Las Positas park saved by $500,000 gift

12/23/98

By SCOTT HADLY

NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

Christmas has come early at Las Positas Friendship Park as park boosters picked up a $500,000 gift to pay off the remaining cost of more than half the park land.

The B. P. Moser Trust will write a

Paragliders use the popular take-off spot at the bluffs above Cliff Drive.

check for half a million dollars to help pay the final $1 million balloon payment for a 136-acre portion of the 230-acre park, park officials learned Monday.

The $1 million payment is due by New Year's Eve and park officials feared they would lose the undeveloped land between the park's main entrance and Cliff Drive. The property, with its rugged rolling hills and 360-degree views from the mountains to the ocean, is considered one of the crown jewels of the park. "It came in the nick of time," said Lynn Holley, executive director of the Las Positas Park Foundation, the non-profit organization that runs the park.

The foundation bought the property from the California Province of the Society of Jesuits in 1994 for $1.5 million. The Jesuits had substantially reduced the price of the land, which had been listed for as much as $7 million. After selling the land to the foundation, the Jesuits allowed the group to pay off the remaining sum over four years without interest.

From small individual donations to a $350,000 check from the county's Coastal Resource Enhancement Funds, the foundation raised all but $500,000. "At the time we didn't think it would take this long to raise the money," said Peter Gherini Jr., chairman of the capital campaign for the park. "We've been really scrambling in the last few months."

After news stories about the looming New Year's deadline, park officials heard from a representative of the B. P. Moser Trust. On Monday foundation officials got word that the trust would give the needed $500,000. In recognition for the gift, a meadow on the 136 portion of the park will be named in memory of Moser, officials said.

B. Paul Moser was an aeronautical engineer who retired to Santa Barbara in the 1950s and was known as a sort of curmudgeon "with a heart of gold."

He was also a collector of rare and antique automobiles. After he died in 1992 his collection was sold at auction through Sothebys. The money netted was used to help set up the trust.

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In addition to the B. P. Moser Trust donation, the foundation has received other smaller donations that will go towards setting up an endowment. The goal is eventually to raise another $2 million, and use the interest to pay the yearly budget for running the park.

More than 60,000 people use the sprawling grounds each year. The park boasts three softball fields, two soccer fields, a veterans memorial, a BMX track, a picnic area, a grove for weddings and miles of nature trails. The original 94-acre park was built in the early 1980s on top of Santa Barbara's old city dump. The land is leased by the city to the private non-profit foundation for $1 a year. It costs about $350,000 a year to run the park.

The park and the Douglas Family Preserve across Cliff Drive are part of a seamless expanse of open space used by hikers, horseback riders and hang gliders.

Members of the foundation's volunteer board of directors are still looking for donations for the endowment, said board president Fred Clough. "We've seen a real outpouring of support and I think the message is that there's a tremendous amount of interest in the park," Clough said.

As an incentive for donors, foundation officials are still offering the right to name the park for those willing to give a couple of million.

The foundation also has more modest fund-raising incentives, including the naming of benches or memorial trees in the park for gifts of $1,000. The park recently received 160 oak saplings that will be planted throughout the park as memorial trees.

Other fund-raising events include a "community hill climb" on Sunday, starting at 10 a.m., in which participants will give $5 or $10 to participate in a walk up a hill on the property. Also on New Year's Day, members of a local hang gliding and paragliding community will have their annual celebration at the park.