Davis Tours Site Proposed for 4,000-Acre State Park

By helicopter and four-wheel-drive van, state Sen. Ed Davis (R-Santa Clarita) was given a guided tour Friday of the remote hills and canyons northwest of the San Fernando Valley, where two park agencies hope to create a giant state park.

Davis offered no immediate hope for the state money they sought.

The proposed park would provide a greenbelt buffer between the San Fernando, Santa Clarita and Simi valleys, said Carole Stevens, chairwoman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

The park would form a large arc-shaped wildlife preserve stretching from the dense woodlands near the Golden State Freeway in Santa Clarita to the rugged and sparse Simi Hills along the Ventura County line.

The park would link O’Melveny Park, a Los Angeles city park above Granada Hills, with the state-owned Santa Susana Mountains Park west of Chatsworth.

Jan Hinkston, a founder of the Santa Susana Mountains Park Assn., said the association and the conservancy hope Davis will introduce legislation providing money to purchase more than 4,000 acres needed for the giant park. She could not estimate how much it would cost to purchase the acreage from a variety of private landowners.

Davis said he supports the concept of the park but, because of budget constraints, he won’t ask the Legislature for money now. “That’s not very feasible,” he said.

Davis made the remarks while standing on a bluff overlooking Blind Canyon, where the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts hope to open a garbage dump. Hinkston said her group hopes Davis will fight the proposed landfill.

Davis said he will wait until an environmental impact report is completed before opposing or endorsing the dump. But Davis praised the beauty of the rugged hills and questioned the county’s reliance on landfills.

“I don’t think there’s any logic to Los Angeles County’s thinking on dumps,” Davis said. The county should develop more creative solutions, such as recycling, to reduce the mounds of trash trucked off to landfills each day, Davis said.

For more than two hours, Davis and representatives of the conservancy, the park association and state Department of Parks and Recreation traveled the rugged fire roads of the Simi Hills in four off-road vehicles. Davis arrived and left in a helicopter provided by the groups.

Davis has been a major supporter of the proposed Santa Clarita Woodlands State Park, another proposed park, which would include more than 6,000 acres of scenic forests and meadows west of Santa Clarita.

Under legislation sponsored by Davis, the state parks department is conducting a feasibility study on the woodlands park. Allen Ulm, a deputy regional director for the department, said the study could be completed within 45 days. The study, to be forwarded to the Legislature, will make a recommendation on whether the state should try to purchase parkland in the area.

Stevens said the Woodlands Park would form the eastern end of the giant park, to date nameless, proposed by the conservancy and the Santa Susana park association.