Jim Wilson | Feb 23, 2015

[Sent to Napa County Planner Suzie Gambill re: Napa Custom Crush]

Dear Ms. Gambill,

I am writing to express my dismay with your recommendation with respect to Napa Custom Crush, the retroactive approval of its non-permitted cave portal and terrace. But if I may, some background first:

Residents in rural Napa aren't hermits, but we do appreciate the solitude and quiet that characterizes our home. It's what we do up here. You might think it's quaint or old-fashioned to want to live in peaceful communion on a small farm or with Nature. Yet, increasingly, we're awakening to incompatible unnatural noise, visual blights, and the smell of something rotten back at county headquarters. We're hurting.

Of course this is unacceptable. I'd like to ask for your help. We are real people in a real place. Yet my neighbors and I feel increasingly threatened by the tourism industry and you, our permitting agency which enables the industry as it seeks to further expand up into our sleepy neighborhoods. Please try to understand: we are real people, we call Napa home, we live here in our quiet neighborhoods which are becoming sacrifice zones for the tourism industry.

Your approving this egregious "very minor modification" isn't helpful. It's a deceitful violation of the intent of CEQA and the Napa Viewshed Protection ordinance. It's also a violation of trust with the residents of rural Napa. Who will you serve? It seems as if there's no project and no variance you can say no to. If that's the case, make this the first YES for the people. I urge you to deny this gross request for a use permit modification and to return the site to the the condition permitted for. And give your Napa neighbors a little peace of mind.

Sincerely,
Jim Wilson

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