CONSERVANCY BILL STUNS SOME PROTESTERS SAY PROPOSAL LOOKED LIKE JUNK MAIL, NOT BALLOT FOR $562 TAX.

Byline: Kerry Cavanaugh Staff Writer

Many Santa Monica Mountains residents have sticker shock with the arrival of a new tax bill for $562.75 - the total cost of a 30-year levy that hillside homeowners approved to buy open space.

Only about 12,000 of 60,000 eligible homeowners voted last August on the benefit assessment district, and many homeowners said they'd never even heard of the tax and feel cheated that they now have to pay for it.

Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy officials said the first year's $40 assessment was included on homeowners' 2003-2004 property tax bill, but the state agency also had to give residents the option of paying the entire 30-year tax up front, without interest. That's the $562.75 fixed lien assessment notice that homeowners got.

``I certainly don't remember receiving a ballot. My upset is voting on something like this by mail,'' Lea Osborne, a 30-year resident of Woodland Hills, said Tuesday. ``It isn't the $40 a year. It's the way it was done.''

Conservancy officials dismissed the concerns.

``When it appeared on the tax bill, it wasn't any big deal at all. It's just because this notice is so scary,'' said Dash Stolarz, director of public affairs for the conservancy and its sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority.

The mail-in ballots were sent to about 60,000 homeowners between Sunset and Ventura boulevards, from Woodland Hills to Cahuenga Pass, asking them to tax themselves $40 a year for 30 years to raise $25 million to buy open space in their community. Just 20 percent of those ballots were returned.

The assessment was approved by about 77 percent of respondents east of the San Diego Freeway and 68 percent of those on the west.

``If only 20 percent of the people voted, that doesn't sound like much of a mandate,'' said Rita Berens of Encino. ``It seems like a lot of money to take from people without getting a majority of people voting.''

Berens remembered getting the ballot but didn't return it because she didn't understand the measure. Conservancy officials said they held four public hearings to explain the measure.

The results were challenged in court by a group of homeowners who called themselves No on Bad Tax and said the ballot looked like junk mail and that the state agency misled voters about the purpose of the tax and what properties would be purchased. A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the conservancy, and the homeowners missed the deadline to appeal.

With the legal battle over, the conservancy will sell $25 million worth of bonds to finance the purchase of hillside open space, probably in early 2004.

Two citizen advisory committees of appointees from the City Council, homeowner and taxpayer groups have already been selected to weigh in on potential purchases and make recommendations on acquisitions.

``The benefit assessment district is going to buy a thimble of what we need to buy and what's available,'' said Joan Luchs, president of the Cahuenga Pass Neighborhood Association and an appointee to the citizen advisory committee overseeing purchases.

However, she is sure the conservancy and the community will end up with valuable open lands that will benefit taxpayers.

``The real overview here is protecting animal wildlife and open space,'' Luchs said. ``Open space is value gained.''

Kerry Cavanaugh, [phone]

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com