AGENCY FALLS SHORT OF TRAIL FUNDS.

Byline: Marni McEntee Daily News Staff Writer

Retired engineer Gus Hasselquist agreed in 1992 to sell seven acres of land to the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, taking a 10 percent down payment and the agency's good word that it would pay the balance this year.

Now, the authority says it doesn't have the money to pay off the note on Hasselquist's land and 11 other parcels it agreed to purchase as part of the scenic Backbone Trail.

That leaves Hasselquist uncertain that he will receive the $315,000 he was counting on as his nest egg and places in jeopardy the agency's plans to link private property along the 70-mile hiking trail through the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

"It would really affect me real bad," said Hasselquist, 70, of Malibu. "I really need that money to live on. I've been counting on it. I've been using my savings just to live."

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a sister agency to the MRCA, made an urgent request this week for $4.2 million in federal funding to pay off the notes, which have staggered due dates in March, April and September.

Conservancy Executive Director Joseph T. Edmiston urged Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt this week to set aside any money available in a National Park Service fund for so-called hardship property owners. Such landowners have property that is surrounded by parkland - making it tough for them to sell.

The properties - along about four miles of the trail - had been considered priority acquisitions by the National Park Service, but the service didn't have the ability to finance such purchases, said conservancy land acquisition director John Diaz.

Instead, the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority made a $295,100 down payment on the parcels, with the agreement that the remaining $4.2 million would be paid by this year, Diaz said. The Park Service is to reimburse the agency for the land.

But the lack of a federal appropriations bill this fiscal year to provide the Park Service budget, along with a paucity of state funding, has left both agencies scrambling for money, Diaz said.

If the emergency federal money isn't appropriated, the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority will have to renegotiate the notes or allow the property to revert back to the owners, Diaz said.

Recreation Area Superintendent Art Eck said, however, that if the federal money doesn't come through, the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority - not the Park Service - will have to come up with alternative funding since the MRCA holds the notes.

"The time that the MRCA made these initial deals the world was a lot different. They thought if they didn't have the money, we would at least have the money," Eck said.

The conservancy's finances may be further stretched after a jury ruling Wednesday that the conservancy and a water district owe a home builder $11.2 million for effectively killing its deal to buy a large parcel of land near Westlake Village.

Although the conservancy intends to appeal the ruling, it could end up splitting the damage payment with the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, conservancy officials said.

Some say the conservancy should use money that it has set aside for land acquisition to pay off notes to the 12 properties in question or at the very least provide interest payments.

"Instead of buying the land from people who are in (the park) they keep looking for new land to acquire. Their eyes are bigger than their obligations," said Harry Stover, 63, a retired physicist from Thousand Oaks, whose final payment for his Backbone Trail parcel is due April 15.

"I was young when I bought the land but I'm not now. I'm left with something I can't sell, and I can't give away," Stover said.