Tough journey to ballot for parks tax measure
Controversy has raged over agricultural funding
Measure A's path to the June 7 primary ballot has been a tortured one, strewn with controversy and obstacles.
The measure asks Marin voters to renew a quartercent sales tax that they approved by more than a 74% margin in 2012.
If the measure is approved by two-thirds of voters, 65% of the projected $14 million in annual revenue will go to maintain county parks and open space. Another 15% will go to Marin cities and towns to help fund their parks, open space and recreation programs. Those allocations haven't changed from when Measure A was approved in 2012.
What is controversial this time around is how the remaining 20% of the revenue will be spent. The original Measure A earmarked most of that 20% for agricultural easements, with the remainder going to the Marin Resource Conservation District. The Measure A on the June ballot, however, allocates just half of the 20% for agricultural easements.
The conservation district will get one-fifth of the total reserved for agriculture, and the remainder will fund a grant program for a variety of sustainable agricultural uses, including community gardens.
There is much at stake for Marin County Parks, which relies on Measure A revenue to pay the salaries of many of its employees. Revenue from the tax measure ended when it expired in March, and even if the measure is reapproved by voters next month, tax revenue won't resume until November.
Max Korten, director of the county parks department, has set aside enough money to keep it operating through December.
The amount of Measure A money being spent on agricultural easements became a hot-button issue in 2020 when Ross resident Ken Slayen accused the Marin Agricultural Land Trust of using Measure A funds to enrich current and former board members.
Slayen lodged his accusations after his 2015 bid for a conservation easement from the nonprofit was rejected. The allegations were eventually dismissed by Marin County Counsel Brian Washington and the State Fair Political Practices Commission.
Then, in July 2020, MALT returned $833,250 in Measure A funds that the county had given it to help purchase a $1.66 million agricultural easement on the 326-acre Dolcini-Beltrametti Ranch in 2017. The county asked MALT for a refund after the trust acknowledged having failed to disclose a property appraisal that would have reduced the grant.
Since then, two MALT executive directors have resigned — Jamison Watts in July 2020, followed by Thane Kreiner in December.
Marin supervisors had hoped to ask voters to renew Measure A in the November 2020 election, but delayed the move because of the pandemic.
An attempt to put the renewal proposition on the gubernatorial recall ballot in October also failed to pan out, and an earlier expenditure plan that would have cut the allocation for agricultural easements even more was rejiggered after the agricultural community objected.
To complicate matters further, the approval of the National Park Service's land management plan in the Point Reyes National Seashore last year generated additional controversy regarding Marin agriculture. Cattle ranching continues on some 28,000 acres within the 86,000-acre seashore and the neighboring Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The management plan allows the park to extend leases from five-year terms to 20 years.
This go-around, Measure A faces more opposition than in 2012.
“Our goal is to revise Measure A to be more equitable, environmentally responsible and publicly accountable, and bring it back to the ballot in November,” said Susan Ives, vice president of public affairs for the Trust for Public Land.
Another member of the group, Martin Griffin, cofounder of Audubon Canyon Ranch, said, “We don't believe that public money should be used to subsidize Marin's largest landowners, the same ranchers who still occupy and have installed over 300 miles of barbed wire fencing on public land in our national seashore.”
Also, a group calling itself the Marin Alliance for Public Land has created a website, although it hasn't formed a committee to raise any money.
Miyoko's Creamery founder Miyoko Schinner, another prominent opponent of Measure A, said she would prefer to see its revenue used to rewild West Marin farms and ranches.
“Why don't we make it a truly bucolic scene by returning it to nature?” said Schinner, whose Sonoma-based business makes cheese and butter out of plants instead of cow milk. “There is a lot of evidence on the impact of all animal agriculture as we're practicing it today on climate change.”
Opponents of the measure also assert that the primary rationale for the agriculture easements, to ensure that Marin agricultural land is not lost to development, is no longer valid.
“It would take a lawsuit against the county to overturn A-60 zoning, and there is no water for subdivisions,” Griffin said. The county's A-60 zoning regulation allows only one house per 60 acres in areas zoned for agriculture.
Measure A supporters, however, say the focus should be on the 80% of Measure A revenue going to maintain parks and open space rather than the 20% earmarked for agriculture.
“Any apprehensions regarding the efficacy of agricultural land trusts are far outweighed by the clear benefits Measure A will provide to the Latino immigrant community and other underserved communities in Marin County,” said Aaron Burnett, director of advocacy for Canal Alliance.
“The creation of community gardens combined with increased access to low-cost farmland and farming would be a boon to the vitality and resiliency of the Canal community and beyond,” Burnett said. “Furthermore, Measure A would deliver the funding necessary to improve equity in access to the same parks and recreation facilities for which the measure sets out to enhance and restore.”
Bill Long, chairman of the Marin Open Space Trust, which has contributed $10,000 to the campaign committee backing Measure A, said the critics' emphasis on agriculture's impact on wildlife and global warming oversimplifies the role agriculture plays.
“The alternative could be a lot more damaging,” Long said, “particularly in terms of fire hazard.”
Long said cattle grazing reduces the amount of flammable vegetation on West Marin land. In addition, the new expenditure plan for Measure A increases spending on fuels reduction in county parks and on open space land. Of the 65% of total revenue reserved for county parks and open space, a quarter will be spent on fuels reduction.
Kentfield resident Mimi Willard, president of the Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers, has estimated that will amount to about $2.5 million annually in spending on reducing fuels. The organization, which had threatened to oppose the measure if too little revenue was allocated to fire prevention, has chosen to remain neutral.
The Marin Conservation League has also contributed $10,000 to the committee backing Measure A.
“MCL refutes two misconceptions: that running a Marin family dairy makes one rich (in fact, many Marin farm families must maintain outside occupations to make ends meet), and that zoning, alone, can assure permanent protection of Marin's working lands from development threat as land values escalate,” Nona Dennis, a leader of the organization, wrote in an email.
Speaking for the Sierra Club Marin Group at a Marin supervisors meeting in October, Barbara Bogard said the group was concerned that there had been no discussion about using Measure A funds to provide partial reparations for both the Coast Miwok Tribal Council of Marin and the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.
Last week, the Marin Measure A campaign committee reported receiving a $100,000 contribution from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria. Greg Sarris, tribal chairman, said renewing the tax will help natural spaces in the county “continue to thrive.”
“Environmental stewardship is vital to our tribe's mission,” he said.
On Monday, the Measure A committee reported receiving a $10,000 contribution from MALT, bringing the campaign's donation total to about $143,000. In 2012, MALT contributed roughly $63,000 of the approximately $170,000 raised to fund the campaign.
“More financial support will arrive over the next month,” said Barry Barnes, a political consultant working on the Measure A campaign.