125 million for land purchases over a five year period. The law placed the recreation area under the stewardship of the National Park Service. The Santa Monicas were a far cry from the “Big Sky” parks such as Yosemite or Grand Canyon that the NPS ii A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area normally oversees. The SMMNRA was situated within a teeming metropolitan region, it encompassed many private land holdings, and the law mandated a federal partnership with state, county and local government jurisdictions. This combination made it almost unique among National Park holdings. A few disclaimers are in order. The following interviews cover only the period of the park’s gestation and birth rather than its entire quarter-century history. In fact, most of the conversations conclude when the National Park Service first took charge and became established as steward of the parkland in the Santa Monicas. Also, these oral interviews do not constitute a finished work of history but are the raw documents from which history can later be written. And finally, the informants do not include all of the people who made major contributions, and do not include any of the opponents of the park as constituted. These are primary records that contain the personal perspectives of key individuals who, while working on the federal, state, or local levels, were intimately associated with the origins of the recreation area. The informants include two key former congressional representatives, namely Anthony C. Beilenson, who eventually came to be recognized as the father of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area; and his friend and colleague, Robert J. Lagomarsino, a Republican from Ventura, who became known as the father of the companion preserve, Channel Islands National Park. The group also includes four former congressional aides who labored in the trenches on Capitol Hill in 1978. Working the office of Congressman Phil Burton were Dale Crane, a resource specialist and environmental planner formerly with the Army Corps of Engineers, and Cleve Pinnix, an NPS legislative aide assigned to Burton’s office. Gail Osherenko was a young attorney who served as legislative assistant to Beilenson and drafted and redrafted sections of the bill that Beilenson negotiated with his congressional colleagues. Linda Friedman was Beilenson’s field worker and had the responsibility for dealing with local individuals and organizations in his Los Angeles office. Ray Murray worked for the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation and was the chief architect of the “greenline park” proposal. Robert Chandler was the first park superintendent of the SMMNRA; and John Reynolds was one of his planners. Also included among the informants is Arthur E. Eck, an NPS legislative affairs specialist in the 1970s when he worked with Congressman Burton who reappeared as a principal in 1995 when he was appointed superintendent of the SMMNRA The perspectives of public officials from the state of California are also represented in these interviews. Huey Johnson was secretary of the California Resources Agency under Gov. Jerry Brown. Russell W. Cahill served as Brown’s director of State Parks and Recreation from 1977 to 1980. Yet another state official, Joseph T. Edmiston, headed the planning agency established by the California Legislature to purchase land in cooperation with the NPS and the state parks. He eventually became director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a position he still holds. A Touch of Wilderness: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area iii Several municipalities within the recreation zone also had a stake in the park’s emergence. One of them, the city of Los Angeles, was represented by Anton Calleia, Mayor Tom Bradley’s deputy on the board of the Santa Monica Conservancy. Again, many people not included in this collection made key contributions in the formative years of the NRA. Chief among them is Susan Nelson of the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation, who was responsible for much of the grassroots lobbying for parkland among environmentalists and homeowners in the 1960s