PROFILES RUSS and PAT BAGGERLY : Couple Gain High Visibility as Environmental Crusaders

In the last five years, Russ and Pat Baggerly have evolved from small-town community activists in Meiners Oaks into the foremost pair of environmental crusaders in the county.

From a losing fight to block a public housing project in their own hometown, they have moved on to environmental victories that brought stricter air pollution controls to Ventura County and discouraged the construction of a Cal State University campus at Taylor Ranch.

Along the way, Russ Baggerly has picked up some political ambitions as well as his first paying job in the environmental field as a consultant for Patagonia Inc., the Ventura clothing manufacturer that has become politically involved on many environmental fronts.

He and his wife have also acquired a public visibility that has brought them both praise and criticism--their admirers speak of them as selfless crusaders, while critics now dismiss Russ Baggerly as a hired environmental gun for Patagonia.

Thousand Oaks attorney Allen F. Camp, who frequently represents developers in zoning cases, is among the critics who describe Russ Baggerly as an environmentalist who no longer qualifies as a grass-roots guy fighting environmental battles.

“He has left the community activist realm because he is now being paid by Patagonia to advance either their cause or someone else’s,” said Camp, also an Ojai Valley resident. “He is now advocating a cause that is not entirely self-motivated, if at all.”

County Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer is an even more outspoken critic, describing Russ Baggerly as a man who has been “purchased” by Patagonia.

“Russ has taken a position that prime ag land on the Oxnard Plain is a better place for a university than land that is not in agriculture that is next to his employer’s property,” Schaefer said, pointedly referring to Yvon Chouinard, owner of Patagonia, whose beachfront property is near the Taylor Ranch west of Ventura.

But the Baggerlys have as many defenders in the county as detractors. Among them is Stanley Greene, president of the Citizens to Preserve the Ojai, who says their contributions on behalf of the environment in Ventura County have been immeasurable.

“They have made sacrifices for the environment, and they deserve all the praise anyone can give them for that,” Greene said.

Mark Capelli, a member of Friends of the Ventura River, is another supporter who says the contributions of the Baggerlys should be measured simply on their commitment to the environment, rather than any specific issue.

“So many people come home at the end of the day, turn on the tube and crack a beer,” Capelli said. “But Russ and Pat and other people like them are out there working, and it takes that kind of energy to make a community work.”

The Baggerlys tend toward a modest view of themselves, defending their work as necessary, expressing regret that their resources are limited and accepting criticism as something to be expected.

“What we do is what we are supposed to do as citizens interested in the public good,” Russ Baggerly said. “But we aren’t looking for sainthood either. We like what we do. We’re having fun.

“You have got to keep your sense of humor,” he added. “Otherwise, you’ll go nuts.”

With a couple of big victories behind them, the Baggerlys stay busy with environmental skirmishes that range from the continuing Cal State campus controversy to the issue of where the county should locate its next big garbage dump.

They are opposed to a proposed landfill at Weldon Canyon north of Ventura. They also are fighting the proposed merger of Southern California Edison and a San Diego utility on grounds that it would increase air pollution in the county.

Because many of their battles have dealt with issues that have special impact on the Ojai Valley, where the Baggerlys live, some critics suggest that their devotion to the environment often is limited to opposing projects that affect them directly.

Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, accuses the Baggerlys of suffering from what he describes as the “Not-In-My-Back-Yard syndrome,” or NIMBY.

“They are not as angelic as they are portrayed,” said Laird, honing in on a recent proposal by Russ Baggerly to scrap plans for the Weldon Canyon landfill in the west county in favor of a site farther east in the Santa Clara River Valley.

“Now he has a plan to put garbage on a train and ship it out to the east. But that’s the heartland of agriculture in this county. It’s just an excuse for NIMBY,” Laird said.

“But if they say it, it’s good and righteous. If I get up and say it, I’m self-serving for agriculture,” he added.

The Baggerlys acknowledge that they spend most of their time working on west county issues. They simply do not have the time or resources to cover all the issues countywide, Pat Baggerly said.

What is needed in Ventura County, she said, is a group similar to the Citizens Planning Assn. of Santa Barbara, a nonprofit watchdog group funded by 677 members that operates on a $48,000 annual budget and works to shape planning and development policy for both city and county issues. “Two citizens just can’t do it all,” she said. “What we really need is a paid professional group to deal with countywide planning issues like the one they have in Santa Barbara.”

While the Baggerlys are among the county’s most active environmentalists, they say they had no more concern about the environment than many other people when they first moved to Ventura County in 1974 to escape pollution and overcrowding in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Their activism locally dates from 1985 when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development decided to build a public housing project for poor families on a busy Meiners Oaks street.

A friend invited them to a community meeting where they decided to join what turned out to be a losing fight, Pat Baggerly said. “I felt it was unconscionable to put these kids and poor people next to a noisy carwash on a busy street,” she said.

In some respects, the Baggerlys bring some unusual credentials to their environmental work. Both are registered Republicans, and Russ Baggerly, a Vietnam veteran, is a life member of the National Rifle Assn.

Pat Baggerly said she is now planning to change her party affiliation to Democrat because she opposes the environmental policies of recent Republican administrations. Russ Baggerly said he is equally unhappy with the Republicans but does not believe his party affiliation matters in his environmental work. He said that, although he no longer hunts, he remains a member of the NRA because he believes in the right to bear arms.

The Baggerlys met in Spain in 1964, where Pat Baggerly was traveling and her future husband was studying flamenco guitar. They married in Hawaii in 1968 while Russ Baggerly was on leave as an Army communications specialist stationed in Vietnam. Seven months later, they were reunited in Los Angeles.

They returned to Spain for five years before settling briefly in Los Angeles. They next moved to Ventura, where Russ Baggerly operated a moccasin shop in a corner of a downtown thrift store and Pat Baggerly worked as a director of nursing in Santa Paula.

Among the influences that motivated her to environmental work, Pat Baggerly said, was her work as a nurse at a Santa Paula convalescent hospital, where she concluded that air pollution was a contributing cause to emphysema and lung cancer.

“Watching someone die of emphysema and lung cancer, you know it’s the slowest and worst death,” she said. “It’s like having a pillow over your face and you gasp for breath. I wish people knew how serious ozone damage is to their lungs.”

The Baggerlys next moved to Meiners Oaks near Ojai, where Pat Baggerly quit her nursing job and joined her husband in their business making soft leather baby shoes. It was there that they first became involved in environmental politics.

In their public appearances, the Baggerlys often present a solemn, even stern image. Russ Baggerly is the more public and the more political of the husband and wife team, said Ojai City Councilwoman Nina Shelley, a friend.

“I have seen Russ grow over the years,” Shelley said. “There was a certain level of naivete when he was just getting started. I anticipate seeing Russ in some official position in the not-too-distant future, though I haven’t any idea what they might be.”

Russ Baggerly admits that he is considering seeking a public elected office in the future but will not say for what kind of position. In his only bid for elected office so far, he came in second with 784 votes to Lawrence Whelans’ 2,221 votes in a 1988 bid for a seat on the Casitas Municipal Water District.

While he often receives the most attention in environmental battles, Russ Baggerly describes his wife as an equal partner. He said she has taken the lead in the Baggerlys’ battle against the Southern California Edison merger, which they believe would add to the county’s air pollution problems.

In the five years since their first local crusade in Meiners Oaks, the Baggerlys have learned to fight the right battles, concentrating their efforts on the county’s most significant problems, said Richard Baldwin, who heads the county’s Air Pollution Control District.

“Two years ago, they focused more on the process instead of the issues,” Baldwin said. “They took a shotgun approach, talking about the flora and the fauna and seismic questions when air pollution was the real issue. That causes a lot of work and doesn’t get anything done on the real issue.”

William Mount, director of planning for the district, who battled head-to-head with Russ Baggerly over the 1987 Air Quality Management Plan, said the Baggerlys still miss the point at times.

“We have engineers who are technical experts working on issues,” Mount said. “And sometimes I feel that maybe they don’t understand all the issues as thoroughly as they might.”

But he praised their work for bringing attention to the county’s air pollution problem.

“People do listen and respect them,” Mount said. “They certainly can be a pain in the neck sometimes and make life difficult for staff, but they have really elevated the air quality issue.”

The Baggerlys say they realize that their roles as self-appointed watchdogs are not always welcomed by all those they presume to protect.

“Maybe it’s too much to hope for that we really represent the citizen per se,” Russ Baggerly said. “We’d like to think we are. We would like to be able to give a voice for the people who can’t get out there and say it for themselves.”