Sam Chapman, a Napa resident, was a Napa County Supervisor for two terms, from 1975 to 1983, following which he served as Congresswoman and then U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer's chief-of-staff for 22 years. With his permission, we publish this piece, which is a longer version of an LTE he sent to the Napa Register. (Photo: Chapman, Joelle Gallagher, and Amber Manfree.)

Recently, I'm hearing increasing discussion regarding where Napa County is headed.  Each new "world class" resort or hotel is applauded and further secures our position as one of our country's most prominent playgrounds for the wealthy. World class translates to anywhere from $600+ to over $2,000 per night. At the same time, Tim Carl reports that County hotel occupancy is down more than 10% from 2019 to 2023. Two hotels have declared bankruptcy, and the county now has 1,872 Type 02 winery licenses and over 500 physical wineries. Tasting room fees have surged to an average of $81/person,  the average wine price is up to $108/bottle, while many economic trends affecting the Valley are trending down.

Is this the direction for Napa County we want see - one that is heavily focused on catering to the very wealthy, that welcomes large industrial facilities locating in the Ag Preserve, and applauds all new high-end development proposals coming to an increasingly saturated market.  Each new luxury tourist attraction brings more service workers commuting from outside the county, clogging our highways and increasing our carbon contributions to an ever warming planet.

In the corporate world, the phrase "strategic drift" is applied when an organization sets a strategy but over time loses focus, fails to adapt to changes in its environment and hardly notices it is incrementally drifting on a rudderless course. Does this description apply to Napa County?

We are celebrated across the world because of our soil, climate and expertise, which allow us to produce exceptional wines. Let's look back at how we arrived at our current status and then ahead at decisions that will determine where we are headed.

While the Ag Preserve is revered now, it had strong opposition when it was adopted in 1968 from many farmers and grape growers opposing government restrictions on what they could do with their land.  It split the farming community. Vineyard operator and former owner of Inglenook, John Daniels, called the Ag Preserve un-American and socialistic. United Vintners representatives called it confiscatory zoning and brutally unfair. Farmers dubbing themselves Napa Valley United Farmers, formed a non-profit corporation filing suit to kill the preserve, calling it "unconstitutional, arbitrary, unreasonable, oppressive, confiscatory and discriminatory." This excerpt from a Napa County Historical Society piece  describes the scene in the 60's for a County of some 90,000 people:

Population projections speculated that by 2020 nearly half a million people would live in the county, nearly 40 percent of them in Napa City alone. Locals feared we would end up like Santa Clara, another heavily rural and agricultural region that was lost to suburban sprawl and over-development. To combat flooding issues, the Army Corps of Engineers recommended modeling the Napa River after the Los Angeles River by converting it into a concrete channel. Even more shocking, regional planners were mulling over the idea of constructing an international airport in Carneros that would rival SFO.

The Napa Farm Bureau was split and barely supported the  Preserve's creation by a vote of 11-10. Today's Farm Bureau consistently supports the more pro-development candidates. Our Napa County will always be subject to development pressure from big-money, out-of-county, interests. It has been preserved, to the extent it has been, mostly because of citizen initiatives, with a big assist from The Land Trust of Napa County.    

I served as a Napa County supervisor, elected six years after adoption of the Ag Preserve. During a productive six years, our board rezoned most of the county to large lot zoning, preventing the urban sprawl that was threatening at the time. However, our initial preservationist 4-1 Board majority was reduced to 3-2 two years after I was elected. Four years later, following another election, Dowell Martz and I found ourselves in a 2-3 minority for our final two years. Development interests had prevailed. The only thing that saved our county was citizens' initiatives that bypassed the Board and locked in preservationist policies.

We need serious discussions about the future of the place we call home and about its drift to becoming known mostly as a playground for the wealthy. Does Napa County have an ideal holding capacity before it begins to choke on high-end tourists and service workers commuting into the county on increasingly congested roads?  Do we want to continue to see spiraling home prices, driven partly by demand for second homes with a decreasing pool of full-time local residents fully vested in our communities?

Our county has avoided the path followed by Santa Clara County where some of the world's richest farmland was lost to sprawl and over-development.  But the risk of over- development is always present. Environmental gains are generally holding actions, while development is permanent. ​

The most important document that guides the future of Napa County is its General Plan.  That plan is seriously out of date and in need of revision to address the problems we face today. The Ag Preserve protects fewer than 32,000 acres of our County's over 500,000 acres. The Board of Supervisors will be holding hearings and adopting a new General Plan that will guide the future of Napa County for coming decades.

If we, as a County, are in a period of strategic drift we again need citizen involvement in planning our future, and we will need leaders who recognize the situation for what it is and who have the courage to act.

Three contested County Supervisor races are coming up in the March 5 election. These races will determine our County's immediate future and well beyond. While virtually all candidates say they support the Ag Preserve, I urge you to look more closely at which candidates have the courage, skills and forward-looking vision necessary to understand where we are and what we need to do to secure our future, protect our precious agricultural heritage and our exceptional Napa County environment.