Extra Helping of Squid: 3.31.14

Achy Breaky Regulatory Hearts…Squid loves a good fight. Squid gets in a lot of fights. What can Squid say? Squid believes passionately in things—like government transparency and shrimp-flavored popcorn—and isn't afraid to piss a few people off, or smack a few heads with Squid's spiked club arm, to champion them.

Many activists Squid knows are the same way. Some are such fighters, and so down with their cause, it becomes hard to distinguish persona from agenda. Today, after all, is called Cesar Chavez Day. It's not called Farmworker Rights Day.

There's still a fighting spirit to make things better for the workers who labor in obscurity to feed us. 

California Rural Legal Assistance, a nonprofit with an outpost in Salinas, is one of the prevailing entities in that fight, taking up issues like clean water and pesticide exposure.

Directing Attorney Michael Marsh is an old-school type of activist, the kind of guy who’s willing to put his name out there and go toe-to-toe with the powers that be. He’s also willing to pick a fight with County Agricultural Commissioner Eric Lauritzen, who’s responsible for enforcing pesticide rules at a local level.

Lauritzen’s aim is to be friendly even with his adversaries, which prompted a meeting on Feb. 10 in Sacramento with George Farnsworth, enforcement chief of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation, and Anne Katten, project director for the CRLA Foundation.

The point of the 90-minute meeting, reportedly, was to improve the relationship between CRLA and the Ag Commissioner’s office.

“I felt it was a good and productive meeting,” Lauritzen wrote in a Feb. 28 letter to Katten.

He thought they’d mended their differences, built bridges, done the equivalent of playing a round of golf in the business world.

But, as the Feb. 28 letter goes on to explain: not quite.  

About a week after the kumbaya meeting in Sacramento, the Monterey Herald published a letter to the editor written by Marsh, knocking the Ag Commissioner’s office for inadequate oversight of pesticide applications and risks to farmworker safety. The little letter was, to Lauritzen, like salt in his wounds. In short, Marsh had hurt his feelings.

“Once again, he seized an opportunity to disparage our work and the efforts of our staff,” Lauritzen wrote to Katten. “His comments were mean-spirited and misleading in the extreme.”

Lauritzen sent copies of his letter to all the big players: Department of Pesticide Regulation Director Brian Leahy, CRLA Director Jose Padilla, and his own bosses, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. Their reaction? Radio silence.

Except for Marsh, who chimed in to tell Squid he’s puzzled. He’s not interested in playing nice with Lauritzen, but getting the Ag Commissioner to crack down on pesticide-related incidents.  

As for Lauritzen, he’s moving on. Instead of trying to collaborate with CRLA, he’s getting ready to announce a new farmworker safety initiative with a different advocacy group.