Cicero Era Ending at Pierce Farm : Valley Family Loses Lease to Operate Popular College Produce Plot

Reality is beginning to sink in for farmer Joe Cicero, as the end nears for his family’s more-than-40-year farming dynasty in the San Fernando Valley.

For the last decade, Cicero’s produce stand and farm at Pierce College has been his pride and joy, his second home. But now that he has lost his lease to a competitor, the place symbolizes his broken dreams.

“I’ve been here 10 years trying to make money,” Cicero said. “It takes a long time to make a business. It’s just not fair.”

The canny Cicero, like a cat with nine lives, has always managed to overcome adversity and retain the lease on his 25-acre plot at Victory Boulevard and De Soto Avenue.

Until last month, Cicero had successfully fought several attempts by his landlord, the Los Angeles Community College District, to oust him from the land. Three years ago, he emerged victorious in a lawsuit filed against him by a competitor, a Christmas tree dealer who contended Cicero’s Christmas tree operation was unfair competition.

The district, citing the lawsuit, balked at renewing Cicero’s lease. But it gave in after a storm of protest by Cicero’s supporters, many of them longtime farm stand customers. Cicero’s stand has become a community fixture, a symbol of simpler times in the Valley. And Cicero, a plain-spoken man who looks the part of a farmer, has become the darling of community activists working to preserve the 240 acres of agricultural land known as the Pierce College Farm.

Nonetheless, luck appears to finally have run out for Cicero. Barring a miracle, he must clear out by April 30 to make way for an out-of-town competitor who bid more than Cicero could afford.

Therein lies the rub for Cicero: “I would never even think of bidding against another farmer,” he said. “You are bidding on my business, and that’s just not fair.”

John T. Dullam and his wife, Linda, say they don’t want to get caught up in “the politics” of Pierce College. All they want, they say, is a chance to make the venture work.

The Dullams, who operate a strawberry farm and roadside stand in Oxnard, were intrigued, Linda Dullam said, by the idea of operating a farm in the middle of the city.

“It’s the last greenbelt that we know of,” she said.

The couple, she said, have partners: Tom Leonard of Camarillo, who has a background in farming, and Jim and Jennifer Walsh, who have a produce stand in Santa Barbara.

The Dullams’ lease, according to Pierce College President Mary Lee, allows them to sell produce, Christmas trees, pumpkins and operate pony rides, just as Cicero did.

Lee said that Dullam offered $30,000 for the first year and $35,000 and $40,000 for the second and third years of the contract, while Cicero’s bid was $25,000 for each of the three years. By law, Lee said, the district is required to award the lease to the highest bidder.

The Pierce College stand was the last stop in the Valley for Cicero, whose family--unable to afford its own land--leased land in various places over the years.

Cicero’s grandfather, a Sicilian grape grower, emigrated to the United States and ended up in the Valley in 1947. There, along with his son, Frank Jr., he began tilling the soil. Joe was born in 1950.

For a time, the Ciceros farmed a 57-acre plot at Saticoy Street and De Soto Avenue, then moved to a 300-acre tract in the Sepulveda Basin owned by the government. The family ended up at Pierce College after the basin property was converted into parkland.

On a recent morning, Cicero led a tour of the 25-acre plot, some of its fields now turned to weed.

In the yard, under a weathered canopy that reads, “Cicero Farms,” is a stagecoach, its paint peeling. A few feet away is a flatbed wagon once used to haul corn. And nearby, a wooden reindeer used in the farm’s elaborate Christmas displays is tossed on its side atop a trailer, a faded Christmas wreath around its neck, its gaze frozen skyward.

Cicero said he has been moving the farm equipment to Saugus, where the family farms a 100-acre plot leased from Newhall Land & Farming Co. He said he is hoping the landlord there will let him put up a produce stand.

Meanwhile, the family, said Cicero, has been busy moving from the Pierce College stand, which has been closed since December.