Cypress Grove Chevre, a goat cheese farm in Arcata, CA, was once just a local company, but is now internationally renowned and owned by a Swiss co-op. The company wishes to expand its commercial dairy property by 25,000 square feet. Expansions in the past have created a flurry of confrontational opposition from community members. One supporter of the expansion gives a few reasons as to why the community should be more open-minded.

Cypress Grove Chevre, previously embraced by the community as a local business that hit the big time with its internationally renowned goat cheese, seemingly transformed overnight into an evil pawn of a foreign corporation bent on asphyxiating its neighbors with a tsunamis of goat poop -- blah, blah, blah. Never mind that founder Mary Keehn -- verbally accosted in the parking lot after a community meeting -- was still with the business, or that it was a corporation before it was bought by a Swiss co-op.
After encountering such toxic, ill-informed opposition, Cypress Grove Chevre took its up to 1,400-goat expansion with planned environmental mitigations, its $3 million and its 12 additional living-wage jobs with benefits to the citizens of McKinleyville, who welcomed the opportunity.

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