Freedom to Farm or Bust

Martha Boneta at Liberty Farm
Photo credit: Susan Lider

Virginia, like many other states, offers land preservation tax credits of $100 million a year.  Land preservation tax credits are tied to conservation easements which are binding agreements between a land preservation trust (usually a NGO) and a farmer who receives tax breaks in exchange for “legally restricting future development of their property” for a number of years or in perpetuity, as specified in the contract.

Martha Boneta, who was instrumental in passing the two bills now dubbed Boneta Bill-1 and Boneta Bill-2, bought a farm that had a conservation easement which was administered by the Piedmont Environmental Council, a non-governmental organization, and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a state government agency.

The Piedmont Environmental Council is a conservation group that holds 51 easements on 7,600 acres of land in Virginia. According to Kevin Mooney, when Boneta bought her farm in 2006, “she did not receive either tax breaks or money.”

Boneta purchased her 64-acre Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia, from the Piedmont Environmental Council with the easement already in place from the previous owner. For eight years, Boneta fought the PEC’s frequent farm and intrusive closet inspections, video and photographic surveillance, and other forms of excessive harassment.

Bryant Osborn wrote in Culpeper Star Exponent, “Martha has charged that PEC has trespassed repeatedly on her farm and has attempted to drive her off the farm through unwarranted and overly invasive conservation easement inspections, and an IRS audit she says was instigated by one of PEC’s board members.”

Susan Lider said in a press release, “PEC was caught on video engaging in abusive inspections that involved interrogations and demands to inspect closets, attics, and even photographing the farmer’s laundry.”

The Boneta Bill 1, HB 268, which became law in Virginia with bipartisan support on July 1, 2014, protects “certain activities at agricultural operations from local regulation in the absence of substantial impacts on the public welfare.” This is meant to protect farmers like Martha from intrusive local governments that can go to excessive lengths to harass and prevent an honest farmer from engaging in simple farm activities such as growing organic vegetables, selling sheared wool, and jars of honey.

The Boneta Bill 2, HB 1488, which passed both houses in February 2015, and is awaiting the governor’s action by March 29, 2015, “allows a landowner or other party to a conservation easement to request that the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation use the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act to resolve a dispute relating to the interpretation of the easement.” If and when the bill is signed by the governor, it would control land trusts that currently have few standards, predictability, accountability, consistency, or transparency.

Martha Boneta’s farm has been in the crosshairs of PEC from the beginning but she has not given up. After a November 6, 2014 hearing in front of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, a motion to take over all easement enforcement, if both Martha Boneta and PEC agreed, resulted in a trustee vote of 6-0 to approve a resolution. The VOF was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in 1966 to promote land conservation and to monitor easements.

If you might think that Boneta’s troubles are over, you would be wrong.  Kevin Mooney reported that, on December 10, 2014, the PEC’s attorney sent an email to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation declining the amendment proposed by VOF on grounds that it “would likely confer improper private benefits” to Martha Boneta.

In the face of this “preposterous” claim, Bonner Cohen of the National Center for Public Policy said, “For eight years, she has been subjected to harassment and humiliation by the PEC’s reckless enforcement of the easement, and she has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending herself. Whatever the original intent of Virginia’s conservation easement statute, the PEC’s well-documented deplorable behavior calls out for the General Assembly to reform the program, lest other landowners be subjected to the hell she has gone through.”

Back to square one, Martha Boneta refiled a lawsuit in Fauquier County Circuit Court on March 4, 2015 against PEC, the non-profit land trust in which she alleges that “PEC colluded with realtors and government officials to issue zoning citations against her property in order to force her into selling her farm.” Martha Boneta had withdrawn the original lawsuit in order to allow the opportunity of mediation. Since the mediation has failed, she refiled her lawsuit.

According to a press release of March 5, 2015, “Martha also is considering filing a second lawsuit at the federal level against PEC, based on the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, commonly known as RICO.”



Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson portrait taken at a Spotsylvania County farm on April 26, 1863, seven days before his mortal wounding at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia   Photo: Wikipedia image

New evidence emerged that constitutes the basis of the federal RICO lawsuit. In the signed and filed versions of the easement, PEC makes the claim that Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the Confederate War General, encamped on Martha’s property on the evening of July 18, 1861. According to the press release, “Historical accounts of Jackson’s movements in Fauquier County place the encampment at another location.” https://books.google.com/books?id=IZI_y8Td5HUC&pg=PA70&lpg=PA70&dq=%22STonewall+Jackson%22+Paris%2c+Virginia%22&source=bl&ots=2fmgq8IkxJ&sig=CWgTBXszYAzp-eejTIl_M-OHFC8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ujzTVMbZLMehgwTAkYPQBw&ved=0CGgQ6AEwDA#v=onepage&q=%22STonewall%20Jackson&f=false

The press release continues, PEC “makes a similar historical claim about Jackson’s whereabouts in the easement documents it has associated with Ovoka Farm, also located in Paris, but on a separate parcel of land from Liberty Farm.”  https://vof.app.box.com/s/tycexiapro4vhkl9smsvflfwp7oae7kd/1/2913997329/24711587393/1

This historical connection with Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson hyped the price of Liberty Farm beyond its actual value, thus Boneta paid $425,000 in 2006. She lost revenue for two years when she was told to fence off 18 acres of the Oak Grove section of the property where no farming was allowed because of the stated connection with the now-debunked historical encampment.

Stay tuned for the next development from Liberty Farm, Virginia, where a determined American is fighting for her farming rights and indirectly ours against a well-funded environmental goliath.

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015

Time to Counter Land Trust Abuse Against Farmers

A chapter is dedicated to Martha's story.

Tired of land trust agents frequently abusing the public trust and the rights of property owners, Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, Martha Boneta, owner of Liberty Farm in Paris, Virginia and other major property rights advocates are organizing a property rights rally, conference, and an early morning hearing before the Virginia Outdoors Federation on November 6, 2014 in Richmond, Virginia at the Department of Conservation and Recreation.

“It’s time to counter the powerful Green voices that are dictating policy and harassing property owners,” said Tom DeWeese in an open letter to the American public.

Farmers are demanding land trust reform to stop abusive practices of land trust agents who often disregard the rights of property owners and use local officials to intimidate and harass farmers with onerous fines and audits. A glaring example is the video showing a Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) agent who, in a German Stasi police manner, demands to inspect Martha Boneta’s closets.  http://youtube.com/watch?v=LAywKw93ucs

According to Tom DeWeese, “The Piedmont Environmental Council, an elitist cabal masquerading as a conservation group, has repeatedly overstepped its authority under the Virginia Conservation Easement Act.”

The fact that PEC was successful in bullying for eight years Fauquier County farmer Martha Boneta in spite of the well-publicized and well-documented “transgressions” against her farm is an indication that other “control and power-hungry groups” could violate property rights of Virginians across the Commonwealth and of Americans across the country.

Allowing the public trust to be violated in one area is setting a bad precedent for other well-funded groups like PEC to impose their control and will through underhanded venues on farmers, landowners and businesses in general as has been the case around the country.

Preserving private property and the rule of law in our nation is essential to safeguarding liberty.  If the rule of law is no longer respected, the Founding Fathers’ America is in jeopardy. “The first act of a tyrant is to take away your property rights,” said DeWeese.

Virginians and the American Policy Center are calling for:

-          The General Assembly to enact Land Trust Reforms “to end welfare to the rich in the form of sale of tax credits”

-          Virginia General Assembly to create Land Trust “fair business practices, consumer protections, and sanctions when Land Trust abuse occurs”

-          Virginia General Assembly to develop a “framework” to safeguard the public interest against Land Trust agents who engage in malicious and counterproductive business practices

-          Legislation enactment by the Virginia General Assembly to curb and “reign” in abuses of the Piedmont Environmental Council and other analogous land trusts.

I dedicated a chapter to Martha Boneta’s story in my book, “U.N. Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy.” http://www.amazon.com/U-N-Agenda-21-Environmental-Piracy-ebook/dp/B009WC6JXO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2/186-3038350-6259617?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414163958&sr=1-1&keywords=UN+Agenda+21%3A+Environmental+Piracy

The glaring, behind closed doors collusion is evident in Martha’s ordeal which has stretched for eight years. The Daily Signal ran her story recently. http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/20/farmers-harassment-claim-against-green-group-to-get-airing/

It is vitally important to protect our property rights in a Constitutional Republic. Unfortunately, the left brainwashed our society into believing that we live in a democracy where the will of the leftist majority is forcing the rest to comply. But we live more and more in a corporatist atmosphere where the international bankers have stripped individuals of their rights bit by bit with the help of “green” legislators and environmentalist NGOs.

As John Adams so eloquently said, “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” (John Adams, A Defense of the American Constitutions, 1787)

The Environmentalists Are Not Giving Up

Liberty Farm, Paris, Virginia
Photo: Martha Boneta, March 2014

The small farmers in Virginia rejoiced when Senate Bill 51 and House Bill 268, dubbed the “Boneta Bill,” passed both houses and the Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe signed it. The bill gave farmers legal protection from overreaching and overzealous county bureaucrats who impose unreasonable requirements and unnecessary fees on small farmers.

The bills, sponsored by state Senator Richard Stuart (R-Montross) and state Delegate Bobby Orrock (R-Thornburg), protect “agricultural operations from local regulation” and limit the government’s ability to require “special-use permits” for farm activities. Among many things, “Martha’s bill prevents counties from imposing a $100 fee to grow tomatoes.”

Martha Boneta, the farmer at the center of this protracted battle in Virginia said, “No Virginian should be forced to lose everything when they fight city hall.” Her farm is embroiled in a costly legal battle with Fauquier County supervisors over the use of her own farmland.

Boneta explained, “Corn mazes and pumpkin carvings were considered ‘events’ that required site plans and a mile-long list of red tape that can be suffocating.”

“There is an illusion that farmers are allowed to sell all their products because there are farmers markets and one-day bake sales. ... These are exemptions granted at the whim of government. I have 33 acres with cows. If I had the ability to sell all my farm products (including raw milk) directly to the public, I could make $56,000 a year. But not under existing regulations.” (Bernadette Barber, founder of Virginia Food Freedom)

Martha Boneta found herself at the center of the battle for farm freedom and property rights when she held a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls at her Liberty Farm. Fauquier County deemed this party illegal because it lacked a permit. “Why would I need a permit for pumpkin carving?” Boneta said.

Boneta was issued a special license in 2011 which allowed her to run a “retail farm shop” in which she sold handspun yarns, fresh vegetables, eggs, herbs, honey, and craft items such as birdhouses. Fauquier County Board of Supervisors changed in 2011 the “farm sales classification” to require a special permit for activities that were previously included in the permit that Boneta had already been issued. Faced with fines of $5,000 per violation under charges that she held a birthday party for eight 10-year-old girls without a permit and a “site plan,” advertised one wine tasting, sold postcards with pictures of her rescued farm animals, sold wool fiber products from her sheep and alpacas, and sold organic tea from herbs grown in her garden, even though she had a business license, Martha paid $500 to appeal these unjust administrative charges. “The county zoning administrator told her at the hearing that “Martha was out of line,” for appealing these charges.”

Mark Fitzgibbons wrote that “Fauquier County also passed a winery ordinance that blatantly violates property rights and civil liberties.  It gives Fauquier zoning administrator Kimberley Johnson discretion to create penalties and to prohibit private personal gatherings.”http://washingtonexaminer.com/virginia-vintners-taste-the-police-state/article/2504381

Fitzgibbons said that “A local but powerful group called the Piedmont Environment Council (http://www.pecva.org/index.php/our-region/fauquier/711-fauquier-farm-winery-ordinance)

wholeheartedly backed that illegal, anti-liberty winery ordinance.  The PEC seems to have an unusual if not disturbing amount of influence over Fauquier County officials. http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/09/the_environmentalists_police_and_welfare_states.html

Barber described the Boneta Bill victory as “opening the barn door for the blossoming farm-to-table movement.” However, bureaucrats and NGOs do not give up easily. Undaunted, no sooner had the ink dried on the signatures on the bill, the environmentalists came calling for a farm inspection of Martha’s Liberty Farm.

Property owners and farmers are fined, bullied, threatened based not just on zoning ordinances, but also via environmental conservation easements with onerous requirements, and farm inspections.

Martha Boneta’s farm is the only farm in the state of Virginia that has four required inspections per year. Inspectors used to come several times a month until Boneta complained. She gets a seven day notice.

The inspections are intended to “measure” the size of an apartment that Boneta is permitted to have. However, nobody lives on the farm; they have not built an apartment yet. Instead, PEC inspectors (at times as few as 2 and other times as many as 11) come into the converted barn that holds tools, tables, furniture with drawers, wool bundles, closets, and rummage through drawers, open closets, inspect the contents, an obvious violation of the farmer’s privacy.

According to Martha Boneta, the inspectors came on March 25, were rude, angry, aggressive, and disrespectful, pushing their way into her cottage although she told them they were fine outside. They took pictures even though Martha did not give them permission to do so and it is not stipulated in her conservation easement. “They are running roughshod over people because there is no oversight over these people.”

During this recent visit, an observer commented that seeing the two inspectors rummaging through Martha’s personal belongings, opening closets, drawers, touching and going through personal items reminded her of what “must have been like during Nazi Germany. I feel invaded, I feel violated, and I feel like I need to go take a shower.” When questions were asked of the inspectors, they responded, “we don’t have to answer you.”

Martha Boneta had a conservation easement with Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), an NGO, when she bought her farm from the previous owners. Donna Holt explained that “PEC holds the easement and that makes them a stakeholder in the property although they don’t own the land or pay taxes on it.  They have the right, under the terms of the contract, to inspect it for compliance of the terms of the easement. The language is vague, they make rules as they see fit, and the courts usually uphold them.”

Martha used tires on her property to “help hollow fields for plowing, train animals to move in a certain direction, and assist in planting. PEC sued Boneta, saying that the tires violated her agricultural conservation easement, and she was forced to store them in an enclosure.” Tires were the least of her numerous and constant problems with PEC. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/60623

A “conservation easement” imposes certain restrictions on the homeowners’ use of their property in exchange for tax breaks. These easements have a specific length or can be permanent.

A private citizen described PEC on Facebook, “This group has even sued about a $25 hose attachment because it interfered with the "view-shed." They claim to want to protect us but they really want to take away our property rights.” He explained that the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF), “the parent organization of PEC only inspects farms maybe once every three years and are not subjected to inspections of drawers and personal belongings, don’t have pictures taken of their families or drive-bys by the PEC or their agents.” They are empowered by the federal government and the state and act as agents of the local county of Fauquier.”

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) protects more than 725,000 acres of open space in Virginia, mostly through conservation easements.http://www.virginiaoutdoorsfoundation.org/

Joel Sallatin warns American farmers and land owners about those “sincere conservation easements” because “Ultimately, these easements reduce farm viability and gradually turn Virginia’s pastoral landscape into a wilderness area.” This type of green environmental movement is probably not what the average American envisions. “Giving over farm decisions to people who neither farm nor adapt their approaches jeopardizes farmers’ livelihoods. Ultimately, preserving farmers is the only sustainable way to preserve farms.” http://flavormagazinevirginia.com/conservation-easements/

The tax breaks are a welcome relief for farmers who struggle to make a living on their land but they are presented through rose-colored glasses. But, at a time when food is expensive, we are using more crops for biofuels, and we have to import food from other nations, the obvious and most important question is - why would a landowner place good farmland under perpetual conservation easement in order to preserve it? Preserve working farmland for what? Land owners and farmers should seek and request opt-out policies before they sign onto conservation easements.

Environmental Conservation Easements Trump-ing Property Rights

A new battle is waging in Virginia involving the restriction of land use in rural areas. The protagonists are the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC) with its “comprehensive planning” of Virginia’s rural areas and Donald Trump with his proposed Trump National Golf Club in Albemarle County near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Trump Virginia Acquisitions, LLC, bought Patricia Kluge’s Estate Winery and Vineyard in 2011, a 1,200-acre property with a dormant nine-hole golf course designed by Arnold Palmer. Trump’s proposed golf course, expanded to 18-holes, will take up 480 acres, 216 which were placed under “conservation easement” by Patricia Kluge in 2006.

A “conservation easement” imposes certain restrictions on the homeowner’s use of their property in exchange for tax breaks. Dr. Cohen said that “golf courses with conservation easements are common throughout the United States, including on courses owned by Donald Trump.

The project proposes that 25 percent of the 216 acres in question be used for tees, fairways, and greens, while the rest would be set aside for “farmland and grassland bird habitat.”

PEC considers the project “inconsistent with the rural and agricultural character of the area,” citing “the large scale venue and thousands of potential visitors to the golf course and the negative impact on the surrounding properties and the rural landscape that is such an iconic part of Albemarle County.”

“In addition to the traffic and noise impacts, we also have concerns about the water use, run-off, and septic issues,” said PEC.

According to Bonner Cohen, Patricia Kluge’s conservation easement involves use for “temporary or seasonal outdoors activities” not “permanently alter the physical appearance of the property.” Golf in Virginia is a seasonal outdoor activity since winters are too cold to allow golfers playtime on a daily basis.

“Traffic and noise” are questionable objections since Albemarle County already has seven public and private golf courses. Three of these courses are located in rural areas.

Anybody who lives in the rural vicinity of a university is familiar with the seasonal traffic and outdoor activities involving football fans driving to home games and having tailgate parties. In the 762-square-mile Albemarle County, football fans drive through to the University of Virginia games in Charlottesville, Virginia, with little disturbance to the environment. It is highly improbable that 61,500 individuals (the capacity of the UV’s Scott Stadium) would drive to Trump’s proposed golf course to play at the same time.

Trump Virginia Acquisitions, LLC, has applied for a special use permit (SUP) from the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors (BOS). A hearing will be set in the near future. In the meantime, opponents and proponents of Trump’s project are voicing their opinions to the BOS.

The Board of Supervisors (BOS) may approve or deny the project or pass the decision making on to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) a body that oversees conservation easements.

Scott York, chairman of the Loudon County BOS, praised the Trump National Washington, D.C. Golf Course, “They have invested millions, contributed to job growth, and helped raise real estate values in the area they are located.”

The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC), based in Warrenton, Virginia, was successful in blocking Disney from opening a theme park in Prince William County, Virginia twenty years ago. They have a specific land-use vision for rural Virginia and land owners must follow their dictates or suffer expensive fines. Their vision coincides with UN Agenda 21 “visioning” zoning plans passed around the country with the help of Local Governments for Sustainability, formerly known as ICLEI.

Martha Boneta has a conservation easement with PEC in Fauquier County, Virginia. She uses tires on her property to “help hollow fields for plowing, train animals to move in a certain direction, and assist in planting. PEC sued Boneta, saying the tires violated her agricultural conservation easement, and she was forced to store them in an enclosure.” http://www.cfact.org/2013/11/05/trumping-a-golf-course-over-pec-adillos-in-northern-virginia/#sthash.o7uksdQG.dpuf

But when Donald Trump made disparaging remarks over tires strewn on a dilapidated farm near the construction site of a golf course in Aberdeen, Scotland, he was criticized in the “documentary” You’ve Been Trumped as “insensitive to rural ways.” Are tires useful then when they suit the environmentalist agenda and harmful when they do not?

Dr. Cohen quoted the PEC President Chris Miller who commented that “comprehensive planning” in rural areas should extend to “farms near or adjacent to properties with conservation easements and should be under a similar level of scrutiny in land-use-related decisions.”

Check the rural “comprehensive planning” in your area and see how much of your property rights have already been taken away by conservation easements and through zoning laws passed by BOS without your knowledge, approval, or opportunity to vote.