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.

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.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.

6.83 Linear Feet 8 boxes

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.

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.