SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS : Soka Goes to Washington in Effort to Keep Campus

WASHINGTON —  In an annual ritual, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) has asked a House subcommittee for $20 million in the 1994 fiscal year to buy additional parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains.

But this year’s request may face additional obstacles because of the escalating struggle over Soka University’s scenic mountain campus that has spilled into the halls of Congress and the upper reaches of the Clinton Administration.

Soka and its lobbyists are trying to persuade lawmakers on the House and Senate appropriations committees to include language in the 1994 interior spending bill stipulating that no federal money will be used in proceedings to condemn any of its coveted property. They also met with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt last month.

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state agency that buys and manages land for the national recreation area, has begun the condemnation process to obtain almost half the school’s property in a meadow next to Mulholland Highway for a visitors center and park headquarters. Soka officials, who want to expand the campus into a liberal arts college, refused the conservancy’s $19.7-million offer for 244 acres last year and are fighting the takeover effort in court.

Proponents of the Santa Monica National Recreation Area maintain that Soka’s anti-condemnation lobbying has made it more difficult for them to secure funds through the intensely competitive congressional appropriations process.

Shortly after testifying before the House Appropriations interior subcommittee last week, Beilenson bristled when pressed about Soka.

“It’s clear they are attacking the park itself,” said Beilenson, who sponsored the 1978 bill that created the recreation area. “They’re doing their utmost to succeed in preventing additional appropriations for the park. I think it’s clear they are anti-park people.”

Beilenson declined to say whether he would oppose the insertion of anti-condemnation language in the appropriations bill, although he has done so in the past.

Soka officials and their Los Angeles lobbyist, Joe Cerrell, have made two trips to the capital in recent months to meet with lawmakers, staff and Babbitt to press their case, said university spokesman Jeff Ourvan. They were joined by lobbyists from the Washington firm of O’Connor & Hannan, whose many clients include the governments of Israel and El Salvador.

Ourvan said that their goal was to inform federal officials about Soka--which sponsors English and foreign language classes and a research center and is partially funded by the Japanese branch of Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist lay organization. He said they also made the officials aware of an offer Soka has made to donate a portion of its campus to the park and to build a visitors center and park headquarters. Park authorities have rejected the proposal.

And, Ourvan acknowledged, Soka representatives asked for a provision in the 1994 Interior spending bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to use condemnation to acquire property. Condemnation allows the government to obtain land from an unwilling seller for a court-established fair market price.

He said that the brief April 26 meeting with Babbitt, which was arranged by lobbyist Patrick O’Connor, was “to let him know about the joint-use proposal” to donate land to the park and proceed with the campus expansion. Ourvan said that Babbitt “did not offer a response at the time and the university has not heard from him since.”

Jay Ziegler, a spokesman for Babbitt, said Monday that the secretary was “trying, on many of these park-adjacent issues, to get a feel for what all the concerns are. . . . He’s trying to get a better sense of the lay of the land.”

Ziegler said Babbitt believes he has “an obligation, given the limited nature of funding for land acquisition, to really look at these situations and see what he can do apart from straight” purchases, possibly through swaps and trades. Ziegler said Babbitt also recognizes that “the best way to do this might be through a straight acquisition.”

Ziegler said Babbitt had discussed the long-running Soka battle with Southern California congressmen as well as National Park Service officials. He did not cite any lawmakers.

Spokeswomen for Beilenson and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), the two leading congressional proponents for the Santa Monicas, said Monday that neither one had been contacted by Babbitt about Soka nor had been aware of Babbitt’s session with the group’s representatives.

Ourvan denied Beilenson’s assertion that Soka officials have attacked the park itself.

“We are in no way opposed to funding for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area,” Ourvan said. “We think the acquisition of open space is important. We just do not want our property to be sold. There are a lot of willing sellers out there.”

Soka has offered to donate a portion of its property to the park, build a park headquarters and set aside a $1-million endowment for park maintenance in exchange for a commitment by the Park Service to drop its opposition to the university’s expansion plans. Park authorities have rejected the proposal, which they say is inadequate for park headquarters and fails to address the ill effects of establishing a major university in a scenic mountain meadow.

Babbitt’s meeting is the latest chapter in an increasingly intense and high-stakes conflict between a well-financed organization determined to make its permanent home in the Santa Monicas and park proponents who have their sights set firmly on the coveted parcel as a centerpiece for the recreation area.