Posted on 04/17/2005 6:41:07 PM PDT by FairOpinion
LOS ANGELES Soka University of America has sold its 588-acre land in the Santa Monica Mountains to the state for 35 (m) million dollars.
The land is expected to become public park land consisting of nature trails. It also will house the headquarters for the Santa Monica State Recreation Area and a national park visitors' center.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will own and oversee most of the land once it's turned over to the state in three years. Under terms of the deal, the university will lease the land until current students graduate.
Joseph Edmiston, conservancy executive director, says quote, "It's drop-dead gorgeous, beautiful property."
The land sale marks a major victory for state officials and environmentalists. They've tried for years to acquire the property northwest of Los Angeles, including unsuccessful attempts through eminent domain.
Purchase of 'crown jewel' parkland celebrated
And here I thought California is broke...
I thought CA already owns too much property...
Oh No, California is loaded, well at least a lot of the residents anyway, who perpetuate this GReen dream.
Nature will wipe these forests from the face of the earth when and if it so chooses to, and no one will have a damn thing to say or do about it when the time comes.
A map would have been helpful.
Purchase of 'crown jewel' parkland celebrated
By Jason Kandel, Staff Writer
April 17, 2005
www.dailynews.com
With picturesque mountain ridges as a backdrop on Saturday, more than 100 preservationists celebrated the purchase of nearly 600 acres of Soka University in the Santa Monica Mountains as public parkland.
The $35 million parkland, part of the former King Gillette Ranch and considered the "crown jewel" of the Santa Monica Mountains, will boast miles of hiking trails near streams and sites of ancient Chumash Indian settlements.
"This is the day the Lord made. Be glad and rejoice in it," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky quoted from the Bible. "He isn't making too many more days like this with these kinds of surroundings the last time I checked."
On Friday, Los Angeles County accepted deeds for the land on behalf of the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, the state Parks and Recreation Department and the National Park Service.
"I have been dreaming of this day for more than 15 years," said Elizabeth Cheadle, the chairwoman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. "We all are enormously grateful."
Since the 1970s, park agencies have pursued acquisition of the site that sits at the southeastern corner of Mulholland Highway and Las Virgenes Road. The site is home to an ancient village known as Talepop, once inhabited by Chumash Indians.
In the 1920s, razor magnate King C. Gillette bought the property and commissioned Wallace Neff, the "architect of California's golden age," to build his estate on it.
Since then, it had been owned by MGM director Clarence Brown and Bob and Dolores Hope. It was used as a filming location for scenes in "Gone With the Wind." It has been a seminary for the Claretian Order of the Catholic Church and the headquarters for The Church Universal and Triumphant. In 1986, it was purchased by Soka Gakkai/Nichren Shoshu of America, an Aliso Viejo-based liberal arts school.
Officials called this latest acquisition of parkland part of a "stitching together of open space" across the state, as officials have been working feverishly to preserve parkland for future generations.
The property was at the top of the wish list conservationists. So preservation agencies, public and private donors, and federal, state and local officials cobbled together the money to make it happen.
"This is just an extraordinary moment in history," said Ruth Coleman, the state parks director, which owns part of the site. "People in a hundred years from now are going to be able to come here and use this extraordinary natural resource and cultural resource."
The Santa Monica Mountains are right by Los Angeles, near Malibu.
Thanks -- the reason I didn't post that article in the first place, because the title wasn't very descriptive, but I did mention it, because it's a better article.
http://www.nps.gov/samo/maps/mainmap.htm
large map -- scroll all the way to the right, to see where Los Angeles and some of its suburbs are shown.
35 million for 538 acres of prime SoCal land sounds like a bargain if you ask me.
Communist land theft alert to you my FRiend.
Thanks for the attempt. Where is it relative to where Lincoln Bvd meets I-10?
From Forbes, Feb 4, 1991 v147 n3 p82(5):
A capitalistic communistEven when he was making millions, Gillette founder King Camp Gillette was a Utopian communist. In an 1894 book, The Human Drift, Gillette wrote that competition was the root of such evils as injustice, poverty and crime. He argued for a world corporation that would own all the means of production and would be owned by all the people. Moreover, he suggested that most Americans-60 million of them-should live in a single huge city situated near Niagara Falls, which would supply the needed electrical power.
While he talked cooperation, King Gillette was a cutthroat competitor. Through ruthless competition, the Gillette Co. became, by 1907, overwhelmingly dominant in its industry, a position it holds to this day.
How did Gillette justify the contradiction between social theory and business practices? In a 1910 book, World Corporation, Gillette argued there would be an evolutionary phase leading to the world corporation. During this phase, certain farsighted individuals (like Gillette) should be encouraged to create monopolies and permitted to make enormous profits. Like the state under communism, capitalism's business combines would eventually wither away.
Well that's 35 million less to send on the north-west part of the state...
Sorry about the red X. I even did a preview, and a pretty reasonable map showed up, so I don't know what happened.
It is N. of Lincoln Blvd & I-10. It is just east of Malibu, the area going along the coast.
See if you get the map here:
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/MapCenter/Map.aspx?TextLatitude=34.0551713569475&TextLongitude=-119.0556753807694&TextAltitude=8&TextSelectedEntity=19241&SearchEnc=false&MapStyle=Comprehensive&MapSize=Small&MapStyleSelectedIndex=0&searchTextMap=santa+monica+mountains&MapStylesList=Comprehensive&ZoomOnMapClickCheck=on
"This is the day the Lord made. Be glad and rejoice in it," Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky quoted from the Bible. "He isn't making too many more days like this with these kinds of surroundings the last time I checked."
Ironic.. Zev'so pumped up over the beauty of God's creation, Too bad Zev and a few others weren;t so adamant about keeping a little cross on the LA County seal.
L.A.'s King of the Hills
L.A. Times, June 6, 2004
Joseph Edmiston, the first and only executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, has had a forceful hand in Southern California land preservation for three decades.Conservancy Spending AssailedEdmiston also runs the conservancy's sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, which manages the conservancy's land with a staff of 101 planners, rangers, biologists, restoration experts and lawyers.
Both the conservancy and the authority are governed by boards of trustees; Edmiston is, in the words of Conservancy Chairman Jerome C. Daniel, just "hired help." But in practice, observers say, Edmiston runs the show.
In a scathing report, Department of Finance auditors found that the conservancy "does not adequately manage, control, or oversee" $115 million in bond funds, funneling away money to pay for legal fees, office expenses, conferences, cars, travel, vacation and sick pay, and "excessive" overhead charges.Joe Must Go's Message Board - the message board has very little posted on it from this year.
Hey DD,
I'm glad you found this thread! I remembered that someone had posted that stuff before, but couldn't remember who. Thanks!
I first heard of good ol' Joe from listening to Doug McIntyre when he hosted the all night talk show on KABC radio. He was livid the night he started up the joemustgo.org website.
I don't think Doug is maintaining the website anymore, but I'm still going to e-mail him this latest news on what's happening with Joe's conservancy.
I used to be an avid late night McIntyre listener. I emailed him a ton of stuff early on re the Sierra Nevada conservancy. Since he changed time slots, I don't listen anymore, but I'd love to tune again for one of his rants on Joe Edmiston and the SMMC! LOL.
I loved the song he played as an ode to Joe... Stalin, LOL.
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