Just Say ‘No Deal’ to Soka University

There has been much talk and many articles written about a “Soka deal” between the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and Soka University. Speaking as an officer of a coalition of numerous environmental and parkland associations, I want to tell you that none of us will tolerate a university, no matter how small, in the center of our parkland.

These deals we read about would supposedly settle the controversy between parkland proponents and the wealthy Japanese university that wants to build a school on property in Calabasas.

One student or 300 students, it makes no difference. Japanese students or American students, it makes no difference. What does make a difference? $15 billion. If even one student is allowed to occupy this central piece of parkland, Soka’s deep pockets will in time develop this piece of land. Indeed, they will end up owning the entire Calabasas area.

If Soka can lobby so successfully in Washington and Sacramento, do you think they can’t be successful at the county level? They will become the Calabasas City Council.

The answer? Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, Congressman Tony Beilenson and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Director Arthur Eck, we need you, not alone but together. Not to make a deal but to lay down the law to Conservancy Director Joe Edmiston. Tell him: “We have constituents--not only in the county, but in the state and the nation. You--Edmiston--don’t have a single constituent. We are going to get rid of Soka. You are going to pay for their property. They are going to move to Orange County. And we will accomplish this peacefully and thoroughly.”

Remove this cancer from our parkland. And not just part of it, but every last cell.

JOAN H. KAY, Calabasas. Kay is secretary of the Coalition to Preserve Las Virgenes.