Locals Pursue Federal Options for Nature Preserve
By Josh Cohen News Staff Writer
RPV - Officials representing Rancho Palos Verdes recently traveled to Washington, D.C., as part of a five-county funding group lobbying for federal monies for open space acquisitions in Southern California. City representatives hope to strengthen their position by joining with other Southland counties and cities involved in the Natural Communities Conservation Planning program.
RPV Planning Director Joel Rojas and Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy Executive Director Keith Lenard traveled to the nation's capital in March, joining representatives from San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. RPV was the lone Los Angeles County representative. Rojas said the trip went well, and hopes the group made enough impact to ensure the appropriation of $125 million for land acquisition and the protection of endangered species in the upcoming congressional budget.
Along the way, said Rojas, the delegation met with bipartisan support, including Congressman Steve Horn (R-Long Beach) and congresswomen Jane Harman (D-Redondo Beach) and Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs).
"I think the reception was great in every meeting," said Rojas. "Rancho Palos Verdes would benefit from having this money in the budget. This [five-county] group recognizes they have a great ability to influence the numbers in the budget. If we do get it, then the group has to lobby to get an allocation to Southern California."
Rojas knows that after all is said and done, RPV will get at most $1 million to $2 million from the federal budget, just a small portion of the estimated $30 million needed to purchase more than 700 acres of open space in Portuguese Bend. But part of the group members' strength, he said, is that they aren't relying on the federal government as the primary contributor.
"Those people we talked to liked the fact that we're not relying entirely on federal money," said Rojas. "We emphasized the passage of Proposition 40 (a $2-billion state measure from which the city hopes to acquire a large portion of the funds) and local contributions that are being raised by the conservancy."
That the group was made up of people with disparate interests, said Rojas, also made an impression.
"They said they liked having a group of building representatives and people from the Endangered Habitat League together, saying this money is important for creating preserves," he said. "The whole process is seen as a cooperative venture, with both public and private benefits. And it does surprise and impress legislators having people on both sides of the issue asking for the same thing."
"The bipartisan support of this appropriation supports the fact that open space is very important, especially in the beach cities and the Palos Verdes Peninsula," said David Flanders, Harman's legislative director. "The fact that the conservancy is part of this cross-county group helps persuade the House to provide the maximum amount of support for both the program and what is available to Southern California."
The NCCP program allows cities and counties to delineate remaining open space areas for either preservation or development. RPV is currently trying to purchase Portuguese Bend land from two landowners and keep it as a nature preserve under the NCCP process.
"Federal money is a key piece of funding," said Barbara Dye, the conservancy's associate director. "We need money from a lot of sources to make this happen. This is one of them."
Dye Hired
Dye was recently hired by the conservancy to serve as associate director and as the project manager for White Point Preserve, taking over for Loren DeRoy.
Dye served previously as a conservancy board member for eight years, helping oversee projects such as the Chandler Nature Preserve, conservancy walks, the annual photo contest and education programs. For the past few years, Dye has worked for the Ocean Trails Golf Course as environmental manager of the project's 160 acres of coastal sage scrub habitat.
Dye said there is still a little work to be done at Ocean Trails, and she will continue her service there one day a week.
"I left Ocean Trails because of the great opportunity with the conservancy," said Dye. "Things at Ocean Trails are winding down. Most of the future work will be maintaining the habitat, monitoring and reporting, some permitting. It makes sense for me to assist there with some of the nuances that you can't tell by reading a file."
Dye said her new position with the conservancy will be split between getting money for the Portuguese Bend Nature Preserve land acquisition, and continuing efforts to clean up White Point, a 102-acre park on the RPV and Los Angeles border.
"Loren did a fabulous job with White Point," said Dye. "We still need some coastal permits from Los Angeles
and the California Coastal Commission. We can't really break dirt until we have those."
Dye anticipates acquiring those permits by the summer. Then the conservancy will embark on its largest single revegetation effort in history. Dye said the job will be difficult, but not unprecedented.
"The permit is for 90 acres of revegetation at White Point, which is smaller than all of Ocean Trails," she said. "It has its own unique characteristics, and it's been abandoned for a long time. It's covered with grasses, which we learned at (Ocean Trails') Shoreline Park can be harder to get rid of than other invasive [plants]. It's certainly a manageable challenge, and it's a good thing to be doing."
The conservancy will hold a volunteer planting and cleaning day at White Point on Saturday, April 27 from 8 a.m. to noon.