Story about Marin market brouhaha
Open Forum: Should farmers run farmers markets?

Sept. 5, 1997
A Victory for ‘Market Democrats’ in Marin

The existing management of the Marin County Farmers Market Association was pummeled at the ballot box by farmers seeking reforms and an audit of the group’s finances.

Of the nine board members elected, only one was a member of the previous board. And John Barbagelata, who served as board president for more than a decade without ever facing a vote of the association’s membership, came in 16^th out of 20 who vied for seats on the board, which oversees one of the largest and richest farmers market associations in California. Only 29 farmers out of 145 who cast votes in the election gave one of their nine votes to Barbagelata, a San Joaquin County farmer.

In a letter last March sent to all members of the Marin association, Barbagelata called a group of farmers calling for management reforms "a small group of ambitious and selfish people" trying to "ruin what so many of us have created."

Rachel Helm and Barbara Gonce, the two growers who signed a letter on behalf of the group calling for management changes, were both elected to the new board.

Michael Dimock, an agricultural marketing consultant and a supporter of the Marin association’s embattled executive director, Lynn Bagley, says he is "very concerned" about the fate of the Marin markets and fears a "disaster" is in the making under the new leadership. "I think there is a naïve fervor about what’s happening," he said, equating the conduct of the election victors to that of a mob that rules in the wake of a revolution.

"I think the farmers are going to find that their skill set is not the kind of skill set that it takes to run a market," Dimock said.

"A lot of displaced anger about what’s happening to small farmers got placed on the former board and the executive director," added Dimock.

Some of the incoming board members have made allegations about financial irregularities, but "they’re looking for dirt and can’t find it," Dimock said.

Helm rejected Dimock’s suggestion that farmers lack management skills. "Most farmers to be successful these days need to be good managers," she said. Besides, the new board has no intention of running the markets on a day to day basis anyway. They’ll leave that to the staff people who have run the markets all along.

Whether or not Bagley will be retained as executive director "is under discussion," said Helm, who added that the new board won’t take any steps without first engaging in an objective analysis of the situation.

The charge that she and others are "looking for dirt" is an "insult to my integrity," Helm added. She said the new board is simply trying to correct a number of "glaring omissions" over the years, starting with the failure of the former management to call any membership election for 14 years or to submit to a thorough, independent audit of the association’s finances.

Bagley did not return a phone call seeking her comment.

The board election this summer, the first ever of the full membership of the association, was held by order of a superior court judge. The new board held its first meeting in late August.

The association currently manages about half a dozen farmers markets in the Bay Area, including markets on Thursday and Sunday in San Rafael that are considered among the best in the nation.