"Bringing A Little Country to the City"—Remembering Farmer bill

“He wasn’t just a unique community member in City Heights, he was unique in the whole region.”

That’s a common response when you ask people about Bill Tall, who passed away last month after a long battle with cancer. Bill thought about business and profit and service and community a lot differently than most people did back then, and the tributes continue pouring in as veteran city officials, planners, and activists remember and honor his memory.

Even now, city officials are considering renaming a section of street ‘Farmer Bill Way' in his honor.

You can’t explore many parts of City Heights without seeing something Farmer Bill planted. He left his mark in the form of beautiful greenery—flowers, plants, and trees. “Bringing a little country to the city,” he used to say.

Former City Heights CDC Director, Jay Powell, recalls how radical many of Bill’s multi-bottom line business ideas were all those decades ago: “I think he was a great example of someone who didn’t think it was ‘his business’ but was a shared business, shared with his customers and his community.”

Bill understood something fundamental and, sadly, often rare in the business world: we are all connected. My gain at your expense isn’t gain at all. Community over competition, and profitable just wasn’t enough for him. He worked hard to build City Farmers Nursery into the business it is today, but the bottom line had to be more than just profit. Bill wanted everyone to benefit, everyone to rise together, and he lived out those values. For nearly 50 years, Farmer Bill taught San Diegans how to grow, but he taught a lot more than that.

Many of us are too new to the work or too young to have known Farmer Bill. Yet the more we dig, research, and interview people who did know him, the more clear it becomes that he managed something many dream of: he believed people could do great work that they love, alongside family and friends, while making a sustainable wage, and always in the context of friendship, service, and for the benefit of their community.

Bill was often the first to show up when people needed volunteers and the last to leave. He was aptly-named—a tall, Tall tree. Yet another pillar community member who leaves us better than he found us, and we’re grateful.

Thank you, Farmer Bill.