The 9-111 Report was commissioned by the Board of Supervisors to try to demonstrate why the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act (Measure A on next June’s ballot) should not be approved by voters. Ironically, it demonstrates exactly the opposite.
The 9-111 Report indicates that the existing Napa County Groundwater Ordinance, effective only in declared “groundwater deficiency areas”, currently including only the MST (Milliken, Sarco, Tulocay) basin, may have already cost property owners between $26 million and $52 million in damage to their property values. Of course, the report carefully avoids saying those precise words, but it uses the MST as an example for purposes of calculating the damage that would likely be done to property values if another identical “groundwater deficiency area” is declared somewhere else in the county. If the report is accurate and valid, the only logical conclusion is that approximately that same amount of damage to property values must have occurred in the MST when it was declared “groundwater deficient”.
The obvious question, then, is whether or not the benefits of the restrictions placed on development in the MST by the Groundwater Ordinance was worth this huge cost placed on property owners. Apparently, at the time the regulation was enacted, the County simply did not care. No attempt was made by the Board of Supervisors to analyze the damage it might do by enacting the groundwater ordinance and declaring the MST basin “groundwater deficient.” No thought was given to the huge burden this regulation might place on property owners. No cost-benefit analysis was done and no value judgment was made.
Why was this regulation blindly enacted without any regard for the collateral damage it might do? Because under present policy the County is not responsible for the damage it does. It does not have to reimburse property owners for the damage its regulations do to their property values. And the County believes that a cost is not a cost if it can be foisted off onto someone else.
This is wrong, and the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act will correct it. It says the Board of Supervisors must regulate responsibly. It will make them take into account the damage they might do, because it will require them to make restitution for that damage. When the costs can no longer be foisted off onto others, those costs will no longer be ignored. The Supervisors will find ways to regulate responsibly. They will perform cost benefit analyses, and they will make intelligent decisions to minimize the damage as much as possible, the way they should have been doing all along.
It may be too late for the property owners in the MST. They have already had their pockets picked to the tune of $26 to $52 million because the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act was not in place to protect them. The 9-111 Report’s analysis of this damage makes it clear that we need to pass the Fair Payment for Public Benefit Act to prevent this from happening again.