Voters say 'no way' to Measure A

By JAY GOETTING, Register Staff Writer

Property rights advocates failed to convince Napa County voters they need to take control of land use regulations away from the board of supervisors.

Measure A, the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act, promoted by the Napa Valley Land Stewards Alliance, garnered only 36.4 percent of the primary election vote.

The measure would have required Napa County to pay private landowners for any loss of property values caused by new land use laws or to waive the regulations that caused the diminution.

"I was optimistic going in," said George Bachich, the Land Stewards' president. "I don't know the reason, but we probably didn't get the message out well enough."

Bachich said early polling showed the measure had a good chance of passage, but face-to-face encounters showed that a high percentage of voters didn't even know what Measure A was.

Even in the loss, Bachich said he hopes the supervisors will take economic damage done to property owners into consideration when making land use law.

Supervisor Mark Luce, who led the No on A forces and was jubilant in the proposal's defeat, said the message is clear. "It would have been harmful to out structure of government," he said.

Luce considers himself a property rights advocate and said he hopes those who were on the other side of the political fence on this one realize it was not the answer.

Bachich said there are no immediate plans to try another proposal, although he anticipates a statewide initiative in November that will be much tougher than Measure A would have been.

In 2004, Oregon passed its own property rights initiative, Measure 37, which not only compensates property owners for lost value but is retroactive to include past regulations. That state now faces billions of dollars in claims from property owners seeking to develop their land in ways previously restricted.

Luce is equally leery of trying another measure, even though during the campaign he suggested the county might enact property rights alternatives, such as establishing a threshold for property value loss at which the county would compensate landowners.

"I'm not sure I want to be standing alone at the altar again," he said referring to past issues where his colleagues left him as a lone advocate.

Vintner Warren Winiarski called the defeat of Measure A, "a victory for the strength of our local government. It shows people have become knowledgeable about representative government."

Early returns of just absentee ballots showed Measure A with a 62.3 percent no vote. That dropped to 61.8 percent as the first precincts came in, then jumped back up to 63.6 percent against the measure in final results.

Several years ago, when absentee ballots were cast mostly by the elderly and infirm, it was difficult to gauge the final results based on those ballots. Now, with broader use of the early casting of paper ballots, they are a more reliable indicator of final results.

Some absentees remain to be counted, as well as provisional ballots and those to be done by hand. The final tally will go to supervisors on June 27.

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