UKIAH, CA., 5/8/26 — Ukiah Natural Foods Co-op, the 50-year-old member-owned grocery at the center of Mendocino County’s organic-food economy, is without a general manager again. Robert Drake, hired this spring to replace longtime manager Lori Rosenberg, was terminated days after more than half the co-op’s staff walked off the job on April 27.

The walkout came after staff and members learned Drake had been listed on a sex offender registry — a fact the co-op’s board has since acknowledged it knew before hiring him.

In a written statement to employees that has been widely reproduced in the days since, the board of directors said Drake had been “involved in an incident more than 23 years ago that resulted in his inclusion on the sex offender registry.”

The board said he had “maintained a clean record” since, “built a long and consistent work history,” and “demonstrated the experience and leadership that qualifies him for his current role.” The board added that it “believe[s] in accountability, growth, and the possibility of personal repair.”

Within days of issuing that statement, the board reversed itself and fired him.

The fight inside the co-op now is no longer about Drake. It is about how he was hired — and why, in a 7,100-member institution that prides itself on transparency, the decision was made by three people behind a closed door.

What the court records show

The board’s “23 years ago” framing is its own. The court records, retrieved this week from primary sources, are more specific.

Drake was charged in the summer of 2003 with four felony counts of sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust, including a count alleging the victim was under 15 and three counts involving the 15-to-17-year-old age bracket. On Dec. 5, 2003, he was found guilty of one sexual assault count and was sentenced to eight years on Colorado’s Sex Offender Intensive Supervision Program, the state’s most stringent form of probation. The remaining three counts were dismissed by the district attorney the same day, a structure consistent with a plea agreement.

Drake’s public career resumé shows him beginning his food cooperative career at Hungry Hollow Co-op in New York in November 2012 — within months of when the eight-year Colorado supervision imposed at the December 2003 sentencing would have been scheduled to end.

And he has put on paper, in a letter to co-op staff distributed during the walkout week, his own dating of the underlying event: “Twenty-three years ago I made a decision that was the worst of my life. But it has also served as the greatest learning opportunity. Since that time I have committed myself to living a life of honesty and integrity.”

In that same letter, Drake writes that he “voluntarily disclosed [his] past to the Board” before being hired — the first independent confirmation, in his own words, that what is on the registry is the past he disclosed.

Asked in writing over the past two weeks for more details, the Ukiah co-op board did not respond. Drake, contacted by email, did not respond.

How the search worked

The co-op posted its general manager listing on Good Food Jobs on Dec. 9, 2024, advertising a salary of $120,000 to $140,000, with the successful hire reporting directly to the board. According to the board’s own account of the process, the search was led by an executive committee of three directors: board president Gideon Burdick, treasurer Tim Dolan, and vice president Angie McChesney.

The committee did not include the co-op’s human resources department in the hiring decision. It also did not consult Rosenberg, the outgoing manager, who had been at the store for roughly 40 years. And it passed over two internal candidates — the grocery manager and the head of HR — whose names have not been made public.