Charity: Down and Out in Marin County

When Beryl Buck died in 1975, leaving no children and an estate of about $10 million, her will stipulated that most of her assets be placed in trust and used “in providing care for the needy” of the county where she and her late husband had lived since 1935. There was some irony in the fact that the county involved happened to be California’s Marin, one of the wealthiest in the nation. Local officials, however, were quick to point out that pockets of deserving poverty did exist amid Marin’s hot-tubbed sybaritism. But then the trust’s sole asset, a 7% stake in the obscure Belridge Oil Co., was gobbled up by Shell Oil Co. for a whopping $260 million, and even some Marinites began to wonder whether they needed that much charity.

Last week the Marin Superior Court began hearing arguments on whether Buck’s bucks can be spread more widely around the San Francisco Bay area. Plaintiffs include 28 social service agencies and the trust’s own executor, the San Francisco Foundation, which has been criticized for funding such questionable projects as a bicycle path in well-heeled Tiburon. Opposing any change is the Marin council of service groups, which evidently wants charity not only to begin at home but stay there.