Point Reyes Light - October 26, 2000
Residents blast park over Rancho Baulines evictions
By Stephen Barrett
As National Park Service officials on Saturday outlined plans to convert Rancho Baulines into an environmental education center, several residents of Bolinas and Dogtown told the park’s advisory commissioners they’d prefer that the current tenant, Mary Tiscornia, be allowed to renew her lease.
Although the Point Reyes National Seashore’s 1980 General Management Plan calls for turning the private ranch into some kind of environmental education center, the move to evict a long-time tenant and remodel her home into an office and classroom complex has stirred up some opposition in West Marin.
Ruth Rathbun, whose grandfather built Rancho Baulines as the Wilkins Ranch, told commissioners Saturday she was saddened by the park’s plan for the property. "I hate to see the human aspect of the lower Olema Valley disappear," she said. "I have trouble understanding the reason for converting an existing ranch into an exhibit teaching kids about how ranching used to be."
Tenant’s offer
Tenant Tiscornia and her supporters have argued that the Park Service, in its efforts to assume control of property it bought decades ago to create the federal park, has turned a blind eye to the tenants who have maintained those properties and their contributions to West Marin communities.
As an alternative to establishing an education center at Rancho Baulines, Tiscornia – in exchange for a new lease – has offered to keep up the historical buildings and landscape, provide public trail access to hikers and equestrians, continue hosting community events for the Bolinas Pony Club and others, and create a private endowment for the property’s future maintenance.
The National Seashore proposes to turn the property into offices and classrooms for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, a non-profit research organization which has contributed nearly $10 million worth of research and educational programs to the National Seashore over the last 20 years.
The proposed Rancho Baulines facility would be used to teach about agricultural practices and natural resource management, with demonstrations of riparian habitat restoration, range management practices, and bird banding.
History exhibits
Along with offices and classrooms, the park would build an exhibit hall in the barn to give a history of Olema Valley ranching. The entire 1,400-acre ranch would be opened to hikers, with office and classroom visitation available by reservation only.
Throughout the debate over the future of Rancho Baulines and the park’s management of historical buildings, park officials have maintained that properties bought with public funds should provide some kind of public benefit – not just exist as private residences.
During Saturday’s meeting with advisory commissioners, Gordon White, the National Seashore’s chief of cultural resources, detailed the efforts to maintain and manage the historic ranches and facilities within the National Seashore and Olema Valley.
He said the park spent $1.1 million last year on a variety of construction projects. Some of the work included re-roofing the Truttman Bunkhouse in Olema, rebuilding the foundation of the Ralph and Margaret Giacomini’s house near Five Brooks, stabilizing the Horick Dairy barn and replacing the house’s porch, foundation work at the Spaletta House on C Ranch, and converting the fire-damaged main house of the Hagmaier Ranch into offices.
Repairs and maintenance
Overall, the park has hired an archivist, a craftsman, a landscape architect, and two seasonal workers to take care of its 218 historic structures, White said. The cultural resources division is also preparing an extensive archive, historic landscaping plans, and a tree nursery to establish new windbreaks at the park’s ranches.
Over the last two years at Rancho Baulines, the Park Service has stabilized the main barn – an 1868 structure which was on the verge of collapse – and repainted the main house, which dates to 1868 and had dry rot, damaged windows, and a badly deteriorated porch, White said.
However, to convert Rancho Baulines into an education center, the buildings will also require a fire protection system, new water and septic systems, termite control, a new roof over the main residence, and remodeling the outbuildings into classrooms. The total cost of repairs and remodeling is estimated at $528,000.
But on Tuesday, Tiscornia said she doubts the Park Service has the resources or the will to keep the property up to the standards she has maintained over the last 30 years. She claims the park’s estimate of $52,000 a year for maintenance and operation – including $32,000 for minor building repairs and grounds maintenance – will cover only a third of the actual expenses.
Other educational sites
She also disputed whether the Park Service needs to open another environmental education center in an area already served by seven such facilities, including Stinson Beach’s Audubon Canyon Ranch, Marshall’s Cypress Grove Preserve, and the existing PRBO Palomarin field station at the end Mesa Road in Bolinas.
"I don’t think the park has the money or the personnel to manage all this land," Tiscornia said. "I’ve lived here for 30 years. I consider it my home. I care about the place, and I care about the community. If they had a better idea for the place, I’d be happy to move."
While couple of speakers at Saturday’s meeting enthusiastically supported the conversion of Rancho Baulines into an education center for the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, others complained that the park should have consulted with Dogtown and Bolinas residents about their plans.
Musician Dale Polissar said the center will likely send more traffic into Bolinas, which already suffers from a shortage of parking and a volume of visitors is more bothersome than it was 20 years ago. "I’m concerned about the impact that this would have on Bolinas," he said. "A plan from 1980 couldn’t have foreseen the tremendous increase in people using the park."
Create a destination point
Dogtown resident Cela O’Connor said the conversion of a home to offices and classrooms would forever alter the southern Olema Valley. "If this plan goes forward," she said, "it will create Rancho Baulines as a destination point at the gateway to this community."
Defying commission chairman Richard Bartke, O’Connor stopped the meeting to read a letter from Bolinas Public Utilities District general manager Phil Buchanan to the National Seashore that chastised the Park Service for planning Rancho Baulines’ future without actively soliciting input from Bolinas residents.
On Tuesday, the Park Service’s White said it would be a stretch to compare Rancho Baulines – which is home to about 10 cows and some horse stables – with the working ranches in the park’s pastoral areas. He said the park is committed to keeping the working ranches in the park as operating examples of life in rural West Marin, and enjoys the support of its tenant ranchers.
Ranchers support park
Indeed, in a letter to park superintendent Don Neubacher, the owners of the Teixeira, Giacomini, Lupton, Stewart, and McIsaac ranches in the Olema Valley wrote that they "have consistently been able to work with Point Reyes National Seashore personnel, and have felt their support in maintaining active ranching in the Valley."
But while the park is charged with preserving agriculture in the pastoral zone, it must also follow its mandate to protect wildlife and natural resources in its "natural landscape management zone, which includes the southern Olema Valley and Rancho Baulines," White said.
Tiscornia, however, said she has not been as well served by the Park Service as her northern neighbors. She noted that the newly stabilized barn was in need of repair years before anyone came to fix it, and that park workers also painted her windows shut.
The Park Service is accepting public comment and alternative ideas for their proposal for Rancho Baulines until Nov. 30. Written comments can be faxed to 663-8132 or e-mailed to ann_nelson@nps.gov.