Ensure strict easement scrutiny to satisfy Measure A

The sole countywide ballot proposition on the June 7 primary election ballot is Measure A. If it achieves the required twothirds supermajority, it will renew an existing one-quarter cent sales tax.

Its purpose is to maintain Marin`s open space reserves, county parks, help municipalities run their parks and continue programs to assure that rural lands now owned by farmers and ranchers remain open space in perpetuity.

Renewing a current tax for parks and open space in deep green Marin should be a “motherhood issue” with little more than token opposition. That's exactly what happened in 2012 when Measure A was initially proposed and passed in a landslide with 74% voter approval.

The 2022 version of Measure

A is essentially unchanged.

There is little opposition to the use of more than 90% of the $14 million annually generated by the parks and open space tax. It's the 10% balance that the brouhaha is about.

The battle centers on the nonprofit Marin Agricultural Land Trust. As its name suggests, MALT was founded with the purpose of preserving farms and ranches in rural Marin.

Its founders, legendary environmentalists Ellen Straus and Phyllis Faber, feared that as the Bay Area grew and prospered, increasing valuable rural lands would be sold for residential uses, specifically country-style mini-mansions.

Straus and Faber were committed to retaining the legacy of working family-owned farms and ranches.

Some have an impression these farms and dairy ranches are owned by corporations. The truth is that they are owned by families, most who have stewarded their lands for well over a century. They are land rich and, while not poor, are hardly wealthy. It's the temptation for them to cash out that MALT was designed to thwart.

When MALT was founded in 1980, the innovation was it would purchase agricultural easements. Under this aspect of California easement law, property owners surrender their right to develop their land. In return for cash payments, they guarantee by deed restrictions their property remains forever rural. The strategy worked as designed and became a national model to save economically endangered farms and ranches.

In recent years, MALT faced valid pushback. It revolved around governance issues and the reality that when taxpayer funds pass through any nonprofit, complaints are inevitable. Couple that with allegations of conflict of interest between MALT's board and those receiving the agricultural-only easements.

Much has been accomplished reforming MALT's governance. While much of the money for purchasing easements comes from private charitable donations made directly to MALT, Measure A adds to the pot over $1 million annually in tax proceeds.

Now, it's the job of the tax's supporters to demonstrate that protections are in place guaranteeing the process of granting agricultural easements stands up to the strictest scrutiny.

Despite the opposition, the Marin Conservation League, arguably Marin's premier environmental nonprofit, and Marin's League of Women Voters both support the measure. They seem convinced that adequate conflict-of-interest protections are in force.

A key endorsement comes from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria when they donated $100,000 to the campaign in support of the tax.

“Environmental stewardship is vital to our tribe's mission,” the federation reported in a press release signed by Chair Greg Sarris. “We work with our communities to keep the ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo healthy and protected.”

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Former Mill Valley Mayor

Cliff Waldeck recently shared some fun trivia:

What does Michele Crncich Hodge, candidate for Marin superintendent of schools, Ida Times-Green, a Democratic state Assembly hopeful, and Supervisor Katie Rice all have in common?

The answer: All three were Tamalpais High School class of 1978 grads.