The Sierra Club publicly registered its opposition to the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act in a press release, pasted in below for your review. Although the Sierra Club release is devoid of any factual content or sound reasoning, its alarmist tone could influence some voters if not effectively refuted. Therefore NVLSA have also appended a rebuttal.
NAPA COUNTY GROUP
Box 644, Napa CA 94559
http://redwood.sierraclub.org/napa
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 19, 2005
CONTACT: Genji Schmeder 707-255-5830 genji@onemain.com
Sierra Club Opposes Land Stewards Fair Value Initiative
The Napa Valley Land Stewards are promoting a ballot initiative that poses a serious threat to local land use control. If this law were to pass, any attempt by the County to enact zoning or regulatory protections for rural quality of life would trigger damage claims from developers. Our choices would boil down to paying off the land speculators and their lawyers, standing aside for the bulldozers, or facing budget-busting litigation. In effect, this outrageous law would require all of us to pay developers not to ruin our rural neighborhoods and environment! Here is our response:
We the people of Napa County are envied worldwide for living in a little bit of paradise. Together we – the families, farmers, business people, employees, and yes, local government – have nurtured a rich mix of very livable towns, thriving farms, beautiful natural areas and wild lands.
Success has not come easy, and continued success is far from assured. Our exceptional quality of life has been crafted in the face of a Bay Area population explosion, traffic congestion, demands on shrinking water supplies and many other threats. These challenges will only intensify in the coming decades.
We Napans have the love of our Valley, the wisdom of experience, and the unbreakable will to face these challenges proactively, and plan for a prosperous and healthy future for our children and ourselves.
As local people, we demand the right to forge the destiny of our own community. We refuse to allow the Land Stewards to undermine that right. We want a local government that will respond vigorously to our concerns, and to protect our rural values, not one paralyzed by lawsuits filed by deep-pocket developers. Let’s not handcuff our elected representatives or open our wallets to people who aren’t willing to make the sacrifices we have all made to enjoy our unique quality of life.
The Land Stewards envision a future shaped not by "we the people" but by real estate speculators and trial lawyers. This is a naked money grab. Don’t let them steal your cash and your children's future! Imagine a Napa County without the Agricultural Preserve. – No, don't imagine it, drive over to Sonoma or Santa Rosa! If the Land Steward's initiative had been in place in 1992, we'd be living in a clone of them!
STOP! THINK! PRESERVE LOCAL CONTROL OF OUR LAND!
JUST SAY NO to the petition to destroy our way of life.
NVLSA's Response to the Sierra Club release:
The Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act does not pose a threat to any of our land use controls. The initiative specifically acknowledges that all our existing land use restrictions are appropriate and it clearly states that the provisions of the Act do not apply to any existing restrictions.
Napa County already has strict protections for our rural quality of life. None of those protections can trigger any damage claims under this initiative. All existing protections are grandfathered in, and new land use restrictions are not in any way prohibited. The initiative merely says that the costs of any new restrictions must be considered and apportioned fairly.
The initiative does not require paying anyone “not to ruin our rural way of life”. It merely provides some small protection for all of us against any radical new restrictions that might be promoted in the future by the kinds of people who oppose this ordinance.
The proponents of the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act love Napa County’s rural atmosphere as much as anyone, and want to see it preserved. But we realize that we must act responsibly, and make sure that the means we employ to achieve our goals are fair and equitable, and that they do not unfairly burden a few for the benefit of the many.
The proponents of “Fair Pay” also desire a prosperous and healthy future for all of us. However, an essential ingredient of this is some measure of protection from overly zealous environmental advocates who might feel entitled to take without compensation what others have worked hard to acquire.
This initiative helps every citizen forge his own destiny by ensuring that the value of his primary asset will not be confiscated or destroyed to serve some public goal unless he is fairly compensated. For the last 35 years, every Napa County citizen with private property has been at the mercy of the whims of our elected representatives. During that time, property has been down-zoned, long-standing commercial uses have been made non-conforming, huge minimum parcel sizes have been enforced, parcels under common ownership have been involuntarily combined, and building and planting restrictions have been added without any compensation to anyone. Families have been forced to sell their property to settle their estates when someone dies, because property cannot be divided among the heirs. Long time owners have been forbidden to add second or third homes to the family property to provide a place for their adult children and grand children to live. Property owners have been denied the right to sell part of their property to finance their emergency medical care or their retirement. This initiative does nothing to redress any of those wrongs. It merely provides a little protection from additional restrictions on property that might be proposed in the future.
This initiative does not benefit speculators or trial lawyers. It does not encourage any development, it does not allow any new uses, it does not change any zoning, and it does not repeal any land use restrictions. It merely provides some long overdue protection from future regulations that might otherwise unfairly penalize solid Napa County citizens who live here, work here, and own property here. If this measure is administered honestly and in good faith by the County, no lawyer need ever be involved and no money need ever change hands. In cases where economic damage is done by a new regulation, the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act provides the County the flexibility to ease the offending restrictions on a case by case basis or to enter into compromise solutions as necessary to alleviate the damage to injured property owners without costing the County a penny.
This is not 1992. This is 2005, and Napa County already has in place excellent protections that ensure our Agricultural Preserve is secure. Our long-standing and very popular measure J ensures that Ag zoning cannot be changed and minimum parcel sizes cannot be reduced by anyone but the voters. We already have excellent local control over our land, and the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act does nothing to jeopardize any of that. All it does is remind us that any costs that are incurred through our efforts to secure public benefits should be shared by those of us who benefit, and that those costs should not be unfairly imposed on a few.
Please support the ordinance that says we agree to be fair to all people. When the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act appears on the ballot next June, please VOTE YES.
Napa Valley Land Stewards Alliance