(Back in the newspapers again...)

MENDO COUNTY KEEPS AFTER PARROT FARMERS

By Julie Verran

The Independant Coast Observer - 4/20/01

Geoffrey and Barbara Gould, parrot farmers in Point Arena, got another legal document from Mendocino County on Tuesday.

Their attorney Bill Phillips contends that the county's latest brief, drafted by Frank Zotter, lowers the county's crusade against the Goulds to the level of a SLAPP SUIT.

The case will be in court on Friday, April 27, at 9:30 a.m. at the courthouse in Ukiah. The Goulds hope their supporters will be there.

"Our crime is raising birds on ag property," said Barbara Gould, and the county lists birds as an accepted use in ag zoning "It's right there in plain English," she said.

In a 17-page brief in response to Zotter's document, Phillips charges the county with trying to bankrupt the Goulds by repeatedly asking the court to dismiss the Gould's counter suit against the county. Mendocino County filed three lawsuits against them in January, 2000, when they did not vacate a 17-acre farm they bought earlier that year.

The county contends that parrots are not birds, strictly speaking, and that they are exotic. The Goulds point out that cattle and sheep are not native to these shores, and are therefore exotic too.

Phillips writes that SLAPP suits are brought to gain an economic advantage over the defendant. Such suits are distinguished by lack of merit, but the defendant must tie up resources to fight them. SLAPP suits, he writes, are usually brought by large private interests, which can write off the expense as a cost of doing business.

The county does not want the case to go to trial, Phillips writes, but the Goulds only seek to be made whole; they are not trying to delay the trial but to move it forward. They are not deep pocketed developers, but conservation breeders of endangered species of birds.

Barbara Gould said she and her husband will keep fighting to stay here.

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger".