Bill Hocker | Jul 14, 2015

APAC #7 agenda letter
APAC #7 documents
NVR: Ag committee considers toughening winery rule compliance

APAC meeting #7 spent the morning working its way through the issue of compliance and enforcement of winery use-permits. But not before the opening public comments:

Julie Arbuckle: read her statement on the capitalist imperative of winery development
Harvest Duhig: continued her dream campaign for 10 acre event centers.
Dario Sattui (of the mega tourism venues V.Sattui Winery and the Castello di Amorosa) could hardly contain his anger over government meddling in his business model
(no wonder the planning department has instituted security badges)
Ginna Beharry responding to Ms. Arbuckle: "do we predicate land use on individual return on investment?" Responding to Mr. Sattui: "what are the limits of growth?"
The imposing Mr. Sattui bullying his way up for a second 3 minutes: claiming that he is a "no growth" guy (beyond the development necessary to handle the hundreds of thousands of tourists he brings to the valley each year.)

The committee may have reached the high point of consensus in their approval of Proposal X at the last meeting, although what they approved was still a bit unclear. (I have found that in all of the votes taken thus far what is being voted on is a bit unclear.) They decided not to approve the last meetings minutes until more clarity from the as yet unavailable sound recordings are transcribed.

The compliance issue

This meeting was predominantly devoted to winery use-permit compliance. Previous meetings have dealt with the related issue of variances (related in that it is seen by many as sanctioned non-compliance of ordinances). It has never seemed to me that use-permit compliance should be an issue to get hung up on; yet it has become a big driver in community activism as seen in The Caves and Reverie. I have taken it as given that the county should and would ensure compliance with these use-permit conditions that are so bitterly fought over and finely bartered in the planning commission. Compliance should not be an issue for discussion - it just needs to be done if the cost and the time of the planning commission process is to have any meaning. But as Ted Hall pointed out, and as has been documented in the winery audits and as I try to bring out in my own screed on Compliance, there is a meaningful amount of (not necessarily willful) non-compliance in the county, documented in this recent Grand Jury report.

The proposals from committee members is are in the agenda letter. They are remnants of proposal F and proposals P, W and Y and all incorporate a signed annual certificate of compliance, with some statistics included. That brought up a discussion about what information is proprietary or not which then resulted in more research for the beleaguered staff to find out for the committee what info is proprietary or not.

An issue only brought up in public comments by Ginna Beharry, but which I feel is one area of compliance that really needs to be pursued is the WDO provision related to food service: i.e. that "food service is provided without charge except to the extent of cost recovery". It is clear what the intent of that provision is. Is a $125-$350 food and wine paring served at cost? How do restaurants that only get $50 for a meal survive. Is the $10 million invested in the event center part of the cost?

I was most intrigued by the proposal made by Dario Sattui in public comments: "Cheating on visitation is the only way to survive". Forget about compliance.

Given the grand jury report and now a second workshop on compliance proposed at the BOS and DIr. Morrison's new Proposal Z which melds the proposals regarding compliance already on the table, my hope is that in the next APAC meeting the committee immediately give a unanimous vote to proposal Z and move on to other issues like visitation and the definition of agriculture.

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