Soka Should Sell Land to Mountains Conservancy

* For the last four years, Soka told us it would never abandon the plan to build a university in the Santa Monica Mountains.

It told us that the Gillette Ranch site was uniquely suited to its needs, that no other site could compare.

It told us that we, their opponents, were at best NIMBYs and at worst racists.

It spent thousands of dollars to advance the development, in the face of an unprecedented outcry by neighbors, conservationists and government officials.

Now Soka has done a complete about-face, announcing that it will build a university in Orange County. This stunning news clarifies the basic truths of this dispute:

* Gillette Ranch was never appropriate for a university site. It was and is best suited for parkland.

* This dispute is and always was solely a land-use issue. The race and religious bias claims were phony.

* A university campus can be created anywhere, but parkland cannot be created--it can only be preserved.

Now that Soka is abandoning the mountains for greener pastures in Orange County, it should sell all of the Gillette Ranch to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for its appraised value of $19 million.

This will give Soka some spare change and preserve forever this magnificent parcel from future development pressure. We need to press for a complete resolution of this dispute while the opportunity still exists.

LES HARDIE

Calabasas