Lake Luciana vote was a mistake

By MICHAEL HALEY

The vote against the Lake Luciana project today flies in the face of County rules for acceptable uses in the open space area of the agricultural watershed, and was a mistake.

As a member of the most recent General Plan Steering Committee, I can tell you that allowing golf courses was clearly the intention of the steering committee. Now, we are not following our own rules.

In order to justify turning down this clearly legal use, Diane Dillon went so far as to say that the findings for recreation did not include socializing, and since people would be socializing at the golf club, she rejected it. That was her main reason.

Carol Kunze of the Sierra Club said that the golf course would be located far from urban centers among her reasons to turn it down.

I cannot take this reasoning seriously. If that were true then we also could not have recreation at Lake Berryessa, or planned trail hikes. Unless we ban talking on the hikes, that is, and move Berryessa close to an urban center.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that with the election of Keith Caldwell to the Board of Supervisors there is a plan to stop any uses of land in the county besides grape growing. The Board of Supervisors now has three solid votes to carry out this plan and this appears to be happening.

I think it is a mistake. No one wants to see any more development in the valley than necessary, myself included, but we do need some other development. We do need opportunities for recreation, and we do need housing for non multi millionaires. Soon, we are going to need the money too. We put these needs into policy when we do General Plans, then promptly ignore them.

Besides not being fair to property owners who spend a lot of time and money that ends up wasted, we are also not meeting many of our own needs. I think that some recreation and some affordable and other housing can co exist with grape vines, to make Napa a better place.

We are entering a time of economic hardship, and more development means jobs for workers and revenue for the government. When completed, Lake Luciana’s property taxes alone would have meant big money for the schools, with few if any added students.

The wine industry appears to be at the beginning of a significant turning point. At a recent wine symposium it was noted that the nature of wine marketing is shifting and that lower priced wines are the growing segment. Americans are turning to thrift, and it is quite possible that the days of high end wine sales could be diminished for some time.

What that means is that winery profits will fall, and grape growers will get lower prices for their grapes. I am already preparing for my income as a grape grower to go down, because it is going to go down. In this environment, no one is going to plant 250 acres in grapes at Lake Luciana, there is no way to make money, even if it is technically feasible.

This is going to affect Napa profoundly. We are going to need to stimulate the economy for both employment and to maintain government revenues.

A few well chosen projects could give back many benefits without hurting the Ag Preserve. Zero development besides grape vines is an extreme position that should be rejected.

 

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