VALLEY 10 / PEOPLE WHO WILL MAKE NEWS IN 2000

Joe Edmiston

“There will be a continuous strip of publicly owned property going all the way from the Santa Susanas down to the Pacific Ocean.”

Name: Joseph T. Edmiston

Age: 52

Home: Pacific Palisades

Profession: Executive director of Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy

Latest Accomplishment: The conservancy recently bought a scenic 240-acre parcel at Little Sycamore Canyon Road and Mulholland Highway. Thanks to a $400,000 gift from the landowner, the conservancy was able to buy the property below market value, for $2 million. The agency also unveiled a “natural park” this month in an old pipe storage yard in South-Central L.A.--a $4.5-million project featuring man-made hills and a nature center.

Goals for 2001: To acquire a 1,800-acre property in the northwest Valley known as Devil’s Canyon, part of the Los Angeles River watershed. This year, the conservancy secured $17.5 million from a state parks bond, a windfall for an agency that often struggles for funding. The conservancy recently assembled a detailed list of priority projects, including the Devil’s Canyon site, and plans to focus more on watershed systems, Edmiston said. It also intends to complete a wildlife corridor stretching from the Santa Clarita woodlands through Malibu Creek State Park to the Pacific Ocean.