Sierra Club political committee not active

By Tyler York

I refer to the recent letter to the editor by Robert and Regina Hermanek about Lake Luciana (“Lake Luciana decision must not stand,” June 22) that takes issue with the membership of the Napa Sierra Club’s political committee, particularly the participation of county supervisors. I am retired from the Napa Sierra Club executive committee, but I still chair the political committee.

The Napa Sierra Club executive committee prides itself on being members of the Napa community. We talk to many people and we frequently work with various industry and other organizations on numerous matters.

The political committee’s Web page description is out of date. It represents our original thinking when the Web page was first created, more than five years ago, I think. We confess it has not been updated nor corrected to reflect reality since then.

Despite the description on the Web site, the committee does not get together to assess candidates for their environmental positions. Actually, it is the executive committee and sometimes a separate ad hoc committee that looks at candidates. The political committee has been a vehicle for us to keep in touch with important community members, including elected officials or their representatives, the agricultural commissioner and members of the wine industry.

Except for agreeing on a convenient time and place for lunch, we take no action nor do we attempt to agree on anything. In fact, we’ve not met this year. We met only twice last year and possibly just once the year before. The last time we got together for lunch was August 2008. Although Brad Wagenknecht has been able to make one of our lunches more recently, Diane Dillon has not been to a lunch since 2006.

Given that no positions are taken, we do not believe that membership on the committee represents a conflict for anyone. However, in the interest of avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest, we are revisiting our membership policy.

Napa is a small county in terms of population and the supervisors serve on various committees. For instance, county supervisors participate in Legislative Action Committee meetings of the Napa Chamber of Commerce, which meets semi-monthly and does take positions on various matters. Participating on local committees is a way for supervisors to stay in touch with the community. I believe that most people would agree that it is important for them to do so. Our understanding is that there is a practice of recusing themselves should there be a vote on an issue that will come before them as a supervisor.

I close with a final note of irony. The Napa Sierra Club executive committee has an overlapping member with the Napa Chamber of Commerce Board. As I said, Napa is a small county. And talking to each other is important.

(York is chair of the Napa Sierra Club political committee.)

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