JOE EDMISTON'S 35,000 ACRES MAKE HIM KING OF THE MOUNTAINS; CONSERVANCY DIRECTOR BUILDS EMPIRE, BUT MAKES ENEMIES ALONG THE WAY.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

A larger-than-life, cigar-chomping portrait of William Mulholland hangs like an icon in a cathedral from the wall outside Joseph Edmiston's office in Barbra Streisand's old estate, a marvel of architectural whimsy, sophistication and botanical delights.

The symbolism of Mulholland's picture is clearly intended.

For not since the engineering wizardry of Mulholland brought water to the desert called Los Angeles has anyone so dominated the region's land or influenced its development as Edmiston, executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Like an Old West land baron, Edmiston has amassed a 35,000-acre empire of rolling chaparral ranches, plunging red rock canyons and scenic vistas.

Almost imperceptibly and with virtually no public accountability, Edmiston has turned a toehold in the Santa Monicas nearly 20 years ago into a $200 million portfolio sweeping from Camarillo and Santa Clarita east across the Simi Hills, the Santa Susana and Santa Monica mountains and down the Los Angeles River into the Whittier Hills.

``Unless you buy the property and put it into the public domain, it's never protected,'' said Edmiston, 50. ``That's the personal satisfaction, seeing a tract map and knowing that but for your actions there would be bulldozers on the land.''

Some see him, as he does himself, as the savior of precious open space and perhaps the state's most powerful - and well-connected - nonelected official.

``If Joe were a real estate developer, he'd be a billionaire. It's to our benefit he's dedicated his life to public service,'' said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Dedicated, brilliant, talented and likable, mercurial, and shrewd are words that come to Yaroslavsky's mind in describing Edmiston as politically supple enough to serve ``a thousand masters.''

Others see Edmiston as an empire builder more concerned with expanding his personal reach and power than actually implementing effective land preservation policies.

Indeed, some say he plays politics and politicians so well that he ends up on the side of developers as often as environmentalists.

Santa Monica Mountains residents who joined with Edmiston in the mid-1970s as the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area gave birth to the region's open-space movement contend the conservancy today is little more than a shell for Edmiston's far-reaching ambitions.

``People don't want to kill the conservancy, they want accountability,'' said Patricia Bell Hearst, new president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations.

``If you're going to call yourself the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, then that's where you should be, not off in the Simi Hills and Verdugos. But they just keep sucking off the name Santa Monica Mountains.''

Heart of the empire

The former Streisand estate, donated in 1993, offers a view of tree-draped Ramirez Canyon, gateway to tens of thousands of acres of Mediterranean ecosystem.

The son of parents dedicated to desert preservation, a University of Southern California graduate and former Sierra Club lobbyist who today lives in Pacific Palisades, it has taken Edmiston two decades to arrive at this place, but arrive he most certainly has - even if by rather unconventional methods.

Political without ever facing election, divisive without a wedge issue, controversial without a public forum, Edmiston has emerged as the undisputed king of the mountains.

From Congress to the Governor's Office to local governments, Edmiston has created a political machine beginning in Gov. Edmund G. ``Jerry'' Brown's administration that exempts him from term limits, voters' displeasure and even from very much independent or fiscal oversight.

His pride is in his legacy - a public lands portfolio already about equal to the combined mainland holdings of the city and county of Los Angeles.

``It crystalized for me in a bookstore in Sacramento many years ago, in Old Town, when I came across a railroad brochure that had been published in 1910 and its title was `California the Wonderful.' I still have it.''

``In the section about Southern California it talks about the fact that the air is pure, you're close to the beaches, you're close to the mountains, the climate is moderate and it's the ideal place to be.

``Our ideal is to try to restore Southern California to the extent we can or to try to keep it the place where you are close to the beaches and the mountains, and there is some semblance to the way they were when the millions of people came.''

To politicians, their symbiotic relationship with Edmiston is almost perfect, a buffer on various contentious and politically dangerous development issues.

Since the conservancy's first acquisition of 59 acres of Fryman Canyon in Studio City for $800,000 in 1981, they have passed legislation to vastly increase the conservancy's influence.

They have entrusted Edmiston and his boards with tremendous discretion in using tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to choose from a smorgasbord of properties, without corresponding oversight.

Much more is in the offing, including Chatsworth Reservoir, now subject to community debate over recreational uses and public access.

``The professed reason the conservancy was created was to help in the Santa Monicas,'' said Margot Feuer, who at 76 considers herself the ``old war horse'' of the mountains.

``But it has been spreading from Los Angeles County to the north and the east and to the rivers. What we're seeing is the Santa Monicas fall by the wayside in the aggrandizement of his agency.''

To his unlikely combination of opponents - environmentalists, mountain residents and developers, Edmiston responds, ``Isn't that what it's all about, navigating down the middle?''

Concerns mount

Concerns about Edmiston's operations have led to occasional audits and inquiries by state agencies that he has easily parried.

The eight-member conservancy board - which includes two former conservancy employees - also has posed no problems for him.

``Joe does a fabulous job. I can't think of anybody who could step into his shoes,'' said conservancy board chairman Elizabeth A. Cheadle, University of California, Los Angeles, Law School dean of students and the conservancy's former staff counsel.

Critics contend the board is a ``rubber stamp'' for Edmiston's activities.

``There is almost no discussion on any of the items, unless the public comes to object,'' Feuer said. ``What's really so outrageous is that his own board doesn't question him.''

Virtually all of the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority work is pro bono, adding nothing to Edmiston's $67,800-a-year conservancy salary.

Edmiston's strength is all the more remarkable in that the conservancy itself has, on occasion, practically ceased to exist and today is little more than a shadow of its heyday.

The conservancy's staff has been cut in half. Its capital budget, which swelled to $80 million in state bonds during the 1980s, now has no unencumbered funds left. A $324,000 appropriation in this year's state budget was needed to keep it afloat.

Yet, because of Edmiston's standing, his personal power and influence through various agencies has grown.

The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, with an annual budget of about $35 million and a 57-member staff, was entrusted by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in 1997 with checks totaling more than $22 million to buy properties on a $200 million wish list without first notifying them of the selections.

``They didn't have to do the paperwork to get the money in 1996,'' said Curt Robertson, Los Angeles County Regional park and Open Space District administrator. ``They got flexibility upfront, though eventually they will have to document their purchases.''

Growing suspicions

To his detractors, Edmiston's betrayals have been both large and small.

Their prime example is the Soka University condemnation flap in 1992. Environmentalists entered the fray united in wanting the historic King Gillette Ranch as parkland.

A tortuous legal fight ensued, which ended in 1996 with the conservancy getting 400 acres for the equivalent of about $1 million in legal fees, but not the mission-style campus that, under the agreement, would be allowed to expand.

Incensed, critics cried foul and wanted to know where the $20 million the conservancy indicated it would pay in condemnation proceedings had gone.

The conservancy's attorney, Laurie Collins, said all money was accounted for and disbursed to appropriate projects. ``They wanted us to fall on our sword, but we had gotten a great public benefit without risking a large jury award.''

``It's called applying gentle, persuasive pressure,'' Edmiston added.

Gordon Murley, the federation's past president, said after Soka, nothing was ever the same between the conservancy and its neighbors.

``Soka had raised its head and it seemed to undo what we thought had been in place. It became more difficult to know what monies existed, where they were going. I had had Joe at the federation meetings all the time before and he'd been open. Some of that began to fall apart, too.''

After spending years in the courts and finally prevailing last summer in an environmental lawsuit, Pasadena attorney H. Melvin Swift Sr. said battling Edmiston is not an easy undertaking.

``People are just steamrolled by him,'' he said.

Visions of the future

Edmiston said he will never forget his central mission: to acquire open space and parklands for generations of Southern Californians.

As he told one audience recently: ``My hope is a cordon of open space so that the expansion of Los Angeles is constrained by protected open space.''

Some find parallels to the ambitions of Robert Moses, who used his powers as a state parks commissioner beginning in 1924 to build what amounted to a sovereign state in New York.

``Joe's gone from being in the open space business to being in the real estate business,'' Feuer said. ``It's all part of his dream of becoming the West Coast Robert Moses.''

Edmiston said Moses, who he greatly admires, overreached in his four decades, and tried to do too much.

``When I start building highways,'' as Moses did, he laughs, ``shoot me.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo: (1 -- color) Joe Edmiston, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy's executive director, takes in the view from atop Piuma Road near Malibu.

Tina Gerson/Daily News

(2) Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy leader Joe Edmiston expounds on his work and his beliefs at his office in Malibu.

Tina Gerson/Daily News

Map: An empire of land