FINLEY — The future of the Finley community event space known as Big Valley Hall is uncertain as the California State Grange has begun legal action to affirm its possession of the building.
The state grange claims it owns the hall. But according to Big Valley Hall President Lorna Sides, the building located at 1510 Big Valley Road is owned by the Big Valley Hall organization—a 501(c)8 fraternal society that was called the Clear Lake Grange from the 1940s until a few years ago. Sides and the roughly 35 members of the Big Valley Hall society regularly use the space for memorials, dances, dinners and bake sales, and they hope to continue to do so.
The California State Grange contends it owns many of the grange halls across California, including in Big Valley, and has been working to take them back from local groups that aren’t allegiant to the bylaws of the grange. Recently, the California Grange filed suit in Lake County Superior Court claiming the Big Valley Hall as its own, members of the local organization have said.
This property dispute has its roots in a deep controversy that began within the grange in the 2000s when it stood in opposition to its California branch about genetically modified organisms, glyphosates and other hot-button agricultural issues. The National Grange—a farmers’ advocacy organization formed just after the Civil War—did not support the California Grange’s vocal support of the 2012 GMO food-labeling bill, which failed at the polls.
Subsequently, the National Grange ousted then-California Grange President Bob McFarland and revoked the California Grange’s charter. McFarland then founded the California Guild, bringing with him many former grange members, who continued to operate grange halls across the state. The revocation of the California Grange’s charter was upheld by a court in 2013, and in 2016 the National Grange won a trademark lawsuit against McFarland’s group, barring it from using the grange name. Since then, local granges have split, with some—like the Bachelor Valley Grange in Upper Lake—reforming under the new California State Grange, and others—like Big Valley Hall—following the guild.
“We’ve always been in solidarity with the guild,” Sides said this week. She noted that only one of the Big Valley Hall’s more than 30 members has expressed interest in joining the state grange.
“Who would want to join an organization that does this?” Sides asked, referring to the property dispute. “They’re suing us, and we don’t have the financial ability to fight them.”
Big Valley Hall treasurer Joan Taylor said in December that “we intend to keep going as a club, but we’re not sure where we’ll be meeting or when…We’re kind of in limbo.”
California State Grange Secretary Lillian Booth said the grange is “at the very beginning” of its process to affirm ownership of the hall. “What we’re really trying to do,” she said of the Big Valley Hall members, “is reach out to them” and “have meetings with them” about the future of the hall. No grange officers have yet met with Big Valley Hall members, Booth noted.
Booth said the grange’s goal is not to shut down operations at the hall. “The ideal outcome is to return the grange to people that want to be grange members,” she said.
Booth also referred to “myths” that the grange is taking back buildings only to sell them off. “We haven’t sold anybody’s hall,” she said. “The California State Grange is preserving the ownership of (each) hall for the members of the grange in that area.”
Sides pointed to the East Lake grange hall in Clearlake Oaks as an example of the kind of future she fears will come to the Big Valley Hall under the grange. “It’s an eyesore” that’s not being used, she said.
But according to Booth, the East Lake Grange was “abandoned,” and the state grange is working with a local group to restore that building to operation as a grange hall.
