Close to 100 people, including artists, officials, teachers and parents, gathered at the Napa Valley Opera House Café Theatre last week to help plan the future of the arts in Napa County; a subsequent meeting in Yountville drew a more intimate crowd of 15.

The strong turnout for Wednesday’s “Town Hall Cultural Planning Meeting,” sponsored by Arts Council Napa Valley, sent council and Opera House staff scurrying to gather more chairs and bottled water.

The two-hour meeting was punctuated by frequent bursts of applause from an enthusiastic throng that included former Yountville mayor Carlee Leftwich and art patron Rene di Rosa of Napa’s di Rosa Preserve.

“It’s exciting to see that this community is passionate about the arts,” said Arts Council Executive Director Michelle Williams.

Beginning last Monday in American Canyon and continuing through Oct. 1, Williams and her staff are barnstorming the county’s population centers with a series of moderated community meetings, gathering suggestions for a long-term, comprehensive plan to support the fine and performing arts.

Bigwigs take notice

The opportunity to influence Napa’s cultural planning process extends its attraction beyond the arts community: Elected and appointed officials have also taken note.

American Canyon Mayor Leon Garcia stopped by the first planning session last Monday; Napa County Superintendent of Education Barbara Nemko, Napa City Council member Jim Krider and City Manager Mike Parness were among the many prominent Napans who attended Wednesday evening’s meeting. In Yountville Thursday night, town council member Bill Dutton joined the group.

At each session, ideas came thick and fast as people shared their visions for a future Napa Valley in which the arts are as omnipresent as viticulture.

Why not have wandering minstrels in Yountville? Art ambassadors at Napa Valley wineries? A shared performance space for theater, music and dance groups?

One barrier might be funding, warned Dorothy Lind Salmon at the Napa meeting.

“There is a cost to everything,” said Lind Salmon, a member of the board of the Community Foundation of the Napa Valley, which is helping to support the cultural planning process.

Photographer Marissa Carlisle suggested offering valley visitors the opportunity to make a voluntary arts donation.

“It could be millions for the arts,” she said, as heads nodded throughout the room.

Municipalities could play a role, as well. Napa City Manager Parness told the group that his former employer, the city of Walnut Creek, “really early on caught the social and economic and educational value of the arts, and built it into the fabric of the community and the services they provide.

“I think this city has … more potential,” Parness said of Napa, where a developer-funded arts fee is already under discussion.

At each meeting, speakers expressed concern about limited arts education in public schools. But county schools superintendent Nemko, a member of Dreamweavers Theatre Troupe, sounded a confident note as she announced that in Napa, “when there’s a problem, people get together and solve it.

“I know we can solve whatever problems there are and bring the arts back into education,” Nemko continued. “We want to do it: We’ll do it. I’m not worried.”

Recruiting “arts emissaries”

One idea that began to take shape at the Yountville meeting has Arts Council director Williams excited about the prospect of involving the wine and hospitality community by recruiting “arts emissaries” at major wineries, restaurants and lodging places.

“That’s where tourists get their information,” said Williams, who is already dreaming up a series of quarterly mixers for hospitality workers — many of whom may already have an interest in the arts — to get them more involved in the valley’s cultural scene.

Informed insiders at key destinations, the thinking goes, will be able to recommend not just a restaurant, but dinner and a show — or steer visitors to gallery-rich areas like Yountville, depending on their interests.

Arts Council’s brainstorming tour of Napa Valley communities continues this week and next, with meetings in Angwin tonight and Oct. 2 in St. Helena.

If the first few gatherings are any guide, Williams and her staff will come away with even more creative ideas for strengthening the arts in Napa Valley than they gained from the 120 or so individuals who have taken part so far.

“Having that many people in the community speak about solutions … inspires us to grab onto these ideas and build,” she said.

For more information about the cultural planning process, visit www.artscouncilnapavalley.org .

Arts & Culture Master Plan Town Hall Meetings

5:30 p.m.–7:30 p.m.

Sept. 26: Fireside Room, PUC Church, 10 Angwin Ave, Angwin

Oct. 2: Napa Valley College Upper Valley Campus, Room 9, 1088 College Ave., St. Helena

Info, www.artscouncilnapavalley.org

257-2117