NVLSA members:
I visited with Tom Gamble today over icy glasses of Boont Amber, covering the usual small talk, his personal background and business interests, and of course, his position on the SSO and the Malan initiative, which are the real subjects of this report.
Tom believes the Supervisors will not act soon on the SSO, primarily because Diane Dillon will ask for more time. (This seems to be conjecture on his part, because when I later asked him if he had talked with her, he answered by saying he is not really in a good position to do that, because he was so active in Guy Kay's campaign that he is perceived as her political enemy, although he has tried to "mend that fence".) He says the supervisors may even let the SSO die, rather than deal with such a controversial issue, and he doesn't think that would necessarily be a bad thing. He would like to see an ordinance in place as defense against the Malan initiative, but if it doesn't happen, his coalition will just go ahead with its initiative. However, he stated that an ordinance that adversely affects so many people should not be passed until that defect is remedied. When I asked if he would publicly advocate that position, he said he would "think about it". (I doubt if he will, but I am beginning to think the coalition may not be pushing the SSO so hard from now on, because he also told me he thinks it is important for us to get our people back to the hearings so Diane Dillon can hear first hand how this ordinance will adversely affect them.)
When I asked what was so bad about the Malan initiative, he said "not being able to plant grapes within 1,000 feet of a neighbor's house". When I asked how the SSO fit into his strategy to defeat the Malan initiative, he expressed some ambivalence. He said "you know, you hire experts to advise you on these things, then you don't know whether they are giving you the best advice". He said the original idea was to get some more reasonable restrictions in place with the SSO, but maybe that really isn't necessary, that maybe they can do the same thing with their counter-initiative.
He says the coalition's initiative is not yet written. When I asked if they weren't getting around to it a little too late to launch an effective campaign to pass it by March 2004, he said no, that they do have a time table, but are not yet at their deadline. He did not say what that deadline is, but did say that once they had settled on a draft that satisfied all of them, they would seek input from other groups, including us. (Naturally, I think they will be looking for our support, not our input.) When I asked when that would happen, he said in the next couple of months. When I asked if the goal of the counter-initiative strategy is to confuse the voters so they won't vote for either initiative, he said that could be one cynical interpretation of it, but the real goal is to offer the voters a more balanced alternative. When I asked what the initiative would probably say, he said it would probably try to accomplish much of what the SSO tries to accomplish, but with a more reasonable approach, by doing some things that an initiative can do that an ordinance cannot do. He did not say what those thing were, but when I asked if exempting permits from CEQA was among them, he acknowledged that as one of the possibilities.
When we talked about STEWARD as an alternative, he said he felt that that some combination of carrot and stick would be required. He said STEWARD reminded him in some ways of the Green Certification Program he is involved in, and of the voluntary "Rutherford Dust" bank restoration project currently under way. One of the difficulties he sees with that voluntary project is that maybe 90% of the landowners are participating, but the other 10% get a free ride. I pointed out that 90% participation was something to be proud of and much higher than the compliance rate I would anticipate under a coercive program like the SSO. I told him I would rather see us use STEWARD to generate some enthusiasm for enhancing the watershed, rather than using the SSO to generate resentment toward it. He acknowledged that as an attractive idea. (However, we must remember that he now sees his counter-initiative as trumping both the SSO and STEWARD, and also, he says, even certain parts of the current Hillside Ordinance.)
He said more than once that we are all now on an "irrational course" (later corrected to a "semi-rational" course), due to the Malan initiative, and that we need to figure out how to get back on a rational course. He indicated that the rational course would have been an orderly process of understanding the watershed before trying to regulate it, and that would have included waiting for the Phase 2 TMDL report. He seemed to be implying that we will have to be semi-rational, also, if we hoped to help defeat the Malan initiative, but it was great to hear him describe his own strategy as less than rational.
Regarding Chris Malan, he said she has a separate organization in place (The Watershed Protection Association, or something like that, which is really just an extremist faction of the Sierra Club, but not under official Sierra Club auspices) to push her initiative in case the Sierra Club drops her. He named the principle members, but I have forgotten them. By the way, he said the reason the Sierra Club election was declared invalid is that one of the candidates, Chris Malan's husband, was not even a member at the time his name went on the ballot.
As we parted, he said he would like to talk again prior to Jan. 28, to which I agreed.
My final thought, after his departure: If he is so ambivalent about the SSO and about the advice of his political consultant, and so uncertain about the proper wording of his own initiative, and if he is aware that he is now on an irrational course, and receptive to the idea that generating enthusiasm for a healthy watershed may be better than generating resentment toward it, might he not be at least initially receptive to the idea of using STEWARD as the core of his initiative, thereby getting back onto a truly rational track and having that rational truth to sell to the voters in lieu of the irrational Malan initiative in March 2004? Just a crazy thought that I will pursue in my next meeting with him. - George Bachich
Postscript: This was e-mailed to NVLSA members at 6:30 pm Friday. By 7:00am Saturday, Tom was receiving phone calls from his board of directors criticizing him for what he had said to me, and instructing him not to talk with me again for a while. When I later asked Tom how that had happened, he said "Napa is a small town." I never meant to cause him any embarrassment, but since the damage is already done, I feel I can publish it here without causing him any more trouble. - GB