After seven public meetings and scores of surveys and in-depth interviews, some 700 people have had a hand in drafting a four-year plan for the arts in Napa County.

Now the real work begins.

“Planning’s wonderful and energizing the community’s wonderful, but now we have to get started on implementation,” said Michelle Williams, executive director of Arts Council Napa Valley.

The draft plan got its final public airing Jan. 23 in a meeting that drew more than 100 people  — including three mayors and a county supervisor — to the Napa Valley Opera House Café Theatre for a two-hour strategy session.

“It was a very productive, roll-up-your-sleeves, let’s-work-on-stuff type of meeting,” said John Hannaford, a musician and artist who teaches at Valley Oak High School and at Napa Valley College.

“It was more than just great energy: People were there actually to work,” Hannaford said.

Participants traded their ideas for ways to increase awareness of Napa’s arts offerings, to develop public policies that support the arts and to find more studio and performance spaces.

They also talked about inclusion: the need to make the arts available and accessible to everyone, countywide.

To musician and teacher Elaine Herrick, that means reaching out not just to current residents, but to future Napans as well.

“It’s important to acknowledge that Napa is growing and (the plan) should have a goal of including artists moving into this community,” Herrick said.

For T Beller, one of nine members of the county’s newly-formed Arts and Culture Commission, the meeting proved that people throughout Napa have a deep commitment to the arts.

“I met people I was delighted to meet from Upvalley and Berryessa and also from American Canyon,” she said. “It really did bring together people from every corner in the county in a way I’ve never seen before.”

Commissioners will

set priorities

The arts plan will take its first step toward the future when the commission holds its first meeting Feb. 5, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the offices of the Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency, 707 Randolph St., Napa. (Originally formed to unify transportation planning, the NCTPA expanded its charter last year to include the Arts and Culture Commission and other countywide topics, such as the environment.)

Six commissioners were appointed by their city and county municipalities; three, including Beller, Margrit Mondavi and John Lail, serve at large.

Debra Lee Hodge represents America Canyon; Alvin Lee Block is Napa’s commissioner; Judith Caldwell was selected to represent Yountville, Sue Wollack, St. Helena; Annie Hethcock, Calistoga and Diane Damé Shepp, Napa County.

Their first task, after selecting officers and a regular meeting time, will be to begin prioritizing the many ideas included in the arts and culture plan.

Though the commission itself has no budget, the Arts Council has secured a three-year grant for the plan: Williams said Napa County has awarded nearly $300,000 from its Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) on hotel rooms — $90,000 in 2008 and $100,000 in each of the two following years — specifically to put the arts and culture plan into practice.

The Arts Council has developed a budget for the plan that includes plenty of outreach, with the first audience right here at home.

“We want to do a lot of marketing for the arts, beginning with a community awareness campaign,” Williams said.

Along with Napa residents who may not now be aware of the county’s many cultural offerings, Williams plans to target tourists who visit the valley for its other attractions, encouraging them to sample Napa’s arts as well as its wines and views.

Finally, she hopes to reach future “cultural tourists” who might choose Napa over other destinations because of the vibrant arts scene developed as a result of the plan.

Like many Napans who attended last week’s meeting, commissioner Beller left feeling optimistic that after many years of patchy support for the arts, real change is on the horizon.

“This conversation has been elevated to a new level,” she said. “It now has enough fire and passion and heavy hitters behind it that our civic leaders are realizing that they need to support it.”

The arts and culture plan is online at www.artscoun cilnapavalley.org.