In federal court last Friday, the judge presiding over a lawsuit that could determine the future of ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore directed the lawyer representing ranch residents to strengthen his case for giving them a voice in the mediation talks.
The suit, filed by three environmental groups against the National Park Service, centers on environmental concerns tied to multigenerational ranching on Point Reyes. The park service has warned that ending its agricultural leases would require all residents to vacate.
Those residents—whose homes, livelihoods and histories are entwined with now-contested lands—are seeking to formally intervene. If their motion is granted, they could play a more active role in shaping the case’s outcome.
The residents’ pro bono attorney, Andrew Giacomini, has retained 25 clients and hopes to expand that number to 75 by year’s end. The proposed intervenors, all Latino and many undocumented or with undocumented family members, have asked the judge for permission to proceed under pseudonyms, citing fears of retaliatory deportation.
Both the environmental groups and the park have opposed the residents’ intervention, arguing that their demand to keep their housing lies beyond the scope of the lawsuit.
During Friday’s hearing, Judge Maxine M. Chesney of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California expressed concern about the timeliness of the motion. The lawsuit was filed in January 2022, and the ranchers moved to intervene a few months later, joining the suit as defendants. She questioned why Mr. Giacomini’s motion was coming “practically three years after the case has been sitting here.”
Mr. Giacomini attributed the delay to the confidential nature of the mediation. Strict gag orders and nondisclosure agreements have left the residents in the dark, he said. “It’s like I’m arguing with my hands tied behind my back, a blindfold on and earplugs in,” he explained.
After he filed the motion in October, the plaintiffs’ lawyers proposed allowing the residents to join the talks as “non-party” participants. This would give them to a chance to provide testimony but no negotiating power. Mr. Giacomini declined the offer.
“Living on these ranches is a privilege, not a right,” said Elizabeth Potter, the plaintiffs’ attorney. She said the parties were unable to reach an agreement on the residents’ participation because Mr. Giacomini sought assurances that their interest in long-term housing would be addressed.
She also noted that another group of ranch residents, represented by different counsel, had expressed interest in joining the mediation under the non-party framework.
The closed-door negotiations began shortly after the Marin-based Resource Renewal Institute and two national groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Western Watersheds Project, sued the park, accusing it of neglecting its conservation duty. A Nov. 22 update on their progress was postponed to Jan. 10, marking the tenth delay.
In her opening remarks, Judge Chesney raised concerns about the legality of the opaque decision-making process that could determine the future of the public park.
“What they are agreeing to do or not do is, at this point, a matter of confidentiality, and frankly I don’t know how much, as a legal matter, it can remain that or not,” she said. “We have a public agency that would be taking action in connection with the settlement, not just two private parties that have their own individual case.”
Both the park service and environmental groups maintain that the residents’ motion seeks relief outside the purview of the lawsuit.
“There may be some relief that the residents can get against the ranchers, but that is not part of this suit,” said David Gelhert, a U.S. attorney representing the park service.
He added, “They want to have housing—not only to live in, but for it to stay housing so that anyone in Marin County who wants to live on the seashore can. So, 30 years from now, people could be moving into these houses? These are parks; they’re not housing developments.”
Still, Judge Chesney indicated the residents might have a legitimate claim, likening them to sublease holders who retain certain legal rights if their landlords lose ownership. But she pressed Mr. Giacomini to provide concrete evidence of their rights, such as written or oral lease agreements. Without such documentation, she noted, the case was weak.
“Before this hearing,” she told him, “I could have looked at your papers and said, ‘Sorry, you haven’t made a showing of any kind of legal right.’ You’ve argued it, that’s all you’ve done.”
The park’s 2021 general management plan—whose implementation the environmental groups blocked with their lawsuit—authorized the park to issue 20-year leases to ranch families for continued agricultural operations and residential use limited to family members and workers.
But many park residents are not agricultural workers, and those who are often have housing arrangements that rely on informal agreements in which rent is deducted from paychecks.
“Under California law, if you live in a place, you have a right to be there, whether it’s an oral lease or a written lease or part of your work arrangements,” Mr. Giacomini said.
Since taking on the case, Mr. Giacomini has openly spoken of how the issues being litigated hit close to home.
“I’ve lived in West Marin for 61 years, which is exactly as long as I’ve been alive,” he said on Friday. “My family are dairy and cattle ranchers, including litigants in this case. My cousins have cattle ranches in the park, and they’ve been ranching in Point Reyes since the 1930s. So I have a personal connection with what is happening in the seashore.”
He maintained that his representation of the residents was not intended to derail the mediation or oppose the ranchers, but rather ensure the ranch residents’ interests were protected.
But Judge Chesney expressed skepticism. “Isn’t that exactly what you are doing?” she asked. “You want to make sure that they don’t go forward with the settlement that would give up the ranches without some protection added for your clients… That would blow the settlement out of the water.”
In recent months, information was leaked to the public that The Nature Conservancy had entered the mediation to offer cash buyouts of leases.
“The ranchers are so worn down that some of them are prepared to take a deal and be paid to forfeit their right to be there,” Mr. Giacomini said. “My clients are waiting for a guillotine to drop on their lives, and they have nowhere to go.”
A separate leaked proposal suggested the possibility of limited grazing under contract, which Mr. Giacomini argued could allow the park to preserve housing. But park lawyers dismissed the idea, with Mr. Gelhert noting that such a plan would require “only 200 cattle and one or two people to manage that number.”
The judge pressed Mr. Giacomini to clarify how the residents’ legal interests differ from those of the ranchers—one of the prerequisites for intervention. “There’s a good chance that they have the same arguments as a legal matter,” she said.
As the hearing wound down, Judge Chesney urged the parties to revisit the idea of negotiating terms for the residents to join the mediation as non-party participants. She then excused herself, leaving the attorneys for the plaintiffs, defendants and proposed intervenors to confer.
The discussion quickly turned contentious, with Mr. Gelhert issuing a cautionary note: “There are external forces at work on the settlement that put us on a limited timeline.”
Tensions flared as laywers for the plaintiffs and defendants scrutinized Mr. Giacomini’s tactics, accusing him of overstepping by hinting at confidential mediation details.
“You’re a member of the court—you should know better,” Ms. Potter remarked.
They also questioned the scope of his representation, suggesting that his rigid insistence on preserving housing was obstructing compromise.
“This is going to be bomb in the schools and communities,” Mr. Giacomini said.
“I’m very well aware of this,” Ms. Potter replied.
“Well, nobody’s talking about it,” Mr. Giacomini retorted. “Their interest is not being represented at the table. I know that because I talk to ranchers.”
“I think you should really stop relying on rumors,” Ms. Potter said.
Mr. Giacomini stood firm, expressing his willingness to engage in the settlement process as non-party participants, but only under the condition that residents retain the right to renew their motion if the terms of any agreement prove unfavorable to their interests.
“I am not willing to be adverse to the ranchers—I’m not here to make claims on behalf of the ranch workers on employment or habitability issues,” he said, countering suggestions that his clients negotiate over other issues unrelated to housing.
When Judge Chesney returned from her chamber, she instructed Mr. Giacomini to file additional briefs and the parties to submit responses.
“If it turns out the ranchers want to divest themselves of a leasehold,” she posed, “is that essentially just a landlord-tenant dispute, one that might be resolved through other means and not necessarily tied to this case? It has to do with rights that are not necessarily an issue as raised by the plaintiff or answered by the defendant.”