Point Reyes Light - October 14, 1999

Almost half of Farm Bureau board quits

The rift between West Marin ranchers over the proposed Farmland Protection Act split wide open Wednesday, when nearly half of the directors of the Marin Farm Bureau quit in protest of the group's unwillingness to compromise.

The mass resignation came in the form of a letter addressed to Farm Bureau President Donna Furlong, and was delivered before Wednesday's board meeting in Point Reyes Station.

"We find it compelling to believe the existence of our current organization is rapidly deterioriating..." the letter reads. "We are torn by dissension. We have harmed our relationship with the Marin County Board of Supervisors, especially Steve Kinsey, our representative from the 4th District, Marin Agricultural Land Trust, the environmental community and our legislative representatives. Years of cooperation have been put in a position of risk...

"Because [a position of compromise] is what we believe in," the letter continues "and because current actions have strayed so far from our perception of what [the] Marin County Farm Bureau stood for, we find ourselves in the position of not supporting this current direction..."

Signing the letter were directors Bob Giacomini, Wilfred Lieb, Boyd Stewart, Rich Giacomini, Joe Mendoza Jr., Roy Erickson, Barbara Hall, and Tim Nunes, as well as voting members Hank Corda and Steve Doughty, both of whom had previously resigned from the board.

Remaining Farm Bureau directors, also by letter, responded Wednesday evening that they regretted the resignations, but defended the board's policies and its commitment to work in the interests of its members. "It is understandable that a minority of members who disagree with their organization's views and who cannot convince it to change then might choose to leave it," their letter said.

The resignations reduce the board from 19 to 11 members. The number had been 20 prior to Corda's resignation in July. (Voting members must be actively involved in agriculture, while associate members have no power to vote but can buy Farm Bureau insurance.)

At the core of the flap is Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey's Point Reyes Farmland Protection Act, which was introduced to Congress for a third time in June.

The bill would authorize $60 million - as opposed to $30 million in earlier versions - to be allocated to Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) and Sonoma County's land trust and open space district to buy conservation easements on ranchland in the coastal zone from Point Reyes Station to Bodega Bay.

Many West Marin ranchers and the majority of board members have opposed the legislation, while others, including those that have resigned, have favored it or wished to stay neutral.

"It's been brewing for quite some time," said nonagenarian ex-director Stewart, who's been on the board on-and-off since the late 1920s. "There's been a long controversy on the board. In the letter of resignation we simply state that there was no consensus."

Stewart explained that the divisions between directors and among the voting members, of which there are roughly 200, made it difficult to run the organization. "Certain members of the Farm Bureau did not want to put the ranches into the park," he said. "They do not want to deal with the Department of the Interior."

Ex-director Lieb said the disagreements came to a head starting in May, after the Farm Bureau disinvited Supervisor Steve Kinsey from a meeting at which ranchers were to discuss revisions Woolsey had made to the legislation.

Kinsey wrote to Farm Bureau's Furlong to express his "disappointment" about the decision. He said the Marin Board of Supervisors had decided there was no point to "deepening ties" between it and the Farm Bureau, adding that he and the other supervisors had decided not to attend an upcoming Farm Bureau barbecue in August.

Soon after this, Lieb said, he and three other directors were castigated for previously having written letters to Washington in support of Woolsey's bill. "It seemed like right after Steve Kinsey wrote that letter, they retrieved the four letters and chastised us," he explained.

The board voted on July 14 to stay neutral on the Woolsey bill. But soon after, the board drafted an oath of loyalty which Lieb and several others reluctantly signed. The oath, more or less, required that members of the board keep in line with the majority opinion on an issue.

Then came an Aug. 3 "special meeting," with Hall, Stewart, Rich Giacomini, Erickson, and Lieb among the directors absent. At that meeting, the board voted to rescind its neutral position on the new farm bill and, according to the meeting minutes, agreed to reject Woolsey's bill "based on landowner's opposition until such time as it meets Farm Bureau policy and landowner support."

Said Lieb, "Bob Giacomini, along with the rest of us, were very depressed after the board reversed the decision to stay neutral."

For now, former director Corda said, he believes he can be more effective working in other local organizations, and points to language in the resignation letter that makes that point.

Equally important, he noted, is that the 10 members would return to the group provided they see, in the letter's words, "a concerted effort by the current board of directors to return to [its] central beliefs."

For his part, ex-director Stewart lamented not only the Farm Bureau's disrupted relationships with factions outside the group, but the inability of West Marin's ranchers to get along with each other.

"It's unfortunate," he said. "These are people that should be friends, and should not be sniping at each other. I don't like it."

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