Residents need not panic that oil drilling might one day come to Temescal Canyon, Joe Edmiston assured Temescal Canyon Association members Monday night at their annual meeting in the canyon’s historic dining hall. ‘People have been going around town saying, ‘They’re going to put oil wells in Temescal,’ Edmiston said, referring to critics of the Palisades-Malibu YMCA’s efforts to acquire the 3.9-acre parcel they currently lease at the corner of Sunset and Temescal Canyon Rd. ‘Well, the YMCA doesn’t own mineral rights. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy owns the mineral rights. So there will never be an oil well there, okay?’ Edmiston, a resident of Pacific Palisades, is executive director of the Conservancy. When TCA board member Maria Bane asked him how the community can be assured that these mineral rights are granted to the Conservancy and will never wind up with the YMCA or an oil company, he said: ‘Find yourself a good title lawyer. It’s in the title report [for Temescal Gateway Park]. Reading the title report is a challenging endeavor, so appoint somebody you trust and they’ll find that the mineral rights are specifically reserved to the Conservancy. In fact, that’s a policy throughout the state.’ Edmiston added, ‘The SMC board specifically made it a condition that mineral rights will be reserved’ in negotiating the YMCA’s lot-split application with the City of Los Angeles. This application to acquire the Pumpkin Patch/Christmas tree property is currently under appeal by opponents within the Palisades (including members of the Temescal Canyon Association) and must also work its way through the Coastal Commission. ‘The YMCA doesn’t want the mineral rights; they want to stay as far away from that issue as possible,’ Edmiston said. ‘So let’s put that issue to bed.’ He also praised Mark Elswick, the local Y’s executive director. ‘I have to say, I like Mark Elswick a lot; he’s a straight-shooting kind of guy and he wants to get along with the community. I think he also understands what it takes for the Y to get along with the community.’ Referring to the YMCA’s 10-year, no-build agreement on the option property (once it has been acquired), Edmiston said: ‘I hope that if there is a need to improve the swimming facility, that they don’t consider moving it anywhere else. Just leave it where it is. Don’t threaten a giant commotion in the community by saying we’re going to build a new swimming facility or athletic facility. Moving on to other Temescal issues, Edmiston praised the work of Joyce Whitehead, the Conference Center Coordinator, who he deemed ‘the brightest part of our vision for where the Conservancy is going with our property.’ He continued: ‘Our vision has been to restore, historically as much as we can, the feeling of this wonderful canyon, and to have it be used as much as possible, consistent with the idea that we are custodians of a wonderful natural resource. The restorations that we’ve done here’the dining hall, the dormitory buildings, various other things’have been consistent with that theme. But one thing that we have not done is take a look at the restoration of the natural environment here as opposed to the historical environment. ‘So our major new initiative for Temescal Canyon is going to be an Urban Streams Restoration Grant from the Department of Water Resources, added to by Prop 40 and Prop 50 money which the Conservancy already has, in order to have this be a natural gem of the mountains. This will mean (1) gradually taking away some of the eucalyptus’not of all it, since eucalyptus has historically been here’and introducing more sycamores, (2) making the stream more of a natural channel, and (3) removing the arundo and cape ivy.’ Edmiston also called on TCA members to spread the word and use peer pressure to bring about better enforcement of the regulations within Temescal Canyon. ‘We’ve done a safety study here and the bad news is that this canyon was never designed to have the number of people that are here, and never designed to have the kinds of vehicles that we now have, speeding along the canyon. The good news is, if we can keep everybody at 15 miles an hour, if they stop at the stop signs and don’t think because they’re in a park area that the vehicle code doesn’t apply’we may be able to make it without killing somebody in this canyon.’ The second major issue revolved, of course, around dogs’especially dogs that are allowed to run off-leash along the trails, which is illegal. ‘When a dog jumps up on an elderly couple, they don’t know if the dog is friendly or not. So what we need are trail users who warn people: ‘Keep your dog down low in the canyon; don’t have your dog up on top of the trails.”
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