Soka University Selected as Site for Calabasas Pumpkin Festival

The Calabasas Chamber of Commerce will hold the community’s 1992 Pumpkin Festival at Soka University despite complaints by residents and City Council members that the selection appears to endorse the university’s controversial expansion plans.

The chamber’s pumpkin festival committee voted 13 to 2 Monday night to hold the festival at Soka because it offers the most attractive site, with the best parking, water and power facilities, at the lowest cost, committee head Alan Ungar said Tuesday.

Political concerns had to be set aside, he said. “We had to be concerned with how we can put on a successful pumpkin festival,” he said. “Hopefully the community will understand.”

Members of the Calabasas City Council and some citizens appealed to the chamber last month to find another site.

Opponents complained that holding the festival at the campus might create the impression that the community approves of the university’s plans to expand from its current 100 students to 4,400. The expansion plan, which many local residents oppose, is the subject of a running dispute between the Japan-based university and state and federal park officials, who want the campus site for a park headquarters.

But Ungar said that none of the other sites that the committee considered--Paramount Ranch, White Oak Ranch and Malibu Creek State Park--were as convenient, attractive or inexpensive as Soka.

White Oak had no parking, and the cost of using the state park would have been $50,000, he said.

Soka offered to allow the chamber to use the campus for free, but Ungar said the chamber will pay something “in order to have a proper contract.” He declined, however, to discuss a specific amount.

“We didn’t do this because we want to send a positive or a negative signal,” he said. “Soka has all the things we need for a successful festival.”

The festival honors the source of the city’s name. Calabasas is Spanish for pumpkin. The event, scheduled for October, 1992, will feature arts and crafts, entertainment and games.