Geoff Ellsworth | May 28, 2015

I watched the May 20th 2015 Napa County Planning Commission meeting on video from the county Website. I think it was a really important meeting. I appreciated Ted Hall’s comments about looking at the Big Picture. I think everyone should watch this meeting if you can. The meeting does an excellent job of delineating many of the issues we are talking about here.

We are hearing a lot here about “The Dream”. the Dream people say they have about things like having their own winery someday. I understand that, I really do.

I have a dream too. My dream is to protect Napa County Agriculture and to protect the communities here that allow Napa County Agriculture to exist. I am here to stand up for the citizens who allow Napa County to be a Right-to-Farm County.

The major threat we are seeing, in conjunction with water availability, is over-visitation leading towards urbanization. Our infrastructure and our communities are staining to accommodate this over-visitation and if we keep on this present course, will break. This is urbanization by over-visitation and it will compromise our Ag Preserve growing region and the communities who live here.

This must be a part of every conversation in trying to solve this problem.

(In searching for an analogy I spent this morning looking at pictures of capsized ferry boats. You can only put so many people on these boats before they tip over or sink).

Our two lane roads are the limiting factor in the system. if we overload their capacity, whether the visitation happens in a municipality or in the county, we risk a breakdown of the entire system. We risk breaking the nest Egg that is the Ag Preserve.

When I first got involved in this over a year ago I realized that in order to be effective I had to make the commitment that my actions in this could in no way benefit myself.
That is an ideal. It doesn’t mean it has to be forever but this is such a complex problem that I believe if we all can ALL start looking past how any of this is going to benefit ourselves personally, then we can start looking at the Big Picture of what it’s going to take to protect Napa County Agriculture AND our communities who live here.

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