County makes deal to pause ranch evictions

Photo credit: Jessica B. Lifland

By Ben Stocking. Reprinted with permission from the Point Reyes Light

The county has agreed to cover the utility expenses of residents living in substandard housing at a Point Reyes Station ranch, striking a deal that will protect them from eviction before they can be placed in emergency housing.

The arrangement was negotiated by county staff and the court-appointed fiduciary managing the estate of the late Leroy Martinelli. The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the agreement on Tuesday.

The deal provides up to $88,960 to cover utility costs incurred since November through Aug. 1. It requires the fiduciary to refrain from initiating eviction proceedings during that period—a step she almost initiated last fall.

The agreement also places a lien on the property guaranteeing that the county is repaid if the 1,000-acre Tomasini Canyon ranch is sold.

The Community Land Trust Association of West Marin plans to offer housing to several of the ranch’s 12 families on the county-owned lot at Sixth and B Streets, where it will soon place tiny homes. 

It has already moved two families from the Martinelli ranch to CLAM housing elsewhere in town, and it is lining up other options for families for whom the tiny homes are not a good fit.

“The tiny homes could be ready as early as mid-March, but it depends on weather,” Jarrod Russell, CLAM’s executive director, told the Light this week. “We’re shooting for early spring, and I’m confident they will be ready by May or June.” 

The county wanted to ensure that ranch residents remain housed until alternative homes are ready, said Sarah Jones, the director of the Marin County Community Development Agency.

“The fiduciary is responsible for thinking about this from a dollars-and-cents point of view,” she said. “It will still be a number of months before the housing is ready, and we did not want people evicted, so we came to an agreement.”

The fate of the residents has been uncertain since at least May 2024, when the county declared their housing unfit for human habitation due to septic and other violations. Soon after, attorneys advised them that they did not need to pay rent unless and until the violations were corrected. Some tenants continued paying rent anyway, but most did not.

Mr. Martinelli died in January 2024. Like her father before her, Vicki Martinelli, who has managed the ranch after his death, had been covering the tenants’ utilities, but she said she could not afford to do so if they weren’t paying rent.

Ms. Martinelli’s sisters have challenged their father’s will, which did not include them as beneficiaries. While that case is being litigated, the estate is being managed by the fiduciary, Karyn Stiles, a San Mateo certified public accountant.

Last fall, Ms. Stiles declared that the estate would cease making utility payments. She offered tenants lump-sum payments to evacuate the ranch—or face eviction.

No one accepted, according to Anne-Marie Flynn, executive director of West Marin Community Services, which has been supporting the tenants as CLAM seeks new housing for them.

“The buyout offer wasn’t going to be enough for them to do anything meaningful in terms of housing,” Ms. Flynn said. “And even if it were, there is no housing for them to move into.”

Last year, the county declared a shelter emergency prompted in large part by the settlement of a lawsuit ending most ranching and dairying in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Dozens of ranch residents must leave by March 1. 

In all, 49 families are being displaced from the seashore and the Martinelli ranch, Mr. Russell said. Ten of those families have left West Marin. “We currently see a path for housing all 39 remaining families at some point this year” and helping the 10 who left to return if they wish to, he said.

CLAM has found long-term homes for six of them and bridge housing for 10 others who will move into the tiny homes and other interim housing as it becomes available. In all, 23 families are still living in the seashore or at the Martinelli ranch, he said.

“With the imminent move-out dates, it’s been a bit of a sprint,” Mr. Russell added.

Because of the substandard condition of their housing, the county has classified the Martinelli residents as unhoused. All are Latino families of limited economic means.

West Marin Community Services will monitor the ranch’s utility expenses on behalf of the county to ensure that the money is used as intended. 

“If the county didn’t step in, we would have a bunch of families that would be literally homeless,” Ms. Flynn said. “They would have to leave their terrible housing for no housing at all. They don’t have the resources to move or the homes to go to.”

Ms. Flynn said the new agreement doesn’t change the complexity or discomfort of the situation. 

“I think it’s the right thing to do, but I have some mixed feelings about the county having to step in for a private owner to do what they should be doing in the first place,” she said. “We’ve been working with the county and others to buy [the tenants] some time so that they can stay where they are if they choose to, despite the deplorable housing conditions that they shouldn’t have to be living in.”

Ms. Stiles, the court-appointed fiduciary, declined to comment on the agreement, as did Ms. Martinelli, who has been instructed by her lawyer to refrain from speaking publicly about the situation.

But several of her friends reached out to the Light this week to criticize the agreement. Among them was Brenda Martin, a Penngrove resident who accompanied Ms. Martinelli when county inspectors came to visit the ranch before declaring it unfit for human habitation.

“Why is the county wanting to get involved in paying their utilities?” she asked. “Why is our government responsible for relocating these people?”

Ms. Martin excoriated Legal Aid of Marin for advising the tenants to stop paying rent and said Ms. Martinelli has spent tens of thousands of dollars to clean up the property and cover her tenants’ utilities. 

“She has depleted her life savings paying those bills,” she said, adding, “It’s very frustrating to see how long this has dragged out. Shame on all of you people. If Mr. Martinelli was alive, you would not be pulling this crap with him.”