Esther Feldman and Community Conservation Solutions records
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Scope and Contents
The Esther Feldman and Community Conservation Solutions records document the work conducted by Esther Feldman and/or Community Conservation Solutions (CCS) from the 1980s through 2020. The collection focuses on two major subject areas: (i) ballot measures and campaigns creating public financing for park and conservation projects and (ii) land-based projects involving land acquisition, native habitat restoration, park creation, 'green' stormwater and urban runoff capture, planning projects, legislation, and community engagement. The initiatives documented in this collection created over three billion dollars in new public funds for parks, natural lands, rivers, recreation, and conservation purposes in Los Angeles County and in California. These projects also established a model for over 35 billion dollars in new conservation public finance for similar legislation and ballot measures in the West, especially in Oregon and Washington states, and throughout the United States, and led to permanent park funding through Los Angeles County's Measure A: Safe, Clean Neighborhood Parks, Open Space, Beaches, Rivers Protection, and Water Conservation Measure.
The collection includes correspondence, memoranda, campaign materials, accounting, reports, press clippings, videos, born-digital files, and ephemera associated with ballot measure campaigns and other land conservation efforts. The collection also contains slides, photographic prints, and posters, including comprehensive slide files of the Baldwin Hills, Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, the Baldwin Hills Park Plan, the Zev Yaroslavsky L.A. River Greenway Trail, and the Natural Park-Air Pollution Solution at the Ramona Gardens Housing Development.
The collection documents various projects that have shaped Los Angeles County's system of protected natural lands, rivers, park and recreation lands, and trails surrounding and interlaced within metropolitan areas. The material in the collection links goals relating to diversity, equity, and inclusion with permanent county park funding that prioritizes building parks in park-poor, low-income communities of color.
Dates
- Creation: 1984 - 2022
Creator
- Feldman, Esther (Person)
- Community Conservation Solutions (Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Advance notice required for access. This collection includes both analog and digital files. The collection's digital files have been copied to the USC Digital Repository. The digital files are not publicly accessible online. Researchers wishing to request access to the digital files should email specol@usc.edu.
Conditions Governing Use
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of Special Collections at specol@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
Biographical / Historical
Esther Feldman has been a leader in protecting and creating new parks, natural lands, and open space in California since the 1980s, and is responsible for creating over three billion dollars in new public funds through ballot measures in L.A. County and throughout California and the U.S. for park, recreation and conservation purposes. From 1988 to the present, Feldman's work includes: numerous park and open space funding, land and water conservation efforts throughout Los Angeles County; launching the Trust for Public Land's Los Angeles Field Office; creating the Trust for Public Land's National Public Finance Program, which has since helped create over $35 billion in new conservation public funds throughout the U.S. through over 428 ballot measures in 33 states; and twenty-three years of leading Community Conservation Solutions, a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization that she established in 1998 that pioneered urban park projects integrating both nature and people. The new public funding that Feldman created, along with the additional hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private funds that her work leveraged, has permanently changed the landscape of L.A. County, helping to fund a diverse range of urban park projects and the permanent protection and restoration of tens of thousands of acres of parks and natural open space.
In addition to every city and unincorporated area of Los Angeles County that has received funding, regional areas, rivers, and tributaries that have benefitted include (partial list only):
- Los Angeles County Beaches
- Santa Monica Bay
- Santa Monica Mountains
- Mt. Washington
- Ascot Hills
- Verdugo Hills
- Santa Susana Mountains
- San Gabriel Mountains
- Santa Clarita Woodlands
- Whittier-Puente Hills
- San Jose Hills
- Baldwin Hills
- L.A. River
- Rio Hondo
- San Gabriel River
- Santa Ana River
- Santa Clara River
- Compton Creek
Timeline of Esther Feldman's Work, by Entity
The records in this collection are from Esther Feldman's work carried out for the following public agencies or non-profit organizations during the years indicated.
- November 1984 - November 1988
- The Planning & Conservation League, Sacramento, CA
- Research Director and Assistant Campaign Director
- November 1988 - June 1994
- Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), Los Angeles, CA
- Director, Special Projects
- August 1994 - March 1997
- The Trust for Public Land (TPL), Los Angeles and San Francisco, CA
- 1997-2020
- Community Conservation Solutions (formerly Community Conservancy International - name was changed in 2010)
Extent
6.83 Linear Feet (8 boxes)
3.75 Gigabytes (38 computer folders and 142 computer files)
Language of Materials
English
Spanish; Castilian
Abstract
The Esther Feldman and Community Conservation Solutions records document the work conducted by Esther Feldman and/or Community Conservation Solutions (CCS) from the 1980s through 2020. The collection focuses on two major subject areas: (i) ballot measures and campaigns creating public financing for park and conservation projects and (ii) land-based projects involving land acquisition, native habitat restoration, park creation, 'green' stormwater and urban runoff capture, planning projects, legislation, and community engagement. The initiatives documented in this collection created over three billion dollars in new public funds for parks, natural lands, rivers, recreation, and conservation purposes in Los Angeles County and in California. These projects also established a model for over 35 billion dollars in new conservation public finance for similar legislation and ballot measures in the West, especially in Oregon and Washington states, and throughout the United States, and led to permanent park funding through Los Angeles County's Measure A: Safe, Clean Neighborhood Parks, Open Space, Beaches, Rivers Protection, and Water Conservation Measure.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Esther Feldman, June 23, 2022.
Subject
- Community Conservancy International -- Archives (Organization)
- Community Conservation Solutions -- Archives (Organization)
- Feldman, Esther -- Archives (Person)
Genre / Form
- Born digital
- Brochures
- Correspondence
- Digital images
- Digital media
- Ephemera
- Financial records
- Maps
- Memorandums
- Moving images
- Newsletters
- Newspaper clippings
- Photographs
- Presentation drawings (proposals)
- Renderings (drawings)
- Reports
- Research (documents)
- Site plans
- Slides (photographs)
- Surveys (documents)
Topical
- Bills, Legislative -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Community-based conservation -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Archival resources
- Conservation of natural resources -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Archival resources
- Environmental policy -- California -- Archival resources
- Environmental protection -- California -- Archival resources
- Land Use -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Planning -- Archival resources
- Land Use -- Environmental aspects -- California -- Maps -- Archival resources
- Landscape protection -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Archival resources
- Natural resources conservation areas -- Law and legislation -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Archival resources
- Nature conservation -- California -- Los Angeles County -- Archival resources
- Nonprofit organizations -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Parks -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
- Political campaigns -- California -- Archival resources
- Recreation -- California -- Los Angeles -- Planning -- Archival resources
- Referendum -- California -- 20th century -- Archival resources
- Regional planning -- California, Southern -- Archival resources
- Title
- Finding aid for the Esther Feldman and Community Conservation Solutions records
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Bo Doub -- with descriptive notes adapted from the donor and creator of the collection, Esther Feldman.
- Date
- 2022 June
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the USC Libraries Special Collections Repository
Doheny Memorial Library 206
3550 Trousdale Parkway
Los Angeles California 90089-0189 United States
specol@usc.edu