Napa Valley Register
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
By GABE FRIEDMAN
Register Staff Writer
Dealing strong blows to the county's political establishment and environmentalists seeking to limit use of land near streams, Napa County voters shot down measures O and P by convincing margins in Tuesday's election.
Measure P was rejected by 65 percent of the voters, while Measure O was turned away by a staggering 73 percent of the people. The defeats go against a long-standing preference in the county toward land-use preservation measures.
The fate of Measure P -- the county Board of Supervisor's stream setback ordinance -- had become a huge question mark in recent weeks as the Napa Valley Land Stewards Alliance launched an expensive campaign to defeat it.
The results were clearly a victory for the Land Stewards, a group of local property rights advocates who have emerged as a new political force in Napa County. The group campaigned vehemently against Measure P and to a lesser extent Measure O, both of which would have created new buffers limiting development around streams in efforts to reduce sediment entering the Napa River watershed.
"We bought our property with certain plans, certain visions," said Mike Rodrigues, vice-chair of the Land Stewards. "(Measure P was like) changing the rules midway through the game on us ... it was blatantly unfair."
Some voters leaving the polls in Napa on Tuesday night echoed the campaign themes that the Land Stewards crafted.
Don Davison said he considered both O and P measures that constituted an improper taking of personal property by the government. "I don't agree with it at all," he said.
Other voters said they were simply too confused about the issue to make an educated decision, and so they voted no on both measures.
But some were repelled by the Land Stewards' efforts. Marianne Kearny Brown of Napa said that after looking at campaign literature against Measure P, she decided it was so full of rhetoric and lacking impartial analysis -- "scandal without backing" -- that she decided to vote for the measure.
The defeat of Measure P left most politicians in Napa County high and dry. Nearly every major figure, from Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena and state Sen. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata, to a majority of the Board of Supervisors supported Measure P.
Supervisor Bill Dodd, who also celebrated re-election on Tuesday night after running unopposed, used part of his victory speech to concede that Measure P was a debacle.
"I thought I had a solution," he said around 11 p.m. as his party drew to a close. "I made a decision that in my mind I thought was right, but in the end it wasn't popular with voters."
Opponents of Measure P first emerged at public hearings in 2003, when the Board of Supervisors was considering adopting the measure without putting it to voters. In the process, the opponents forged an alliance and dubbed themselves the Land Stewards.
The supervisors did pass the regulations included in Measure P, and the Land Stewards reacted with a lawsuit. Later, the group agreed to table the lawsuit and collected about 6,000 signatures to put the stream setback law before local voters.
They launched a vigorous campaign to defeat P, spending more than $130,000 since January alone, in the process increasing their membership.
"The most unintended consequence of this Measure P debate is the formation of the Napa Valley Land Stewards Alliance," said George Bachich, chair of the Land Stewards. For the energized members of the group, "Sticking around is an understatement."
Bachich and other Land Stewards who gathered at Downtown Joe's in Napa Tuesday night said they planned to go to Sacramento today to protest the supervisors' proposal to the California Board of Forestry for local logging rules.
Both the Land Stewards and supporters of P expressed interest in re-opening lines of communication that had closed as the campaign battle surrounding Measure P became more heated.
For Save Our Rivers and Farms, which included many politicians, all four major local agricultural groups, slow growth advocates and others, the election results came out as a mixed bag. The group supported Measure P but opposed O.
Many of the group's members assembled at Dodd's party at Uva's Trattoria in Napa appeared less than surprised by the results. Dodd and the Save Our Rivers and Farms campaign manager, Mark van Gorder, nearly conceded that both measures would be defeated after hearing only the results of absentee votes around 9:30 p.m.
"It doesn't look good," said van Gorder, after absentee votes showed Measure P down 58-42.
For the Watershed Protection Association, which supported both measures O and P, the election was nearly a total failure. The group of environmentalists drafted and sponsored Measure O, which would have imposed strict restrictions on timber harvesting around streams in Napa County.
"We're going to remain active," said Gary Margadant, a spokesman for WPA. "You can see by the votes that a third of the people who voted are certainly interested in this."
Margadant said the problem of sediment in the Napa River watershed, the focus of both O and P, must be addressed.
"Whether the people in this election have indicated that's unpopular for them, they're (supervisors) going to have to do something," said Margadant. "The impaired waterway status is going to have to go away."
The Board of Supervisors will likely need a breather after the election. Dodd said that he would reach out to the Land Stewards and is interested in getting their input on how to protect the Napa River. He pointed out that the county is currently working on a programmatic environmental impact report that will provide more data for targeting sources of sediment in the watershed.