The Marin County Civil Grand Jury has called for stronger oversight of Marin’s farmland preservation programs, asserting that they have been inadequately scrutinized by the county and marred by the appearance of conflicts of interest.
A report issued by the jury last week relitigates many issues that were raised before Measure A—the county’s parks, agriculture and open space sales tax—was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2022. That year, a 10-year renewal of the tax passed with 75 percent of the vote.
Despite strong public support for the measure, the grand jury raised concerns about the operations of the two organizations that receive nearly all the farmland preservation funds supplied by the tax: the Marin Agricultural Land Trust and the Marin Resource Conservation District.
“Due to a lack of transparency concerning the details of the disbursement of Measure A funds, there is a public perception that there may be conflicts of interest in the way that the funds are being allocated,” the report states.
The findings surprised Lily Verdone, MALT’s executive director, who said the grand jurors did not interview her or notify her about the report until after it was posted online. “We have numerous internal policies and structures in place to help maintain transparency and accountability,” she said. “We are audited annually by an outside company and publicly disclose our financials every year.”
Nancy Scolari, executive director of the Marin R.C.D., said the report gave an incomplete and misleading impression of the agency’s operating procedures.“It doesn’t discuss our checks and balances at all,” she said. “There’s an outside advisory group that reviews all of our grant applications, comes up with selection criteria and then recommends projects at a public board meeting that anyone can attend.”
As evidence of failing public confidence, the grand jury cited a handful of news articles, opinion pieces and blog posts by opponents of commercial ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore, including one written by an animal rights activist who described ranchers and dairymen as “evil.”
Another, written by independent investigative reporter Peter Byrne, prompted foes of ranching in the seashore to file an ethics complaint last year against the Marin R.C.D. with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which dismissed it.
The civil grand jury, a volunteer watchdog committee, acknowledged that it did not find any evidence of fraud or illegal activity in the programs. But it wrote that apparent conflicts have “created a public perception of self-dealing by those involved in the process of granting the funds.”
The jury argued that a small group of West Marin ranchers have been the primary beneficiaries of farmland preservation grants even as they participate on the boards that dole out those monies.
“The ties between land ownership and funds-granting agencies have caused many Marin residents to question the methods by which these public monies are allocated,” the report states.
The jury focused mostly on MALT, a nonprofit that uses a combination of private donations and public funds to purchase conservation easements on agricultural lands, prohibiting ranchers from developing farmlands and ensuring they keep acreage in agricultural production. If a rancher sells the property, the new owner is also required to comply with those requirements, preserving the farmland in perpetuity.
Public funding for Measure A comes from a quarter-cent sales tax that was first approved in 2012 and renewed in 2022. As of April, the tax had raised a total of $22.7 million for farmland preservation, according to the grand jury.
Twenty percent of Measure A funds are dedicated to sustaining agriculture in Marin. Of that 20 percent, half is used to purchase conservation easements, 30 percent to promote sustainable food systems, and 20 percent to fund programs carried out by the Marin R.C.D.
The amount dedicated to easement purchases was halved in the 2022 measure, after opponents raised concerns about insider dealing. At the same time, the R.C.D. allotment was bumped from 5 percent to 20 percent, and its programs were opened up to farmers without MALT easements.
“Because of our track record, we were given more Measure A funding,” said Sally Gale, a Chileno Valley rancher and chair of the R.C.D. board. “It was a big deal for us.”
The grand jury’s report called on the county to take a more active role in reviewing farmland preservation grants, particularly those for easements.
“The grand jury found that the county has for all practical purposes outsourced the oversight of the properties receiving these monies to MALT, a private, non-governmental organization,” the report states. “The county is doing little to oversee MALT’s activities.”
In fact, Marin County Parks Director Max Korten said, county staff closely scrutinize all easements proposed by MALT before sending them to the Board of Supervisors, which makes the final decision on whether to contribute county funds.
“There’s a really qualified group of individuals who manage the program and take their jobs reviewing grant proposals and appraisals very seriously,” he said. “Their body of work is evaluating real estate.”
The parks staff also confers with the county Public Works Department’s real estate division to evaluate applications and appraisals sent over by MALT.
“Voters passed Measure A in 2022 by a very strong margin,” Mr. Korten said. “There’s strong support for the work that Measure A has done in the past and for what it’s setting out to do in the future.”
California’s civil grand juries are empowered by county judiciaries to act as government watchdogs. So far this year, Marin’s panel has investigated county policies on sea-level rise, the safety risks of electric bikes and the effectiveness of the county’s special education programs. The Measure A report is titled “Spending Public Money to Preserve Marin’s Agricultural Heritage: Is Anyone Watching?”
Measure A has a community oversight committee whose scope is relatively narrow. The group meets twice a year to review audits and ensure money was spent according to the formula approved by voters. It does not review the process by which grant recipients are selected.
The grand jury portrayed the committee as little more than a rubber stamp. It recommended the committee’s oversight authority be strengthened, allowing it to review all farmland preservation grant applications for conflicts of interest and review the accuracy of easement appraisals. It also recommended that the committee conduct an annual review of the viability of agricultural operations on properties that have been granted easements.
The jury also recommended that the Board of Supervisors deny any farmland preservation grant applications for which the recipients are MALT or R.C.D. board members or their family members.
Ms. Verdone said the nonprofit updated its conflict-of-interest policies in 2019 to prohibit current board members or staffers from receiving easements. Prior to that policy change, board members who received easements recused themselves from voting on their applications, she said.
MALT, the first agricultural land trust in the country, is acclaimed as a model for the many others that have formed since its founding. The organization is accredited by the national Land Trust Accreditation Commission, which reviews its easement purchases and other financial records as well as its policies and bylaws.
Its most recent accreditation came in 2022, after several staff members, including the executive director, resigned in the wake of accusations from Kenneth Slayen, a Ross resident whose application for a MALT easement was denied in 2015.
Mr. Slayen, who is not an agriculturalist, wanted the easement to help purchase a 326-acre Hicks Valley ranch that was partially owned by Sam Dolcini, a longtime MALT board member, and his siblings and cousins. Mr. Dolcini had a 2.5 percent share.
A year later, his relatives sold an easement on the ranch—the Dolcini-Beltrametti Ranch—while he sat on the board. Although he recused himself from the vote, he helped negotiate the easement.
It also later emerged that MALT had received two appraisals for the property, but only submitted the higher one when it asked the county to contribute $833,250 in Measure A funds for the easement purchase. After learning of the lower appraisal, the county asked MALT to return its contribution. At the time, Mr. Slayen urged both the District Attorney’s Office and the F.P.P.C. to investigate, but they both declined.
The grand jury report recommended that the Marin R.C.D. expand its board from five members to seven members and conduct more robust outreach when recruiting board members. R.C.D.s are special districts established under state law to implement projects on public and private lands, and to educate landowners and the public about resource conservation. They have their own locally appointed or elected boards and are financed by a mix of federal, state and local funds.
Ms. Scolari said the Marin R.C.D. is already considering expanding the board to diversify its membership. But she said the legislation that established conservation districts expressly permits board members to apply for the grants they allocate, provided they recuse themselves from voting on those projects. An outside panel of technical experts ranks the applications before the board votes.
Of the total $936,000 in Measure A money allocated to the Marin R.C.D., roughly 7 percent funded conservation projects on the properties of two board members. Ms. Scolari said that money was not used to underwrite the operating expenses of the ranches.
“Our grants fund environmental improvements that benefit the public good,” she said. The grand jury did not disclose the names of people it interviewed during its investigation, but Ms. Scolari said that, to her knowledge, it did not interview members of the R.C.D. board.
Robert Steinberg, a Marshall resident and a member of the Measure A oversight committee, said the jury’s report seemed to align with the views of environmental activists who have filed lawsuits targeting ranching in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
He noted that 10 of the 11 articles and blog posts that the grand jury cited as evidence of flagging public support were written not long before voters renewed Measure A with overwhelming approval. “The only true measure of ‘public perception’ is via the ballot box,” Mr. Steinberg said. “The report is full of negative innuendos and tendentious criticisms made in the past.”
He said he was especially astonished to find that the grand jury report cited a blog titled, “The Shame of Point Reyes” which includes an anti-ranching video and a diatribe describing a prominent West Marin dairyman as an “evil” man who makes his living “murdering the planet.”
Ms. Gale agreed that the report seemed biased against agriculture.
“They’re talking to people who have an axe to grind and they’re not talking to us,” she said. “They’re accusing the board members of self-dealing, but they didn’t talk to any board members.”