Trek Through L.A. Parks Targets Ahmanson Project

Given the sweltering heat, it was not meant to be a walk for pleasure, as activists trekked from El Escorpion Park to Pierce College in Woodland Hills Saturday.

The goal was for them to smell the exhaust of cars, notice the narrowness of sidewalks and observe firsthand how Los Angeles is the most “park poor” major American city, said Susan Suntree, co-director of the Santa Monica-based group Earth, Water, Air, Los Angeles, or EWALA.

As part of a two-day trek through open spaces in L.A., about 230 residents and environmental advocates gathered Saturday morning to protest a proposed development at Ahmanson Ranch and a golf course planned for Pierce College farmland. Today marchers will walk from Santa Monica City Hall to other sites.

At the West Hills park, the hypnotic chanting of two Chumash Indian dancers captured the crowd’s attention. Barefoot and wearing traditional face paint, furs and feathers, the Native American group from Westlake Village waved shells containing smoldering white sage and performed a ceremonial ritual. Dancer Mati Waiya approached the onlookers and spread smoke over their bodies.

Lindsay Wilhelm, of Winnetka, said she opposes the Ahmanson Ranch development because she wants to save the land’s cultural heritage, native flowers and oak trees. She also said it will bring too much traffic: “Once you have an open space you realize how limited it is.”

Accompanied by participants in giant puppet costumes, the activists walked to a nearby Washington Mutual Bank branch at Victory Boulevard and Platt Avenue. Washington Mutual is developing Ahmanson Ranch, a 3,050-home project that will include a 400,000-square-foot retail and commercial space, a 300-room resort hotel and two championship golf courses.

The completed project, inside a corner of Ventura County, will cover 2,800 acres, with its main access through western Los Angeles County. Los Angeles County officials and activists fear that much of the traffic and pollution from the development will dump into their area while Ventura County gets the tax revenues. Ventura County supervisors approved the project in 1992.

In front of the bank branch, activists waved signs and chanted slogans.

“We need some open space,” said Lisa Saunders, 38, of Tarzana. “Our land is overtaxed as it is.”

On March 20, about 500 people opposed to the project protested at the same site.

“We respect their right to express their views,” said Washington Mutual spokesman Tim McGarry.