Conservation Corps May Get Funds to Open Valley Non-Residential Center

A proposed state budget compromise may allow the California Conservation Corps to open a new center in the San Fernando Valley, corps officials said Friday.

Eight months ago, the corps’ barracks on Oat Mountain closed for lack of funding, but on Thursday night a state budget committee included $152,000 in the 1991-92 budget for a smaller, non-residential facility somewhere in the Valley.

If the plan, proposed by state Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Tarzana), is approved by both houses of the Legislature and by the governor, the money would pay for a director and 10 corps members to work on projects such as planting trees and building trails, corps spokeswoman Susanne Levitsky said.

Even if the money is not included in the final state budget, the corps hopes to open the satellite site later this year, Levitsky said. The corps has been talking with several possible landlords since negotiations with Mission College fell through because no space could be found there for a classroom and office, she said.

Oat Mountain, a former Nike antiaircraft missile site above Chatsworth that is now owned by the city of Los Angeles, had been home to up to 80 corps members at a time since 1978. It was shut down in October as part of an effort to cut $2 million from the corps’ $56-million budget.

“It was an expensive location,” Levitsky said. “It required a 45-minute drive just to get down the mountain and we would have had to put in a lot of additional money” for repairs and maintenance.

Since then, Valley projects have been handled by crews from the Camarillo, Pomona and San Pedro corps centers. But that too has required lengthy drives.

The California Conservation Corps provides minimum-wage jobs for young adults ages 18 to 23 who are not on probation or parole. The 17 residential centers, such as at Oat Mountain, provide room and board as well, but the satellite sites, such as that planned for the Valley, do not.

Past and ongoing corps projects in the Valley include work on the Backbone Trail, brush clearance and fencing at the Wildlife Waystation, erosion control at the state’s off-road vehicle park in Hungry Valley and construction of a playground at San Fernando Gardens, a public housing complex in Pacoima.