Facing a reduction in funding they say will hurt ranchers and the public, the Marin Agricultural Land Trust is mounting a defense campaign. MALT was instrumental in helping pass the Measure A sales tax to protect open space. Now, as the county is poised to cut half of its Measure A spending on the trust, MALT’s leadership is responding to a proposal that they say blindsided them.
“That kind of came out of left field,” said Andrew Giacomini, a MALT board member who visited the Light’s offices as part of the trust’s outreach campaign. “Why would we back off on supporting agriculture now, in the middle of a drought?” Mr. Giacomini said he has been meeting with county supervisors, who will ultimately decide on the Measure A spending plan before the tax returns to the ballot in June.
Measure A, a quarter-cent sales tax intended to support the maintenance and preservation of parks, open space and farmland, passed with 74 percent support from Marin voters nearly a decade ago. The tax sunsets in March, but according to a poll of random likely voters paid for by the Marin Open Space Trust, 82 percent support renewing it. That matter is on the ballot in six months, and in the meantime, the county has sought public input to re-evaluate how the money is spent.
That public input, in the form of a community survey and one-on-one meetings conducted by Marin County Parks in the fall, did not turn out well for MALT. The MOST poll showing support for Measure A targeted 750 likely voters; the Parks survey on how to spend the money received more than 2,700 responses. Survey respondents ranked farmland preservation, the trust’s primary work, dead last among priorities for open space spending. Wildfire prevention ranked first, followed by park and trail maintenance. Thirty-four percent of those surveyed said farmland preservation should receive less funding in the future.
The results clearly pointed to a change in priorities, and last month, parks director Max Korten proposed a new spending plan that would cut the farmland allocation from 20 percent to 10 percent and shift the focus onto agricultural stewardship projects rather than the acquisition of conservation easements.
Mr. Giacomini suggested that Supervisor Dennis Rodoni, who has signaled support for reallocating Measure A funding, spearheaded the survey in an effort to divert funding from the trust. But Supervisor Rodoni said the survey was a parks initiative, similar to other surveys the division has conducted to gather public input. He said while the initial survey appeared to show somewhat “one-sided” support for reducing the farmland allocation, there will be another opportunity for public comment on the proposed changes at the Dec. 14 Board of Supervisors hearing.
“This is by no means final and we still have a lot of public comment to hear,” Supervisor Rodoni said. “The MALT group has been fairly silent until now. We’ve heard from hundreds of other people.”
MALT still has work to do, Mr. Giacomini said, and it is banking on the public money. The trust’s most recent purchase, an easement on a ranch owned by Hog Island Oyster Company, used its pot of private money with no matching contribution from Measure A. In fact, the trust hasn’t received any Measure A funding since 2019, but it will be seeking Measure A grants for seven easements that are now in the works. MALT says the tax monies are essential as leverage to secure other public and private funding.
About half of the agricultural land MALT has identified in Marin—around 50,000 acres—remains unprotected by easements. Though opponents have argued the threat of development has abated in West Marin, MALT stewardship program manager Eric Rubenstahl said with many landowners getting older and property values higher than they ever imagined, the remaining unprotected land is still at risk. The trust estimates that the purchase of the development rights for all the remaining land would come with a price tag of about $400 million.
Mr. Giacomini said political debates around ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore have inspired a new hostility toward agriculture in Marin. “I think some people paint with a broad brush and say whatever’s happening in the park has to do with Measure A, which isn’t true, because Measure A dollars aren’t spent in the park,” he said. “There’s all kind of political footballs out here that are coming together.”
West Marin’s small farms, ranches and dairies support the economy and bring in tourism, Mr. Giacomini said, and they don’t represent the kind of “big ag” that opponents sometimes talk about. Agriculturalists are struggling now more than ever because of the drought, and dairies are the most likely to fold. That makes easements an important lifeline, he argued.
Even if MALT doesn’t secure all the remaining easements it’s seeking, the trust will need all the Measure A funding it can get for stewardship projects, which MALT requires for ranchers whose land is under an easement. The trust fully supports broadening the aperture of funding to include stewardship work, and the Marin Resource Conservation District already receives a small percentage of the Measure A farmland allocation every year for carbon farming and restoration projects on MALT land. This week, the R.C.D. announced it had leveraged $225,000 in Measure A funds and other funding sources to secure a $1 million grant from the California State Coastal Conservancy for carbon farming projects.
MALT will support Measure A even if its funding is reduced, Mr. Giacomini said, but he cautioned the county against making a “unilateral” decision to cut farmland preservation funding. And if the county drops MALT funding from the spending plan entirely, it would endanger Measure A as a whole, he said.
“It might not pass, because MALT isn’t going to fund [the campaign], so now you have no money,” he said. “MALT is not going to spend $350,000 on a Measure A that has no money in it for MALT.”