Oral-Histories-Napa

oral histories of napa county’s agricultural preserve a project sponsored by the jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund by rue ziegler, ph.d. the jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund initiated this oral history project on napa county(cid:495)s agricultural preserve in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890). the fund(cid:495)s board of trustees selected interviewees for the project based on their tireless contributions over the last four decades to protect napa county(cid:495)s farmland from the encroachments of urban development. the purpose of this oral history series is to record for posterity the memories of twelve community leaders who overcame considerable opposition to ensure that land use decisions belong to all residents of the county. today the result of these efforts is evident in the extraordinary open space and agricultural lands that enrich our economy and set a precedent for local self‐determination. little has been written to celebrate these remarkable efforts. napa county, the least urbanized of the nine counties in the san francisco bay area, contains some of the most valuable farmland in north america. its scenic cultural landscape, wine country lifestyle, and premium wineries and vineyards now attract five million tourists each year. how has this rural north bay county managed to retain its historic agrarian identity in the face of an onslaught of visitors, a burgeoning metropolitan population, and increasing pressures for urban development? resisting the inexorable trend toward paving over farmland across the state and nation, napa county has achieved the unique distinction of designating agriculture as its most precious resource – the highest and best use of the land. the pastoral landscape of napa(cid:495)s wine country ‐ one of the most renowned in the new world ‐ has thrived due to a landmark county ordinance passed over (cid:886)(cid:882) years ago to preserve its agricultural heritage. the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) statute was the first in the u.s. to restrict development on designated farmland. five years later, the napa county board of supervisors formalized and strengthened this revolutionary ordinance by enacting a general plan that limited parcel subdivision on over (cid:891)(cid:882)% of the land. safeguards extended from the valley floor, designated (cid:498)agricultural resource,(cid:499) to the adjoining hillsides, termed (cid:498)agriculture, watershed and open space.(cid:499) today, these two categories of protected land are commonly referred to as the (cid:498)agricultural preserve.(cid:499) though vulnerable to conflicting definitions of allowable activities, the concept of the ag preserve remains sacrosanct among napa residents. in a collection of oral histories provided by key individuals who have worked to create and maintain the ag preserve, we document the successful progress of a grass‐roots, socio‐political movement that limited growth, sustained environmental quality, and strengthened the local economy. the compelling story that emerges from the first person accounts reveals that, rather than being imposed from the outside, the preservation measure grew out of collaborative efforts by different interest groups – grape growers, vintners, citizens, and county officials ‐ to reach community consensus for the common good. creation of the ag preserve has become a model for further participatory efforts to protect agriculture and open space. since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) the county has increased the minimum parcel size from (cid:884)(cid:882) to (cid:886)(cid:882) acres on the valley floor, and from (cid:886)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882) acres on the hillsides. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) voters approved an initiative, called measure a, limiting population growth to (cid:883)% per year outside the county(cid:495)s five incorporated towns. ten years later, another initiative, measure j, determined that only the county(cid:495)s residents, rather than the elected board of supervisors, could vote on proposals to convert agricultural land to non‐ag uses. 1

the salutary outcome of the ag preserve runs counter to contemporary claims by social critics about the waning of public enthusiasm for civil society and land conservation.(cid:883) instead, it documents a communal precedent for local land‐use ‐ a visionary effort to preserve, sustain, and celebrate the county(cid:495)s best resource. these accomplishments have not been free of internal conflicts or external resistance. ongoing challenges for continuation of the ag preserve in napa county include: increased domination of wineries by large, disinterested corporations; mounting pressures for affordable housing; the growth of absentee ownership; and rising demands of a record‐breaking tourist market. similarly, other county initiatives to preserve agriculturally designated lands in california have met with strong resistance. of the few that have passed, most do not grant power to the voters to decide on land‐use changes.(cid:884) remarkably, in november of (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) napa county voters decided to extend measure j, which was scheduled to expire in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:884)(cid:882), for another fifty years. the extension of measure j, known as measure p, requires voter approval for the conversion of farmland until december of (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:887)(cid:890). the county board of supervisors and all five city councils endorsed this latest initiative. the two measures – j and p ‐ cap the landmark agricultural preserve and now comprise the county(cid:495)s (cid:498)political bedrock.(cid:499)(cid:885) the personal narratives of the oral history project sponsored by the jack l. davies napa valley agricultural preservation fund provide an invaluable lesson for the future. they describe how community members overcame conflict and resistance to establish common goals. to forget their achievements would lead to (cid:498)a loss of historical memory...a sure route to political defeat in the future.(cid:499)(cid:886) this series will be of value to future historians and to all those individuals who are interested in the complexities of achieving land‐use decisions for the common good. of particular value in this series is the fact that each individual expresses his or her own particular perspective on the same general subject. oral history is a qualitative research method wherein an interviewee and an informed interviewer engage in face‐to‐face, spontaneous dialogue guided by a general outline of topics. this kind of in‐depth, open‐ended interview allows the interviewee to recount memories, opinions, and feelings about events of historical significance without a pre‐determined hypothesis on the part of the interviewer. most oral histories, including this series, also relate the interviewee(cid:495)s life history in order to provide a wider context for the personal account. the interview is recorded as it is conducted, then transcribed and lightly edited for clarity and coherent narrative flow. the interviewee also reviews the transcript for inadvertent errors and omissions. the final manuscript is usually bound and placed in an institutional archive, such as a public library. an oral history is primary research material, similar to a memoir or diary, and is not intended as a complete or verified chronicle of past events. each oral history represents a unique point of view. many people contributed to this project. rue ziegler, a cultural anthropologist, conducted and recorded all the interviews, some of which required two separate sessions. she was responsible for research, scheduling, and the initial editing to support the interviews. kris patton and laura gomez transcribed the interviews. others who assisted with research, editing, or formatting of the final document include sandy elles, matthew levy, jill davis, susan mcwilliams, guy kay, margaret clark, and volker eisele. this series is available for research purposes. all literary right to the series, including the right to publish, are reserved to the jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund. no part of this series may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the board of trustees of the jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund. request for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the executive director, jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund, (cid:890)(cid:883)(cid:883) jefferson street, napa, ca (cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887)(cid:887)(cid:891). 2

the series should be cited as follows: (cid:498)oral histories of napa county(cid:495)s agricultural preserve(cid:499) an oral history project sponsored by the jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund and conducted by rue ziegler, ph.d., california heritage research group, llc, st. helena, ca, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:883). the jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund is a nonprofit partnership dedicated to jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund supporting agricultural land preservation in the napa valley. established in 2003, the fund is a merger of three predecessor organizations the napa valley foundation, the napa valley ag land preservation fund, and the jack l. davies fund committed to the conservation of agricultural land in napa county, california. guided by a volunteer board of directors, the jld ag fund supports microgrants for research and educational outreach. 811 jefferson street napa, ca 94559 tel. 707.224.5403 fax 707.224.7836 email: info@jldagfund.org website: http://www.jldagfund.org rue ziegler, ph.d. is an adjunct professor of cultural anthropology in the department of sociology at the university of san francisco (2130 fulton st., san francisco 94117; rziegler@usfca.edu). she is also the founder of california heritage research group, llc (950 mee lane, st. helena, ca 94574; tel. 9678074, fax 9678073, rueziegler@gmail.com), a research firm specializing in the history of land use in northern california. she received her m. phil. and ph.d. degrees in social anthropology from cambridge university in the uk. her previous training and professional experience is in architecture and urban development. september (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:883) 3

oral histories of napa county’s agricultural preserve an oral history project sponsored by the jack l. davies napa valley agricultural land preservation fund interviewees (cid:523)not all individuals were directly involved in creation of the ag preserve(cid:524) (cid:883). george abate ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county assessor dewey anderson ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county supervisor (cid:884). l. pierce carson ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) cub reporter, napa register (cid:885). volker eisele ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county landowner (cid:886). james h. hickey ‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) director, napa county planning department (cid:887). mervin lernhart, jr. ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) legal counsel to napa county planning commission (cid:888). tom and martha may ‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county grape growers (cid:889). (cid:890). donald mcfarland ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county planning commissioner (cid:891). ginny simms ‐ early (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)(cid:495)s napa county board of supervisors (cid:883)(cid:882). john tuteur ‐ early (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)(cid:495)s napa county board of supervisors (cid:883)(cid:883). mel varrelman ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)(cid:495)s, napa county board of supervisors (cid:883)(cid:884). warren winiarski ‐ (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) napa county vintner 4

contents george abate oral history ............................................................................................................................... 6 dewey k. andersen oral history ................................................................................................................... 31 l. pierce carson oral history ......................................................................................................................... 48 volker eisele oral history .............................................................................................................................. 75 james h. hickey oral history ........................................................................................................................124 mervin c. lernhart, jr. oral history ..............................................................................................................149 thomas may oral history .............................................................................................................................171 donald john mcfarland oral history ...........................................................................................................195 virginia simms oral history .........................................................................................................................214 john tuteur oral history ...............................................................................................................................244 mel varrelman oral history ..........................................................................................................................272 warren winiarski oral history .....................................................................................................................302 endnotes .........................................................................................................................................................333 5

george abate oral history conference room of the napa valley farm bureau. james hickey, who has also been interviewed for this jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler february (cid:884)(cid:885), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: ga ‐ george abate rz ‐ rue ziegler jh ‐ james hickey [interviewer’s note: george abate was napa county tax assessor in 1968. this interview took place in the series, attended the interview.] early years & military service rz: this is rue ziegler, and i am interviewing george abate for the jack l. davies ag preservation fund. today is february (cid:884)(cid:885)rd, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891), and this is tape number one. so, george, i wonder if you could start with telling us where you grew up. ga: my name is george abate and i was born in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:882) on berna avenue in the alta heights area of napa city. i was very fortunate to be born into a good family, and my parents were terrific. i went to high school in napa, and after i graduated from high school, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:891), i was asked if i would like to have a job at the napa lumber company [founded by frank g. noyes] as a draftsman. i was a good draftsman in high school; that's why i was recommended. i was drawing [architectural plans for] houses. that was after the big depression. the fha [federal housing authority] just came in to existence in about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:889), i believe, and people [commercial developers] were able to get a loan, but the loan was a little different than now. they had to own the real estate, the lot  it was different than now. we didn't have the developers like we have today. so they owned a good down payment [on the property they developed]. the houses were usually about (cid:883),(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) square feet. they had two bedrooms or three bedrooms, one bathroom, a single attached garage, a fireplace, and the cost factor was roughly around four dollars a square foot to build that house! i stayed there until mr. uncle sam needed another man to go into the service, after japan bombed pearl harbor. so i went into service in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:884); january. we were engaged in a searchlight and radar installation up in palos verdes, up on the top of the mountain there, and i got a call. somebody said they needed a draftsman at brigade headquarters in downtown los angeles. i went to los angeles on flower street, right by (cid:889)th street and figueroa, as a draftsman. during that time, i drew the maps on the big plotting room, which was a huge room, and i went to the u.s. corps of engineers across the road at figueroa and (cid:890)th street, and had a big room in there to make those big maps. what we were doing was something different. meanwhile, my colonel says, (cid:498)i've been trying to get you more rating.(cid:499) i was a sergeant, but then i was on detach service. the outfits in the field do not want to give those ratings to you. they would rather give it to preserving napa county’s agriculture 6

somebody who is out there in the field. he said, (cid:498)i want you to go back to north carolina to an engineering school,(cid:499) so i said, sure. i needed algebra and all that stuff, and i had to go and brush up at night school. i went back there in north carolina, to camp davis, and that was a four‐month course in engineering. you learned how to make closures, make maps. i passed all those grades. i made it, barely, but i made it. from there i came back to los angeles, and we started an operation detachment. i was then, i believe, a staff sergeant or whatever it was. we were only (cid:885)(cid:887), and the job was to get the information from radar into the guns and the air force and whatever. so i was there for a little while. then they needed a person down in the south pacific, so i took off and went up to fort ord. i went out with an organization just to fill in someplace down in the south pacific. i was on that ship for (cid:885)(cid:887) days, and landed in a replacement camp. it was a funny thing. i was walking down the street one day, and a soldier was sitting on a coconut log. here was bob kay from napa milling [and warehouse company, founded in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:883)(cid:884)]! he said, (cid:498)well, you want to go to this outfit. they really don't need a master gunner.(cid:499) i finally went to it, and the aircraft outfit had been overseas since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:883), on the high seas, and they went down to australia. so i went down there, and i was a staff sergeant and a platoon sergeant; i became the first sergeant of that outfit. we moved from that outfit to near tacloban [a port city (cid:885)(cid:888)(cid:882) miles southeast of manila] in the philippines. i was in the town of tanawan. later i came back to the states after i was released in february, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:888). i came home, and i was around here on second street in napa. one day, bill johnson, who i knew from the native sons of the golden west, came over and said, (cid:498)what are you going to do? do you want to go to work for us?(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)well, i never thought what i'm going to do. i've been home only for about three weeks from the service.(cid:499) he said they needed a draftsman to draw maps. early years at assessor’s office (19461962) ga: so i went to work for the county assessor's office. i became the draftsman in that office. i stayed there for about four years and learned all about making maps, and a little bit about appraisal. rz: so you were drawing parcel maps? ga: yes, that's what i was doing. of course, if you split a piece of property, in those days they didn't have the regulations they have now. you were able to split a piece of property and deed it to your son or somebody; whatever. we didn't have the regulations, so we had to do a lot of different things then. rz: sorry to interrupt. what was the name of your boss at the county assessor's office? ga: sam webber was the assessor, and william johnson was the assistant. i was there for a while, then in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882) the city of napa needed a city assessor. i was thirty years old. somebody mentioned my name, and i was asked if i wanted the job  there were three or four people after it. being i had some experience in the assessor's office, i got the job as city assessor for city of napa.(cid:887) after i(cid:495)d been working for the city twelve years, mr. johnson, who was then the county assessor, asked me if i would like to come back as his assistant. i said yes. so i left the city and i came back to the county assessor's office in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:889). and then in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:884), he wasn't going to run for office, so i had to make up my mind: 7

napa’s farming past do you want to become the assessor? at the last minute, i announced that i was going to run for office. i had no opposition; i made it without campaigning. i was about forty‐two. i enjoyed the job, and i could see we had a problem throughout the whole state of california. the problem was that we were cutting up land with this strip annexation, or whatever you want to call it. the cities, particularly santa clara county, had a big program as progress of some sort. they had all these cherry trees and orchards, and they would go down the highway, and they would sell a five‐ or ten‐acre parcel of land and create a little shopping center. well, what happens to the land from the city to the little area five or ten miles down the road? how are you going to value those cherry trees  as an orchard, or as a potential subdivision or commercial property? consequently, people started selling off their land for commercial property or subdivisions. they did that throughout the state of california. as a city assessor i went to a lot of county meetings, and i could see what was happening. also, i could see that napa had a problem – we had to do something to stop this. at that time i was able to communicate very well with a fellow named al haberger [in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882) albert haberger would become napa county(cid:495)s first administrator, a chief executive position appointed by the board of supervisors]. al and i got along very, very well, and i talked to al and i showed him what i thought was going to happen if we did not do something, because in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:882), napa was an economic [agricultural] county. by that i mean we had almost (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) egg‐producing farmers, chicken farmers  (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) of them. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:882) until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882), you had that many chicken farmers, and they might have had (cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) ‐ (cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) hens, and were making a good living on it. these chickens were not in cages; they were on the ground. jh: free range. ga: and then we had six slaughterhouses in napa county, and then we had, i can't remember the number, of dairy farmers. we had the grade a and grade b dairy farmers. do you know the difference between those? rz: no, i don't. ga: grade a they can sell it to a creamery, and sell it as raw milk maybe. grade b means that barn was not in that good a shape, and might have dirt there. they can't wash the udders and so forth. consequently, that milk was transported in five‐gallon cans to sonoma to the cheese factory. they went out every morning; they went up and down the valley and picked up the flat bed truck – trucks of five‐gallon cans of milk not under refrigeration at all. they went over there every day. rz: and it went to what? ga: sonoma, to the cheese factory, and they made cheese out of that. years as napa county assessor (19621967) ga: i became assessor in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:884), and i was able to talk to al [haberger] and show him what was going on. he went out with me. rz: you were napa county tax assessor [an elected public official] for five years? from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:884) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889)? 8

ga: i had about six terms. i didn't have any opposition until my last term, and you know who that was. i'll get to that later. rz: yes, we'll get to that later. so you're talking about how well you got along with al haberger. why did you get along so well? did you see eye to eye on land issues? ga: i think so, and other issues where we could [discuss] different things together. he said, (cid:498)george, what are you going to do for lunch today? what project do you have up the valley?(cid:499) he would come with me to see it. i'd say, (cid:498)i'm going to so‐and‐so property(cid:499)  that being this or that, an old winery  (cid:498)and i have to go personally. they want me on the property.(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i want to go with you.(cid:499) rz: why was he interested in going with you? ga: he wanted to see the county. to me, he was a good, good man. rz: he was just genuinely interested in finding out everything he could? ga: yes. ga: i used to walk to and from work. i just loved what i was doing, so i was there full‐time; they could easily find me. if you called in to my office, the [secretary] better not  if i wasn't in, she better not ask who's speaking. i don't want [staff] to ask who is on the phone; i want a direct (cid:498)in(cid:499) to the caller. if i'm not in, then i'll call you. i'd make a recording that you called and the parcel number and all that. before i went home that night, i would call to clear up all the phone calls. some of the guys were mad. i know they were mad. rz: what were they mad about? ga: assessing. we just probably valued their property; increased it by (cid:887)(cid:882)%. it's going to cost you money. there were a lot of times to keep up with inflation and the sales, you had to  my ratio had to be around (cid:884)(cid:887)% of the market value. it was a tax law. if you went way down below, then the state would come in and raise all the properties to whatever it needed to come up to (cid:884)(cid:887)% of the market value of a property. rz: so this is the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? ga: yes, we didn't change that until proposition (cid:883)(cid:885). jh: it used to be that the county would go through and approve its budget for the coming year, then they would set the tax rate, and the tax rate would be to raise sufficient money to cover that budget. in those days, it wasn't like prop. (cid:883)(cid:885), where you couldn't increase it beyond a certain percentage. in those days you set the tax rate to cover whatever was in the budget.(cid:888) ga: that was needed. and then later, i had to give the schools an estimate that i thought the percentage would be for the coming year, so they could set their budgets. i said, (cid:498)why don't you wait and set your budgets accordingly  not see how much you've got in advance?(cid:499) property assessment in the ’60s 9

rz: what happened? ga: well, we would have to do it. the law says i had to do it. i would give it to them. i would try to not go too high. i would try to be as close as possible so they wouldn't foul up their budgets. the state sampled your county every third year; they came in and stratified it. by stratifying it, the high ones, companies like kaiser steel, would get it every year. then they(cid:495)d go through and get (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) of them, and they would sample to see what ratio you really are. you may say one thing, but maybe you're not there – you might be only (cid:884)(cid:882)%. then they would stratify you, i remember, just pull those out. rz: and they'd be looking at residential as well as business. ga: oh, yes. that's what i mean. so many residentials, so many commercials, whatever the values are, but there would be (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) of them, and then they would tell you what your ratio is. now, it was important to hit that. now, you could hit (cid:884)(cid:887)% without one high one and one low one, then later it was a coefficient of dispersion. it was very important – how close are you on that bulls‐eye all the time? i made a way to study that coefficient dispersion so you don't have one at (cid:883)(cid:882)%. rz: so you couldn't have too much disparity? ga: that's what i'm talking about – coefficient dispersion. it was very important, and you kept that up. let's just say it takes three years to revalue your whole county, and we'll just say you value one‐third of your county, or whatever, and then you were too low, and the state would come in and raise the whole thing. so here's a man that's already at (cid:884)(cid:887)% ‐‐ he's going to get another (cid:885)(cid:882)%. i didn't like that; i never went for that. i said if we do our job, we won't have to do that. things started changing about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882) came into existence, and that said we all had to bring it into the (cid:884)(cid:887)%, and we had to be within a certain percent of that (cid:884)(cid:887)% or else we'd get an order. rz: and that was california assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882). [ab (cid:890)(cid:882) mandated that the county assess each property at (cid:884)(cid:887)% of its market value based on recent sales of nearby comparable properties. the bill made it difficult for small farms to keep up with rising taxes that resulted from increased property assessments.] ga: yes. that was the one that had a lot more teeth to it [than previous legislation], and we had to do a better job [of raising taxes], because we were not doing the job the state said we should be doing. the williamson act & land preservation ga: it was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) that [ab (cid:890)(cid:882)] came in. then i had to go out and do some revaluing. that's a time when i said, (cid:498)al, we need something to protect farmland. there are going to be people out there who are going to get out of the prune orchards and pear trees, and they will want to cut up the land or do something to raise money.(cid:499) was it still economically feasible to have prunes? i don't know. it was getting to that question. the young people didn't want to pick prunes, and here we had the prune and apricot association, a big building, still there. across the street was the poultry producers. all of these chicken farmers belonged to that association. they had a big feed store. then we also had walnut growers up the valley… so something had to be done. i showed al what was happening [to agricultural land] in a lot of the other counties. i said we need some good planning in here. he could see it too. rz: what's happening to the farmers? 10

ga: well, what was going to happen to them? al got his staff together. john n. (cid:523)jack(cid:524) fiske [university of california cooperative extension director who served as liaison with county agriculture] was there, and he was the boss. i also brought [california assemblyman] john williamson over before that. we met at the town hall in yountville, to discuss the williamson act and the size of a potential preserve. [the california land conservation act of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887), commonly called the williamson act, allowed counties to tax farmers according to the income produced by their agricultural land rather than market value of the property, as long as the landowners agreed to restrict use of the land to the production of commercial crops for a term of not less than ten years.] i said i don't want a minimum of forty‐acre parcels. i wanted it bigger at that time…i'm talking about land on the hillsides, not the valley floor, but they're good lands, and i said i want at least (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882) acres. on the valley floor it could be three (cid:886)(cid:882)‐acres parcels, and then i want a minimum income of two dollars an acre. they looked at me and asked why. i said, (cid:498)well, in san mateo, if i'm not mistaken, they had a lot of ag preserves. i think they were only (cid:886)(cid:882) acres out there.(cid:499) what's the income out of a piece of property up on the side of a hill? very low! rz: now, what do you mean by $(cid:884) per acre? ga: that's the income, the rent or revenue. it doesn't sound like a lot of money, does it? rz: well, no. ga: but if you were a deer hunter, and you want to tie up (cid:884),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres of land up there, that's going to cost you $(cid:886),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). do you follow me? that(cid:495)s if you want to put it in a preserve. say (cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:884),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres up there on the side of the mountain like blue ridge. we had a lot of them up there. rz: and he wants to rent it out, let(cid:495)s say to deer hunters. ga: it's not cattle country – it's all steep and rough. jh: vertical real estate! rz: so you're saying he couldn't charge rent over two dollars per acre? ga: more than that if he wants, but minimum, i said; minimum at least. down in san mateo, there was no limit like that. i remember what's the name over in suisun  not suisun, but the other side in wooden valley. when he saw that two dollars, he got mad at me. he said, no way. williamson explained this very well. when did you come on board, jim? jh: i got here early in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882), but the williamson act provided for land around the city to be preserved. ga: (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882) acres, wasn't it? if you wanted to pull out of that ag preserve it took ten years. it took ten years to come out of an ag preserve. jh: over a williamson contract. ga: what the assessor would do, you could sell it to a sub‐divider, because it would take ten years to come out from under it. so then, what we would have to do is value that land, in the ninth year, at its present worth. what is it worth now if you had to wait ten years for your dollar? it would not be worth your dollar; it would be a lot less. so you take the present dollar value, or whatever it is, or it would be 11

worth less. do you follow me? no. if you keep going, it would be nine, eight, seven and right here it would be (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882)% of the value. rz: and you're re‐assessing every year. ga: it might have been way up there. it might be going up. jh: but the (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882) acres in the contract over ten years renewed annually unless you canceled it. so, it was always ten years. ga: yes, that's right. ten years, you had always ten years. jh: if you waited ten years, you still had ten years to go, because every year it renewed. ga: ten years. you just automatically had ten years. otherwise, you start pulling out of it. jh: you could notify them you wanted out, but then you had to wait ten years, and then your assessment would go up. ga: yes, the developer doesn't want that. the developer wants to build within six months or sub‐divide that property, or do something other than having it for farming. jh: the williamson contracts were limited to within a mile or two of the city. you had to be around the city. rz: wait, let's stop for a minute. so, under the williamson act, you had to be a mile or more out of the city? jh: no, adjacent to the city. ga: adjacent. you're not way up in the boonies. jh: this was to preserve agricultural land around cities; a big circle around them. ga: and sometimes the person that signed that doesn't realize that if that land becomes good farming land, vineyard land, then the assessor has to use that value to value that land, and he can't do anything with that land maybe for ten years. rz: you're saying if it's very valuable farm land, and getting more valuable, then … ga: then i might apply higher value to it, but it takes you ten years to get out from under the williamson act. we had a lot of public meetings. i remember going up to even howell mountain a couple of nights up there. i went to a lot of different places to talk about it. rz: how many people in napa county elected to qualify under the williamson act? ga: quite a few of them. i don't know how many. 12

jh: not too many who were growing grapes. rz: mostly, these would be small farmers? jh: these would be small farmers, or people who were raising cattle, horses. rz: and the advantage for them is for those ten years, their tax rate was low. now, i understand that the actual term (cid:498)agricultural preserve(cid:499) actually came out of language in the williamson act. ga: i don't remember. is that how we got it? somebody asked me. i don't know. i didn't have it. i was just able to get al haberger interested. from there, i went to a lot of meetings. rz: now, these meetings that you went to, were these meetings to discuss the williamson act? beginnings of the agricultural preserve ga: no, the idea of an ag preserve. the ag preserve, not the williamson act; that's different. now we're talking about the ag preserve itself, and we had a lot of meetings. that was before jim [hickey] came [to the county]. i'm trying to think of the name of the county official who was involved. jh: vern cotter. ga: he never came to the meeting. jh: well, he was the planning director. ga: i know he was. rz: was it eric borgwardt? he was assistant to the planning director at the time. ga: that was the man who was there. jh: yes, he was the assistant, and he was the secretary of the planning commission. ga: yes, and consequently he was there, and also jack fiske. rz: what about aldo delfino? ga: al delfino was there. jh: as ag commissioner. ga: yes, they were at the meetings discussing what [minimum] size land parcels should be, i imagine. i said i wanted forty acres, and i finally had to settle for  i went along with the twenty. today it's now forty acres [on the valley floor]. 13

meetings concerning the preserve rz: were these meetings just for residents of local communities? ga: no, anybody could go. rz: yes, but these were before the planning commission actually had its formal hearings? these were informal community meetings before that? ga: oh, yes, before – just to discuss it, just to talk about it. that was what i was pushing for. i didn't have anything to say after that. rz: who organized the meetings? would it be your office? ga: i organized a lot of them, and al did, and jack fiske. jh: the planning commission minutes show that you and al were what they call an information committee. you used to appear before the planning commission, both of you, and i never saw that in the board of supervisor meetings. you spent a lot of time with the planning commission. ga: yes, i put a lot of time in. jh: but the big question was what impact creating a preserve would have on the value of the land – which actually increased the value, rather than decreased it, afterwards. rz: as you said, it was going to increase anyway. ga: yes, it was going to increase, but differently; for commercial property, to put a house on it or subdivision or something. but i'm talking later, when it was no longer an economical unit for a cow‐and‐a‐ calf operation. no longer economic for prune trees because say, all of a sudden, prunes do not sell. now i buy prunes, and i think they're only $(cid:884).(cid:891)(cid:891) a pound. when i picked prunes when i was a kid, oh, those were super prunes. actually, we went through a lot of meetings. i don't remember them all, but i know i was there to participate if they needed any information. rz: who was moderating the meetings? ga: the planning department. jh: the planning commission moderated some, and the board of supervisors moderated some. eric borgwardt, in a letter, said that there was a total of fifty‐five meetings held over a year and a half period about the ag preserve. he wrote a letter to this lady [a constituent] saying the preserve was created after fifty‐five public meetings. ga: i know we had a lot of meetings! rz: that's extraordinary. that was the planning commission, or board of supervisors? jh: it was probably a combination, because he didn't say planning commission. he said a total of fifty‐five. 14

that's a lot of meetings. ga: he was there. he was very good. borgwardt did a very good job, and we also had lernhart attending as the attorney [to the planning commission]. rz: mervin lernhart, jr. ga: yes. he came and he sat in. he kept us in order. rz: would al come to the meetings? ga: not to all of them, but he was there at a lot of them. he and i attended a lot of meetings. i don't remember. rz: do you remember a tv debate that was held and filmed, between lowell edington, a strong proponent of the ag preserve, and john daniel, who was a strong opponent? the debate was moderated by [then conservative political host] caspar weinberger. [weinberger later served in the nixon, ford and reagan administrations as director of the office of management and budget (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884)‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885)(cid:524), secretary of health, education and welfare (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885)‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887)(cid:524), and secretary of defense (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:883)‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:889)(cid:524).] jh: that was kqed. caspar then worked for kqed. rz: so, if i wanted to find it, i might be able to find it in their archives. and that would have been in  do you think it would have been in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890)? ga: pretty close to it. jh: (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) to (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). rz: what did caspar weinberger do at kqed? jh: he was an interviewer. he had kind of a news program. i was interviewed – at that time i was doing the general plan for the san francisco bay area, and i was interviewed by him about that at kqed. rz: is this the caspar weinberger? jh: yes. i don't know how he started out, but he was working there interviewing. he had a public news program, an interview show. he interviewed personalities. rz: i'll try to find that tape, because that would be very interesting. ga: lowell edington was not a county supervisor at that time. rz: he'd already been a supervisor, and he had stepped down. ga: he stepped down, but he was for it, and i was able to talk to, fortunately, most of our supervisors and they were for it. i talked to them. juli caiocca was one of them, and he and louis stralla were very close friends. 15

rz: was julius caiocca … ga: a supervisor of the third district. rz: was he for the ag preserve all along? jh: he was leaning towards us, and then others persuaded him. rz: and he made the difference in the vote – julius caiocca? ga: i don't know if he did or not. jack ferguson [another supervisor] was for it. jh: jack ferguson was for it. everybody [on the board of supervisors] voted for it except pete clark. pete was actually in favor of it, but he abstained. ga: he wasn't at that meeting. jh: he missed that meeting, but the lawyers told him if he voted he could jeopardize the whole thing because he hadn't ... ga: he wasn't at one of the previous meetings and he couldn't vote on the issue. jh: so he abstained. rz: so, julius' vote was very important. ga: oh, very important. we came in to the meeting and there was [supervisor] dewey andersen, who was for it. i was able to get to dewey. that was a very important meeting, upstairs in the old board room in the county offices. rz: so now we're talking about the hearings that were held by the napa county board of supervisors? ga: that's a final vote for them to say, yes, we are going to create it [the agricultural preserve]. jh: the planning commission vote was only advisory. it was (cid:498)go ahead and do it,(cid:499) but the board had to take the action, because they're the legislative body. the planning commission is only advisor. [the napa county planning commission's vote was advisory only. chaired by felix vanderschoot, the planning commission launched a series of public hearings in december of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) to consider legislation that would create an agricultural preserve. in mid‐january of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), the commission approved the proposal and sent the recommended legislation to the board of supervisors. in march of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), the board of supervisors held its own public hearings to consider the ag preserve. the board members at the time were henry wigger, jack ferguson, julius caiocca, dewey andersen, and pete clark. the board of supervisors(cid:495) historic vote was cast on april (cid:891), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), four to zero in favor, with clark abstaining.] ga: so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) i said, (cid:498)let's have a meeting,(cid:499) and al or somebody said we were going to have a meeting on the ag preserve. the board members were going to be at that meeting. borgwardt was there. i said, (cid:498)we'll have it in my office in the back, because i have a big table,(cid:499) and i had all the county maps there. meanwhile, 16

i had somebody in my office go through, and he took an inventory of the county(cid:495)s (cid:885)(cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres; how many one‐ to three‐acres parcels there were in the county. i don't know what i did with that. rz: now, was this (cid:885)(cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres on the valley floor? ga: yes, just the valley floor up to calistoga. i had bob benning… jh: bob benning was the elected auditor‐controller of napa county before al haberger became county administrator in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). [bening lost his bid for reelection in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890).] rz: now, this is at the assessor's office? ga: yes, downtown. it was on coombs street. jh: it used to be where the street people were sleeping in the building. ga: homeless people. jh: the homeless shelter used to be his office. ga: i turned it over to them after. we had good facilities in there. jh: it's interesting. that building, before it was owned by the county, was dewey andersen's father's repair shop, where dewey andersen worked. rz: oh, right. you mentioned that you in your interview. jh: that's where that was. rz: for the record, tell us what the purpose was for the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) meeting you just mentioned. ga: to finalize what we were doing. rz: about the definition of the ag preserve. what was going to be included? ga: the board was there this time, and all the staff; jack fiske and the attorney [lernhart] and borgwardt. rz: so, the planning commission staff were there? ga: no, just the chairman. i don't know how many [attendees] we had. we had quite a few, and discussed the preserve  because the board wanted to know. rz: could i ask you at this point, was there a lot of consensus among county officials in favor of the ag preserve? ga: i don't know. you mean the elected officials? county meets on ag preserve 17

rz: well, both. ga: i don't know. i don't remember. jh: in all of the planning commission minutes, there is no record i can find of anyone county department speaking against it. commissioner al delfino said that forty acres was necessary, but they settled for twenty acres because forty acres as just too hard to sell. ga: i had wanted forty acres. i talked to al. i could talk to al delfino, because i used to take him to all of our big get‐togethers up in berryessa. rz: but, as far as you know, there weren't any objections? ga: no objections. i think they were all with us. i didn't hear any objection at all. rz: i want to ask you, though, before we get off the subject, what happened at the end of this meeting? ga: they agreed that we should go ahead, and the board of supervisors was with the planning commission staff, and the board was going to go forth. rz: would pete clark have been against it if he had voted? ga: i don't think so. i think he was for it. jh: he is quoted in something i wrote years later, that said that the ag preserve was the greatest thing that happened to napa county in the last fifty years. that doesn't sound like somebody who is opposed to it. rz: and you came out with the idea of forty acres, or did you drop it down? ga: i wanted forty acres, and then they dropped it to twenty acres. i thought forty acres. that inventory that we took, i had a gal check all the acreage, i forget how many forty‐acre parcels, eighty acres, and whatnot were in the county. a lot of people were against it who owned large properties. there were a lot of people who weren't for the ag preserve on the valley floor. why? because here i have forty or fifty or sixty acres of land, and i would like to cut it up and give a portion to each of my children before i die. and i want to cut it up, or i may want to sell some, so i can get along better in older life. you could understand that. rz: so what was the inventory? ga: i had a gal  al harberger wanted an inventory of how many parcels of land were in that (cid:885)(cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres, and how many were one to four acres, and five to ten, and so forth and so on. they wanted to know so we could give the board  he wanted to let the board know how many parcels of land were involved in here. jh: how many parcels of less than forty acres… ga: …that would be affected. and how many others, you had a lot of eighty‐acre parcels, and more than 18

that. rz: so, she did this? she did the whole inventory? ga: well, she sat there and just kept going from parcel map book to map book. rz: that was tedious. ga: oh, yes. how correct it was, it was probably close to right. data processing couldn't give it to us for some reason. it failed. so i took it over to do it. i didn't charge them anything. i got enough staff to do it, and i had a good person doing it, a good person. rz: so now did you go to the board of supervisors meeting, where the final vote was made? ga: yes, i did. i was there. rz: how did you feel about it? ga: well, i was happy. i knew they were going to go for it. i was told that they were going to make it. rz: so it was no surprise. opposition to agricultural preserve ga: it was no surprise that they were going to do it, and it took courage. it took a lot of courage for them to do that. i thought they did a good job, and we were lucky to have those people going forward….i don't know if they got any opposition after that, any of them, for voting for the ag preserve. jim, can you remember? jh: they got lawsuits, including the one from john daniel and others. rz: yes, i wanted to ask you if you remember anything about that. from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883), there was a lawsuit filed against the ag preserve. dan york, i think, was one of the attorneys. ga: for napa, for the county. jh: yes, york was for the county. did you find the name of john daniel(cid:495)s lawyer? rz: no, i have not found the name of john daniel(cid:495)s lawyer. it was a prominent law firm in san francisco. jh: yes. mervin lernhart would know. rz: he couldn't remember. jh: oh, he couldn't? let me go through ferguson's files, i(cid:495)ve got ferguson's files, and see if i can find a reference to it. i'm supposed to turn those over to the museum. ga: dan york, the county(cid:495)s legal counsel, was a man who did not talk too much, but he did a good job. he was a good attorney. 19

jh: is his daughter [ellen york] still practicing law in napa? ga: yes. i think they still own that building. there are two sisters. they're both attorneys … and they do good jobs on trusts and things. jh: they still own that building right across from the napa county courthouse, and those are dan york's daughters. rz: dan york died? ga: oh, yes. jh: [former supervisor] jack ferguson said that lernhart did all the legal work [drafting the ag preserve ordinance], and that york wasn't that involved. ga: he was never involved, to my knowledge. he never came to a meeting. jh: he sent lernhart. ga: lernhart was there. he was always the one there. he came all the time, but not dan, to my knowledge. i can't remember dan. rz: dan york was mervin's boss. jh: yes. rz: do you remember anything about those three years during which the legal suit was active? ga: no, i didn't follow it. jh: you had enough other problems? ga: i had some other problems at that time, to comply with (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882), and the california state board of equalization…which wasn't always that friendly with me, because i got the assessor from solano county to go over when they were in sacramento discussing assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882). i wanted to see some of the terminology in there, and i wanted to make sure they had four sales for comparables when they put on a value. when they sample me, how do they get that value? we want four sales, comparable sales, in that area. rz: now, who is (cid:498)they(cid:499)? ga: the state board of equalization  when they sample me, they sample the accounting. rz: so you made sure they got your comparables? ga: yes, i was over there when they were going through. i don't know how much time we spent over there to get that portion in there, that they had to have the comparables; they just couldn't say it's worth this amount. i argued the point later on. i said, even then it's not really right; we're not right. they look at me and ask why? i said, if you had (cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres of land out there and you had four (cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre sales, does it 20

make each and every acre up there worth that amount of money that year? so if you put the (cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres on the market, would it sell for the same rate per acre as the (cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre parcels? no, because you had quantity now. so, here we had (cid:885)(cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres of land. rz: so you couldn't compare large to small. ga: well, it was hard. i said it's hard for me. i said i could even guess, put the present worth of one or, say five, years. so, for instance, if that land over here you say is worth $(cid:883)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), this one, ten years from now, what is that worth? is it worth $(cid:883)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882)? no, if you have to wait ten years to get that dollar, nobody is going to discount it; funny things i had in mind. rz: what happened now? you said you were very busy trying to figure these things out with the assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882). ga: well, we had to do some re‐valuations. rz: so how did it get resolved? how did you resolve it? ga: assembly (cid:890)(cid:882)? we had to do a better job, and raise some lands so we came in within that, i forget, (cid:884)(cid:885) or (cid:884)(cid:886)%. we had to be within a tolerance zone there, or else they were going to raise it. so, i did a lot of re‐ valuing, for instance, i remember going up into st. helena. maybe that was later on; i don't know. i raised them almost (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882)%. but a lot of times you raise them or the board of the city says we're not going to raise the tax rate. we're going to leave the tax rate. rz: you were in a kind of delicate situation, weren't you? ga: it didn't bother me, though. it didn't bother me. rz: but you had to worry about tax revenues; having sufficient tax revenues. ga: no, we did not. we didn't talk about it. i didn't. money was never involved here. valuation, that's it. the value didn't go down after going into the preserve. in fact, it went up, but it did not go down. the only time the value went down in the county of napa was when prop (cid:883)(cid:885) came, and that was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890). that was later on; that was different. that has nothing to do with the ag preserve at all. rz: so the value of properties went up. ga: yes, they went up, but gradually; not a big jump. we didn't have a big jump, but we did have those people for and those people against it. rz: larry solari? ga: he was up the valley. he was against it. yountville, all that value. yountville road, he owned the hill up there. jh: andrew pelissa? he was against it? ga: he was for it. 21

rz: that's what i thought. ga: the banker up there, the st. helena bank of america, you had his name. rz: paul alexander. ga: yes, he was in things. he knew what was going on. i don't know if he was with it or against it. i'm not too sure. rz: he was against it. ga: was he? he had a lot of clout up there. rz: people were frightened of him because had his hands on the bank of america money. ga: yes, he had a lot of people really believing in him. the bankers used to be good bankers, not like today. what else? rz: so now, if you could just tell us a little bit about how you were involved in any land issues related to the ag preserve until your retirement in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:889)? ga: no, i let the planners do that. we were very fortunate, afterward, to have that man right there [points to jim hickey, who is in the room]. rz: james h. hickey. ga: he did a tremendous job, and he wasn't afraid. some of the new supervisors didn't like him. rz: ok, so you're talking about the (cid:886)‐h club. ga: that met and took care of things after this passed. rz: after the ag preserve. ga: yes. the (cid:886)‐h club was very united: haberger, hickey, hamilton and hackett. the attorney, engineer … rz: wait a minute. who is hackett? ga: he was an attorney, county counsel then. rz: what was his first name? ga: steve. jh: he made his life as a trial attorney in san francisco before he came to napa. he represented four different law firms and did all their court work, and then he came to napa county. napa county “4h club” 22

rz: that was a change. ga: yes, his wife lives up on silverado trail, and he liked horses and all that stuff; he was a good native son. he died young. what was he, sixty‐two? jh: yes, sixty‐two or sixty‐three. ga: i was just with him just before. he had helped me tremendously with prop (cid:883)(cid:885). jh: the other h was harry hamilton, who was a county engineer. ga: and he did a beautiful job. he was a good, good person and he did a good job for our county roads. he was on top of things; no nonsense. he always had a suit on. jh: suit and a tie. ga: you better believe it. rz: but he had a very good long range vision? ga: ye, he never got excited, very calm … and he's still around. rz: what did the (cid:886)‐h club do? ga: they just got together all the time. they all worked in the same place. jh: in the same building. ga: the same building; and they got along, which was amazing. jh: there was no fighting over territory. nobody was trying to look better than the other person. we were all trying to get the job done. rz: wait – we have steve hackett, harry hamilton, james hickey, and who is the fourth? ga: harberger. rz: oh, right. ga: he's the number one, our administrator. jh: if you're a hired department head, you're hired by the board of supervisors; three votes in (cid:885)(cid:882) days is all that holds you there. rz: what you're saying is there was a lot of consensus among the four of you; the (cid:886)‐h club? jh: yes. 23

rz: did you meet every week? jh: we would meet or go to lunch together. ga: so i was with them quite a bit, too. i had a tremendous amount of respect for each and every one of them. rz: did john daniel make phone calls to you? ga: no. i valued wine inventory. they paid tax on wine, a personal thing. now they don't do it; they eliminated that. we were using the federal report that came out on the value of wine. the central valley wine was $(cid:882).(cid:885)(cid:887) a gallon. north county wines were $(cid:882).(cid:889)(cid:887). i said that's ridiculous. the price of grapes, i forgot what it was, $(cid:883),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) a ton or whatever it was. i said what i was going to do. i'm going to raise it to about $(cid:883).(cid:884)(cid:882) a gallon instead of $(cid:882).(cid:889)(cid:890). divide (cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882) gallons to a ton into that price, and what does it come out? i went farther and i took each varietal and went from there. my assessor friends said, (cid:498)i don't like what you're doing.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)well, if they're paying $(cid:885),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) a ton for grapes, then you divide (cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882) into that, what does it come out?(cid:499) there were only about fifteen wineries then and that's it. jh: well, there were about fifteen people who were involved. ga: i said, that's all i want; the cost factor from the time you crush the grapes until the first monday in march. what's the cost there? the reason i went that way was i said because we're getting new wineries in here and they're buying their grapes. you're fully integrated, and you're not putting the right cost factor on a ton of grapes. so you show only whatever it costs to raise a ton of grapes; probably (cid:887)(cid:882)%. so if you had a winery, and you're not fully integrated, we'll be assessing you twice as much for that (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) gallons of wine as over there, because his was not showing the true value. the only time they got hit was when they paid income tax, that's all. when you have (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) wineries around, they don't have any vineyards, but they buy the grapes. they contract from that man and they pay full price, so that gallon of wine is costing them more than the man who is fully integrated; that's showing in the books anyhow. jh: where he's growing his own grapes because he's not charging himself for the sale. ga: do you know how long i was able to put that on? one year only. i only could assess it for the first year, if i'm not mistaken. rz: because they stopped it? ga: well, they claimed that it was too much tax on the vintage wine. the future of the agricultural preserve rz: now, i wonder if you could just tell us two more things. one, what do you think is the outlook for the future in terms of the ag preserve? 24

ga: you mean the valley floor ag preserve as it is? rz: and also the hillsides. ga: didn't they extend that? how many years? does it take two‐thirds of a majority to change it? rz: the (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) ballot measure, measure p, just extended the previous measure j to protect the ag preserve for another (cid:887)(cid:882) years.(cid:889) ga: but you can change it with simple majority vote. for instance, we'll just say if something happens to the vine itself like it did in around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:882) or so. jh: yes, phylloxera. ga: it just wiped out the grape growers. we'll just say something happens to the vine, and it doesn't grow anymore – what are you going to do with the land? what's the economic value? it's no longer grapes at $(cid:886),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) a ton, and you produce six or eight tons. many years ago, any grapes that were irrigated, many years ago, that was no good. later on, they changed their mind. instead of eight by twelve planting, now we have four by four planting. we get twice as many vines in an acre, but we irrigate. that's different now. before, if we irrigated, it was no good. if something happens, economically, something happens with the value of the wine, what are you going to do with the land? what is it good for? assume you're a planner. jh: we're living next door to (cid:890),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people in what is called the san francisco bay area, and we're surrounded by them. i mean, what do you think is going to happen to the land here [in the event of a similar phylloxera devastation]? it's going to be the biggest subdivision boom in the history of the bay area! ga: they're going to build houses, and who is going to go out there and plant tomatoes or anything like that? jh: prunes as they did in prohibition, walnuts. ga: it takes seven to eight years to bring a tree into production, where the vineyards, three years, third leaf and they start picking. i don't know. he's [jim hickey] the planner, and i'm with him on that. it's going to just be houses, and houses are expensive. you [the county] don't make any money out of a lot of houses. it doesn't come out. it's been checked many times. how many children come out of these new subdivisions? rz: what do you mean you don't make any money? ga: well, not enough money to support them. jh: the money the county takes in doesn't pay for the services you have to provide. rz: for the schools and the streets. the costs of development 25

jh: fire, police. ga: everything that goes with it. it doesn't come out. a lot of people were always thinking it's going to come out; you're going to make money. it's not going to do it. look at the cost factor now; anything we do now. rz: the cost for the county. ga: yeah, the costs of county and city and whatnot. i don't know what you're going to do. as jim says, you're going to put houses. once upon time in my office, many years ago, a gentleman came in. i should have got his card and who he represented. he took some time and had some paperwork there. he asked what would it cost to get a right of way from napa to calistoga for a waterway [a water and sewer line] and this and that? that's before the ag preserve came in. rz: so that made you think? ga: yes, because they were thinking of it; because there were people out there who wanted to do it. when will they do it? jh: you've got to have water and sewer for houses. ga: that's right; water and sewer. jh: to get the density. rz: but somebody was thinking about a water and sewer line. ga: at that time, all the way to calistoga! i guess i'm against progress. rz: do you follow any of the land use issues now, like the napa pipe project [a controversial proposal for mixed use development in the southern part of the county]? ga: enough that i don't like what i hear. is that project in the napa city [limits] or in the [unincorporated] county, jim? jh: it's totally in the county; kaiser steel. but the county doesn't have the sewer and water. they have to get it from the city. ga: that's correct, and the city was involved in it, too, wasn't it? jh: well, the city is not particularly in favor of it under the county. they want it annexed to the city, but it's been proposed for annexation many times; never successful. ga: has that been proposed for annexation? they'd have to take the land by basalt? jh: it never went through the local agency formation commission. they denied it every time the city has asked to have it done. 26

rz: so, wouldn't the project be dead if it can't be annexed? ga: i think so, but they may not. they don't think so. jh: it depends upon where you're going to get the water and sewer. you can always do a package plan for the sewer; it's right on the river. i don't know where you get the water. you think about the water supply we have now, and they're [napa pipe project] going to add (cid:885),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) residential units there . (cid:885),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882)? that's a lot of water. ga: and a lot of sewer; a lot of water in the sewer. consequently, i told that gentleman [whom i mentioned earlier], i don't think so. well, naturally, he says they'll build a bigger and better house down there, with swimming pools and all that, to raise more money. i said, well, i don't know about that. jh: not to achieve sufficient density, they won't. rz: well, now, i just want to ask you, is there anything you want to add before we close the interview? ga: no. i think what they have done, all these people [who worked on the ag preserve], i think is tremendous. i didn't do it. somebody else created the boundary lines. whatever they did, i didn't do it. rz: but you were influential. ga: well, that was at the beginning, that's all. i was able to get to [napa county administrator] mr. haberger; al haberger, my buddy. rz: he became quite a close friend of yours? ga: oh, yes. i used to take him to first friday luncheon at native sons and different places. he had a nice place out there. his wife is a good person, and i see his son, paul. rz: where did he live? ga: big ranch road. he had some acreage there. rz: what was his profession before becoming napa(cid:495)s county administrator? jh: before that he was the county administrator in southern california; victorville or somewhere down there. ga: he came to us well qualified, but he had asbestosis [mesothelioma]. jh: yes, he got it [the lung cancer] as a young man working in the shipyards. when he was young, during the war, they were looking for people to work in the shipyards. he said you'd stand in the bottom and look up, it was beautiful. it was like a rainbow with all these colors, but all those colors were asbestos floating down. rz: when did haberger die? 27

jh: four months after he retired [in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:888)]; five months, maybe six. ga: he had to retire because he wasn't feeling well. jh: i know. he died a very short time after. ga: yes, because he put that room on the side of the house. rz: do you remember when he retired? ga: yes. i don't think we had any big parties, did we? jh: oh yes, we did. ga: did we? jh: yes. i forgot where we had it, but it was a full house. ga: i retired in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:889). he retired before me. then jay hull [the new county administrator] came along. rz: was al haberger an easy person to work with? ga: well, i got along with him. he thought i ran kind of a tight ship. he thought i was tough on some of my people, particularly my auditor appraisers. rz: how many staff did you have working for you? ga: about forty‐three in our heyday, i think. i forgot how many appraisers i had. i would change the appraisers every third year, or they changed their location. by that i mean the man who worked the calistoga area was there only for about two years, then he came down to south napa. i didn't want him to get familiar with too many people, and it rotated. we did that, which is unusual. rz: so, now, you retired in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:889). you lost the election? ga: no, i made it. i forgot about that one. rz: you were going to tell us about it? ga: yes. well, i was at the old office i think, and the chairman of the board of supervisors came to me, a good man dowell martz, and he was a professor. rz: he was a professor at pacific union college. ga: an expert in computer science, i guess, and all that stuff. he was involved in some of the planning on the board. he said, (cid:498)i'm going to run for office next year.(cid:499) i was sixty‐two then, when he came and talked to me, and he was about four years younger than i was, not a hell of a lot more. i thought about it. i said well, the hell with it, i'm going to run. he ran and filed, and i had some signs  plywood  that were given to me. i had signs put up, i don't know, about thirty or forty of them; four by eight feet, out of plywood. he didn't 28

believe in those signs. i was always out campaigning all the time. i never stopped. anyway, we went to the radio station and had to go on for chit‐chat and phone calls. they had meetings, and i went to them. at one particular meeting, i got up and said, (cid:498)you have two good people running for office. you're not going to go wrong with either one of us. dowell is a good man, and he would do a good job if you elect him.(cid:499) that's the way i carried on. i didn't get mad at him. he probably would do a better job. he knows more about computer work than i ever will in my life. then, a man in the audience got up and said, (cid:498)i believe in change, and people have to run for office every four years.(cid:499) i listened to him. i said, (cid:498)may i ask you a question? what is your profession?(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i'm an electrician.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)i believe what you said is that we should run every four years. i don't have a four‐year contract,(cid:499) i said. (cid:498)how would you like somebody to come and run against you as an electrician to check you out to see if you're a good electrician every fourth year?(cid:499) rz: he was quiet after that? ga: i didn't get his vote, i bet. there were only two areas that i lost on the election. rz: so, he defeated you, martz? ga: oh, no. i beat him by (cid:890)(cid:882)%. i got (cid:890)(cid:882)%. rz: that was your last election? ga: the last one, the sixth one. rz: and which year was that then? ga: probably (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884). the only two areas i lost were the california veterans home and howell mountain. martz belongs up at howell mountain. that's his back door, but i re‐valued them up there. i had a man [appraiser] working there; i had men in every area. i had a doctor up there as my liaison to tell me what was going on. in calistoga, i had what's his name? the city clerk. rz: i know we've got to stop, but i just want to ask you one quick question. we'll keep this really short, but it's the last thing and it just came to me. why do you think that napa county is different from sonoma county in terms of preserving ag land? ga: i don't know whether sonoma county is preserving theirs. i think napa county is the only one that has this type of preserve. it took a lot of hard work, and we had a strong group of supervisors that created this. i can't remember any other place around that took this up. of course, we had a lot of people that later came on the bandwagon and said yes, it's nice to have it. i don't know what sonoma is doing, really. they don't have any restrictions like that. as you increase your population, they need space. a man said to me yesterday, (cid:498)we have to have more houses because people are moving.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)what do you want to do  put more houses on agricultural land, and then you're going to buy your vegetables  where from? chile, mexico? where are you going to get your food?(cid:499) i don't know. maybe i'm wrong. jh: maybe you're right. 29

preserving napa county’s agriculture failing health at the time of this interview at his home in napa, ca, he was attended by a nurse. james hickey joined the interview to assist his friend. dewey andersen died in napa on november 15, 2009.] jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler april (cid:884)(cid:890), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: da ‐ dewey andersen rz ‐ rue ziegler jh ‐ james hickey [interviewer’s note: dewey anderson was a napa county supervisor in 1968. eightysix years old and in [tape (cid:883)] rz: this is rue ziegler. i am interviewing former board of supervisors member dewey andersen. accompanying dewey and myself at the interview is james hickey, who was director of the napa county conservation, development and planning department from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891). dewey, i wanted to just start by asking you some questions about your family. da: fire away. rz: i understand that your parents, and perhaps your grandparents, were from napa county? da: yes, they are. rz: so who was the first member of your family who came to napa? is that your grandfather or grandmother? da: well, both. rz: both. where did they come from? da: well, my dad's father, or my grandfather, came from denmark. he bought a property here in napa county that became quite an investment, a big piece of property, that finally wound up in the hands of peter gasser [successful entrepreneur and business investor who founded the gasser foundation], then a very popular young man. my grandfather had the ranch a long time, before he sold it and moved to a different place. rz: now, what was your grandfather's name? da: jorgen andersen. he was danish. rz: and your full name is? da: dewey kay andersen. the kay is my mother's name, her maiden name, so they decided to pin that on dewey k. andersen oral history 31

me. that's spelled with an e‐n; (cid:891)(cid:882)% of the time, people use s‐o‐n, and i have to either correct them or forget it. rz: and when were you born, dewey? da: november (cid:883)(cid:886)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:884). rz: so your grandfather was jorgen andersen, and he came from denmark to california? da: yes, he did. rz: and was his interest in coming here to farm? da: well, i wasn't around, but i don't think that was his idea. the property that he bought was in the foothills here in napa; a lot of wood, a lot of trees. in fact, i think my dad did a lot wood cutting on the ranch when he was young. rz: how did they use the land? da: i can't really tell you that. i'm not sure. i don't know whether he sold it directly to peter [gasser] or not, but peter wound up with the property for quite some time, and really developed it and made it a lot nicer than it was. rz: your father grew up on that property? da: to a certain extent, he did. he cut wood on the property for my grandpa while working in napa a good share of the time. rz: and what was your father's name? da: dewey; dewey d. just d, no middle name. rz: when he grew up, what did your father do? da: well, he worked in several businesses for other people, and finally started his own business in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:889). he ran it for a good many years until he turned it over to me, in about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882), i guess it was. rz: and what was that business? da: an auto repair business in napa. jh: it was right across the street from the county administration building; now the county administration building. da: that wasn't his business there. jh: it wasn't? 32

da: no, but he worked there. he was a head honcho, so to speak. jh: i thought that was where the business was located. da: well, that's where he worked, but he left there and started his own business. rz: so what property did you grow up on? was this property where we are now your father(cid:495)s property? da: no, it [father(cid:495)s parcel] was across the fence line. jh: you see the fence line up there. he lived on the other side. rz: so your father had also bought this property where we are now? da: well, not this [one of mine now], but he bought next door. there was just the fence line in between this property and his. rz: and then you bought this property. da: yes. rz: and so, were the two properties called oak leaf ranch? da: no, i named this oak leaf ranch. rz: and your father's property, was that a farm? da: no, it was six acres. he had some fruit trees and things like that on six acres. rz: and then how large was your farm? da: this was twenty‐seven acres when i bought it. jh: but you added to it. da: no, in fact i just sold ten acres a while back. jh: i thought you had acreage to it. da: no, it was twenty‐seven acres when i bought it. rz: and have you always used it as a stables for horses? da: yes, i have. rz: so you board other people's horses? da: yes, and gave lessons, bred mares to make babies and that sort of thing. 33

rz: and you gave riding lessons? da: oh, yes. rz: so you were a great rider. da: well, my daughter wound up being the big rider. she won everything in the country, but we bought good horses, so she did very well. rz: now, what kind of horses? da: quarter horses. we didn't restrict that to the boarders. some of them had arabs, some of them had appaloosas, some of them had thoroughbreds, but i stuck to the quarter horses. rz: well, that kept you busy. you had two big businesses then. da: well, i had given up the garage business. rz: you had taken that over in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882), but you gave that up when you came to this property? da: well, we bought this ranch in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), and built this house, moved another house that was here on the property before, which was a couple thousand square feet. we started seriously in the horse business shortly after we bought the ranch. rz: but why horses? had you loved horses as a youngster? da: yes, i guess i did. i've always had a horse or two. i wound up with a bunch of them here on the ranch. we had, at one point in time, fifty horses on the ranch. we had several brood mares, and we were turning over the babies and so forth. rz: that was a big operation. da: well, we had a few people working here, and my daughter wound up giving lessons, so it was a family affair. my wife came from a big cattle ranch in calistoga. rz: what was her name? da: joyce jackson was her maiden name. rz: and she came from calistoga? da: yep, well, just north of calistoga. rz: and she grew up on a cattle ranch? da: yeah, (cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres. that was actually in sonoma county. rz: and what was the name of that ranch? 34

da: jackson ranch; (cid:886)‐j ranch. they had about (cid:885)(cid:887)(cid:882) head of cattle, and probably (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) head of horses. they had some sheep, probably about eighty head of sheep. she was a super good rider. rz: well, you were very well matched for that family. when did you join the board of supervisors, in the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? da: i was elected in, i have to think just a second. rz: that's alright, we'll just pause. [end tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] board of supervisors rz: so, you said you were elected to the board of supervisors in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886). what made you decide to run for election? da: well, a friend of mine actually, who was principal of the school that i was on the board, just put it to me and said, "dewey, we'd like to have you run for the board of supervisors." so there were two or three other people, including the incumbent, who were running, but they talked me into it, and i won the election. not the first time around though – i had to come back to the second round. i had some pretty good competition. so i won it in the final in the big election. rz: in those days, how did you campaign? da: on foot. door to door. i probably covered every house in the district. rz: and what were your chief concerns when you were running? da: well, that was a lot of years ago. i'd have to give it a little bit of thought, i guess, but there's always something. streets always need repairing; the fire department needs getting enhanced a little bit and that sort of thing. jh: we had issues like the freeway up the valley. da: oh, yes. rz: were you concerned about population growth and development? da: well, before i got on the board, i guess i would be. i served napa county as their representative to the association of bay area governments (cid:523)abag(cid:524). they were always looking for means of enhancing the roads, and doing whatever to better the county. early land use concerns rz: and were you concerned about the loss of agricultural land when you first joined? 35

da: i guess, in a way, that was rather important to me, and that was probably one of the reasons for starting the ag preserve or enhancing it one way or the other. because we were having a little spot of land here annexed to the city, a little spot here, a little spot there, and the first thing you know, we were getting a little muddled up arrangement. so i think that was probably one of the reasons that the group of men that created the ag preserve got really involved in it and pushed it and passed it.(cid:890) jh: i think also the city of napa, at that time, had a very aggressive expansion program. they had a city plan that included everything down south of the airport, all the way to american canyon and practically over to the solano county line. that was considered all part of the city's general plan at that time. they were halfway to yountville, so the future city of napa would be very big. da: i agree with that, jim. we could see what was happening, especially the south part of the county, and the counties to the south of us, and it was just – they were outgrowing us, actually. i think that was one of the reasons that the board members, along with me, were pretty much country‐oriented and interested in napa county as a whole. i think that that had a lot to do with it. rz: and you had had a long history in napa county. da: well, i was born and raised here, virtually in the same spot where i'm living. rz: you are the third generation of your family to live in napa. da: yes, i sure am. rz: and before i ask you a few more questions about the ag preserve, i wanted to ask you about your own family. did you and joyce have children? da: three children: two boys, scott and todd, and one daughter, kim. they all, except for kim, still live in napa county, and live actually in napa [city] or in st. helena. my daughter lives in fresno. scott lives in st. helena. todd lives in napa. he lives in the browns valley area; he just built a new home out there. rz: and do you have grandchildren? da: one. one of the boys is married and has one child. she's about five years old and named olivia. rz: i know scott(cid:495)s wife, lisa marie. olivia is friends with my grandson. they're both five. i get to see olivia from time to time. da: i don't see a lot of her myself. rz: now in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886), you joined the board of supervisors. what do you first remember about the concept of the ag preserve? da: well, there were so many people involved that it's pretty hard for me to remember forty years ago. at any rate, fortunately all the board members saw fit to move ahead with the ag preserve concept. it was anything but easy, believe me. we had a lot of struggles, and lots and lots and lots of pains. rz: well, you had a lot of hearings? 36

da: well, yes, we did. we sure did. some of them got pretty sticky. the hearings got to the point in size that we didn't have room  our chambers weren't big enough to handle a crowd, so we had to have our hearings in the city council quarters. jh: or in the gymnasium, the st. helena high school gymnasium. da: well, yes. hearings on ag preserve jh: we had to have more room, because even the council chamber wasn't big enough to contain the people who showed up. in one memo that i read, the county planning department said a total of fifty‐five public hearings were held. the planning commission and the board of supervisors had fifty‐five different public meetings. rz: do you remember a lot of contention at the hearings? da: well, a couple of meetings it almost came down to fisticuffs. we had a couple of fellows that were really adamant about us doing this particular stunt, and so they virtually attacked poor julius caiocca, who was chairman of the board of supervisors at that time. so we had to kind of back him up a little bit. rz: but was there consensus among the board of supervisors? da: well, we all agreed that this was the right way to go, after a lot of study and reading everything we could possibly read, and making ourselves aware of what it was all about. rz: it was a very novel idea to create the ag preserve, because there was no other county that had done this. da: no, we were the first county in the united states. rz: so it was a very brave action for you to take. da: well, i don't know if it was brave or crazy! jh: some of the people at the public hearings had a different word for it – it wasn't (cid:498)brave.(cid:499) da: it wasn't (cid:498)brave.(cid:499) rz: well, the williamson act was in place. da: oh, yes, we depended on that considerably. there were already parcels of land, ranches and whatnot, even around napa that were involved with the williamson act. rz: but that wouldn't help the whole county. da: oh, no. what we did was a separate deal. 37

rz: how did you feel during the hearing process, when people became very angry? was that difficult? da: well, i guess it was difficult in a way, but we didn't back down. rz: it certainly took a lot of time. when i interview people and i find out how much time people spent on this, it's really extraordinary. da: well, it was. we spent a lot of time, no doubt about it. rz: a lot of evenings, and a lot of discussion and meetings during the day. da: that's right. jh: it would appear that we started talking about it somewhere around (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889), and the bulk of it was in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). then you finished up the zoning in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:891). so it was spread over maybe two‐and‐a‐half years, from the beginning to the end of it. da: we actually passed the, i don't know what you want to call it, but we passed the ag preserve in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890) – april of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890), i think it was, as i recall. jh: but then having created it, you had to go out and do the re‐zoning. that was another process. da: yes, we sure did. rz: how long did you serve on the board of supervisors? da: eight years. i went on the board in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886), and went off in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:884). i served two terms. rz: jim brought me a very interesting photo from a newspaper clipping of you and the rest of the board members in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) which i wanted to show you. [the board members featured in photo were: dewey andersen, chairman; henry m. wigger; edward bernard; joseph peatman; and marshall sears, who had replaced julius caiocca.] da: i was chairman for two turns. rz: so you became chairman after the ag preserve was created? da: yes. i have to stop and think myself, but a term was four years, and i served two terms. of course, juli was chairman in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886). he's already off of the board there [in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) photo]. rz: you were in pretty small chambers. da: well, we used to think that was great, because we didn't have such big crowds to have to put up with. rz: but when some of the people came to talk, apparently they would have to wait in another room because there wasn't enough room. da: sometimes. we moved into the judge's chambers sometimes, either judge kongsgaard(cid:495)s or judge 38

blankenberg(cid:495)s. jh: then to an empty courtroom, when we needed more space. da: an empty courtroom, a little more room. rz: how did you feel when the ag preserve passed? da: elated. rz: were you surprised that you were actually able to do this? da: not really. i think we had our minds set that we were going to do it. well, you never have everything go just beautifully and smooth and whatnot. there are always some problems, in politics especially. but we weren't too surprised. rz: one of the largest objections from landowners was the fact that they might not be able to subdivide their properties for their children. did you sympathize with that concern? da: well, we did. we felt badly about that, but it was almost a necessity to do it the way we did…the real problem that we were having in the county, was that we would have a person stake out a piece of property and then try to re‐zone it. for example, if it would be located partially in the city, then there would be a little spot of agricultural land over here and something else here. it was difficult to keep the county together in the agricultural sense, with different locations being subdivided [for different uses]. jh: in the adoption of the preserve, people always raised the question of why pete clark abstained, why he didn't vote. the answer was the legal department advised him that he had missed the public hearing, and in order to make sure it wasn't a default in the adoption of the preserve, he abstained from voting on it. da: that's correct. pete was at all hearings other than one. i think he was ill, that actually was his problem, but pete was about as straitlaced as they came. he wouldn't pull any funnies. rz: was he always in favor of the preserve? da: yes. well, pete and i were pretty melded. actually, all of the board members were close, some closer than others, but pete and i served primarily on the big road deals. pete was always very active in facing problems with the road. we went back to washington and did all kinds of shenanigans to try to get things done for napa county. rz: so why were you going to washington? da: to meet some of the big wheels that had the money. rz: now, was this connected to the ag preserve? da: no, not necessarily. that was just another little thing that pete and i were interested in. 39

rz: can you tell us anything you remember about the other members of the board of supervisors, julius caiocca, for instance? da: well, julius was really always for it. he was chairman when it took place, and i think everyone was pretty much in favor of it, really.(cid:891) rz: did pete get off of the board of supervisors at about the same time you did? da: no, pete passed away before i got off the board, i think. lawsuit filed against preserve rz: do you remember anything about the lawsuit that was filed after the passage of the ag preserve? jh: it [the lawsuit] was filed by john daniel and the group from up valley. i don't really remember too much about the lawsuit, other than the fact that we won it. jh: you won it at the lower court level and at the appeals level. da: right. jh: it never got to the california supreme court. da: no, it didn't. rz: then in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884) you stepped down from the board of supervisors? da: i was beaten in the election. that's a good reason to step down. rz: who took your place? da: john tuteur. rz: were you disappointed? da: no, to be honest with you, i was getting a little tired. i think being chairman for as many years as i was, it was wearing me down and i wasn't all that disappointed. jh: you also were in a new district then, weren't you? there was re‐districting, and you had american canyon as a part of your area again. rz: when you stepped down from the board of supervisors, did you remain active with land use developments in napa county? da: well, not really. i tended more to my business, and keeping it going. with the ranch and whatnot, i was pretty busy. rz: so, when you were with the board of supervisors, you had your automobile repair business, or had 40

you already sold that? da: no, let me see. i'm trying to remember. rz: you took over the auto repair business from your father in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882). da: i still had it. rz: so you probably hadn't started your oak leaf ranch? da: i started it in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888). rz: so you had both? da: well, not really. the garage business disappeared. rz: when you were first on the board of supervisors, had you known very much about land use policies? da: well, i didn't really know all that much about it when it came right down to it, but it didn't take very long to get wise. jh: i think the board would direct the staff to do research for the board. if you had a question, you would ask the legal department, public works department, and the planning department to look it up and give you the background, so that you could decide an issue that may be before you. that's what the staff was for. da: that's right, jim. we'd have been in trouble without the back‐up. rz: do you remember mervin lernhart? da: well, he was a good attorney, and he was for the ag preserve, obviously. he helped us save it, so to speak. rz: he defended it when there was the lawsuit, and he was a very young lawyer at the time. da: yes, he was. jh: jack ferguson said that lernhart did a lot of the drafting of the wording of the preserve, and did a lot of the defense when it was taken to court. he was assigned to that by the county counsel's office, but he was not the county counsel. he was an assistant to the county counsel, but he carried most of the legal load on the ag preserve, according to jack ferguson, the supervisor. da: well, jack was pretty well aware of what was going on. view of napa county today rz: we interviewed mervin earlier, so it's very interesting to have all of your stories now. i wanted to ask you about your view of napa county today. 41

da: well, in what respect? rz: in terms of the ag preserve. how do you feel about it today? da: well, i think it's done a world of good. it's made napa county famous worldwide. rz: are there things that you would have done differently? are there things that you disagree with? da: i don't think so. i think the plan was very well laid out. it had a lot of good people involved. rz: what about some of the other measures that have taken place since then? have you been in favor of those? da: well, i haven't been as involved or really on notice as i was on the ag preserve. i wasn't particularly thoroughly involved in it [later developments], and didn't really know all the details  i was busy with my ranch, and that was about all i could handle. rz: how do you feel about the changes you've seen in the county now? da: well, once in a while, i wonder. i notice that one of the supervisors is questioning in his mind about hotel development, that sort of thing. i'll grant you, sometimes i think they're overdoing it a little bit. they expect napa county to become new york, i guess, but i don't think i ever want to see that. rz: you've seen phenomenal change to the city of napa. da: well, yes. i have had nothing to do with it, however. rz: this neighboring area, when you first got your ranch, was all open, rural land? da: it was. well, i've had the ranch for forty‐three years, i guess. it's just (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:885) that i decided to sell ten acres off of the twenty‐seven acre parcel. that kind of bothered me a little bit, but as i grew older i got to the point where i couldn't handle it as well. i thought that was the best way to go. rz: how do you feel about the future of napa county? da: i can't speak for what is going to happen. the ag preserve, i think, has held up pretty well. we have had a responsible board of supervisors, which is very important. it's almost a necessity to keeping the ag preserve, period. as long as we have people that think that way, i don't think we'll have any great problem. rz: do you think that the ag preserve will continue beyond the fifty years that it's been extended for? da: well, it may. it may. jh: an additional fifty years would mean it will be in force and effect ninety years. that's a rather long run for any piece of legislation. da: yes, it is. it sure is. 42

other areas’ interest in ag preserve rz: when the ag preserve passed, do you remember other counties being interested, other staff from other counties, talking to you about it to see whether they might do something similar? da: not really. i, personally, am not aware of it, but sonoma county is the closest one that is thinking about things like that. jh: there were inquiries over the years…from other counties. alameda county, [the city] over where the santa rita prison farm is now…has a fairly well known wine area over there… they wanted to create [one] and they sent people over to talk to us about how to create a preserve, because they wanted to get into the wine business again. they were looking to try and preserve the land that was left for agriculture. subsequently, they did that. yes, we heard from them about how to preserve and the procedures and all that sort of thing. the city was interested in the tourism business, and they wanted to make sure they had land for vineyards because they were getting a lot of subdividing. da: what about san joaquin county? jh: yeah, we had inquiries from other counties. mendocino county, at one point in time, was interested in it. rz: what happened with mendocino? jh: it looked like they went to marijuana. that's the biggest cash crop they have. da: i wouldn't doubt it. rz: and i wanted to ask you also about tourism in napa county. now we have five million tourists a year. what do you think about the pressures of tourism? da: well, there are a lot of them. i don't get involved in that too much anymore. at my age, i'm lucky to keep my ranch going. rz: now you are boarding horses today on your ranch? da: i'm just about ready to retire. rz: oh, you are? jh: good for you. rz: but you still have horses on the property that you're boarding. who helps you take care of them? da: i hire people that work, two or three people. we're not nearly as large as we used to be. rz: do you have a breeding program still? da: no more. we used to breed five or six horses a year, and that kept us busy. 43

rz: what would you like to add for future generations to know about the ag preserve? what would you like to tell your granddaughter olivia? da: i don't know what i should tell her. i'm not sure her father is going to push agriculture as far as she's concerned, but it could be. who knows? rz: do you think she'll have a good future here in napa county? da: well, i would think so. her mother was involved, of course, in the wine business. so it may be that she'd follow up. rz: and i'm sorry to hear your wife died several years ago. da: in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:883). rz: was she supportive of the ag preserve? da: oh, yes. she almost had to be, with her husband involved. rz: jim, would you like to add anything? jh: i simply would comment that dewey, as one of the supervisors, supported the preserve, and as he's indicated, it was not the most popular proposal that ever came before the board. but the board, amazingly, when you think about it – when you think about the boards today, and the politics coming out of sacramento and washington – here was a board of five people that came up with an idea that really hadn't been tried or tested anywhere. they stuck with it all the way down from the beginning right to the end, and adopted it. now, forty years later, everybody is saying, (cid:498)we knew it would be a success,(cid:499) but the people saying, (cid:498)we knew it would be a success(cid:499) aren't the people who took the county to court and challenged its legality and fought it. so you have to admire their [supervisors(cid:495)] determination back in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). it was a completely different situation [from today]. rz: did you have any problems with friends, personally, who were angry with you? da: no, none. rz: i know some people had ruptured relationships with friends because of the ag preserve, but you didn't? da: no, i never had. of course, i was a native. rz: you may have been the only native on the board of supervisors. jh: i don't know. was henry wigger? da: i don't know whether henry was native or not. he may have been. i'm not sure. we were pretty close friends, to boot, but i didn't want to get too close to him because he was running a funeral parlor. 44

jh: how about juli caiocca? was he a native? da: i have an idea he was. he was my favorite, i guess. i thought the world of juli. when i first was on the board, i didn't know about being a supervisor. so he helped me a lot and gave me some good ideas. rz: he kind of took you under his wing? da: yes, pretty much. we became really good friends. rz: what about jack ferguson? da: jack and i never got really, really close. he was an attorney and lived a different style of life. i was in the horse business and garage business, so we didn't see a lot of each other. rz: and do you know if he was a native? da: no, i don't. i really don't. rz: i think you may be the only one. you were also third generation, so you had incredible continuity in the valley. da: well, i guess so. rz: did you have siblings, brothers and sisters? da: a sister. rz: your sister, is she still living in napa county? da: no, she is in fresno. rz: i think we're finished unless there is something that you would like to add. da: well, there isn't too much that i could add. i thoroughly enjoyed my eight years on the board of supervisors. we accomplished a lot of things other than the ag preserve, and i met a lot of nice people, even at the state level, and i had the opportunity of doing a little business with ronald reagan. in fact, i have a picture having lunch with him at aetna springs, in my office. he was there when he was governor, and he was barnstorming. we got along. i served on a couple of his committees when he was governor. i enjoyed his company. rz: was this when you were on the board of supervisors? da: yes. rz: what did you think of ronald reagan? da: oh, i thought the best of him. 45

involvement in other issues rz: do you remember other issues that you were involved in on the board of supervisors, that you might want to talk about, besides the ag preserve? da: well, when i served on the association of bay area governments, which is where i met jim, they were trying to push us a little bit; put in more housing and do this and do that. we weren't really ready to do those things. i happened to get the board to hire jim. jh: there were two representatives from napa county. one was ralph trower, who was the mayor, and he attended some of the meetings, and dewey attended some of the meetings. dewey was very much an advocate for the preserve. at that point in time, i was working on the regional plan for the nine bay area counties and ninety‐three cities. dewey and i used to talk about the situation and the conditions in napa county, and what was happening. finally, he said, (cid:498)why don't you come up to napa county and work on it?(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)well, that's an interesting invitation,(cid:499) and that's what happened. after the association of bay area governments adopted the regional plan, i resigned as the regional planning director and came to napa county and was hired as the county planning director. that was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882). da: i might add one more little tidbit. jim had a lot better offer, salary‐wise, with another county, i won't mention the name, but he had a pretty substantial offer for the job. i told him, (cid:498)you don't want that. you better come to napa,(cid:499) and he did. rz: so we have you to thank for james hickey. da: well, he was that way. there was quite a difference in salary. he said, (cid:498)well, i've got to be honest with you, dewey. napa county is the only county left in the whole area that has anything to save.(cid:499) jh: everyone else thought development was the end‐all and be‐all, and they had parties in counties when they reached a million population. contra costa county had a big to‐ do. they had a million people in san jose. santa clara, they had a big party when they got to a million. so having a million people was good. everyone wanted to have a million people, except napa county. rz: why do you think napa county was so different? jh: i think napa county just had a whole different mindset. napa county is not on any main highway going anywhere. the highway to sacramento goes through solano county. the highway up the coast goes through sonoma county, and napa county is kind of in a little pocket there, where you don't have a lot of traffic going through it. i think they kind of lived a different lifestyle, and the wine industry was being successful, and the ag preserve came along, which guaranteed people they could invest in the wine industry. they didn't have to worry about houses and businesses and industries crowding them out. so that was a major step to encourage the wine industry. you didn't have the problems you would have in other parts of california, where agriculture was just considered a holding action until something better big growth in bay area 46

l. pierce carson oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler january (cid:884)(cid:889), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: pc ‐ l. pierce carson rz ‐ rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: l. pierce carson was a cub reporter with the napa valley register in 1968. he is still a journalist with the newspaper. this interview took place at the newspaper’s offices in napa, ca] [tape (cid:883)] rz: this is rue ziegler interviewing l. pierce carson january (cid:884)(cid:889)th, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) at the napa valley register's office's conference room. pierce, i wonder if we could just start with your full name and date of birth. pc: l. pierce carson. i was born in trenton, new jersey on september (cid:883)(cid:889)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:882). rz: i wanted to start off by asking you about a (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885) newspaper account from the napa register about the projected future growth for napa county. pc: that was the centennial edition [of the napa valley register] in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885). rz: there were some pretty scary figures. pc: yes, and i think that the regional government issues had been raised at that time. i wasn't aware of that, but the big thing, i think, that people were talking about was the loss of all the orchards in santa clara county, and the fact that the beginnings of the silicon valley, you know, had really started and agriculture was gone. that was the thing that i think set the county government thinking about what could happen here, that this was probably next. rz: well, these are some incredible projections. one of the projections for napa county for, let's say the year (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), was (cid:884)(cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) for the county and for the year (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:882), the projection was for almost (cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). pc: right. rz: and then for napa city in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:882), the population projected was (cid:885)(cid:889)(cid:890),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). pc: can you imagine what that would have been like? talk about traffic patterns! rz: and what is the population today of napa city? i think it's about (cid:889)(cid:884),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882)? pc: i know it's under (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). that i do know, but i don't know exactly what it is. rz: pierce, i wondered if we could start with you just telling us a little bit about your years before you came to napa county. you grew up in new jersey? 48

pc: right, and i worked there. i went to school there. eventually i was drafted into the army, and i wound up in vietnam, where i met the editor of the napa valley register. he was our first civilian correspondent who spent a month with our unit  the first infantry division, the (cid:498)big red one(cid:499),(cid:883)(cid:882) writing stories for all of the newspapers in the scripps league, which owned the register, among other newspapers. rz: where was this in vietnam? pc: it was not far…the headquarters were not far from saigon  maybe. i'm not sure exact kilometers anymore, probably thirty kilometers from saigon. there were several units stationed around. they were the closest as far as big cities like saigon, and then the air force base was at bien hoa and there was a unit there. it was called saigon then, not ho chi minh city. and so, when i left vietnam, i had hoped to come to the west coast just to explore employment options. however, the flight that i went back to the states on was going to mcguire air force base in new jersey, which was thirteen miles from my home where i was raised. so i ended up being discharged there at fort dix, new jersey. it was the army base. then, looking for work, i wound up … i had a good friend who was personnel director at u.s. news and world report, but they weren't hiring anybody at the time, and so i ended up living in his apartment in georgetown in washington, dc. rz: and what year was this? pc: (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). i wound up with a job at american trucking associations, a trade association, and i put out a magazine bimonthly. when i had changed the typeface, the paper stock, and got a color photograph printed, it was time to go and move on. i mean, i wasn't interested in trucking. and i had a good army buddy who kept after me to come to california, and so i talked to him quite a bit. he actually drove back once to washington and spent some time there. at that trip i agreed that i would probably come out to california. so i called the napa register editor for some advice, and i said, (cid:498)i understand that jobs are easier to come by in the los angeles area, where i don't want to go, and they're a lot harder to come by in the san francisco area where i would like to go.(cid:499) my army friend had moved from la canada in southern california to san francisco, and san francisco was where it was happening  (cid:498)wear a flower in your hair(cid:499), et cetera. rz: was this the editor that you had known in vietnam? pc: yes. i called him. his name was ross game, and he remembered me right away and said, (cid:498)well how would you like to work for us?(cid:499) and i didn't know – i was kind of surprised. so he offered me a job at the lake tahoe newspaper, and i didn't know anything about lake tahoe, so i called the one guy that i had worked with on the army newspaper. rz: that's what you had done in the army? pc: yes. i was in the information office in the army in vietnam. i had come from an infantry outfit, but i had thankfully gotten into the information office before we all went to vietnam or i might not be sitting here today. anyway, i called this guy that i had served with, and he was also working for the scripps 49

league, because his stepfather was the regional vice president for the league's newspapers in california and oregon. i'm not sure, but maybe even in washington state, and he [the stepson] was headquartered in napa. so i spoke to my friend and he said, (cid:498)oh well, lake tahoe is nice. do you gamble?(cid:499) i said no. he said (cid:498)well, that's good.(cid:499) i didn't know there were resorts there, gambling. and he said, (cid:498)it's a beautiful area in the winter  the snow.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)snow? i'm not coming from the east coast to come to california for snow.(cid:499) so i decided that i would turn that down. plus my army friend that i had spoken to said, (cid:498)you know, you're more of a big city guy. i don't think you'd really like being out there in the wilderness,(cid:499) and i agreed with him on that point. so i called the next day to turn down that job, and the editor, ross game, was not at his desk. so the following day, when i called in the morning, the county beat reporter, joe bingham, had told ross that he was leaving for an associated press job. so when i got ahold of ross and said, (cid:498)i don't think tahoe is for me,(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)how about working in napa?(cid:499) and he had explained to me that someone had just resigned that morning. rz: and what was his beat? joins the napa register pc: well, what would have been in those days county government – the county government beat, basically. so i thought, don't look a gift horse in the mouth twice, and i accepted the job, and out i came in early june (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889). i told him i couldn't start until i had gone to my sister's college graduation. that was important for her. rz: where was that? pc: she was at a teachers(cid:495) college, east stroudsburg in pennsylvania, a good teaching school. and so i went to her graduation and then i grabbed my…i had a big trunk with all kinds of stuff in it, including some stuff from vietnam, and suitcase and out i came. my good army buddy drove me up here on the first sunday in june following what had been, i guess, a really stormy may. i guess it really impacted the wine industry. i just remember (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) was not a good crop. rz: and you were twenty‐seven years old? pc: twenty‐six, at that time. and so i came up here and stayed overnight at the editor's condo, at the silverado resort, and the next day i came to the office and he said, (cid:498)you're on the payroll  find a place to live,(cid:499) so i went out looking. the rest is history. then i worked in the office until maybe early august, just getting familiar with the area. we had an editor who wanted people to know how to spell street names, and to know the area. he had a summer intern covering some of the government stories at that point, and then i took over in august. not long after i took over that beat, the county administrator called me in to tell me that i was going to be covering a very important story, because the board of supervisors would be getting legislation called the (cid:498)ag preserve,(cid:499) and that was the first big story. rz: was this al haberger? pc: al haberger. he was the county administrator, and i believe he had arrived in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). i think he had taken that job, so he had been here about a year, i would say. rz: well, i just want to back up for a minute and find out, when you went to high school, were you always 50

interested in the possibility of being a journalist? pc: well, i was more interested in … television, which was new, and i liked radio and i was thinking along those lines, but when i went to temple university i didn't like the people. i thought there were too many egos, and that wasn't me. i wasn't interested in patting myself on the back and saying how wonderful i was. i was more interested in just doing the job, and i just didn't like the personalities of the people in tv, so i ended up doing some radio things, forgetting the television angle. temple university did work with a good tv station. in fact, the evening newscaster was a member of the faculty. the anchorman, i should say, was a member of the faculty at temple. i liked him, but i just didn't like the people, so then i got more involved with print, and, of course, when i went into the service that's exactly what i ended up doing. rz: where is temple located? pc: in philadelphia. rz: and you graduated with a degree in journalism? pc: no. communications was the overall major, and you could specialize in whatever you wanted to. i shifted from the tv focus, and i stayed in radio because they had a good radio station there, but finally i shifted to print. i was more interested in what was going on in the newspaper business. of course, it paid off, because i went into the service where the army [personnel office] puts down your job skills; they call it mos [military occupation specialties]. it's what your job is and they describe it. for instance, if i had been a professional cook, they have a number for that when they draft you. and so when they put down my job, they put (cid:498)none,(cid:499) because they didn't really have anything. i didn't even know that they had newspapers. i mean, i knew there was an overall army newspaper, a services newspaper, but i didn't know about the individual first infantry division paper. i don't know that many army units had a newspaper, but the (cid:498)big red one(cid:499) always had a paper. wherever they were, they had a newspaper. and when they left their base, even if it was a mimeograph sheet, it was a newspaper every day. so another guy and i went aboard a naval troop carrier and we put out a paper every day, getting just wire news, and we passed it out to all the guys on the ship. my job was twofold, to put together information about individual soldiers for their hometown newspapers or tv stations, and also to put out a weekly – to write for, and then eventually help edit, a weekly newspaper for the first infantry division. so all the soldiers in our division had access to a weekly paper, and it was not about the big war story; it was about them, individual stories and who got awards and, you know, funny things. human interest kind of stories, for example, a guy's life was spared because he was shot in the star of david. it deflected the bullet. another guy was afraid. he was a point man. so, on the patrols, the first guy is always called the (cid:498)point man.(cid:499) he's very skilled at seeing and sniffing out booby traps, those kinds of things, but he was afraid of large animals, and when i met him this was his third or fourth time being charged by a water buffalo. i guess when people are afraid of something they just would freeze, and here is this soldier with a weapon. he just would freeze, so his buddies would end up having to shoot these water buffalo whenever it happened. when i came upon him, there was a dead water buffalo just a few feet from him. so i just wrote a story about this guy, and i saw him a few months later, and of course, the story had made it to his hometown tv and newspaper, and he said, (cid:498)i'm going to kill you!(cid:499) but i think he liked the notoriety. 51

so those are the kinds of things we did, and then on the way over to vietnam i wrote scripts about each person we photographed. we didn't have a video camera; we had a film camera. we sent the film into the army hometown news center in kansas city, and then they would process it and send it to the closest tv station, because the war was big news then. it was (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888) and a lot of tv was not there. so in small towns, or medium‐sized towns where they had tv stations, they didn't have a lot [of news material] except for network footage, and you wonder how many times you're going to run that same footage. so when they got stuff from us of a guy working, digging out a foxhole, filling sandbags, doing things, or even being interviewed on the ship on the way over, they could run that. it wasn't sound, but it was film, and then i would write a script for that. that was my other job. you didn't have time to think about the war. the only time i saw combat, i remember once … a sniper's bullet went very close to the ear. but one time i was just riding in this communications jeep. i was writing some stories about this search and destroy mission, and i also was responsible for getting professional journalists to where they wanted to go with units. so i'm riding in this communications jeep, and i just thought, you know, this is a target. if there's anybody out there that wants to pick off somebody, it's the communications jeep and the guy with the headphones, so i got out and walked. i didn't ride anymore after that. rz: so were you drafted right out of temple as soon as you graduated? pc: basically. i worked for a while, but once they see that deferment they want to get you right away. and of course, i don't think a lot of people were thinking about vietnam, but maybe the military was. military service rz: what year were you drafted? pc: (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886). rz: so you served two full years? pc: yes, just two years. i went into the service, and of course, i went to basic training right in my home area, fort dix, new jersey. it was thirteen miles from my home, and then they decided they were going to send us to infantry training, and half of us were going to go to fort carson and half to fort riley. i told the guys i was with, (cid:498)well, guys, we're going to go to fort riley. i hope you like kansas.(cid:499) they said, (cid:498)how do you know?(cid:499) (cid:498)because,(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)the military will never send carson to carson,(cid:499) – and i was right. so i went to kansas. i was with an infantry unit. i got picked up by a small squad within the infantry group that had a nuclear warhead missile, and i was given a security clearance, and they said, (cid:498)you'll be with this unit forever, because once you get that clearance they don't want to let you go.(cid:499) and then i was involved with a theater group on the base. they had a small theater group, and i met some of the people in the theater group. one night we were at a bowling alley, and one of the guys said, (cid:498)what's your background?(cid:499) and i told him. he said, (cid:498)we have an opening in our office  the information office in the radio section. would you be interested? i'll tell the colonel about you.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)yes!(cid:499) so i guess a colonel can trump a sergeant, but anyway they had me come up and interview, and then the colonel said he wanted me. rz: but now, that was in the radio division. 52

pc: that was in the radio division but …once we knew we were going to vietnam, then the jobs change, so the colonel had you do this and then you do that. a lot of the coverage of the war itself would be done by professionals, you know, commercial guys. and so our mission was to support that, and so i didn't do a lot of radio things. in fact, we didn't really have much sound for the film we shot, and then there was a newspaper. so i basically wrote for the newspaper and took care of correspondence for the first four months. rz: and when were you sent to vietnam? pc: in september of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887). i was there until late june of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), and then i went to washington, dc first. i went to the…trucking association and then moved to napa the following year in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). arrival in napa rz: before you arrived, there was a conference in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). it was sponsored by the u.c. extension and it was on the issue of urbanization. i would like to name a few people that you may have met when you first arrived. lowell eddington? pc: yes, i knew lowell. rz: was he with the upper napa valley associates (cid:523)unva(cid:524)? pc: he was also the county's representative to the golden gate bridge highway and transportation district. rz: was that after he served on the board of supervisors? pc: yes. he was that rep for a long time. the board just kept him in that capacity. lowell eddington was small in stature but really a big, forward thinker, a very sharp farmer. he grew grapes; he knew agriculture very well. i think he had also been on the fair board as a farmer, which was an appointed position, i believe, by the governor's staff. there's a county fair in calistoga, and then there's the town and country fair here in napa, and i think he served in napa. he had also served on the board of supervisors, but i didn't know him at that point. then, when i came here, he was on the golden gate bridge board of directors. napa county was one of the counties that floated bonds to build the bridge in the (cid:495)(cid:885)(cid:882)s. that's why there was a separate agency for all these counties. i guess san francisco and marin couldn't do it alone, so they asked these other counties if they would also come on board. i guess the representatives were based on the population base – like san francisco, i think, had five members where napa county had one. del norte county was another; mendocino; so it went, right up the state. rz: was lowell eddington, a strong supporter of the ag preserve, helpful to you as a cub reporter? you had to figure out the lay of the land and the land use issue that was looming? pc: yes. i remember him maybe not so much in land use issues at first. i remember him being the board's rep on the golden gate bridge board, and also his wife worked at the register. she was a city and a cops reporter for the napa valley register, so i got to know the eddingtons real well. 53

rz: and what was her name? pc: astrid, and i loved working with her, and lowell always called her "my blond." she was very fair. i went to their home a lot. when i had visitors from all over the country i always asked permission to bring them to the eddington home in oakville. was it on bella oaks lane, i think? i'm not positive anymore. anyway, we'd go up there and lowell was great about giving a tour, talking about winemaking, and then educating the palate a little bit with some wines that he knew. rz: he was a grower, not a winemaker? pc: no. more often than not we would drink a little bit of martini wine, and maybe some inglenook or beringer, you know, some of the wineries that were here, well established. but there was a wine that martini made, which i believe they still do to this day, although it's not well known. it's called moscato amabile, and it's a slightly sparkling wine. they didn't make a lot of it because of this crazy taxation; because it was sparkling they would have to pay a champagne tax and on and on and on. so lowell used it as an opportunity to show people who didn't have a wine palate how you could get into the wine drinking business by drinking something a little sweet, then semi‐dry and then dry white wine, and then working your way into light‐bodied reds, medium‐ bodied and then finally to a cabernet. he was a great educator about wine. rz: and where did he sell his grapes? do you remember? pc: i don't remember to whom, but i'm sure it had to be to inglenook or beringer, you know, one of the established winemakers. beginnings of ag preserve rz: now, between (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) and (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) the county was drafting language for an agricultural preserve. so that had been going on before you arrived? pc: yes, but i didn't know anything about that until al harberger, the county administrator, called me into his office. i went down to pick up the weekly board agenda, and then, because i was new to the county, he always asked me to come into office when i picked up the agenda. he would just tell me about some things that i might want to write about as an advance on the tuesday meeting, so that in saturday's paper or monday's paper we would have a story about what the board was going to discuss on tuesday. the time that i went in that august  whatever the day was  he said, (cid:498)we have an important issue coming up, the ag preserve.(cid:499) then he tried to tell me what it was about, but it went in one ear and out the other, because i had never covered any kind of information about it, and i didn't know what he was talking about. rz: well, it was a pretty complicated issue and you had just arrived. pc: and obviously, i didn't do a good job of writing about it, because they put it on the front page of the back section of the paper on a saturday. but that was because i didn't understand it, and i think i just reiterated what the ordinance said. if you're reading an ordinance, it's not very enlightening. this was just legislation, and it was going to do this and this and this, and that's it, basically. until the hearings began, i really didn't know the importance of the issue. 54

rz: and so this was the proposed ordinance? pc: yes, the first copies. i know that the proposed ordinance was calling for forty‐acre minimum lots. they eventually compromised and made it twenty, but it was calling for forty‐acre minimums and those kinds of things. felix vanderschoot was the chairman of the napa county planning commission, and felix was very good  as were other members of that body  in educating a young reporter about land use. and so they would often talk to me at the meetings, on breaks, even getting together [at other times] to talk and help me understand. then when harold gilliam [author and former columnist for the san francisco chronicle] wrote about the ag preserve, vanderschoot said that this man really understood the goal of it and that i should read his article. i don't think i ever met him, but the chronicle had some people that really  and i'm not bad‐mouthing the current columnists  but in those days, i think there were some pretty good people that came to newspapering because of their specialty, rather than being journalists trying to tackle issues that they were interested in. for instance, margot patterson doss used to write about the bay area  i think it was called (cid:498)about your feet(cid:499)  and she walked everywhere, and she wrote columns about where she walked and what people could see. so there were writers like that, and of course stan delaplane was a great columnist, and herb caen. delaplane had funny columns. he tackled bay area issues and he was a humorist, as was herb caen. so there were a lot of people like that and there was always something to read, especially on sunday. other county issues rz: so you had to get up to speed pretty quickly, because things were happening very fast in the county at that time. pc: and it [the ag preserve] wasn't the only issue. there were lots of things going on besides that, you know, on a weekly basis. i was covering the board of supervisors as well as the police beat, which was shared by three people. i covered the sheriff's department, including any cases that they investigated. i covered the courts, so i did trials. i covered the weekly sentencing hearings for the napa county courts. also, we had a justice court in those days, so every friday there were sentencings and drunk drivers and all those kinds of things, and the planning commission with all their issues, and the napa county local agency formation commission, which met, i think, once a month. then i also covered the league of municipalities, because it was my one opportunity to go every three months to a meeting in which there were city representatives. once in a while i would fill in for somebody to cover the city of napa, but i never covered st. helena or yountville or calistoga, and those reps would come to these meetings, and it was usually a dinner meeting. they'd meet around various places, so i would go to those meetings. and then i also covered the chamber of commerce and the economic development council. so all those organizations met, but this county was not very big yet, and so there weren't that many issues that you had to follow on a weekly or daily basis. rz: but it was a lot to cover. pc: oh, yes. i can remember staying up all night covering an election, and then going with the editor to breakfast and then going right to court to cover that. i couldn't skip it. there was a trial, so i just found out 55

planning commission members what they were going to do in the afternoon. the morning was interesting, so i eventually got to sleep in the afternoon. rz: well now, the county started its hearings in the fall of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) for the napa county planning commission. so you covered those hearings? pc: yes, and there was another guy that i worked with, and the two of us covered the hearings. at least i always read his stuff, if i didn't cover that particular hearing. rz: and what was his name? pc: i don't remember, i'm sorry. he was probably a little older than i, in his late twenties or early thirties. his name was jim something but i don't remember his last name. rz: now, vernon cotter was the planning director? pc: yes. rz: what was he like? pc: well, vern was pretty quiet. he wasn't a real forceful guy. he was a good staff person, and i think he was a hard‐working guy. he wasn't a great public speaker, so perhaps that(cid:495)s why one doesn't remember him as much as, for instance, the man who followed – jim hickey [then regional planning director for abag, and later director of the napa county conservation, development and planning department from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891)], who is a very good public speaker. cotter had a planning commission that was pretty vocal. he had felix vanderschoot, who was a very good chairman. he could keep a meeting in control, and he also had don mcfarland and andy pelissa.(cid:883)(cid:883) these were members of the commission at the time, and george blaufuss was a napa businessman. george blaufuss, don mcfarland, andy pelissa, felix vanderschoot, kent ingalls from calistoga, and there was another man from up valley, but i've just lost his name. eric borgwardt was assistant planning director [under vernon cotter, the director] and eric was very [direct]… you asked him an opinion and you got it. whether you wanted to hear it or not, he told you what he thought. he was very forthright, and i think he was also one you needed at these hearings, because once people got a little testy, felix [chairman of the all‐volunteer county planning commission] needed someone from the county staff to back him up now and then. rz: what about aldo delfino, the county agricultural commissioner? pc: i don't recall if, during the planning commission hearings, the county staff members were there as often. i remember al haberger asking other staff, the department heads, to come to public hearings, but i don't know whether they were at the board of supervisors hearings or the planning commission hearings. i know that george abate [county assessor] did come to the planning commission hearings, because he was the guy that said something that stuck in my mind that i couldn't ever forget, because it just made so much sense. 56

he just kept saying that he was surprised that there so much opposition from old‐timers, because he said he thought they were smart enough to realize that this land in napa county would eventually be much more valuable as ag land than it would ever be as potential land for homes. he just said it made sense, and he talked about grapes and so forth and so on, but apparently a lot of people didn't believe that the future of the valley was in grapes, or they were skeptical and they didn't want to have their hands tied. they still believed that if push came to shove, and they needed some cash, they should be able to sell off a piece of land. rz: and do you remember a lot of angry testimony? pc: yes. there were quite a few people that were regulars at all the hearings. ag preserve supporters & opponents rz: who were some of them? pc: the mee brothers. ellwood was one, and i don't remember if there was another. rz: he was against it. pc: yes. rz: george mee was actually a member of an earlier generation; his father or grandfather. pc: i remember ellwood. rz: what about the galleron brothers? pc: yes, the gallerons. rz: now weren't they split? pc: i don't recall. and, of course, the most famous one of all was the owner of inglenook, john daniel. he would get red in the face. i remember the debate with state assemblyman john dunlap on channel (cid:891), and he was just livid about this happening. there was a lot of name‐calling and finger‐pointing. i'm just trying to think. louis stralla(cid:883)(cid:884) had been in the business a long time; he was very much opposed, and so was ben skillings. rz: who was ben skillings? pc: he was also a grower, and i think some of these guys were involved with the [st. helena grape growers(cid:495)] co‐op. i don(cid:495)t know who was the president and who was involved. there were a couple of co‐ops here at the time. i wasn't up on all the politics behind the scenes with all these guys. there was another [grower]. bianchini was another guy that was an opponent. rz: now, let's say someone like john daniel – his primary argument was that he wanted to reserve the right to be able to subdivide his land? 57

pc: that was one. i think he just didn't like government interference. i really think that was one of his big issues. rz: property rights advocate. pc: right, exactly. he just felt that some of these guys were just dreaming that the future of agriculture would just be all grapes, and so it was difficult. personally, i was always surprised there was so much opposition, because i thought well, isn't that what these farmers want to do? they want to have their land. i thought it sounded like great protection, and then [especially] when the williamson act was talked about, and for twenty years it was protected. i just thought, wow, what's the big deal? that was kind of what i heard, because there was a lawsuit after the enactment [of the ag preserve]. it didn't go any further than superior court. they never appealed it beyond that. [superior court judge] judge kongsgaard said to me, after it was all said and done … obviously, he couldn(cid:495)t sit on that case, so i guess whoever appoints judges to come and sit, sent this gentleman from sonoma county. so judge kongsgaard told me that he had asked this judge that when he ruled, to call me into his chambers and explain his ruling to me, because judge kongsgaard always did that. he was very good about that. so this judge agreed. when it was all done, and he had ruled, and i went in to talk to him, he looked at me and said, (cid:498)what was all the fuss about? i don't understand.(cid:499) this seemed like such a good deal, and he was just basically ruling on did they do it right, and what did they follow? rz: are you referring to the suit that gets filed later after the county ordinance for an agricultural preserve was passed? pc: yes, yes. rz: the suit wasn't resolved until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883). but first i wanted to ask you about the two groups of hearings. there were the hearings by the napa county planning commission, which then sent their recommendation to the board of supervisors, which had their own hearings? pc: right. rz: do you remember a difference in the two groups of hearings, or were they pretty much the same? pc: no, they were the same. there didn't seem to be a lot of proponents stepping up to the plate initially. i don't recall, but finally when the opposition got so strong and people were being pretty boisterous and making threats, even louis martini issued a statement and thought that they were all wet. bob mondavi got involved. people really came forward then. they felt the need to tell the board that they supported their efforts, and i think that was the only major difference, other than more and more people would show up. i think initially one of the st. helena hearings had a lot of people, and george abate [napa county tax assessor] recalls that the opponents [at that meeting] sat on one side [of the room] and the proponents on the other. i don't know whether this is his recollection or mine. i guess somebody told george he better be careful that night when he went by himself, because somebody didn't like things he had been saying. abate was just there to provide facts and background. [when] people asked a question, they'd say, (cid:498)well, you're county hearings on preserve 58

going to lower my property values if this goes through,(cid:499) and he said, (cid:498)no, i'm going to raise them.(cid:499) but then they didn't want to hear that! so the county department heads were as honest as they could be…i don't think the wool was pulled over anybody's eyes to get them to vote. it was practical, and the fact was, if we don't protect agriculture we won't have it. that was basically the message of what i remember, and i couldn't imagine why a lot of people didn't buy that. of course, i didn't know county government. i wasn't suspicious of elected officials, so i didn't really have any background that would make me think otherwise. i was just looking at it. our goal was to provide coverage; you could read the next day, and you could hear what everybody said. we didn't … rz: you didn't take a stand? pc: no, no, no. maybe editorially… i'm not sure if we ever took a stand when the board voted. i don't recall, but i wasn't involved in those decisions, and today they do have an editorial board that meets and includes some members of the staff, but in those days if there was an editorial, [only] the editor wrote it. he didn't ask us or anyone else. maybe he read our stories, but he didn't ask us. rz: what was your first impression, just learning how county government worked? were you impressed with napa county government? pc: i think i was, because al harberger was such a good guy, and he couldn(cid:495)t hide things. plus we ended up having fun. he would hide in the county budget every year a chunk of money that they would put in there that would go for raises, but they didn't want to let the staff know that it was in there so they could negotiate. so my job was, obviously, to look over everything, and i would find it every year. he would laugh and he would say, (cid:498)damn it, i can't hide that.(cid:499) well, you know, there'd be something in there, like for the airport. there would be some huge figure for some project and i'd say, (cid:498)what's this airport project?(cid:499) and he'd go, (cid:498)oh you've done it again.(cid:499) i mean, i'm not bragging about myself, but my job was to go through the budget and ask questions if i didn't understand it, and i didn't understand a damn thing. i was always asking questions. rz: so you mean, in that case, he was hiding it under an airport project? pc: yes. it was really the money that was going to go [for raises]. i mean, they would transfer it out once they'd had a meeting and they negotiated what the raises would be, but in order to put the budget together, he had to put anything in there, so they weren't adding money later. that was funny! i got to know al's family, and the fact that i was single, i went to their home all the time  i mean, for thanksgiving i went there a lot. rz: now, where did they live? pc: on big ranch road. i think pat still lives there today, and al's son, mark, has a farm – big ranch farms on big ranch road. he 's the guy that does all the beautiful tomatoes at the farmers(cid:495) markets. so i went out there. they always had people from japan airlines when they came here and put in their school at the airport. there were people from jal who went to the habergers for thanksgiving dinner. they always opened up their home to people. rz: and he was a real straight‐shooter? 59

pc: yep. i was amazed at him, because i guess i'm a lot more tactful, but al would give you a straight answer if you asked the question. rz: was he likable? pc: yes, yes. i'm sure some people didn't like him, maybe because he was too straight a shooter, but i like that in someone, and he was very helpful to me, and so i got along very well. i understand, working at the newspaper, often people wanted to know me because maybe they had an ulterior motive, so i understand that, but i never looked at somebody in that frame of mind, because it doesn't take very long for you to figure that out. rz: yes, it shows. pc: yes, it really does. the county staff was great, and the guy who preceded me, before he left, took me to meet all of these various department heads. he explained to me the fact that the county clerk and the treasurer and the tax collector, and the assessor – they all got together, maybe not every afternoon, but more often than not they had coffee together, and joe bigham, my predecessor [at the newspaper] would go meet with them. i was always invited, so i would go, not as often as he did, but he always said it was good. they'd sit around and talk, and sometimes there would be some good story ideas generated. rz: and this was at the county offices? pc: no. they always went to a coffee shop in downtown napa. rz: do you remember the name of it? pc: no, i don't. i don't remember it. rz: so that was a very good way to get information and get to know people. pc: yes, and people were great. judges were great; you couldn't imagine. i mean, i went to a judicial conference at berkeley years after i started here, and some of the issues concerned dealing with, and talking with, the judges, and when it came my turn in the circle of people to talk, and i said i was from napa county [they said], (cid:498)oh, you've got [napa superior court judge, department two] kongsgaard.(cid:499) because he was terrific with the press. he just said, (cid:498)there is no such thing as a closed door,(cid:499) and if there was, maybe there was a reason, because it was in the statute, and he believed in keeping open communication. we had two [superior court] departments in those days. now there are four or five departments. rz: so it sounds like you were lucky, because there were a lot of county officials who were helpful. pc: yes, it was terrific. they were very helpful, and i never had … people didn't say no. wade shifflett was the justice court judge, and one of his sons is a doctor, but one is a grape grower now, and his widow, olga, is still living here in napa. he was great. he would call me in and go over things, and ask my opinion and kibitz. the sheriff, earl randall, was terrific. obviously that was part of my beat at the time, so i really didn't know the police chief as well, or the head of the highway patrol, because they were divided up, but the sheriff was great. i'm not bad‐mouthing other investigative agencies, but i think the sheriff's department was terrific, because they realized that the radio reporter, pat stanley, who also has worked 60

at the register here since he left the radio station, and i were covering the same things at the sheriff's department. there seemed to be several issues in those early days  big cases, murder cases, things like that  that the detectives in charge could call us in on. they could tell us everything and say, (cid:498)you can use this and this and this, and not the rest.(cid:499) we would argue, (cid:498)well, please let us use that,(cid:499) but if we lost and they said no, we didn't use it. so once we had that trust, then sometimes our stories were even better, because we had the background. so there were some very good people that worked here. rz: and what was the radio station? pc: it's kvon, the am station. this is before they had the fm. rz: so first the ordinance gets passed. that's april (cid:891)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), by a (cid:886) to (cid:882) vote from the board of supervisors. and now i wanted to talk to you a little bit about that lawsuit. pc: ok. and you know why it was (cid:886)‐(cid:882); you know that background. rz: no. was it that pete clark that didn't vote? pc: right. rz: because? pc: he was ill and he missed the first part of the public hearing, so at first there was the thought that he could catch up by listening to the tape recording, and the county counsel thought that may not be a good idea. so he advised him against voting, but no one knew. they didn't know how the others were going to vote. rz: oh, they didn't? pc: no. and so i think it was … i think jack ferguson said it at just the recent celebration last year, that he did ask somebody, because he just was concerned about pete and what was going to happen, but the board, they didn't pressure one another. rz: they really didn't know what the other one was going to do? pc: well, i think they realized that henry wigger was going to vote for the ag preserve. yes, henry was. rz: yes. the members were henry wigger, jack l. ferguson, julius caiocca, dewey andersen and pete clark. pc: right. rz: so it was obvious that henry wigger was going to vote. 61

the contentious vote pc: yes, and i think they thought dewey [andersen] would, but they weren't sure. i think jack [ferguson] maybe asked dewey that day, but they thought, because of the constituency up valley, that juli [julius] caiocca [chairman, board of supervisors] might not vote for it, and i don't know what he was thinking that morning or that afternoon, but i saw the confrontation outside. they went and they met in the city council chambers, because there were so many people and the boardroom was very small. they met in the city council chambers, and outside the courtroom a couple of the guys, up‐valley guys, got in juli's face, and one of them was thumping his chest with a finger, you know, (cid:498)you'll do this and blah, blah, blah,(cid:499) and when it came time for the vote, juli said something to the effect  i don(cid:495)t know his exact words now  but it was, (cid:498)never threaten me! don't thump me in the chest and threaten me with what i ought to do!(cid:499) and with that he said (cid:498)aye,(cid:499) and i think everybody was just flabbergasted. he and andy [andrew] pelissa [member, county planning commission] took a lot of guff from the up‐valley guys. they wouldn't associate with them. farmers that had been friends just wouldn't talk to them. i don't know if they hurt them financially … let's see, did juli have [the] insurance [business] at the time? i think maybe some people canceled [their] insurance. rz: yes, he ran an insurance business. pc: so there were repercussions because of their votes. rz: and andy pelissa? pc: was a farmer. rz: and he was up‐valley as well? pc: yes, yountville. as you come to yountville, and you notice there's a huge hill there by the traffic signal – that's called (cid:498)pelissa hill,(cid:499) because he had cattle and so forth. he had cattle up in colusa as well, but grapes and cattle here. rz: so that was a pretty brave thing of them to do. pc: yes, and they used to call them names at the planning commission hearings. rz: what was julius caiocca like? pc: he was a very fun, a serious man when he had to be, but he loved socializing. he was called the (cid:498)dancing supervisor.(cid:499) he was a great dancer, i'm told. i saw him dance a few times, but not that often, but i understood they took their wives and went to meetings, social things where there was a dinner involved and dancing. once a year they'd have this or that and that, he was a great … he'd be dancing all night. a great, great guy. you could say it was the good ol' boy network, but it was in the good sense. i mean, they were friends and …they often invited me to go with them to lunch. i didn't go as often as i might have liked, because it was always just a good opportunity to know people better. they didn't talk county business. they knew about the brown act(cid:883)(cid:885), and they had a couple of occasions a staff member had gotten them in executive session. 62

in the old days, you could hear into the law library from the boardroom, and a couple of times we heard some of the things that were being said, so i confronted the board chairman a couple of times and said, (cid:498)we overheard it. we'll just overlook it. we'll overlook it now but, you know, if you continue to do that we'll blow the whistle on the brown act.(cid:499) they knew we were serious, but yet we could be friends. he said, (cid:498)you're absolutely right, we should have stopped.(cid:499) one time it was the county clerk, and he went from a matter that could be discussed into something else and [that] he shouldn(cid:495)t have, but anyway they were terrific. rz: and what do you remember about jack ferguson? now, he's still alive. pc: yes, jack's living in hawaii. rz: you've interviewed him by telephone. pc: right, and then i saw him when he was here. yes, he was great. he was an attorney, also always had an open door. his offices were right next to henry wigger's – the treadway & wigger funeral home on coombs street. jack was right on the corner, right across from where the library is today. that was his office. rz: and was he a one‐man office? pc: yes. over the years i think he might have had an associate or two working with him, but to me it was always just jack. i didn't even meet with anybody else, but he was … all of the members of the board were easy to deal with. without naming names, i had one incident in which i was asking… there was a time when they were talking about making kind of a super agency to handle welfare issues, social issues, health and all those kinds of things, and they(cid:495)d have a new brand of employee. this came out of haberger and the director of public health and somebody else, and it was on the agenda. i just said it didn't seem to make a lot of sense. what would the job description be for these super workers? and so a member of the board who had some other things to do, obviously, said to me, (cid:498)if you want to ask mr. haberger these questions, why don't you wait until the meeting is over?(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)well, since you have to vote on this issue, why don't i ask you?(cid:499) with that the chairman said, (cid:498)i don't think we have enough information, so let's put this off,(cid:499) and it never came back. it never came back. once in a while, i think, as a representative of the media, we do kind of stick our nose in there for the general public. in that case it worked. rz: with a good outcome. pc: yes. it might have been a great deal, but it wasn't really flushed out, and somebody wanted to ram this through. i'm not saying al haberger did. maybe it was the public health director, but he's no longer with us so i won't…you can't speak ill of the dead. rz: now, what do you remember about dewey andersen? pc: dewey was a really conscientious – is a conscientious guy. he's still with us. i thought he was a great supervisor. he knew how to conduct meetings. he was levelheaded; he had good business sense. i believe he and his father  i'm not positive  but i know he had a garage for a while. 63

rz: an auto repair. pc: yes, i think so. i really knew him more as someone who worked in real estate, and also had a wonderful horse farm and his daughter was a great, let me get it right, is it dressage? i guess that is the correct term. rz: yes, yes. pc: so, because i had never been around horses, i actually went with the andersens a couple of times to events and competitions and awards ceremonies and things like that. rz: he had a big horse farm? pc: yes, on, i think, it's wyatt avenue but it's in coombsville. i'd been to the house. joyce andersen loved cooking. rz: that's his wife? pc: yes. she passed away, i'm not sure how long ago, cancer. she was a great cook and she loved to do corned beef and cabbage, and i loved it, and so whenever she did it she always called me, so i used to go. i used to go to the supervisors(cid:495) homes once in a while. i mean, we were good friends, but like i said, if i had to call them on something i wasn't afraid to do it, because they respected my business, and i certainly respected them and they were just really nice people. i supported dewey in his bid for re‐election when john tuteur won, but i mean, that didn't stop me from being a good friend of john's. rz: it wasn't held against you. pc: no, no, no. and it was not personal. it wasn't the paper's point of view, although i think the paper may have supported dewey. rz: but nobody held grudges? pc: no, no. rz: and it wasn't awkward? pc: nope, not at all. i got to know john really well, and other members, such as ginny simms, as [new] people came [to the board of supervisors]  a lot of people. ed bernard succeeded jack ferguson at the election following the ag preserve, because a lot of people who didn't like the ag preserve voted for ed, thinking ed would get into office and help reverse it or do something. ed bernard was a district (cid:884) supervisor who lived in rutherford. he was a really nice guy…he was a guy who questioned things, and also somebody who liked to get together, to have dinner together, and do things with other members of the board, and go to regional meetings. i went several times with dewey and ed to meetings of the association of bay area governments, which is where dewey and ed first met jim hickey. and so they enticed jim away from his job in regional government to come to napa. rz: it was a good choice and i want to talk about jim in a minute, but first, pete clark. he's the last one of 64

the board of supervisors we haven't really talked about. pc: i didn't know pete as well, because i believe he lived up at lake berryessa or up that way… he may have lived here closer to town, but he was more private and more of an old‐timer, i should say. the other guys were a lot younger than he was. maybe juli was closest to pete, but i didn't know pete that well, and then pete left the board not long after the ag preserve was passed. he was succeeded by [land use attorney] joe peatman.(cid:883)(cid:886) opponents file lawsuit rz: now, what do you remember about the lawsuit that was filed against the ag preserve? one of the people was john daniel, and another was named solari? pc: that's the initial man. that's larry solari.(cid:883)(cid:887) i think everybody called him larry. his son‐in‐law is the attorney today who actually went to [the ag preserve(cid:495)s (cid:886)(cid:882)th anniversary] celebration and was talking about the good aspects of the ag preserve, but he was the guy who represented them [daniel and solari] in the lawsuit. rz: solari was? pc: no, the son‐in‐law, i'm pretty sure, of solari. rz: represented his father‐in‐law? pc: yes, and the whole group. he was the attorney. i've just forgotten his name. he was at the celebration. he's a grower today. rz: now that's not dan york? pc: no, dan was county counsel. rz: steve hackett? pc: steve hackett succeeded dan york as county counsel. rz: ok, you can't remember. i thought there was a san francisco law firm that was representing them. pc: yes. rz: oh, so the son‐in‐law was with the san francisco law firm? pc: yes, and i'm sorry i've just forgotten his name. i can see his face and it just escapes me. he's in the articles. he was a fairly young man at the time. rz: and what do you remember of b. c. solari or (cid:498)larry(cid:499) solari? pc: i didn't know him at all. i just knew he was an opponent. 65

rz: and cameron baker was another opponent? pc: that's the attorney. cameron baker is the attorney.(cid:883)(cid:888) rz: oh, he's the son‐in‐law? pc: yes. rz: ok. so he was with a san francisco law firm? pc: yes. what was the judge's name, now? let's see. i've forgotten. rz: now you're talking about a napa county judge? pc: no, the judge who ruled on the lawsuit was from sonoma county. rz: this is what i don't understand. so a lawsuit was filed in napa county and … pc: and the two [local] judges recused themselves. rz: oh, kongsgaard. pc: and blanckenburg. rz: and blanckenburg…what was blanckenburg's first name? pc: william. rz: so kongsgaard and william blanckenburg recused themselves. and then what happened? pc: and then i believe it's the judicial council who appoints someone to come and preside. rz: and that was a judge from sonoma? pc: yes, i'm pretty sure he was from sonoma. i think it's the judge that everybody called the (cid:498)hanging judge,(cid:499) because he would come over here and do criminal cases and they would say, (cid:498)oh, my god, if he's doing a criminal case, look out,(cid:499) but that was kind of something they said behind his back; he was a fine judge. kongsgaard really liked him. i can't remember his name right now. i'm sorry. rz: so the judges recused themselves because they were too involved. pc: well, they figured nobody would want them to do the suit because they knew everybody on both sides of the issue, so it's better to have somebody from out of the area. that's what this judge [from sonoma] did. he just came in and looked at all the material. i don't recall going to the hearings very much, because they were pretty technical about, did they follow this, and did they do that, and were the ordinances followed, you know – all those kinds of things – and that's what the judge then said to me after ordinance upheld in lawsuit 66

he ruled. he said that they had followed the law. i think they were challenging various aspects of whether they were in compliance when they did this, this and this, because obviously they couldn't stop somebody from enacting new legislation just on its face. rz: yes. pc: and so they were challenging how they did it, and the judge said they did it perfectly. there were no problems with how the county followed it. i think he may even have said off the record that not allowing pete clark to vote was smart, you know, things like that. rz: yes, because it could have been a problem otherwise. pc: right. rz: so that was in superior court. pc: yes. rz: and the judge upheld the order. pc: yes. he said that they had followed the letter of the law, and the ordinance was enacted as they did it. rz: and there was no appeal. pc: no, they never … they could have but they never did. i think they realized that they had lost. rz: yes. that's where it gets confused, because some people that i've interviewed weren't sure, and thought that it had been appealed. pc: no, it was never appealed. i know that. i know that for a fact, because i think you have to do it within a certain amount of time, and nothing was ever filed. certainly, if you're talking to anybody, cameron baker would know whether or not he filed an appeal. that would be the end of that argument because he was their attorney. rz: now, through all this time, do you remember talking at all to dorothy erskine, who was so influential? pc: no. rz: no. well now, the next thing i wanted to ask you is, it's (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885) and there are two new members of the board of supervisors, john tuteur and ginny simms, and they became very involved in sort of the aftermath of the ag preserve. i wonder what you remember about that, in a sense of raising the twenty acres on the valley floor to forty acres, and then talking about the watershed. pc: i think it just all seemed to fall in line. i don't think there was much opposition. i think by that time it seemed that it was a good thing, and i don't think there was … there could have been some opposition with people not wanting to make the parcel minimums larger, but i don't recall that there was any kind of napa airport controversy 67

stink. people seemed to … well, you've seen the votes that we've had for various environmental ordinances, and they always pass by pretty good margins. so i don't think we've ever had anything. i mean, we had issues with the airport. you know, they wanted to allow some larger jets to land, and when japan airlines came, and all the issues. rz: oh, i didn't know that. pc: yes, there were environmental issues involved there, and that's how the compromise came about that the wheel loading of the runways would allow emergency landings of, let's say a (cid:889)(cid:885)(cid:889) or i'm not sure now the plane, but they couldn't take off again with a full load. they couldn't put in passengers. they wouldn't have enough runway, so that's how they allowed… the idea was to make sure that japan airlines could make use of that facility for training. rz: oh, they were using it for training. pc: they have a training facility there. rz: they still do? pc: yes, as far as i know. they have the building once you come down that road. of course, there's so much building down there you can't tell, but they were closest to the airport building, just off the right of that main airport. rz: this is napa county airport. pc: yes, and so they wanted to have the ability to touch and go with jets, but small jets. but they wanted to improve the … there was a discussion about improving the runways, and there were a lot of people that were afraid that it could become a north bay hub for commercial airlines. so that was an organization called roar. i don't remember what it stood for. rz: so the organization that was against jets being able to use the airport was called roar? was this in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)s? pc: yes, and they were very successful, and john tuteur supported them. they were against commercial jets. but anyway, there have always been people conscious about the environment, and i think it just grew after the passage of the ag preserve. i mean, more and more people were concerned, and we wouldn't have grapes here today if they haven't done that. and i'm surprised that sonoma county never passed [a similar ag preserve]… i think they've done something there, and so i think they may have some williamson act contracts, but nothing like this. rz: and how do you account for that? what do you think? pc: i don't know. sonoma county, my impression has been they have never been organized. there are different grower groups and vintner groups, but there was never one cohesive group, and i guess maybe because the county is larger or maybe because they just can't ever see eye to eye. i don't know what the reason is, because even today i think there's a couple of different auctions there. there's the valley of the moon group and then there's the sonoma valley group and the alexander valley. they have the appellations, the avas, designated, but it just doesn't seem to be [as] cohesive. 68

rz: kind of more splintered. pc: yes, really. rz: very interesting. so i wanted to ask you how you've been involved in the issues that have followed the passage of the ag preserve. for instance, the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) growth limit which limited growth in the unincorporated areas. pc: i haven't been involved at all, because i didn't cover it. one of the editors here said, you know, i'd covered the board and the county government for twelve years, and then courts i did full‐time for six years, and so he just said, (cid:498)time to get another voice,(cid:499) because you get tired. rz: yes, of course. pc: you do the same thing and you get a little lackadaisical and so it's probably not good. i could fill in for people, and i've done that … but i shy away from politics … they get a little nasty. rz: do you think it's changed? pc: yes, i do. rz: you do? that's interesting. pc: well, i think the ag preserve was a good old‐fashioned fight, one side against the other, but i think today there's a lot of dirty politics and, you know, pushing money around and guys kind of coming in. i've just seen these various campaigns where they won't tell you who they're representing. come on, just be up front about it, and you don't have to bring in muscle from southern california. rz: you mean sort of lobbyists? pc: yes, for causes. rz: candidates or causes. pc: yes, and putting together financial campaigns, and there's so much money sometimes raised. i'm just not interested. rz: well, now you're covering food and wine. pc: right, right. judge kongsgaard always said, (cid:498)i think you're better off. you're doing something you enjoy,(cid:499) and he said you don't need any more of that political stuff. then he'd say, (cid:498)but we'd sure love to have you back in the court,(cid:499) because i enjoyed covering courts. it was fun. it was difficult, because you go early in the morning and you go home when everybody else goes home, but then you have to write a story. it makes for long days, but they were always … it was always interesting cases. rz: and you've been covering food and wine then, for how long? pc: boy. oh, i'd say probably at least twenty years, if not longer. 69

rz: you're a prolific writer. how many articles do you write, let's say, in a week? pc: i don't know, it just depends. i work with another member of the staff and we kind of are the features section so we're responsible for…we may not write everything on these pages but we're responsible for … right now, tuesday is food; wednesday would be the arts day, the arts pages; thursday we have a calendar, but we also can put some features there if we need. let's see … of course, friday is the wine page in the feature section, and then saturday is kind of the environment, gardening, you know, those kinds of things. so that's four days a week that we're responsible for those pages, although i don't do anything on the saturday gardening pages, usually. i mean, we have other writers and columnists, but i'm writing about wine on fridays. today being tuesday, i wrote a column about … we call it taste of the valley. it's usually about restaurants or food things or a variety of things that people are interested in, related mostly to food. i guess it would be, because it's a food page. today's column is all about the restaurant bouchon doing tasting menus, which is new for them. they usually just have a set menu and, you know, they change the menu every once in a while, and the daily specials, but now they are going to do, throughout the year, tasting menus of dishes from various regions in france. so they've done burgundy this next week, or actually starting today, tonight, for a week. it will be dishes from alsace and they'll do provence, brittany, normandy, et cetera throughout the year. so i wrote that piece. then i wrote the main feature is about the new chef at brix. they've gone back to their original name. they have a new chef since early this year and she's well known in the bay area – no nonsense, very good food, basic, simple; anne gingrass‐paik.(cid:883)(cid:889) and then last week i went to the fancy food show, so i just wrote a piece all about new products, or things that at least looked new to me, that are on the market, and then i probably will have a wine column this week, but i won't be writing the main wine feature this week, but i may write it next. it just depends, and if this week there had been something in the arts that i was responsible for, i also do reviews – theater and music reviews, because that's always been an interest. i've done that forever and ever. rz: renaissance man. pc: well, i like to do it, and i did ever since i've been here, so it's always been fun. rz: and you did a number of articles on the (cid:886)(cid:882)th anniversary of the ag preserve, so you went sort of back to that. pc: right. i went back and i read everything that i wrote and other people wrote. i went through all the articles… well, i shouldn't say everything. i went from summer of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) through summer of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890), and went through all the editions and read everything just to refresh my memory. rz: well, yes, of course. pc: what we did write and who was who. that's why, even so, i couldn't remember cameron baker's name or b.c. solari. rz: have those been digitized, the napa register stories, or you'd go back through a file with hard paper? pc: no, they're in volumes. they're huge, you know, the paper itself, but they're in books. 70

rz: they're all bound together. are those volumes that are available to members of the public? pc: yes, except some of them now may only be available on…well they used to call it microfiche, but i don't know, but in the library system. i know that the register is available at the berkeley library, and then i believe everything is still available at the napa city county library. rz: on microfiche? pc: yes, right. rz: well, i wanted to thank you, pierce, for giving us your time. pc: sure. rz: it's extremely valuable to have your contribution because you were so involved, and i love the idea that you were this cub reporter trying to figure out complicated county politics. pc: yes, and it was fun. i didn't have any distractions, other than i had my own life, but i mean, what was that? to me it was fun, and i was always the guy that the publisher and sometimes the editor would ask, (cid:498)can you cover that rubber chicken dinner at the chamber of commerce?(cid:499) to me that was fun, because i would go out and i would meet more people. an interesting story – i don(cid:495)t want to drag it on too long, but just as an example – the man who ran the local, i guess it was pac bell then, but the telephone company office, glen …oh, boy. i've just lost his last name, but a terrific guy, fun. he was very helpful. i believe he served as a president for the chamber of commerce at one time, and there were really good business people there. i used to see him, and so we had a little joke that when i arrived from the east coast i called to have new telephone service and i ordered touch‐tone, and it wasn't here yet in california. so at one of these early meetings, when i was talking to glen, i brought that up. he was laughing about, (cid:498)yes, i can understand you're east coast, and it'll be here.(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)well, i'll make you a deal – you'll get the first one.(cid:499) i don't know how long it took. i think it didn't come until the early (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s, probably about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887). that's my guess. so over the years i would see glen. no matter where we were, across the room at a chamber of commerce function or whatever, one of us first would reach up with our fingers like we were dialing but hitting the buttons for touch‐tone; just our little joke across the room. he'd buy me a drink, or i would once in a while get to buy him a drink with my meager register reporter salary. it was so much fun to have him call me on that spring day and say, (cid:498)now i want you to be home in the morning, because we're going to start installing touch‐tone phones tomorrow, and all of the installers have to come into the office at (cid:890):(cid:882)(cid:882). there's a meeting, except for one guy – and he's going directly to your house, and he's going to put in your phone, so he should have it installed by (cid:890):(cid:885)(cid:882), which is when the meeting is over and the other installers go out, so you indeed will have the first touch‐tone phone.(cid:499) i thought that was just because those were the kinds of people who were running businesses here, genuine and just nice to deal with. so for me, covering chamber of commerce and those kinds of meetings was always fun, nice guys and nice women too. and little businesses were run by terrific people. dorothy tockey(cid:883)(cid:890) ran napa electric for years and years and years, and she introduced me to women in business and there were all these great organizations; terrific. her niece was the secretary manager of the chamber of commerce, so that's how i got to meet aunt dot. so it was always nice to be at a meeting with aunt dot. 71

rz: aunt? pc: dot. dorothy, but they called her dot. aunt dot. rz: is there anything you'd like to add? pc: no. just thank you for the opportunity to just ramble on. rz: you had such an interesting career. pc: yes. it's been fun, and people say, (cid:498)well, aren't you going to retire?(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)to what?(cid:499) if i go home and say i'm retired, i'm sure they will call me and say, (cid:498)could you please do this,(cid:499) you know, or they'll just call because nobody knows the background of that or whatever. rz: are you one of the longest‐term employees here? pc: forty‐one years. and the woman who works in the ad department who puts the paper together – how it looks, as far as the ad lines and all those things – she's been here… i think she's been here fifty years, or close to it, but she started right out of high school. rz: amazing. pc: worked in the old building when the register was downtown at first and coombs, where sushi mambo is today. it was in that building. rz: so, of all the reporters here, you have been here the longest? did you think that you would be? pc: no, i didn't know. i had no idea, but i liked the area very much. like, for instance, the first time i went to germany and looked at the rheingau and it was incredible; the lorelei and all those incredible slate hillsides with the riesling. i thought, wow. then i came home and looked at stag's leap and i thought, wow, i don't know that germany is any better than this. over the years there have been a couple of opportunities to take on other jobs, but i always had to think the grass is not always greener. if i had been offered maybe a job on a foreign desk somewhere, i might have jumped at that, but that didn't happen and this was a pretty special place. once you get involved, once you know the background of napa county and the history and the agriculture and the great people in the wine industry, just fascinating people – and getting to be a friend of bob mondavi. that was a real treat to become a friend. i am just so honored that he thought of me. he and margrit, when i was here thirty years, hosted a party for me. they stayed home – they didn't go to new york to accept an award. margrit and annie got an award for their cookbook, but i think they sent annie, and margrit and bob stayed here to host a party on the lawn at the winery in oakville for me, for thirty years in the business. rz: really? pc: it was put together by a good friend of mine. i didn't want to do it, and they told me to be quiet, it was going to happen, so i just stayed away from it. finally they came to me and asked, (cid:498)anybody you would like to have there?(cid:499) and then i gave them, obviously, some names just of some good friends that they might not know. it was terrific. there were two dozen chefs, and all these wineries came and poured wine 72

and it was terrific, but i wanted to control a little bit of it, because i didn't want it to turn into one of those awful events, you know, where people talk and talk and talk. so i asked judge kongsgaard, (cid:498)would you be the emcee?(cid:499) because there would be some kind of program. rz: that was a good idea. pc: so he kept it short and sweet, and they always gave me a bad time here at the paper because i was a friend of bob's. bob could do no wrong, and i would never say anything, and i was so pleased that day that when the microphone was handed to bob mondavi. he said, (cid:498)while he doesn't always write everything that we'd like …(cid:499) i thought, thank you, bob. i didn't even coach him so that was very nice, just to have people like that who were good friends. rz: that was an incredible thing to do. pc: yes. for my twentieth year i guess, maybe i hosted a little wine tasting party in my backyard just out on the patio. rz: you live here in napa? pc: yes. i'm back on napa creek not far from embassy suites, and so i was looking for some wine from (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889), but i knew that that was not a great vintage, because the weather was terrible and they had all these rains and it knocked the flowers off. flowering was bad and there was frost, and i just knew it was a bad vintage. so i was looking for some wine and i just stopped by. going up valley i stopped by to see margrit mondavi, and i said, (cid:498)i don't know that you have any wine from (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). do you know of anybody? where do you think i could find some?(cid:499) and she said something i knew but i had forgotten: alex dierkhising from calistoga  they have all seasons restaurant and the hydro, but alex was always a collector. i mean, he drank the wine but he bought things at the auctions and he always had great wines. margrit said, (cid:498)we have no (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). it was just awful and whatever we had is gone.(cid:499) then she asked why i was looking for that vintage. i said, (cid:498)well, i'm going to host a little wine tasting thing tomorrow night,(cid:499) and asked, (cid:498)what are you doing?(cid:499) she said, (cid:498)oh, nothing,(cid:499) so i asked if she and bob wanted to come. so they came and sat out on the back patio and, you know, i went to see alex and he presented me with one bottle. i thought, (cid:498)oh, this is great. i wonder how much it will be.(cid:499) then he pulled a second one out, then he pulled a third out, and i thought, (cid:498)oh, i'm not going to be able to afford these wines.(cid:499) he gave them to me. rz: really. pc: i mean, i wasn't going to do anything special for him. he had a restaurant. rz: he wouldn't have had any agenda. pc: no, not at all, because that's the kind of the people who were in the business, and he said, (cid:498)enjoy. have a good time.(cid:499) of course he knew that bob was going to come. and then i had opened a bunch of other wines, including something from krug that bob had had a part in making. i had, i don't know, eight or nine friends there. i had the three from (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) and i was going to open them, and bob said (cid:498)no, no, no. you have too much wine here now.(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)why don(cid:495)t you keep them for another time? we'll have another celebration sometime, or share them with other friends.(cid:499) so they were inglenook, charles krug and bv, the three (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) wines. so the inglenook i opened and shared it with a friend who couldn't make that tasting, 73

and we had dinner together and we opened that. rz: was it good? pc: yes, but i kept the other two bottles until year twenty‐five, and margrit hosted a dinner at their home. i got to invite my friends and we opened those other two (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889)s for the cheese course. rz: were they good? pc: yes, they were good. but i remember alex saying, (cid:498)drink them within a half hour, because the fruit will disappear.(cid:499) those kinds of things were just terrific. rz: incredible experience. pc: yes, you can't buy those experiences. rz: no, and you wouldn't have them elsewhere, i don't think. pc: no. i've been very happy being here  just great, great people. rz: well, thank you again so much for your time. [conclusion of interview.] 74

preserving napa county’s agriculture volker eisele oral history valley subappellation of the napa valley, and has been a community leader involved with landuse policies jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler november (cid:883)(cid:890), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) participants: ve – volker eisele rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: volker eisele owns a vineyard and winery, volker eisele family estate, in the chiles for forty years. this interview session took place in the eisele home on the grounds of the estate. a second interview session followed on may 18, 2009.] [tape (cid:883)] rz: volker, i wondered if we could just start by getting your full name, and your date and place of birth? ve: volker eisele. i was born august (cid:889), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:889) in munster, a city in western germany near the dutch border. rz: and could you tell us a little about your early childhood – your parents, siblings, your early years of schooling? childhood during world war ii ve: well, my first four years were relatively peaceful, until the second world war broke out suddenly, and my father became a soldier in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:891). i saw him then sporadically, and we experienced a little bit of bombing, but it was kind of silly stuff in the early stages of the war, you might say. rz: did you live in the countryside? ve: no, we lived in a city, and there was high concentration of army and air force in our city, so it was for sure going to be a target, as one can see it retroactively. and, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:883), my father was released from the army because of a heart condition, and he was not very forward‐looking, because he took his young wife and son to a new job to a part of poland that had been annexed by germany. and he was professionally involved with agriculture, something like agricultural advising, the way our universities do it here. the long‐term idea was to bring german farmers to that area, and my father would have to help them get settled. and some of these german farmers were supposed to be germans who lived in other parts of europe (cid:523)from the baltics, for example(cid:524) and in other countries, who were brought (cid:498)home(cid:499) by the nazi regime. and in that city, my two sisters were born. and we left there in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:886) and went to silesia, to the capital of silesia, where my godfather lived, my father(cid:495)s brother and his wife. rz: could i just interrupt for a minute? the name of the city in which you were born was munster? 75

ve: yes. in any case, we moved to a city called breslau, and we stayed there for a few months, and then my father brought us to more northerly area, until we had to leave there on january (cid:885)(cid:882), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887). we had to flee before the oncoming russians, and at that point, my mother and my sister and i were the ones who had to do that, and it was absolutely horrible. it took us four weeks to cover about (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) miles. and it was a particularly cold winter, and the hardships were pretty bad, and my sister was only two years old. so it was very, very bad – very, very bad. we eventually got stuck in a town (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882) kilometers from berlin where we got sick with jaundice, i think it(cid:495)s called in english. we all got it, so we couldn(cid:495)t travel further to the west, to the supposedly safe haven of american/british occupation, and we were over‐rolled by the russians. five hundred russian tanks came into town, and that was pretty brutal. and then we were for two years in the russian occupation, and then we fled that part of germany and went to the west. rz: and what about your father? ve: he was dead by then, or he was missing in action, but we know now he died in february of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887) on the front. he had been re‐activated in (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:886) and he was killed on the front. rz: and where did your mother then take… ve: eventually  i cannot give you all the details  but eventually we came back to our hometown of munster, where i lived until i came to this country. move to the u.s. rz: and what was it that brought you to the u.s., and how old were you when you came? ve: i was twenty‐four. i came here in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s and came in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:885) to california and had a scholarship to go to cal, and went to graduate school at uc berkeley. rz: so you had already graduated from a german university? ve: well, i had not, but i still had a scholarship. rz: had you gone to university in munster? ve: among others, yes. and another university in germany. rz: and what were some of the early interests you had at university while you were still in germany? ve: the early idea was to study law and to have some other field, because everyone was becoming a lawyer and you needed some specialty, you might say. so i was interested in sociology and history, and when i came to berkeley, i really focused on sociology and history. and when i decided to stay here in this country, that became the goal, and i sort of gave up on the idea of the law. i had some wrong ideas about being a lawyer in this country, but if i had gone back to germany, i would for sure have been a lawyer. and nowadays i sometimes think it was too bad i couldn(cid:495)t become a lawyer, that i didn(cid:495)t become a lawyer. but that(cid:495)s one of those missed opportunities in life. 76

rz: why? do you think that would have enhanced your effectiveness somehow, or … ve: no, if i had become a lawyer, i probably wouldn(cid:495)t sit here in chiles valley. rz: where would you sit? ve: i would probably be retired, with a nice house in marin county or someplace [laughs], but i wouldn(cid:495)t do agriculture. that pursuit would not have happened. the interest for me was actually from the very beginning very much in open space. and i do remember one thing very well. the first time i went back to germany, and i was staying with my closest friend, and he said, (cid:498)what is it, really, what draws you to america? what do you see there? i mean, come on, you are european!(cid:499) and i did really think about this very hard, and i will tell you what i told him. i told him, (cid:498)for me, america is geography; it(cid:495)s the geography, nothing else.(cid:499) i don(cid:495)t need detroit. culture we have in europe – plenty. it(cid:495)s the geography, the wide‐open spaces and the wilderness. of course, when i said that to him, in the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, i had not yet comprehended how fast this country was destroying the wilderness and open space. but that interest was really strongly reinforced when i met my wife, and we had this weekend house five miles from here. and there were all these open spaces around us, very close, when you think about [it], to the bay area – places where you could just go. and we see the change in our short lifetime, but the mcmansions are being built in that same area now. and it is to me still one of the unanswered questions for americans: how can you destroy this country so fast and so thoroughly, when you have the example of europe, with the overpopulation and the destruction of natural spaces and wilderness in front of your eyes, you know? and it is going on and on and on, and all you have to do is open the newspaper now and you find the destruction from one end of the country to the other, from alaska to florida, from louisiana to california, you know? and most americans are at fault and they never have a good answer, because they are way too selfish and narrow‐minded and less and less educated about these issues. rz: you(cid:495)re thinking less educated as the generations succeed one another? ve: very clearly, very clearly. it(cid:495)s a little footnote here: on saturday, we were at a dinner dance in berkeley with highly educated people; they were a lot of fun. there were a lot of hungarians from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:888), all super well‐educated, all speaking four or five languages, and we were sitting at the table with some professors from uc berkeley. and they were all telling us that the quality of the students and the quality of the writings (cid:523)where you see it more clearly(cid:524) was going down from year to year. rz: that(cid:495)s very discouraging. ve: yes, it is. rz: well, i wonder if we could get back to your weekend house, but first we need to back up to find out when and how you met your wife, liesel. ve: i met her may (cid:885)(cid:882), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) in her mother(cid:495)s house. i had been invited there to a dinner party by my roommate and girlfriend, who turned out to be a cousin of liesel(cid:495)s. and liesel(cid:495)s mother was gone, and so the cousin had a dinner party in the house and invited liesel to the house and so we met. and it clicked 77

immediately. rz: now liesel was from where? ve: she was born in germany and she came here as a young child. and so she was bilingual, totally bilingual. rz: what part of germany did she come from? ve: she was born in berlin, and that was more of a historical accident. her father(cid:495)s family came from silesia in the southeast part of germany, which is now poland, and her mother came from southern germany, from darmstadt. and her grandfather was a chemist, a doctor of chemistry, for merck, the company americans call merck. it is, of course, originally the same firm, but it was taken away by the american government here and it is now an american firm here – but there is one in germany with the same name. rz: i didn(cid:495)t know that. so you met in may? ve: in berkeley, in may – on may (cid:885)(cid:882), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) in berkeley. rz: now, was liesel also a student at berkeley? ve: at the time, she was a graduate student in art history at uc berkeley, but she had already done landscape architecture, which she did later on professionally. and, but, she just wasn(cid:495)t satisfied with landscape architecture; it wasn(cid:495)t intellectual enough, that(cid:495)s why she studied art history. rz: and at what point did you get married? ve: a little over a year later. rz: and what about the weekend house? ve: well, the weekend house had originally been bought by liesel(cid:495)s mother, and then liesel added some acreage to that. first it was four acres and a house, and then she bought an adjoining parcel of fifty acres. and when i came into the picture, there were fifty‐four acres, and then we were able to buy another thirty acres, so then there were eighty‐four acres in the forest. but the weekend house was used by us and by my mother‐in‐law. we took her out a lot. we would go together, and it was a wonderful thing. we would spend the evenings and i would read to my mother‐in‐law, who was nearly blind, german books. she loved to read, and it was horrible for her not to be able to read. rz: where was the house located? ve: in sage canyon. it went from highway (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:890) all the way up to chappellet(cid:495)s vineyard. rz: oh, not far from here. ve: five miles from here where we are sitting. 78

rz: and what happened to that property? ve: well, first of all, when we decided to try out country living, when we were contemplating moving to the country, we moved there to test ourselves, you might say, whether we could hack it. and so we moved there and spent some time there. liesel was teaching at uc [berkeley] at the time. and then, when we decided that we could do it, we started seriously looking for agricultural property. eventually, when we found this place where we are now, we sold what we had. but meanwhile, we had gotten a right of first refusal on our neighbor(cid:495)s property, and eventually we got that, so it(cid:495)s adjacent to what we used to own. and that is where our son and daughter‐in‐law are living now. rz: and that(cid:495)s on sage canyon road. ve: that(cid:495)s on sage canyon road, right. rz: now, the weekend property that you and liesel had originally, was that planted in vineyard? ve: no, that was just open space. that was beautiful. it was a north‐facing slope, and for here a pretty nice forest. i mean, this isn(cid:495)t forest like the northeast of the u.s. or northwestern europe, you know, with the tall trees. trees are kind of small in california. rz: and had it been used for agricultural purposes? ve: well, originally there was (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882) acres as a homestead, but already then, when they had these homestead laws, laws were pretty loose, and all you had to do was plant a few apple trees and then you got the land for free. and this is exactly what happened – the apple trees are still there, about three or four left, and other than that, people had a little hunting there and a little firewood, but it was nothing. rz: and it was a simple house. ve: oh ja, ja, that was a simple house. but there was another house we bought with the fifty acres. all was very, very simple. this was the exact opposite of what we now have with mcmansions. in those days, people with less money lived in those locations, and so they then became weekend places or hunting cabins or something like this. now, all of a sudden, you have mcmansions. and now you have people with too much money who cut down the forest and feel obliged to plant vineyard instead of questionable economic and real value. so that has all completely changed, completely changed. rz: so you(cid:495)re talking about the use of the hillsides? ve: yes, and we don(cid:495)t need to belabor that with names, but there are so many mcmansions and their vineyards in the area. rz: so now, when did you and liesel buy this property? ve: we bought that in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886). rz: and did it already have vineyards? 79

chiles valley history ve: yes, now this is interesting. this little valley here is one of the earliest agricultural areas of napa county; and probably of california, because it was established as a land grant. this was one of the last land grants the mexican government gave to a yankee – mr. chiles, joseph ballinger chiles. and he brought people from tennessee over here. they were allowed to work for him for a dollar a day. they built a grist mill, they built an adobe house and they put in fields. and very soon they planted vineyards on the hillsides, a little bit here and there. but the earliest crops were cereals. and what most people don(cid:495)t realize is that in the early (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:886)(cid:882)s and (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s there was not a central valley, for agricultural purposes; that was all wet land. and when the influx of people came in (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:886)(cid:891) and (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882) for the gold rush, they desperately needed food for those people. and all of a sudden, areas like this were important, and for one very specific reason – all the counties that bordered on the bay had one decided advantage, and that was transportation. you could put the stuff on boats and bring it up the sacramento river. rz: what was the name of the rancho that was given to joseph ballinger chiles? ve: it was called rancho catacula. rz: and do you recall anything else about those early days? was this property here actually part of the chiles homestead? ve: ja, but it wasn(cid:495)t a homestead; it was a rancho. his house and the grist mill were about a mile to the north of here. but the whole land grant was about, i figure, (cid:883)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres. he was an entrepreneur. he was a speculator. and he would go back and forth between here and the areas where there were settlers already, and brought people across the great basin. later on he brought cattle and sheep, and for a while he owned land basically from here to what is now davis, if you can imagine that. he gained a lot and he lost a lot. and, of course, in (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:886)(cid:888), when california became american territory, he was immediately a yankee again, and that had one big advantage: he didn(cid:495)t have to deal with squatters. [break] rz: so we were talking a little bit about the history of this particular property, and i wanted to ask you how many acres this property has? ve: this property has over (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres. and what chiles did early on, he basically cut slices through the land grant from hilltop to hilltop. and in those days it was very simple. there was no planning department and no public hearing or anything; he just did it. and i am sure there were mistakes made – intentional and unintentional. and the key thing was that each property had access to the road, that they had some water and that they had some plantable land for agriculture. rz: and when you purchased this property, how many acres of grapes were here? move to the country ve: at the time there were about thirty acres of grapes and twenty acres of walnuts. 80

rz: who did you purchase the property from? ve: from a family that has essentially disappeared from napa county. they had been here ten years. they were from back east and … the man wasn(cid:495)t really equipped to do this. and the family of the founder of this property, the builder of the house and the builder of the winery, was here until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:883). and between (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:883) and (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), there were two parties here who owned this, until some stability returned in the form of liesel and myself. rz: so the thirty acres that were in grapes, what kind of grapes were those? ve: oh, there was zinfandel and sauvignon vert, which is a real junk white variety. but they were all old and there was a little bit of new planting of cabernet sauvignon and chenin blanc. but basically, anybody could see that the place had to be completely replanted and redeveloped eventually. rz: did you know anything about grape growing at this point? ve: honestly, i thought i knew a little bit. i knew a lot less in reality, but something was very important. in those days we had a friend – and his name appears in conjunction with the end result – dick steltzner, who my wife had met through another friend in san francisco, and who helped her and her mother to find the weekend place. he had married a german woman and so they had all become friends. so when i came, we were all friends, and he promised to help me. he was doing vineyard management and he seemed to be light years ahead of me, and so i felt i was kind of secure under his tutelage. and so that(cid:495)s why we had the courage to start. rz: and where was dick steltzner located; on the valley floor? ve: yes, he had property in stag(cid:495)s leap, where he still has property. but they were living at the time in the city of st. helena, he and his wife. rz: and then farming... ve: farming [for himself] and he was farming also for other people. rz: and so did he start out farming for you? ve: ja, he helped us somewhat. the unfortunate thing was that everything he touched became a disaster – and everything i did on my own, so to speak, worked fairly well. and eventually we had a falling out, which we don(cid:495)t need to belabor. but i do have to recognize that it was, psychologically for me, extremely important to do this because i had grown up as an intellectual. but there was another very small item in my life that played an enormous role, actually. when my wife and i got married in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), we found out that the bridge to our country house (cid:523)our weekend house(cid:524) was falling apart. and our neighbor and we had to figure out how to replace it. and we ended up building a bridge. i never thought i could build a bridge, but the bridge became sort of a psychological  i don(cid:495)t know how to describe it properly  but it became incredibly important, because i could see that i was capable of doing things with my hands. i was capable of being out there on my own with my wife and with our neighbors, and we did it all together, and i learned enormous amounts from this man. and that gave me an enormous amount of confidence. i mean, i knew everything about books, believe me – and 81

nothing about bridge‐building. rz: now, by the time you had purchased this property, you had stopped your graduate studies at berkeley? ve: well, i passed my exams, ja. but i was teaching here at napa at the college and i hated it. i absolutely hated it. and then, i have to also say, my wife and i were caught by the wine bug. everybody around us, you know, was talking about wine – wine and agriculture. and one other thing: everybody was moving back to the country. you might recall that time. remember where i came from – i came from uc berkeley, that(cid:495)s where earth day was invented, right? i do remember the people who were moving to mendocino. and there was self‐sufficiency; you know, back to nature. you were getting away from it all – this was really in the air. rz: and the whole influence from rachel carson. [end of tape one] influence of the ’60s rz: so, volker, we were talking about the influence of these various (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s movements, which must have been extremely strong at berkeley at that time. ve: well, i think it(cid:495)s fair to say berkeley was for a while in the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s the intellectual center of the western world, of the whole world. it was … first of all, the political struggle for civil rights which had grown out of the struggle against huac (cid:523)house un‐american activities committee(cid:524) and things like that. and then came the free speech struggle and the struggle against the war in vietnam, and i learned a lot for myself and my own political views. and then came the hippie movement, which i didn(cid:495)t care for very much personally. not for moral reasons or anything like that – it just didn(cid:495)t appeal to me. but then the environmental movement became very, very important to me, and that coincided with my move to the country, so to speak. having this country house, being exposed to open space and then eventually reading stuff. and i began to understand things a lot better, and i had some friends then at berkeley who knew about not using phosphates. i mean, it(cid:495)s a little item, you know. i never thought about things like this, right. we learned a lot in berkeley. and then, it was also the time when food habits changed. it wasn(cid:495)t in the beginning so much that it became super‐duper luxury food, but natural food, as it was called. you would use fresh ingredients. you know, we all know about chez panisse, which i(cid:495)ve never liked all that much, but it became incredibly important as a propaganda instrument for this kind of movement of using fresh ingredients. now my wife and her mother, my mother‐in‐law, were fabulous gardeners, and my wife always had a fabulous vegetable garden. and we had fruits and we would can things. we would do all these things, and then i would write to my mother and my aunts and we would get recipes. and, i mean, so it all became part of this movement, and that had a tremendous influence on our decision‐making. wanting to live in the country; wanting to live a natural life, you might say; and wanting to be as close to nature as possible. rz: yes, there were these strong feelings about living off the land and local food production, which is 82

fortunately coming back into vogue now. ve: yes, yes. rz: who was the first person you met in the napa valley who shared your sentiments about open space? ve: my wife. rz: your sentiments were growing at this point. ve: my wife, very clearly. that was part of it. i mean, we are very similar; we have very similar backgrounds and so on. and we have very similar, almost identical views on the value of open space and the value of nature, the love of animals and the love of everything natural. so that was very, very important. and when i met, for example, dick steltzner, it was a little bit different. he was, well, pro‐ growth here, but he was hunting, and things like this. this was sort of a slightly, a different side. the only thing i thought was good about it is that you would still live off the land. you would go out and shoot a deer and cut up a deer and so on and so forth. but liesel was really herself very, very important in this respect. rz: and who did you meet outside of liesel in the napa valley who shared both your viewpoints – yours and liesel(cid:495)s? what about dorothy erskine? ve: i didn(cid:495)t meet her until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886). what happened was something else. it started with a conflict because we had just made the move from berkeley to our country home, which we had remodeled so we could fit into it. rz: and this was in? ve: that was in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:883). and then we found out that right in the neighborhood some people wanted to establish a motorcycle park, and that upset me greatly. i mean, i didn(cid:495)t go to the country to be confronted with that. it just made me furious. rz: and that was the other property that we(cid:495)re talking about now; the sage canyon road property. ve: ja, that was when we were there. this motorcycle park … envision this line in between here where we are sitting and the place in sage canyon; sort of (cid:888)(cid:886)(cid:882) acres of motorcycle park. terrible. however, now berkeley came into play, because i had learned something about organizing. and so i organized the neighborhood within a five to eight mile radius of our house, to get them all to the hearings. i would visit with people and so on, and i learned to speak before the planning commission. i(cid:495)d never done this in my life, and later on i spoke to the board of supervisors. and we did win this fight after several months(cid:495) struggle. now, the board of supervisors meets on tuesdays. on this tuesday in august when they voted down the motorcycle park, on the following saturday, it was in operation – and that is what got me going. nothing got me going more than that because i found this was outrageous. it violated all my ideas about america – fairness, justice, process. i mean, it(cid:495)s insane, right? the supervisors vote (cid:886)‐(cid:883) to turn something down, and then it starts four days later. and it(cid:495)s in operation. so then the struggle begins. so we would write to the county, and we would get a letter back – (cid:498)we don(cid:495)t 83

know anything about this.(cid:499) and the sheriffs would show up sunday mornings at (cid:890) and start to harass us: why do we oppose such a wonderful thing for the children? and so on and so forth. and they would ask for our dog license. rz: as a way to try to catch you in violation … ve: ja, ja, exactly. it was strictly harassment, so we wrote to county counsel. i still have the letters; they are very amusing. and he would write us official letters, on official stationery, that they had absolutely no evidence that the motorcycle park was in operation. and finally, we  liesel and i  stopped at a tree where there was an eight by four [foot] sign nailed to the tree about the motorcycle park. i mean, it was open and so on – very visible. and we had this old buick which was fairly high, and she jumped on it and then she climbed into the tree; got that thing and put it in the car. and then we drove down, and i walked into county counsel(cid:495)s office and put it on his desk, and said, (cid:498)here(cid:495)s your evidence.(cid:499) so, little things like this. and then i talked to john tuteur, because that was the only person i had known or had met. and he had been elected [napa county] supervisor in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884). and i remember, during the gas crisis, there was a cheap gas station in napa where we would get gas, and i met him at night at the gas station. i said, (cid:498)you know, we(cid:495)re not making any progress with the stupid motorcycle park.(cid:499) and then he explained to me how this works at the board of supervisors: if there is something in somebody(cid:495)s district, you cannot touch that unless the supervisor of that district says okay. so the supervisor of our district protected his buddy who owned the land for the motorcycle park. rz: and who was that supervisor? ve: that was then marshall sears; he(cid:495)s dead now. so john tuteur said, (cid:498)find a candidate!(cid:499) and i(cid:495)ve done things like that ever since. [break in tape] rz: volker, i wondered if we could back up a little bit now and focus on the creation of the ag preserve in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), when the ordinance passed. when was the first time you heard about the hearings to try to pass this ordinance? ve: i heard about this first in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) through dick steltzner. and we would see each other quite frequently, he and his wife and liesel and i, and he would tell us about hearings. and he told us that he was going to the hearings with nathan fay and warren winiarski, whom liesel knew from something else. and so we had a little bit of an inkling, and we would occasionally meet the local newspaper reporter, so we had sort of an idea. and we knew what was planned and we were very, very much in favor. and we asked dick, (cid:498)what can we do?(cid:499) and he said, (cid:498)write a letter.(cid:499) so liesel and i wrote a letter to the board of supervisors or planning commission, i forget now. i am sure somebody threw it away; you know, we were nothing, obviously, so nobody was interested in our letter. but we did it anyway because we felt it was something very important. views on ag preserve 84

rz: now, nathan fay, how is he involved at this time? ve: i didn(cid:495)t know because i knew only from dick steltzner about nathan fay, who was his neighbor in stag(cid:495)s leap, and he was a (cid:498)a prominent grower(cid:499) in stag(cid:495)s leap. i heard so many things about him, he must have been god! [laughs] i didn(cid:495)t know, as i say, i never met him. so that(cid:495)s how i knew about the ag preserve. rz: and dick steltzner, what was his wife(cid:495)s name? ve: maria. but they are long divorced. rz: but they were very involved in the hearings. ve: he was. she wasn(cid:495)t. rz: and also nathan fay was involved in the hearings. ve: yes, nathan fay. but i knew this only from dick. and so that was our idea about the ag preserve, you might say. and i can tell you honestly, what i found, one of the most shocking things about america, is that you can cut up land into little pieces and you sell them. i never heard of such a thing. only in america. you can(cid:495)t do that in europe, you just can(cid:495)t  at least not legally. and i never forget when later, on one occasion, dick steltzner came by our weekend house and said, (cid:498)you know, you guys better subdivide your land, because the county is increasing the minimum lot size here to ten acres in the hills.(cid:499) rz: because it had been one‐acre zoning. ve: ja. and i mean, i was absolutely flabbergasted and liesel was the legal owner, so i didn(cid:495)t want to say anything. after he left, i said, (cid:498)why would we do something like this?(cid:499) and she said, (cid:498)we are not going to do this.(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)absolutely not.(cid:499) and, of course, so we didn(cid:495)t do this, right? it reflects also the uncertainty about the land. the ag preserve was only the valley floor, and the only idea that was important there was the vineyards. nobody cared about the hillsides. and suddenly, from dick steltzner(cid:495)s comments, you had to assume he didn(cid:495)t care about the hillsides either. but part of the problem was not so much that people thought the hillsides would be destroyed. most human beings have trouble anticipating that when you look at an area like this that this could ever be destroyed – why would anybody do this, right? then before you know it, you have a city there. and when you have the modern population movements, modern technology and all this, it goes very fast. and so i(cid:495)m sure dick steltzner said this in all innocence, because there(cid:495)s all this wide open space. so if the eiseles do this little bit here, it(cid:495)s not big deal, right? it doesn(cid:495)t hurt anybody. and also people could not understand. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), for example, the county had, i believe, a total population of (cid:890)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). in those days, the city of berkeley had (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), and here was a whole county with (cid:890)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). i mean, to me, this was a dream – it was fabulous. you have so much open space and so few people. but, that this could change rapidly, to this day, human beings have trouble believing it. that it can happen more or less overnight if you allow it. rz: people have a hard time seeing the cumulative effects of these smaller increments of change. what was your next involvement with the ag preserve? you wrote a letter to the board of supervisors. i don(cid:495)t 85

know if you still have that letter? ve: i wouldn(cid:495)t even know, to tell you the truth. rz: what was your next involvement after writing the letter? it passed, of course, in april. do you remember when it passed? ve: ja, ja, i did remember then. by that time i would go to our neighbors and get the old newspapers and read the napa register. and we had always subscribed to the st. helena star, so we had sort of an idea. and dick steltzner also knew jack and jamie davies, and liesel had met the davies at some party also. you know, in this new emerging wine group, there were very few people, in reality – very, very few people. it was a handful of people. rz: wasn(cid:495)t this the group that james conaway has called the (cid:498)new exciting wave,(cid:499) something like that, in his books when he writes about this time? ve: well, maybe. i must confess i don(cid:495)t recall that particular concept. rz: that would have been you, the mays… ve: no, no, it wasn(cid:495)t us. no, no, we weren(cid:495)t part of this. i don(cid:495)t want to give you a false impression. we came later, permanently. and when we came, the mays, the davies, the gambles … they were all here. [but] they were different. and there was another thing: we weren(cid:495)t considered well‐to‐do, although this probably played less of a role. our main contact was really dick steltzner, who knew a lot of people, and we met a lot of people through him. rz: now, dick steltzner was in favor of the ag preserve. vineyards at $1,000 an acre ve: ja, he was, but as i say, it was strictly a business decision, you might say, for protecting agricultural land, and for vineyards. everybody saw this was going to be damn good business here with the vineyards – and the land was unbelievably cheap, unbelievably cheap. you could buy good vineyard, top vineyard, when we first came here, for $(cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) to $(cid:883),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) an acre – and then it went to $(cid:884),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) an acre. think about that. i mean, it is unimaginable. and what happened, this is again something that hasn(cid:495)t been sufficiently analyzed. it was a historic, unique opportunity that vineyards were affordable. in europe, especially in the good areas, they have the status of crown jewels. you know, you can(cid:495)t afford to own them. obviously, you don(cid:495)t have to make money off of them, right? and we are approaching that here, too. i mean it(cid:495)s a sign, that if you can afford to own a vineyard, that you are really wealthy. you can(cid:495)t just buy a vineyard and try to make a living. that(cid:495)s over. rz: where you came from in the wine growing areas of germany, did the vineyards remain in the same families for generations? ve: ja, i know very little about those areas, but i had heard that there were places that had been for hundreds of years in the same family. and that is absolutely true. there are lots of family businesses. i think when you really look at it critically, the quality demands and the intensity of that agriculture, i think 86

makes it a unique, you might say, family type thing. it is very difficult for large business, over a sustained period of time, to really have super‐duper quality. very difficult. rz: was part of the appeal of this area for you that this could be a family enterprise, becoming a grape grower? ve: after, i came here, ja, oh sure. but that wasn(cid:495)t the key thing, because we always felt with our children, if they want to be in it, fine; and if not, fine. we live the way we wanted to live. we liked wine. we liked the country. it was ideal for us. and, ultimately, the key for us was that the land couldn(cid:495)t be destroyed, and that(cid:495)s why we went into the [napa county] land trust eventually. so, if the children continue this or not didn(cid:495)t make that much difference. rz: you weren(cid:495)t trying to found a dynasty. ve: no. rz: who were some of the first people that you met who were opposed to the ag preserve, and how did you feel about the opposition? ve: it took a long time to meet people who were opposed to the ag preserve, because very quickly the ag preserve became sort of a (cid:498)motherhood and apple pie(cid:499) thing  very quickly. where people drew the line was the hillsides. and the very sharp divisions between land protection and land preservation, the battle lines weren(cid:495)t drawn that clearly, as they were drawn a little bit later. and so all the people we got into contact with supported the ag preserve, because they were all relative newcomers. we didn(cid:495)t know anybody who was a so‐called old‐timer. the first time i saw old‐timers was when liesel and i went to the hearings on the planning commission and the board of supervisors, because the commissioners and the supervisors were partially old‐timers. rz: and these were hearings long after… ve: ja, that was four years after the ag preserve was established. rz: these were hearings, now, on what particular issues? ve: one was on this motorcycle park. but you see, even a person like john tuteur, he was something new in napa county. john tuteur had started an organization that interested me in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883), called napans opposed to wasteland, or now, and that was really an open space organization. and he was strongly influenced by dorothy erskine and her ideas of open space and the people she was in touch with. and so the idea of open space per se, not just agriculture, i personally found a lot more appealing and interesting at the time. rz: because it was more embracing. ve: it was more embracing, but at the time i was not in agriculture myself. and i was new to this game, you might say. it took a while to really, really sink in, and understand very clearly what was actually needed, and what other things were going to be and so on. but i told you the story of the motorcycle park in detail, because it got me into politics, and i got to know john tuteur and we started looking for a candidate. in december of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885), we started a supervisorial campaign in our living room for somebody 87

new here. he was not an old‐timer; he was a professor in physics from pacific union college, dr. dowell martz. and he won the election, the supervisorial election in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), and we kicked out this old‐timer from st. helena – and that was a revolutionary step. and all of a sudden we had some other guy from napa, sam chapman. and we had four supervisors on our side. rz: and they were now john tuteur and… ve: john tuteur, ginny simms, sam chapman and dowell martz. rz: who was the fifth at that point? ve: a fellow named gene norris, who was a furniture dealer from napa. i can still show you his characteristic body movements. he was awful, but that(cid:495)s neither here nor there; he(cid:495)s long forgotten. but it deserves to be remembered, and this is something that had a tremendous impression on me: john tuteur was elected in june of (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:884) to the board of supervisors with ginny simms. he took his seat on january (cid:884), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885) – and in february, he engineered an emergency ordinance that put a forty‐acre minimum on the hillsides. that was the revolution – and you should have seen the, you might say, the outcry. (cid:498)we gave you the valley floor and now you are taking the hills from us.(cid:499) that was when the battle lines became really drawn, and it took decades to resolve that battle, decades. rz: yes, because that battle wasn(cid:495)t resolved until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), was it? ve: no, no, much later. rz: (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)? ve: even later, but we(cid:495)ll go to that. rz: (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:886). ve: yes, (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:886), and it was really… now, november (cid:886), this november [(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890)], we were able to put a (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum protection in measure p. this is new. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882), i wanted to do that for measure j. i couldn(cid:495)t do it – it was not doable. so this is how long it has taken to really anchor the protection of the hillsides. they(cid:495)re not fully protected; there(cid:495)s still a lot missing, but that(cid:495)s a subject for another discussion. but john tuteur(cid:495)s move in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885) was for me a signal that somebody could really do something – one could really go there. and i found this most fascinating, and i was absolutely in awe of that. it was really great. and then, when we won the election in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), for a short time i thought, (cid:498)now, everything is okay. the world is okay.(cid:499) and i remember going to mr. hickey, i called him in those days mr. hickey… rz: this is james… ve: that(cid:495)s jim hickey. now we are very good friends. and i said, (cid:498)mr. hickey, could you tell me, could we ever get a (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum?(cid:499) and he looked at me and said, (cid:498)you nitwit, what are you talking about?(cid:499) [laughs] but the campaign for dr. martz had one other byproduct. i met two people who became very important to me, and i was not in agriculture yet: nathan fay and his wife nellie – who did a party for dowell martz. i arranged that with him – and i met dorothy erskine. john tuteur said to me, (cid:498)you(cid:495)ve got to 88

remembering dorothy erskine meet dorothy erskine. she will help you with the election.(cid:499) so i met dorothy erskine, because i organized a party for martz at her house in calistoga. rz: at dorothy erskine(cid:495)s house in calistoga? ve: yes. and we got to talking and we talked a lot. i was there several times, and then i was invited by her to a special meeting of a group she had that was called people for open space. [end of tape (cid:884)] [tape (cid:885)] rz: so volker, you were talking about the functions that you would have at dorothy erskine(cid:495)s house in calistoga. ve: right. i would go there and we would set it up and would have an invitation list, and she kind of quizzed me [about] where i was politically and otherwise. and she was very happy to discover that my views were (cid:498)left,(cid:499) because she was very much on the (cid:498)left.(cid:499) rz: now, how old was she at this point? ve: she was  i have to count back here for a moment  in her early seventies. rz: and what did she look like? ve: she wasn(cid:495)t very tall. she always had a friendly smile, and i remember white hair. and she was not heavy; she was well preserved like a typical, you might say, upper‐class san franciscan. rz: was she a widow? ve: at that point, yes. i never met her husband, who was a prominent lawyer in san francisco. rz: and so she would go back and forth between the city? ve: oh, yes. she lived on telegraph hill. which street – chestnut? i was in the house a million times in her living room. rz: and she was reasonably affluent – upper middle class? ve: ja, ja, ja. i mean, they were not super rich, but she was well to do. rz: her husband was an attorney? ve: yes, he was a prominent attorney, and she had started many, many different groups. but she had started one in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887), i believe, or shortly thereafter, something like san francisco citizens for parks and recreation. and one of her early discoveries was a man named jack kent. jack kent became the first 89

planning director of the city of san francisco; i believe that was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887) or (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:888). and later he was professor at uc berkeley in the department of city and regional planning. he was a brilliant man and very good friend, and his wife was the daughter of a famous uc psychology professor, [named] tolman. they still have tolman hall at uc berkeley. and it so turns out that one of my mother‐in‐law(cid:495)s closest friends was babysitting for this young woman; so that(cid:495)s how small the world is. and i met jack kent at dorothy erskine(cid:495)s house in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), but i had read a number of brochures he had written for the institute of governmental studies, on the idea of regional government and regional organization. and so they then started an organization called citizens for regional parks and recreation, i believe, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:890), and that became people for open space. and it was, you might say, an elite organization. they were mostly super bright people from the upper crust of business and the professions and university people, and they would meet in dorothy erskine(cid:495)s house. and in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), they were thinking about where to go, what to do. and one of the key steps in their development was a very famous study done by larry livingston from livingston & blaney. he was a planner and lawyer. they did a study on open space preservation for the city of palo alto, and they showed that it was fiscally better for the city to not develop a certain area, but to turn it into a city park. rz: that was a very… si and june foote ve: that was an earth‐shaking study, because it was the first attack on this gospel that growth is profitable for communities. and people still believe this nonsense, because it isn(cid:495)t profitable for communities. and it(cid:495)s only profitable for individuals, here and there. so i got into that circle, and at the same time, i started farming here. and i met another couple who came out of berkeley, mr. and mrs. foote – si and june foote – and we became very, very, very close friends. and just this past august, we had a memorial luncheon here for si foote, who died a few months ago. and his daughter was here and his son‐in‐law. and june foote, his wife, died in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:886) or (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:885), up in oregon. but for many, many years, they were the closest friends we had here. and he was brilliant and he had been doing very well in business, but they became a role model for what you should do with money, and what you should do with open space. they founded the [napa county] land trust here. rz: and where did they live? ve: they lived on the silverado trail. they were originally from berkeley. si(cid:495)s father was a professor at uc berkeley, and when they retired, they built a house in stag(cid:495)s leap, up on the ridge. and that(cid:495)s where we met them. rz: and were they grape growers? ve: they were, ja, a little bit on the side. they had something like twenty acres or so, maybe twenty‐five acres. and they did a fund‐raiser. june foote was at this meeting in our living room when we started the political campaign. and then they organized a fund‐raiser for dowell martz, where they introduced him to some socialites and so on. and later on, we had the most successful fund‐raiser so far held in napa county, 90

and we netted a little over $(cid:886),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). and we thought, (cid:498)my god!(cid:499) rz: and where was that fund‐raiser? ve: that was at their house – fabulous house, beautiful house. rz: and the purpose of that was… ve: was to support dowell martz(cid:495)s candidacy. and june foote was active in people for open space, and she and dorothy erskine wanted me to be active, so i joined her and then i became a director; i was on the board of directors – and eventually i got onto the real inner circle, namely, the executive committee. rz: so this was the board of directors of people for open space. ve: yes, yes. rz: which was headquartered here? ve: no, no, it was san francisco. everything was in san francisco. rz: so you joined the board of directors. ve: i joined the board of directors and then i was elevated to the executive committee. and there i was surrounded by a rare group of highly, highly intelligent people. they were really good. and this was the first time that people for open space hired staff, and i(cid:495)ll never forget when people from the staff would say something, they would say, (cid:498)look, i(cid:495)m speaking now. this staff doesn(cid:495)t tell us what to do.(cid:499) it was the exact opposite of what you have in most organizations where the staff speaks. you add professors, and super planners and lawyers and what‐not, and they were all very successful, and very bright, imaginative people. it was sort of a second graduate school for me, you might say, in thinking about open space, the role of open space and doing things and discussing … holding my own in discussions. i was the youngest, and i was in awe of most people – it took a while to get used to all of this. it was very, very important to educate me to be more successful here, because i could verbalize and i could conceptualize the things. there is nobody now in this county who can really conceptualize some of these issues except maybe jim hickey and john tuteur. but, the other people … there(cid:495)s a bunch of people who have become sort of my students, you might say. and it(cid:495)s a very important role because i(cid:495)m not going to be here forever. and if this county is supposed to be preserved, i mean, there have to be other people, obviously. and these years in dorothy erskine(cid:495)s living room were incredibly important, and some of these retreats i talked about earlier for people for open space were very, very important, because we would have very interesting people from the university, high quality people who would talk about these issues. rz: and were these weekend‐long retreats? move to preserve open space ve: yes, yes. but what happened at the same time – you see, at the same time i(cid:495)d become a practical farmer, and i began to understand farming. and all these people in dorothy(cid:495)s erskine(cid:495)s living room didn(cid:495)t 91

understand. and then something happened to the organization. they had applied to a foundation for a major grant to do a study on the potential for a total greenbelt for the bay area. that request was denied. rz: they didn(cid:495)t get the grant. ve: they didn(cid:495)t get the money. there was grant for something like, i don(cid:495)t know, $(cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or $(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) – major money in those days. and so the question was, what is the organization going to do? how are we going to approach it? and then it became very clear: to approach it successfully, you had to start from another angle. and we started from the angle of agriculture. to preserve agriculture is the key component of open space. and all of a sudden i became very important in this, because i was the only real farmer. and even though i wasn(cid:495)t very long in the business, i wasn(cid:495)t exactly stupid, so i learned fast and i read all the time. and so i could bring things to the table other people couldn(cid:495)t. they were intellectual, theoretical and they understood things, but they didn(cid:495)t understand the practical problems of farming. rz: and they were mostly urban based. ve: they were all urbanites. they were mostly from san francisco, or somewhere in the bay area. you know, they weren(cid:495)t people from the country. so the study of agriculture in the bay area and the preservation of agriculture in the bay area was very successful. published that in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). rz: published what? ve: the study for people for open space. rz: and who was the author? was this just authored by the organization? ve: we hired a writer. we hired a writer who could write very well, and we provided the conceptualization for all these things we wanted to see in there. rz: was this sort of like a manifesto? ve: no, there was a real analysis of what was going on with agriculture in the nine bay area counties. rz: i see – for all the counties. ve: for all nine counties, because people for open space is an organization that focuses on land use in the nine bay area counties. the interesting thing is, when you read the study now, and you look at agriculture in the bay area now, you will see that agriculture is disappearing in most of the counties. it is becoming less and less relevant. there are pockets here and there, with two exceptions – napa and sonoma. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), the wine industry had not reached nearly the level of economic importance that it has reached now, but one could begin to see it and one could begin to understand it. and it is too bad that the other counties didn(cid:495)t wake up and do something about agriculture. but admittedly, it is a little easier with good grapes than with sugar beets or onions. rz: well, marin county has some success with its… ve: no, no. 92

rz: with its marin agricultural land trust (cid:523)malt(cid:524)? paying for open space ve: no, this is not agriculture. i(cid:495)ll tell you one thing about the marin agricultural land trust. that was founded in early (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s or so, with unbelievable amounts of money. the buck fund was behind that. all the smart people of marin county, all the people with money in marin county – everybody was involved. in the beginning they bought a lot. they haven(cid:495)t even come close to buying up ag land in marin county. not even close. and what that example shows very clearly is, you cannot do it without proper regulations on the governmental level. you just can(cid:495)t. rz: yes, because they(cid:495)re just buying up land, but there(cid:495)s no other… ve: ja, and there simply isn(cid:495)t enough money in the world to buy up that land and have it sit there; you just can(cid:495)t. i(cid:495)ve always said this is a republican solution to land use. it can fill the gap here and there; it(cid:495)s not bad. but you see, in napa county, you see these millions that are being spent on some things. we haven(cid:495)t even touched the vineyards with the [napa county] land trust. now we(cid:495)re talking millions for hillside land. not unimportant – no, no, i(cid:495)m all for it – but it is not a way to protect the county. you cannot do it without regulation and without some economic base that keeps it all together. and that(cid:495)s the other thing that i learned in practical agriculture. you can love trees, you can love nature, you can love open space – you will not have any success unless you can figure out the economic issue. here we have grapes, and they are a high value crop and that is protecting the ag land. if it wasn(cid:495)t for cabernet, we wouldn(cid:495)t have ag land now; we would have condominiums. it(cid:495)s no question about it. people are too dumb and selfish to protect the land on their own. and you cannot grow a crop that isn(cid:495)t really competitive – to grow tomatoes here, for example, or grow corn or other vegetables. ja, for little pockets that is okay, but to keep the whole county afloat, that(cid:495)s not realistic. so you(cid:495)ve got to have something. and that is something i learned in the practical farming. it became very clear to me. i can have (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres and protect (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres, but how am i going to finance that unless i have a check, right? i have got to have a check to pay for it, you know? and so that is the kind of lesson that i have drawn from all these fights – you have to have more than the land trust. rz: well, so how do you think sonoma county differs from napa county in its efforts to protect land? ve: they have not been able to institute the regulations that we have been able to do. fortunately for them, their grapes are very good; excellent grapes, especially chardonnay and pinot noir and zinfandel. the county, however, is twice as large as napa county, and there are signs of weaknesses, you might say, on land use on the southern end, where there are not that many grapes. and the western end has become a big issue because of the forest protection issue. and there are more and more vineyards being put into the forest. whether they are sustainable in the long run remains to be seen. they also have cities that are way, way larger than ours, and they have … one of the weakest spots they have is called us [highway] (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883). napa county has had the historical luck of not having a major highway through the county. and being a (cid:498)backwater,(cid:499) you might say, helped the county for many, many decades. highway (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883), any transportation corridor, opens up the land for development. and you see how short‐ sighted people are – they don(cid:495)t understand that railroads work exactly like freeways. and they have now approved the money for railway, all the way up to cloverdale, along (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883). 93

rz: this was in the november, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) election. ve: yes, yes. rz: it(cid:495)s a high‐speed railway. ve: so i don(cid:495)t know whether it(cid:495)s going to be a high‐speed railway or not. let(cid:495)s say it will be high‐speed. it will be a commute railroad; they say it will eliminate congestion on (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883). oh, no, it will not – it will bring new people to sonoma county and marin county and it will, in the end, have a full train and a full freeway. if you don(cid:495)t believe me, all you have to do is go to europe and see. and it is not an american vice that people want to drive; it is a human vice. if you make gasoline $(cid:884)(cid:887) a gallon, they might stop driving. absent of that, no. rz: so you(cid:495)re saying that the railroad would bring a highway. ve: no, the highway is there. rz: yes, but you(cid:495)re saying… ve: it would not alleviate the traffic. this is a figment of the imagination. it will bring more people to a county that doesn(cid:495)t have good land use controls, and you will see these… what happens is there are enough cities – there(cid:495)s cloverdale, there is windsor, there(cid:495)s healdsburg… [end of tape (cid:885)] [tape (cid:886)] rz: so volker, you were making some very interesting comments about the railroad. i think it is the high‐ speed railroad that was just passed in the november (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) election for california, running from… ve: that(cid:495)s different. there was a bond issue passed that is towards high‐speed rail service between san francisco and los angeles, but i(cid:495)m talking about bond issues that were passed in sonoma county… to finance a train basically from cloverdale to the bay. rz: oh, yes. and that passed. and i see what you are saying, that when you open up the possibilities for people to commute, and there is no land use control, then you(cid:495)ve dug your own grave as far as open space is concerned. ve: we(cid:495)re … more people. you make commuting easy. you know, in planning here now in the bay area, the talk is about being sure to have development around the bart stations. well, in the beginning when these bart stations were built, in contra costa county, for example, there wasn(cid:495)t much development there. but you can clearly see how transportation is the engine that drives the development, drives the direction and so on. if you want to control growth, that is not the way to do it. rz: well, now i wanted to ask you something about the differences again between napa and sonoma. we(cid:495)ve talked about the fact that the economic advantage of the wealth of the vineyards has been able to napa vs. sonoma on land use 94

persuade people to preserve ag land. but what about the people who have been involved as activists, also? you see that around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) and then through the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s and (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s, there were a lot of people (cid:523)including yourself(cid:524) who were so committed to protecting the ag preserve and extending the ag preserve. do you see the same sort of thing in sonoma county? ve: no, clearly not. and what is so unusual here in this county is that eventually the people in agriculture were the ones who were driving the slow growth train and driving the land protection train. normally it is the people in agriculture who drive the growth train because they want to get out of the business; they want to sell their land because they want to finally have some money. and here we have an influx of new people, and they want to come back to a certain life, and they don(cid:495)t want to have that destroyed. and so in sonoma county, the farm bureau, for example, tends to be very conservative and traditional, whereas here, this farm bureau, certainly since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) or maybe (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:890), has become such a progressive organization that it has, within the farm bureau framework of the state of california, the reputation of being the (cid:498)pinko, red farm bureau.(cid:499) i mean, we are seriously considered (cid:498)communists(cid:499) by the people in the central valley. rz: okay, so you were talking about the differences between the farm bureaus in the two counties. ve: to give you a very practical example, measure j. when i proposed measure j back in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:891), i was vice president of the farm bureau, and the farm bureau became one of the key engines for this measure. when several years later, sonoma county imitated us and wanted to do a similar measure in sonoma county, the farm bureau there opposed it – and so did a lot of the wineries(cid:495) second holdings, like the mondavis, who had holdings in both counties. here, the mondavis basically acquiesced on measure j in the end, and there, they actively opposed it. so this shows you, it [sonoma county] was basically a much more conservative county and the activists were organized. they were very often from the west, the western part of sonoma county, where the extreme (cid:498)liberals(cid:499) supposedly live and the (cid:498)radicals(cid:499) and so on, but they weren(cid:495)t in agriculture. agriculture was conservative [there] and here [in napa county] it was different. now, i personally did play a big role for one simple reason. when i became a farmer, i became somewhat important for people for open space because i really knew about agriculture. i gained credibility among farmers here because i was really a farmer – i wasn(cid:495)t just a make‐believe guy, you know, i really did the thing, and i knew what i was talking about. and so even people who opposed my views had to respect that to some extent. rz: you had much more credibility. ve: ja, much more credibility into both directions. in sonoma county, that didn(cid:495)t take place so much. also, the sonoma county wine industry, at the time, was dominated by some large, very large entities, and they are never very helpful in these things where local activists are needed. rz: are you talking about large corporations? ve: ja. like gallo, korbel, and places like that. rz: what do you think about the level of sharing and community in napa county? a lot of people, for instance, talk about the fact that farmers here shared so much in terms of labor, equipment, advice for irrigation systems and so forth. do you think that sort of social value factored in? 95

ve: i don(cid:495)t think so, quite frankly. i think that(cid:495)s also a little bit overblown. there weren(cid:495)t that many people, number one. and ja, americans on the whole are very nice and very friendly and very neighborly. i mean, this is the heritage of (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) years of being out in the wilderness and trying to establish yourself; you need neighborly help, right. and so when somebody was next to you and was struggling with something, of course you help, you know. but find the help now – it is very different now. now that things are more structured and finalized and corporations are here and hedge funds there, it is completely different. rz: but do you think that was a factor at all in passing the ag preserve in the first place? ve: that(cid:495)s a question i could never answer because i wasn(cid:495)t involved with that. personally, what i can gather from having known jack davies and jamie davies and john tuteur, obviously… i know a lot of people and i(cid:495)ve heard a lot of these things, but in my personal opinion, it is very clear these people came from the city. they were relatively sophisticated and they knew one thing very clearly: if you want to have ag land, you(cid:495)ve got to protect it. otherwise, it(cid:495)s lost in no time. and everybody saw the example of san jose in santa clara county, or los angeles for that matter, so i think that had a lot more to do with that. so if somebody like jack davies came from a corporate job in southern california to napa valley to start something, he didn(cid:495)t want to have that same fight, you know – he didn(cid:495)t want to fight freeways and traffic and high rises and god knows what. he needed the land. rz: yes, and tom may made the same point in his interview – about having come from santa barbara, where he and his wife, martha, saw so much urbanization. ve: that(cid:495)s exactly right. rz: they were escaping it. ve: they were escaping it, and then they had a vineyard here. and all of a sudden, once you have a vineyard or establish a business like the davies, then you have a very keen interest to protect your investment. this is perfectly normal. i mean, i don(cid:495)t want to hear somebody next to me who has a racetrack or a high rise, right? that destroys my vineyard, and then rue ziegler doesn(cid:495)t come and say, (cid:498)gee, this is perfectly beautiful.(cid:499) right? rz: do you want to add anything on this comparison between the two counties, napa and sonoma? ve: no, i think though what is helping sonoma county now, as we are speaking, is that the value of the vineyards and the grapes have increased so drastically that they will be able to attract more investment, and the more investment they attract, the safer they will get. now they have been able to protect some land through purchases from the open space district. they also have created so‐called urban growth boundaries around some of the cities. not that these are perfect solutions – far from it – but at least there are some signals in the right directions. rz: now i would like to ask you if you have recollections of people who were involved in the ag preserve early on, and then continued through the years. i(cid:495)ll name some of the people. we(cid:495)ve talked about dorothy erskine. lowell eddington you didn(cid:495)t know; you knew of him. ve: i didn(cid:495)t know him. i gather he played a role, but how big a role? i believe he was a realtor, but i(cid:495)m not even sure of that, to tell you the truth. the person who seems to really have known him was warren winiarski. that(cid:495)s where i(cid:495)ve heard most about lowell eddington. 96

rz: what do you know about the organization that he headed, which was called the upper napa valley associates (cid:523)unva(cid:524)? ve: lowell did? rz: yes. ve: well, then i didn(cid:495)t even know that. i know a lot about unva. i(cid:495)ve spoken to unva on a number of occasions. rz: it(cid:495)s still in existence? ve: no, it(cid:495)s gone. there were lots of these people involved. and that(cid:495)s how dorothy erskine had influence, because some of these people were refugees from the bay area cities, and she knew them socially. and she was very smart in using the social angle to further her goals for open space protection. and so she is probably … if you had to single out one person, she is probably the most influential behind the scenes. rz: because she was so persuasive? ve: extremely persuasive and extremely well connected. she knew everybody. rz: you had said that she had no qualms about calling you at seven on saturday morning. ve: sunday! even worse, ja. she has done this with me maybe once. i was lucky. but i know some people who complained to me about that. rz: and she would be calling to try to talk about? ve: oh, you see, i(cid:495)ll tell you what she did. she was basically people for open space. she wrote the newsletter and she was constantly prodding people. you would sit in her living room in a meeting, and she(cid:495)d come to sit next to you on the couch and say, (cid:498)so what do we do now?(cid:499) and once she asked me, (cid:498)what would you like to be?(cid:499) she saw a future with me. i said to her, (cid:498)if i could, if i had a political chance, i would love to be governor.(cid:499) (cid:498)oh,(cid:499) she said. (cid:498)you should become governor!(cid:499) [laughs] she thought that was a great idea. rz: she obviously admired you, but she probably also had a bit of a crush on you as well. ve: she sure did. and she did appreciate my, shall we say, my somewhat new approach. i mean, i came from europe; i was at uc; i was farming. i mean, i had a lot of exposure. i had met a lot of diverse people in my life and so i brought something to the table most people didn(cid:495)t. and so she appreciated that very much. but she was also well traveled. her son, she stuck in a german progressive school in the (cid:495)(cid:884)(cid:882)s. ja, he didn(cid:495)t like it, i know that; he told me. and she was very progressive, and she was  in later years, in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:882)s  a (cid:498)fellow traveler.(cid:499) and she had been in the soviet union, and she saw a lot of things in that system that needed attention from our side. i think we are slowly coming back into that direction now, now that we are distributing tax money to the industries here. rz: wealth redistribution? 97

ve: wealth redistribution, yes; you(cid:495)ve got that right. rz: was unva influenced enormously by people for open space? ve: only through dorothy, dorothy(cid:495)s thoughts. there was an architect and his wife – frederick and hildegarde monhoff. hildegarde wrote beautiful poetry and her sister [janet flanner] wrote under the pen name of…[genêt] for the new yorker for decades from paris…but people like that, and the davies (cid:523)jack and jamie(cid:524) and others – they heard from dorothy, i can absolutely assure you. she was at every meeting and she was always pushing things and pushing things. but she had a very good political sense. she understood that you had to walk before you ran. you had to do things in what you call … little increments. rz: small steps. ve: and the ag preserve was one of those increments to what is open space. and i still think that john tuteur was one of her best students, because he(cid:495)s the one with the vision to put on the forty‐acre limit on all the county hills. you know, if he has done one great thing in his life, that was it. rz: do you recall what unva(cid:495)s original mission was? ve: i read that a number of times and i forgot. i mean, i didn(cid:495)t find it particularly appealing. i thought it was, later on, far too conservative for my taste. and they were mostly what i considered society people, and they weren(cid:495)t activist enough. you see, they tended to be republican, and for the world of it, i(cid:495)m not a republican, under any circumstances. rz: we know that. ve: you know that. napa transportation corridor rz: i wanted to ask you, you had a talked about a transportation corridor as being so crucial. were you involved in any way with the freeway plan to take the four‐lane highway all the way through the valley, or was this before you actually spent more time here? ve: i was not directly involved with that, but i was very close to the issue for a specific reason. when we ran this campaign for dr. martz for supervisor in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), there had been people who wanted to extend the freeway from yountville to oakville, and the supervisor, the incumbent supervisor, had spoken in favor of that. it was one of the few times i wrote a letter to the editor – to make sure that everybody would know about that position, because it was extremely unpopular up valley, in our district. people did not want a freeway. there was not enough to know. but you see, by that time, caltrans had already bought a lot of right‐of‐way to make the extension. and the long‐range plan was to build a freeway all the way to lake county, to open up lake county. and then finally, when john dunlap from napa, who was a democrat, was assemblyman in sacramento, people here like john tuteur and jack davies, among others, got him to carry this bill that would eliminate highway (cid:884)(cid:891) from the freeway planning. they did one thing, however. they made a big, big mistake, and i am sure to this day most people haven(cid:495)t understood that mistake. from trancas to yountville, there is a 98

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four‐lane highway, right? it(cid:495)s called an expressway, technically in highway lingo, that could still legally be built to lake county. and i have often thought one day when the traffic is truly unbearable, people might think in those terms again. rz: you mean caltrans still has the right? ve: they could still do it. the only thing is, caltrans did sell their right‐of‐ways, so they don(cid:495)t own them anymore – and that is the best insurance we have. caltrans has no money and the state of california is broke, as we know, so the probability of the state coming here and buying land for a four‐lane road is next to impossible. and since we don(cid:495)t have any voting power in sacramento  southern california gets all the money. they need the money, you know; the bay area doesn(cid:495)t get much money for freeways – it is very, very unlikely that we could be afflicted in this manner. rz: so you were saying that the mistake… ve: that was in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), that they should have written in the bill then, (cid:498)all four lane roads, freeway and expressway(cid:499) … the people who ran the bill – that was john dunlap and john tuteur and jack davies  they didn(cid:495)t watch those kinds of things. rz: oh, i see. they didn(cid:495)t remove that language. ve: yes, they should have put that into the bill so that an expressway would be forever impossible. rz: but it(cid:495)s not there explicitly. ve: no. [end of tape (cid:886)] [tape (cid:887)] rz: so volker, we were talking about some of the people who were very active in creating the ag preserve and then fighting to keep it. and i wondered what your personal reminiscences are about people, for instance [napa county administrator] albert haberger, who was the county administrator in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). ve: al haberger i got to know very well because since about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883), i would go regularly to the board of supervisors meetings, and of course he was sitting there every day. and he was a very thoughtful person – a little conservative, and i must confess i underestimated him. but then later on i saw very clearly that his goal was the ag preserve and the local agricultural economy. he had clearly understood that local agriculture here with grapes was the future for this county. rz: and hadn(cid:495)t an economic report been undertaken by the county to determine how much the vineyards could actually be an engine to drive the local economy? ve: i think that report  and i think i have actually one of those reports  was done by the [uc davis] extension service, and they showed clearly some of the potential, even though when you look at it today, activists behind ag preserve 99

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it(cid:495)s almost ludicrous how little it was at the time; what people thought. but of course, then cabernet cost maybe $(cid:884).(cid:887)(cid:882) a bottle, so we could only dream of prices like this nowadays. rz: i wonder what you remember about george abate, who was the county assessor in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890)? ve: george abate i also knew very well, because of his function as an assessor, and occasionally i had some questions, especially when we moved into the wine business, about how things would go with the assessment, how contracts might be handled and things like that. and i found him always extremely knowledgeable, extremely bright and clear and to the point. and i knew also that he had been one of the strong supporters of al haberger and the creation of the ag preserve. rz: what do you remember about felix vanderschoot, who was chairman of the county planning commission? ve: felix i remember when i went to my very first planning commission hearing, about the motorcycle park i mentioned earlier. he was incredible. he came across as an old‐world lawyer. he had very refined manners and was very soft spoken and quiet and he was incredibly charming; he never raised his voice. and he came from some napa family that i believe had an automotive business. and i have always, always admired him and really liked him. but the funny part for me was that very first hearing at the planning commission, i also got to know mr. hickey, james hickey [director of the napa county conservation, development and planning department]. and jim hickey [on behalf of staff] recommended [commission] approval of the proposal, this motorcycle park, stating that the drainage from that park would not go into the napa river. and therefore, that was okay. that gives you an idea about the thinking at the time. however, i knew better, so i raised my hand and i got up and respectfully, very respectfully, corrected the county planning director, and said that all the water from the proposed site drained into the napa river. and i(cid:495)ll never forget when felix vanderschoot took off his glasses and turned around and said, (cid:498)mr. hickey, is this correct?(cid:499) and poor jim hickey  we have laughed about this story  poor jim hickey, he got a red face and he was so embarrassed, because i was fairly right. and it was the only time jim has made such a mistake; he hadn(cid:495)t been here very long at the time. rz: yes, i mean, he didn(cid:495)t arrive until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), i think. ve: ja, he had just been named planning director. i(cid:495)m sure he didn(cid:495)t even know where exactly this motorcycle park was located. rz: now, of the county supervisors in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), dewey andersen is still living in the county. what do you remember about dewey? ve: actually, nothing, except john tuteur beat him in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884), and i thought that was exciting because i wanted tuteur to win. rz: and julius caiocca? ve: julius caiocca i didn(cid:495)t know myself, either. but later on, i learned a lot about julius because for a while, for some years, he was mel varrelman(cid:495)s father‐in‐law. and so i heard about julius, and julius must have 100

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been a great guy, and he was in an insurance business in st. helena. rz: like mel is, or was? ve: no, mel is not in the insurance business. rz: oh, yes, an accountant. ve: he(cid:495)s still an accountant. and the successor to caiocca was then [marshall sears]… i mentioned the name earlier – the guy with the motorcycle park issue….and caiocca had been pressured so much by locals that they would not buy insurance from him any more. and he did vote for the ag preserve anyway, in spite of the pressure, but he couldn(cid:495)t run anymore. he just couldn(cid:495)t handle it anymore; it was too much. rz: he was older by this point? ve: ja, ja, he was a little older. i don(cid:495)t know how old he was. as i say, i(cid:495)ve never gotten to know him personally. rz: what about [napa county supervisor] jack l. ferguson, who is currently living in hawaii? ve: i really knew very little of him. i only remember he had a terrible reputation with some people, but i cannot speak to that reputation because i never had any dealings with him. rz: but he was a strong advocate at the ag preserve. ve: i presume so, since he voted for it as well. but, again, you have to understand [napa county administrator] al haberger was very conservative; he was for sure a republican. and in those days, there was one critical difference in the law. we didn(cid:495)t have the so‐called (cid:498)brown act,(cid:499) which requires that when there are more than three supervisors meeting, the public has to know. in those days, he could take his five guys to lunch and beat them up enough and so by the time they had lunch and wine, they were okay. that was completely different politics. rz: and he could get them to agree. ve: yes. nobody then in the session needed to grandstand and satisfy a specific clientele. rz: that(cid:495)s very interesting… what about [napa county supervisor] henry m. wigger? ve: henry wigger i got to know a little bit and he was [still] on the board of supervisors after john tuteur and ginny simms came. and it is john(cid:495)s eternal achievement that he persuaded henry wigger to vote for the emergency ordinance that created the forty‐acre minimum in the hillside. rz: his wife has actually been interviewed, and we(cid:495)re trying to get a hold of that tape. what about pete clark? ve: i never met him. rz: so he was off the board of supervisors by then? 101

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ve: yes. rz: so we(cid:495)ve now covered all five members of the board of supervisors [in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890)], and i had just a few other names. i wonder if you could talk a little bit about jack davies and then warren winiarski. ve: i got to know warren in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885), somewhere around then. and we have been friends for all these years and even though they [the winiarskis] are a little bit more conservative than i am, they were pretty good on land use. except warren didn(cid:495)t really come out, as one really had to, say, until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882), when he actively supported measure j and gave substantial amounts of money for it and personally collected signatures. he would stand in front of supermarkets and collect signatures. it was quite an accomplishment. rz: and that was quite a commitment. ve: yes. rz: and jack davies. ve: jack i got to know a little bit through my involvement in the wine industry and some organizations. i remember walking with him in the halls of congress and we would joke around, but i cannot say that we were ever really very close. and, again, you know, he was sort of a mild republican – and i was just a flaming liberal, even then. rz: so you were saying, you went lobbying with jack davies in washington, d.c.? ve: i(cid:495)ll tell you what happened. the growers of california had an organization for washington. we would go annually to d.c. and lobby for specific items, and we would also join forces with vintner organizations, and we had teams. and since jack and i both came from the north coast, we were put together on the same team. and i remember one year liesel, jack and i going from door‐to‐door to our assigned places, and then we would have a sandwich from a machine down in some basement of the capitol and a horrible cup of coffee from a machine, and then we would continue. rz: and you were calling on your congressmen. ve: calling on various congressmen and senators. i had become very good at these things. rz: so were you successful? ve: the wine industry has been very successful overall in the last few decades, for several reasons. first of all, we are like angels – we are very pure. we do all the wonderful things in the world and we make a wonderful product. and some of us have the means to support the coffers of the politicians. it is very important. there was an article, i think in last night(cid:495)s newspaper, where they talked about the napa valley money that went into this year(cid:495)s campaign. rz: in the [san francisco] chronicle? ve: the napa [valley] register. rz: we(cid:495)ve talked about dick steltzner. i wanted to ask you if you remember [planning commission legal advisor] mervin lernhart? 102

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ve: i never met him. rz: are there any other people that you remember from those very early days, just after the ag preserve was passed? ve: the one person, the one important advocate i got to know very well and became very close to was [viticulturalist] nathan fay.(cid:883)(cid:891) nathan was an early advocate of the ag preserve; he would go to all the hearings. i didn(cid:495)t know him then. that(cid:495)s all from dick steltzner, as i said to you earlier. but nathan and i, since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886) and especially since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887), were the closest of friends. we would help each other with the harvest. rz: he was a grower, of course. ve: he was a grower, and he was an experienced grower. i learned a lot from him. and we would help each other pulling gondolas through the wineries and things like that – we would help each other with crews and so on. and we would have endless amounts of wine and good food. rz: and he was a strong supporter of the ag preserve? ve: very strong supporter. rz: when you talk about the county officials and when other people talk about the county officials, they seem to imply a fairly high level of sophistication among some of them, and i wonder if you share that opinion? ve: at what time are you talking about? rz: in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) and into the early (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s. ve: i mean, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) i didn(cid:495)t participate, so i didn(cid:495)t know. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) when i started, i was impressed with jim hickey, when he was just recently appointed as planning director. other than that, felix vanderschoot, the chairman of the planning commission, impressed me somewhat; nobody else. rz: nobody else? albert haberger? ve: ja, ja, i(cid:495)m sorry. i talked extensively about him, ja, ja; absolutely. rz: and george abate. ve: but george abate … you know, mind you, an assessor doesn(cid:495)t have so much directly to do with the land use. in the context of the ag preserve, however, he was important, and i hope you understand that, because the key reason why we needed the ag preserve was in order to apply the williamson act way of assessing the value of the land. rz: so farm land wouldn(cid:495)t be assessed at market value. ve: exactly. that was exactly the point. and so he was very supportive because he clearly understood the math. he knew that the county would do better with maybe a little bit less tax money and a booming wine 103

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industry. rz: and it took great foresight for him to see that. ve: yes, absolutely. rz: now, john tuteur and ginny simms were two other county supervisors in the early (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)s. ve: when they got into office, i was incredibly impressed with both of them, to tell you the truth. they were elected in june of (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:884) and, as i say, i had gotten to know john tuteur a little bit. i had heard him speak. and then in, let(cid:495)s see when was it, in about february of (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), when we were organizing the campaign for dr. martz here, for supervisor, we went to ginny simms, and she was considered the guru of campaigning. some people think she is still the guru of campaigning. but i was absolutely overwhelmed. rz: because? ve: there was an older guy with me, he was the actual campaign chairman for dowell; i was the treasurer, technically. and the campaign chairman sort of deflated her a little bit. and then later in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886)… rz: what do you mean he (cid:498)deflated her a little?(cid:499) ve: well, he told me that what she said wasn(cid:495)t that earth‐shaking about campaigning, and he knew better because he had done congressional campaigns, and so on. so in any case, what changed my view a little bit on ginny  i mean, i like her as a person, still very much  was the following. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), i got a call from john tuteur. he said to me, (cid:498)you(cid:495)ve got to call ginny. tell her not to vote for the southern crossing.(cid:499) you know what the southern crossing is? you know when you go down on highway (cid:884)(cid:891), straight, and then eventually you come over this high, high bridge over the napa river? rz: yes. controversy over southern crossing ve: that(cid:495)s called the southern crossing. that needed county approval. and john tuteur understood very clearly, that was bad. rz: it needed county approval for? ve: for caltrans to proceed with that. rz: okay. ve: and so he asked me to persuade ginny not to vote for it. i spent an hour‐and‐a‐half with her on the phone, and i couldn(cid:495)t get anywhere because she didn(cid:495)t understand. and her reason was the following. her reason was that this powerful chairman of the senate finance committee  his name will come back to me maybe in a minute… and she said, (cid:498)this guy from eureka, he drives home from sacramento through napa and then to highway (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883) going up north, and he wants to have that bridge – and we(cid:495)ve got to give it to him so he will treat us better.(cid:499) and i said to her, (cid:498)ginny…(cid:499) i mean, in those days i wasn(cid:495)t as good as i am 104

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now, in terms of persuasiveness. so i said, (cid:498)this is ridiculous. the guy will die pretty soon, probably, and then what, what do we do?(cid:499) (cid:498)no, we gotta do it, we got do it.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)no, we(cid:495)re opening up all this land and all of this.(cid:499) and to no avail – the stupid bridge was built. and i(cid:495)ll tell you where the effect was so that you really understand. john tuteur was absolutely correct. even today, we suffer from the fact that the state created a corridor from i‐(cid:890)(cid:882) to us (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883) through napa county. what the – the county  should have done is focus on highway (cid:885)(cid:889) from vallejo to marin county, i mean to (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883), right? it is doing this partially, but not enough. and that would have been the perfect link from i‐(cid:890)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883) and then we wouldn(cid:495)t have had the problem opening up this new traffic corridor. and john tuteur is really very, very smart, and he understood these principles very well. and he was (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) percent right and ginny simms was (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) percent wrong, and we are living with the mess. and you can see, sometimes so‐called little decisions have long‐term impacts. rz: yes, decisions that far outlive the sense of immediacy at the time. ve: yes, exactly. rz: so we have a few more people i wanted to ask you about – harold kelly, who worked closely with ginny sims. ve: harold kelly was involved with an organization called citizens council for napa tomorrow. i got to know that council during that campaign for dowell martz, and i went onto that council and became a member. and harold kelly kind of ran it and he was  as all good people were in those days  for slow growth, or no growth, but he was more focused on electing some good people to the city council, and so on. and the two biggest things this citizens council for napa tomorrow did was a conference in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887) that was called how many people can you mix with wine? it was about growth. and that was a very successful conference except it didn(cid:495)t have any effect. rz: it didn(cid:495)t? prelude to measure a ve: no, i mean we were all very proud of ourselves, believe me. and i worked like a slave on that. but in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), it is that group that produced measure a. rz: so it did have a good outcome. ve: it did have a very good outcome. and that is where three people need to be mentioned. one is dowell martz, again, but then in particular, vic fershko.(cid:884)(cid:882) vic fershko was a local attorney from new york, who had worked first for some attorney for the poor or something, and then he was in private practice. and his first claim to fame was the following: in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), or (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:887), the city annexed a piece of ag preserve, longwood. rz: this is in the southern part of the county? ve: no, this is right adjacent to the silverado trail. it(cid:495)s above trancas, between trancas and the silverado trail. rz: okay. well, that(cid:495)s the southern part of the county. 105

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ve: no, well, southern is south of napa. this is north of trancas. rz: alright. ve: and what he did was, he started a referendum to undo the annexation. now the referendum won, but then it was litigated by the city. and he personally, as an attorney, established the precedent that annexations are subject to a referendum. that was not established in california long, up to that point. so he won that case – and ever since, you can referendize annexations. rz: so that was an annexation outside the ag preserve? ve: no, not outside. it took land from the ag preserve into the city of napa. rz: annexation into the napa urban area. that(cid:495)s very interesting. ve: so vic was also present at this meeting in my house in sage canyon when we started this campaign for dowell martz. that(cid:495)s where i got to know him; somebody brought him along, and i liked him and we became friends. and then in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), he wrote the initiative language for measure a, and measure a did the following: measure a limited the population growth of the unincorporated area to a maximum of one percent per year. and it had to be checked through the occupancy rate and population – what do you call it? what do we have every ten years in this country? rz: the census. ve: the census figures. and we won that. now that was very, very difficult, because ginny simms was against it; john tuteur was against it. rz: why were they against it? ve: it(cid:495)s very difficult to figure out. and it was also in november of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) that was the reagan election. remember that – it was the conservative backlash, and we barely made it. we won, i think, with fifty‐two percent of the vote. we lost in one district, but we won. and the measure was challenged. rz: it was challenged in court, wasn(cid:495)t it? ve: it was challenged in court, but the challenge fizzled very rapidly. it was stupid. it didn(cid:495)t have any merits. but at least i had enough influence by that time to get the right law firm involved to help the county, and that was shute mihaly & weinberger from san francisco. the first meeting on measure j, which we called in those days (cid:884)(cid:882)/(cid:884)(cid:882), we had in fershko(cid:495)s office in downtown napa. i wanted him to be involved, but there were some unpleasant people who didn(cid:495)t like him, and they got very nasty and he and some other people were pushed out. rz: they were pushed out of what? ve: out of our committee, and out of the whole thing. and some people tried to push me out even though i invented the whole thing, but that backfired for them. and so, that is all water under the bridge. but fershko … was really fed up with napa, and he had also an unsuccessful run at a judgeship. and there 106

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backers, opponents of measure a were too many people who didn(cid:495)t like him, partially – i mean, there was some anti‐semitism, there(cid:495)s no question. how much is difficult to gauge. i know when i ran his supervisorial campaign in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:886), his opponent hal moskowite used anti‐semitic language. and moskowite himself comes from a jewish family; that was the irony of it. but fershko lost that one not because of anti‐semitism, but he lost, he just lost. and so eventually he was really fed up with the county and he left. he(cid:495)s living now in british columbia and doesn(cid:495)t want to have anything to do with the county. rz: but he lived here for some time. ve: yes. we invited him for the ag preserve thing. no response. that(cid:495)s too bad. rz: now, was this group in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), was it still called citizens council for napa… ve: yes. [end of tape (cid:887)] [tape (cid:888)] rz: so volker, we were just finishing up talking about vic fershko, who is no longer in the county, and you had mentioned there were three people who were the original members of the citizens council for napa tomorrow? ve: no, i mean who were particularly responsible for doing measure a. rz: three of whom were still involved. ve: fershko, dowell martz and jim hickey. rz: okay, we were coming to the third one. i didn(cid:495)t know who the third one was. it was jim hickey. and that was in his capacity as planning director? ve: no, it was all private. rz: as a private citizen, yes. ve: yes, but he didn(cid:495)t come to meetings. i just knew this. i mean, i should hardly mention it now, but he is long gone from the office so it doesn(cid:495)t make any difference anymore. but you see, dowell martz did it against the opposition and its own vote, as i told you. john tuteur didn(cid:495)t like what we were doing; nobody wanted to have anything to do with us. it is very interesting and we pushed it through anyway. rz: and how did you manage to get public support? ve: well, you know when you talk about slow growth or limiting growth, people like that. i mean, this is the normal thing – when somebody is someplace where it is nice, they don(cid:495)t want to have somebody new come in. nobody wants that, absolutely nobody. 107

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rz: that(cid:495)s the nimby factor? ve: no, it(cid:495)s … normal human behavior, right? if you have a nice house, you don(cid:495)t want to have an apartment house next to you. rz: no. ve: you don(cid:495)t. and i don(cid:495)t call that nimbyism, it is just a fact of life. and why should we voluntarily mess up the county for the sake of developers? it was our argument when we collected signatures. i mean, i organized the petition drive in st. helena; i had a whole army of people. rz: so you each took a different area of the county? ve: ja, ja. and we were very effective and it worked very well, and we said to people, (cid:498)look, [at] the bay area growth, every year, roughly [a population increase of ] one percent.(cid:499) the bay area at the time had (cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people. one percent, that(cid:495)s (cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) – and (cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) is a city the size of napa. every year, a new city on the map. now, why do we need that much more? you know, that(cid:495)s insane. it doesn(cid:495)t make any sense, and people understand that immediately. they don(cid:495)t want that. they don(cid:495)t need anything complicated. they understand that language, and so we got the signatures, and we ran the campaign. the campaign was very old‐fashioned. it was mostly done with newspaper ads, and, as i say, we won – barely. it was not an overwhelming victory. rz: so did you go door to door? ve: no, i forget now, but some people might have gone door to door. we had probably some fliers which we mailed out. but it was very important. for example, in district (cid:885), up here, we won overwhelmingly, because dowell martz took leadership on that, you know, and he was the supervisor of this district. but ginny and john didn(cid:495)t help us down in napa [city], you know, so we had to rely on the slow growth sentiment. but you know something, the two of them i(cid:495)m sure have long forgotten that. rz: oh, it(cid:495)s interesting. ve: and so in any case, the citizens council created a political committee that ran it. i was the treasurer for that committee, and we collected the necessary money. and we had some good, strong people then, for the first time from the wine industry. that was a first. some people would always win on the sideline because we were considered radical, rabble‐rousers. they supported us. and it was also, you might say, the turn‐around for the farm bureau, because the farm bureau endorsed measure a for the first time – it took such a strong stand, a clear stand, for the first time. the grape growers did not. rz: i was just going to ask you that. ve: oh, no, they did not. i know exactly to whom i talked and i know all the people; they are still here. and, the vintners anyway, they wouldn(cid:495)t do anything like this. so we did win, and then people saw that it was damn useful. it really helped. but it was immediately undermined by moskowite and some guys by grandfathering in (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) units – (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882)! and then … some people had founded a new organization. rz: wait a minute, what? they grandfathered in (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) housing units in napa? 108

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ve: in napa county, yes. rz: but in the city of napa? ve: no, the county can(cid:495)t do that. that would have been in american canyon, meadowood, a few other places, silverado and so on. and vic fershko said it(cid:495)s illegal. and by that time, after we had done the successful campaign, a new organization started, the napa valley foundation, in order to attract more up‐ valley money. and we had a vote in that, a historic vote, where we voted whether we should sue the county over the (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) units. and vic fershko and i were on the losing end. and ginny simms was on the other side. there were some others on the other side, and some are dead by now. and so we didn(cid:495)t sue, so these (cid:883),(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) units got built. and what it showed is, that no matter what you do, there(cid:495)s never a silver bullet that solves all problems just like that. even an initiative is of very, very limited use. and it was only for twenty years – (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) to (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). by the time renewal rolled around, the developers in sacramento, at the legislature, had already seen to it that you couldn(cid:495)t renew it. there was no way in hell that you couldn(cid:495)t renew the mandate. there was no way, and we didn(cid:495)t do it. and now, you can hear all the politicians in the county say piously they want to adhere to one percent growth per year, but they don(cid:495)t do it. but they say it. rz: so it stopped on december (cid:885)(cid:883), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). ve: yes. rz: the one percent per year growth limit. ve: yes, yes. rz: and what do you think is the prospect for coming back to that? ve: oh, it(cid:495)s impossible. the legal situation in the state makes it impossible. and the reason, i will tell you very quickly, is if you would do something like this, you would have to somehow show that the county would have enough land to fulfill all the housing assignments it gets from the state over the duration of the initiative. there(cid:495)s no way in hell that you can do that – you just can(cid:495)t. and so we didn(cid:495)t even try. there was no point. even with, let(cid:495)s say, a study of $(cid:884)(cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or $(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), could we have been really convincing? the judge would probably have killed us, so we didn(cid:495)t do that. and by that time, however, we did already have measure j, which is also a good insurance. rz: yes, and now can you talk about measure j? ve: sure. what would you like to know – everything? rz: so measure j passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)? ve: yes, measure j came out of the lost election of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:890). we lost the election in november. we had then a pro‐growth majority as of january of (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:891) and i had in my head this concept already. for me, it was a matter passage of measure j 109

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of timing when we could do it. and when we lost the election and we got a pro‐growth majority, and the first thing they did was fire jim hickey, i knew this was the time. and that(cid:495)s when i started. and we had it ready for the ballot in, we submitted the ballot signatures in spring of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882) and then we got on the ballot in november of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). and the interesting thing was that the vintners – the ones who were kind of opposed – were too busy with the winery definition ordinance. rz: oh yes, that was going on at the same time. ve: it was going on at the same time, and i was president of the [napa valley grape] growers at the same time. it was all very difficult and a balancing act of the first order, but the key issue for us was the following. most people didn(cid:495)t even understand it. we didn(cid:495)t have the majority, so i figured if we win this, the county will be obliged to defend the measure, but if they have a bad majority, they will take the crummiest attorney they can find and lose the case. so the key was to win the majority. so we had to win j, and we had to win another seat on the board of supervisors and keep another two seats, so that was a very tricky election. but we did win. rz: and who were the two seats that you … ve: we had one…[supervisor] mel varrelman …we [also] had… [supervisor] paul battisti from the silverado country club [area] and they were both for measure a. and we needed a third vote for them. mel would win, i figured this, but we wouldn(cid:495)t know by how much. so we had to run his campaign and then we had to get this third vote. and the third vote became very ugly, because the incumbent was the chairman of the board and there was a four‐way race in the primary. and my guy came up on top. it was the toughest race i(cid:495)ve ever run – it was horrible, but he did come out on top. and what he did was walk around with the petition for measure j. that was his topic – measure j, measure j, measure j. you(cid:495)ve got to protect the land, and people bought that. in the end, he got more votes, relatively speaking, than measure j. rz: really, and who was that? ve: vince ferrioli, but he(cid:495)s dead now; he died of cancer a few years ago. a terrific guy. and then, when we won the election in november of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882), he won and then we got the immediate court challenge, and then i could go to the right people and say, (cid:498)now you hire shute mihaly & weinberger to defend the measure for the county,(cid:499) because they were the ones who had drafted it – they knew the measure. and they defended it. they won in trial court here in napa, they won in appellate court, and they won in the california supreme court. and after they won in trial court, mr. [robert] westmeyer, our county counsel, didn(cid:495)t even go there. (cid:498)what a joke,(cid:499) he said. after they won in appellate court, i came to the county, i came to his office to pick up the decision, and he said to me all of a sudden, (cid:498)we will win this case.(cid:499) all of a sudden he said (cid:498)we.(cid:499) (cid:498)we will win the case.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)great.(cid:499) and we finally got the final judgment in march of (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:887), and the next day, liesel and i were flying to hawaii, and we were taking the airport bus in napa in the dark, early morning. somebody pulls up, walks out in his bathrobe – mr. westmeyer, bringing me the decision from the supreme court! people were just looking – who is this guy in the bathrobe? it was hilarious. 110

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rz: so he pulled up where? ve: right where the bus was leaving. he just pulled up to the bus; we were just going into the bus. rz: he(cid:495)d just gotten into his car with his night clothes on? ve: ja, ja, it was something like (cid:887):(cid:882)(cid:882) a.m. or (cid:888):(cid:882)(cid:882) a.m. or something. it was hilarious. and he has become the advocate for land preservation. he(cid:495)s fabulous. rz: and is he still active today? ve: he(cid:495)s [still] county counsel. rz: and in mervin lernhart(cid:495)s former position. ve: right. but you see what changed, i think, since lernhart is, i think he was the last attorney who was not a full‐time attorney for the county. rz: now it(cid:495)s a full‐time position. ve: oh ja, ja. you see, for example, for the city of st. helena, they take an attorney from the firm coombs & dunlap in napa. and that(cid:495)s the old way of doing business, you know. it was simply too expensive, and not needed. and this is why you had (cid:498)old boys(cid:499) stuff all over, because everybody knew each other. and first you are the attorney for the city, and then you are judge and then you are this… rz: you(cid:495)re playing so many different roles. ve: ja, ja, exactly. rz: and they all get confused. ve: that(cid:495)s exactly right. and (cid:498)j,(cid:499) by the way – that was now renewed on november (cid:886), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890), and is under the name measure p. and there are some changes in measure p compared to measure j. rz: and what are the changes? ve: the first change is that measure j was designed to last thirty years; the new one is designed to last fifty years, so it will run through december of (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:887)(cid:890). the second item is that we have an exemption in there for affordable housing; we had to do this for legal reasons. and thirdly, we are now protecting the (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum for the hillsides for the designation awos [agriculture, watershed, and open space] through measure j. the county cannot change it without having a prior vote of the people. so those are the key changes. and as you can see, there was no official opposition to the measure – which is really new. there were people who were unhappy, but they didn(cid:495)t dare to speak against it any more. and at a couple of occasions i had trouble speaking, because the organizations have this policy that they would always have a speaker for and against and they couldn(cid:495)t find a speaker against. rz: is that right? 111

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ve: so they didn(cid:495)t invite me. so, seriously, this happened. rz: well, measure p passed – by what kind of majority? ve: we don(cid:495)t know for sure, because even last week there were (cid:883)(cid:890),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) ballots in napa county not counted, believe it not. it will be at least another week until we have a final result. rz: and it(cid:495)s november… ve: today(cid:495)s the (cid:883)(cid:890)th, so you figure, the (cid:884)(cid:887)th. i would imagine maybe next week at the board of supervisors that they have the final result. that would be on the (cid:884)(cid:886)th. future of napa county rz: volker, now we(cid:495)re starting to wind down. we(cid:495)ve been talking for a long time and i(cid:495)m sure you(cid:495)re tired, but i wanted to ask you a few questions about what you see for the future of napa county and the continuation of the ag preserve. ve: i see many problems, but i will pick out two which i think are basic. number one, measure p so to speak, solves some of the issues from the county side because it makes life difficult for the board of supervisors to do bad things. what it does not do is protect us against the five cities. the five cities can annex measure p lands provided they get three votes on lafco [local agency formation commission], and that is a loophole that will be increasingly dangerous. rz: now wait, could you just stop and explain the three votes from lafco? ve: okay, lafco is the local agency formation commission that exists via state law. it exists in every county of the state of california and is designed to create orderly growth – not to prevent growth, but to create orderly, logical growth. so if a city comes with a good plan for growth, lafco policy is to say yes to that. if a city wants leapfrogging, then lafco would say no. so, i mean, i(cid:495)m simplifying this a little bit. and the representation on lafco is always two votes from the board of supervisors, two votes from the cities and one person from the public. now, sometimes this mix makes sure that nothing too bad happens, but sometimes it really facilitates growth, and the current makeup of lafco is very worrisome. we have now two issues going on: one with the city of calistoga, one with the city of st. helena, where annexation might happen. and that would point the way to what(cid:495)s in the future. first, in tiny little increments that might get bigger. and combine this, maybe, with the view of the wine industry future. let(cid:495)s say, an economic disaster combined with a virus disaster could happen, right? then maybe some guy says, (cid:498)what the hell, i don(cid:495)t care, i(cid:495)m eighty, give it to the city; they can build some houses. we need some houses for the poor.(cid:499) so he wants to get annexed, so he goes to the city of calistoga and says, (cid:498)annex me.(cid:499) and the city of calistoga might be all too happy to do that. then they go to lafco and then they figure out things and, you know, it then depends on the overall political mood in the county whether they really want to fight something like this. this is the danger number one: the annexation power of the cities. and since we have five and they are more or less surrounded by grapes, then pretty soon you have the choice of whether you want to pull first the cabernet 112

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or the chardonnay. and the second big problem is that we have way too many parcels that are below standard. rz: what do you mean by that? ve: the official standard for the ag preserve area for the valley floor of the county is forty‐acre minimum. now, on what kind of parcel do you live? rz: five acres. ve: see, that is a sub‐standard parcel, technically. it(cid:495)s grandfathered, it(cid:495)s not illegal – you can sell it, you can own it, obviously. but those are, you might say, cancer sores that either way, there are probably at this point close to (cid:889)(cid:882)(cid:882) buildable parcels in the ag preserve alone, on the valley floor of the napa valley. rz: which currently have no building units on them. ve: right. they are all what we call buildable parcels. the typical footprint of a napa valley house is about five acres, everything included: driveway, swimming pool, (cid:498)butler(cid:499) [guest] house, leach field, i mean, you name it. so if you have five times (cid:889)(cid:882)(cid:882), that(cid:495)s (cid:885),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres. if somebody would come in and say, (cid:498)i want to build a subdivision on (cid:885),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres,(cid:499) people would think he lost his marbles. but by doing it piecemeal, a little bit here, a little bit here, a little bit here, all of a sudden, it(cid:495)s okay – all of a sudden it(cid:495)s property rights. and we have the same situation in the hillsides. we have in reality several thousand parcels in the county that can be built upon. basically none of these houses are needed. nobody needs these houses. napa county is a big county – half a million acres. people do not need to live in these houses. that means they are all new people, right? and that(cid:495)s the other huge, huge issue. now the first issue i described to you, the annexation, i(cid:495)m taking on. i(cid:495)m working on that now. rz: oh, how is that, what are you doing? ve: oh, i just started. i first had to get the vote out of the way for measure p. it(cid:495)s done; it(cid:495)s finished, right? so now i(cid:495)m organizing this political fight. because what you have to understand, to do something about lafco we will have to go to the state legislature. only the state legislature has the power to deal with annexation issues. the county supervisors are not empowered to do that. rz: they(cid:495)re not? ve: no, they are not. rz: you(cid:495)re talking… ve: lafco is a matter of statewide concern, as the legal, technical term is. that means anything having to do with annexation or spheres of influence is strictly a lafco matter, and that means the county has no power. that means if you want to have an effective change in the law, you have to go to the state legislature and convince them to change state law. so i figure this will take at least three years. rz: and you(cid:495)ve just begun. ve: well, yes, the election was a couple of weeks ago. i mean i… 113

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rz: come on, volker, you(cid:495)re slow here! [laughs] ve: i have already put things into place. i have already an attorney and a lobbyist; what else do you want me to do? if you are not careful, i(cid:495)m going to come to you and raise money from you. i(cid:495)m very good at that. rz: so you(cid:495)ve hired a lobbyist? ve: no, i(cid:495)ve not officially hired him, but he(cid:495)s a friend of mine. rz: and you(cid:495)ve hired an attorney. ve: yes. rz: what would the attorney be doing? ve: they would help us maybe draft some legal language and do some legal research. rz: are you acting alone? or are you on a committee? ve: no, first of all we have the committee. the committee was called save measure j. but i am the chairman of that committee. rz: ah, i see. ve: save measure j committee has said yes to this. rz: and how many people are on the committee? ve: five. rz: and who are the five members? ve: myself, mel varrelman, jay hull (cid:523)the former county administrator(cid:524), and ron taddei from the napa county farm bureau. and the last guy is al wagner, also from the farm bureau. rz: okay. ve: the farm bureau will undoubtedly be involved, but part of this whole endeavor – and that(cid:495)s why it takes so long – is i will have to have an endless series of luncheons with politicians, right? and i will need to fund‐raise because these things cost money. rz: and this is all going to be in sacramento. ve: well, eventually. the coalition building is here. i mean, we have to basically make sure that, first of all, the city of napa and the city of american canyon are okay with what we are planning, and then those three smaller cities will fall into place. and then, the county obviously has to be in agreement. the county will be relatively easy. and then we have to draft … we have to have language that everybody can agree on. then we have to talk to our representatives, whoever they are; noreen evans, let(cid:495)s say, and pat wiggins. 114

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[end of tape (cid:888)] [interviewer’s note: this concludes the november 18, 2008 interview. a second interview took place on may 18, 2009. it follows below.] [tape (cid:889)] rz: today is may (cid:883)(cid:890), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891), and this is rue ziegler interviewing volker eisele for the jack davies agricultural land preservation fund oral history series, and this is the second interview with volker. volker, i wanted to start off by clearing up some questions that i had from our last interview. one of the things that i wanted to ask is, who owned the motorcycle park near your property? ve: the land was owned by a fellow named bill nichelini,(cid:884)(cid:883) and he had leased it out, or was about to lease it out, to a couple of young men from st. helena. then when the project was shut down, he took the land back, and then eventually he sold it. rz: who did he sell it to? ve: virgil. i'll think about his name. he was in wine transport. rz: i wanted to ask you, too, if you had anything to add about the lawsuit that followed ordinance (cid:884)(cid:889)(cid:886) that began to create the agricultural preserve. ve: there was really not much of a lawsuit because it died very quickly in appellate court in san francisco. i do recall that the wagner family from caymus [vineyards] were involved, and [john] daniel, then owner of inglenook. i'm sure there were others but those are the two names i do recall. rz: yes, so that was charles wagner. ve: yes. the mondavis were against it as well, but i'm not sure if they participated in the lawsuit. rz: and do you remember the name of the law firm representing those people? ve: i do not. rz: now, some of the other questions that i wanted to ask you about that we have not touched on, you had made one very interesting point and i just wanted to see if you wanted to elaborate on this. some of the large wineries in napa county, who held property in sonoma as well as napa, might take a different position in the preservation of agricultural lands in that county than they did in napa county. that's something we don't often think of. ve: no, this was in particular evident during the fight for measure j in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882), when none of the large wineries opposed measure j here in napa county. when, about four years later or so, sonoma county had a similar initiative on the ballot, the wineries opposed it. you find always special reasons why things are different. i think not having the two initiatives in front of me, i cannot point out the details, but it is probably true that the one in napa county was better drafted. we had provided fewer excuses, let's say, for opponents. remember i pointed out in the previous interview, one of the goals was to be able to say to the voters, (cid:498)we don't want anything new. we want our general plan.(cid:499) the general plan is well done. it needs enforcement and it shouldn't be changed, and if it is changed then only with the vote of the people. 115

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now in sonoma county, if i remember correctly, the proponents overloaded the initiative somewhat with other things, with changes they saw necessary for their general plan. that is always very, very difficult politically. so we had a stronger political argument by saying we don't want change. we just want to make sure that we keep what we have, stuff like that. rz: it's interesting. ve: yes. annexations and the future of open space rz: did you have something else you wanted to add? the other thing that i wanted to ask you that we didn't touch on very much is this business of cities annexing land and the effect that has on the ag preserve. that, and differences in general between the perspective of cities, like napa, and the perspective of napa county when it comes to protecting agricultural land. ve: the difficulty under california law is that it is very clear that all the laws that have been written for long‐term land use planning, they have been written with the interests of cities in mind, and not with the interests of preserving open space and agriculture. the law that governs all of this now is the so‐called lafco law. [the acronym] lafco stands for the local agency formation commission. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884) the california legislature established that every jurisdiction in the state, every county, in other words, has a local agency formation commission. the membership consists of representatives from the board of supervisors and from the cities and one public member. it's normally around five members or seven members. in napa county it's two supervisors, two representatives from the various city councils and one so‐called public member. the law makes it very, very clear [that] the decisive step is when a city enlarges its so‐called (cid:498)sphere of influence,(cid:499) and that is a legal step. it is the most important legal step. once that has been accomplished, then an annexation itself becomes a formality. it still has to be approved by lafco as well, but the establishment of a [larger] sphere of influence is the key legal happening. since generally cities want to grow, and since generally in most jurisdictions pro‐growth forces have a slight majority, that's why you can see, in almost all california counties, rapid growth and rapid extension of the cities. there have been many attempts made by voters to curtail this power, but what the legislature did, and this is very important to understand, anything having to do with lafco is what is legally called a matter of statewide control. that means only the voters of california or the state legislature could really produce a significant legal change – not the voters of a local jurisdiction. so you cannot limit annexations with the voters. it's been tried. it was litigated in court. there are many decisions by the california supreme court that have clarified this, so you have to understand this very, very clearly. when you look at measure j, which has now become measure p, it's … that the cities, the five cities of napa county, can annex land with the help of lafco, regardless of where it is protected under measure p or j. the only way you can prevent this from happening would be an act of the state legislature. it's an unrealistic assumption that the voters of california would pass an initiative concerning annexations in napa county. i mean, that's not real – but it is quite possible that one day maybe the state legislature would pass a bill that only applies to napa county, to protect the famous napa county vineyards from further annexations, or at least the lands that are protected by measure j or now measure p. 116

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that is the biggest issue that has been facing california, and when you look at counties like, one comes to mind, solano county … that has some significant agricultural land in the central valley. when you see how the cities have established spheres of influences and boundaries that are so huge, you wouldn't even know that they are that big. this is all for future growth, and this is all done through the enormous influence developers have in this state, and this faulty argument that development pays and produces good tax revenue and makes our lives better and better. it is, of course, the exact opposite that is true. development doesn't pay for itself. it doesn't. whether you are looking at [the] napa pipe [project] now in south napa, where a developer again is circulating memos showing how much profit it would generate, the profit might be actually true but it isn't really profit, because the cost items are all left out, whether it's traffic, clean air, noise, health, education and other items [concerning] social welfare. anytime you have human beings, you have huge amounts of cost. what it comes down to in napa county is always, an acre of grapevines produces a lot of tax revenue and doesn't require much service from the county. when you look at the fiscal situation, on average you can easily say that $(cid:883).(cid:882)(cid:882) of tax revenue for residential development produces close to a $(cid:883).(cid:887)(cid:882) in costs, whereas with agriculture it's at least the other way around. that means for $(cid:883).(cid:882)(cid:882) of tax revenue, you have maybe $.(cid:887)(cid:882) costs. this is why napa county is in a relatively strong fiscal position, and this is why annexation is of such vital importance – for the whole state, as a matter of fact, but certainly for napa county, which is our topic. rz: i'm glad that was added. ve: it's critical, and i've served on lafco for five years so i understand the mechanism of lafco inside out. rz: what was your experience serving in lafco? ve: well, the forces of growth control had a majority. the pendulum swings back and forth. after the election results of (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) and (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:884) there was a clear majority of pro‐growth people, so the composition of lafco nowadays is different. it's pro‐growth, and the lafco staff is currently busy to facilitate some annexations that look to people in los angeles like minimal stuff, but for us are gigantic. for example, (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres in st. helena, which is very big for here. it shows, again, the laws that are the foundation for these actions. they're all done by the strong real estate lobby, sacramento. california, i can tell you honestly, is a real estate venture since day one, absolutely. rz: since the pioneer days. ve: oh, [even] long before. i mean, the non‐existent orange groves that were sold on the east coast, and stuff like this. they sold the oil wells, and hollywood was sold and the weather was sold and everything was sold. it's wonderful, and all we have done is build subdivisions. numerous governors on both sides of the aisle have looked to development as the economic safety network. if things go downhill, build another (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) homes; great jobs, activity and there's this miraculous activity, …[supposedly] in some trickle‐ down fashion…we all get richer and our lives get better. [but] it never happens. when i came to california in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885), the bay area had three‐and‐a‐half million people. now there are seven million people, and all along i've been promised that my life would get better. all i know is the traffic is horrible and the air is terrible. the noise is terrible and the crime rate is terrible. the fiscal situation is terrible. where is the progress? there is none. now all communities are broke – most counties are broke – 117

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and the roads in california, that used to be the best roads in the nation, now are a disaster. i just came back from florida and you can see the pull they have. their freeways are beautiful, and the same in states like alabama. their interstate freeways are in fabulous condition. when i come from sacramento airport and drive on i‐(cid:887) i know where i am with each pothole. rz: that's very interesting. the other thing that i wanted to ask you now was something that i wasn't clear about. you had said that urban annexations are subject to referendums, and i wondered if you could explain that. ve: under the california constitution, we have something that doesn't exist in every state of the union. we have the right to referendum and we have the right to initiative. do you want me to explain the difference? alright, an initiative is basically a legislative proposal that goes either on a local ballot or on the statewide ballot. this legislative proposal can be drafted by any citizen. there is no legal limit to that. a referendum is a referendum on a legislative decision. so, if a legislative decision happens either from the state or a board of supervisors, let's say a general plan amendment, that is technically a legislative decision in legal terms. we would have the right within (cid:885)(cid:882) days to collect signatures and put it on the ballot and vote on that decision – and we can knock out that decision. that's a referendum. the procedure is a little bit different, but you need the same amount of signatures, you have more time to collect [them with an initiative] and it can be put on the ballot, and if it wins it's law. that can be a general plan amendment or it can be a law that is valid statewide, but as i say, this is not in every state of the union, the initiative and referendum. annexations by cities are legislative decisions, and the precedent was established by one case in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886) that the referendum would indeed apply to an annexation decision by a city, and the annexation was invalidated because of the voter turnout. the land is, by the way, now in vineyard. it was supposed to go for houses. rz: where was that? ve: the so‐called longwood ranch at the bottom of silverado trail and trancas, on the east side of the trail. rz: yes, you mentioned that, but i wasn't clear. ve: i can show you on the map. it was something like (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres. rz: and who led that drive? ve: that was led by a friend of mine who doesn't live here anymore, vic fershko [mentioned in the earlier interview of november (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890)], who was a local attorney and later on he was on the county planning commission. he and i fought a number of battles later, on measure a in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) and measure j in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). he lives now on vancouver island. rz: how do you feel about the future ability for that to happen in response to city annexations? 118

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looking toward the future ve: i don't think that at this point it is a huge issue, these annexation issues. that will come piecemeal. one of the fears i have is [that] the state of california mandates growth. the reason for that is the state grows like crazy, and they want to distribute the growth fairly – this is what you hear from sacramento. so each jurisdiction has to take a fair share. these numbers have worked out to be very complex, and if the state demands it, if the legislature enacts something like this, there is no escape from that. if, let's say, down the road a city would say we're full and the only way we can fulfill our obligation is by annexing, let's say fifty acres, it would be very difficult to fight against that, very difficult. i mean, the state of california is kind of screwed up not just fiscally, but in terms of land use as well. i think one day some people are speaking of a constitutional convention here. this whole system is going to break down because it's unsustainable fiscally. we all know this now. these initiatives that are on the ballot tomorrow, they will fail. we all know this already from the service. without money, then the legislature has really nothing left to say. without money, there are no services, and of course we are a population that wants services but not to pay for them. we'll figure this out eventually. rz: do you think there'll be a new constitution? ve: maybe in california one day. i mean this [current situation] is untenable financially. there is absolutely no money, and if we start letting go the firemen and the nurses and everything else and the cops and sell the prisons, i mean, what's left? there is nothing left. the people have to understand that if you want services, you have to pay for them – that's number one. number two, we have to understand that development is too costly and that we have to curtail development. that is one of the key things that no politician dares to say, and most of them don't even understand it. rz: of course, there is the other issue of growing populations, and if you don't have development where will people go? ve: that, of course, is the one ultimate question, looking at close to seven billion [people] worldwide [today]. obviously, we have not heeded the discussions from the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)s when we talked about zero population growth, and basically we seem to be very callous about it. we are going to grow and grow, and…sometimes i have the feeling, especially in this country, people think we have plenty of room; if we have to accommodate another (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) million people, so be it. india has over a billion, china does, so why shouldn't we? maybe we need some more catastrophes to really make this clearer. nobody should have six children or ten or twelve. it's untenable. one thing is also very clear: we cannot accommodate the growth in central america. it's insane. central america's problems have to be solved in central america, not here in california or in the united states. rz: you're talking about immigration. ve: yes, absolutely, but the economic crisis we have now came so suddenly, at least for normal people like you and me. i remember twenty years ago reunification [for germany] came so suddenly, and the breakdown of the soviet union came so suddenly, so it may very well be that we have some catastrophe that will change everything…we don't know. twenty years ago you would have said, in (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) years this country will not elect a black man for president. now he's president, and he's fabulous. 119

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rz: now, i have about four more questions to ask you. we had put off talking about measure p at our last interview because it hadn't come up to vote. so i just wanted to ask if you had anything to say about measure p because you were so active in it, and it did pass. ve: yes, i do have something to say about it, because when a friend of mine said we should renew measure j, i didn't feel the urgency…but what i see now in retrospect, what i had to do to get it done and how it happened, i knew it was high time. the reason for that is the changing demographic structure of napa county. first of all, there is a generational change – there are lots of younger people who have absolutely no clue, or had no clue, what measure j was. even among politicians there was sort of an understanding, but there wasn't this feeling of urgency any more. the other thing, and this is by no means racist, but there is no question that the increase of latino voters is a problem for land use, at least in the short term. we know from experience, when people are poor they perceive land use controls as an attempt to keep people out. they don't consider it inclusive; they don't understand that in the long run everybody profits. when you look at our county, we're already over (cid:885)(cid:882)% of the population are latino. you can see [that] by (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:884)(cid:882), it might have been a real uphill battle to get it [measure j] renewed. the end result – i mean on a certain level – was easy. i raised all the money myself personally, every penny. rz: how much did you raise? ve: about $(cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), but this was due to a good network of friends who have known me for a long time. there were two new people whom i approached, and one old, who refused to give money. for them, it wasn't important enough because they didn't understand. i guess when you have gone through these battles since the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, you develop a different perspective. a lot of the people who did write checks are by now older, and i'm pretty sure that's the last time they're doing this stuff or have done this kind of stuff. in being able to do it for fifty years is what i consider the biggest accomplishment, plus we were able to anchor the (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum for the awos [agricultural watershed and open space] designation. not that measure p, as it is now called, is the end‐all to all our land use worries. it is just one aspect. annexations are obviously unresolved, and there are other issues that are clearly unresolved in our county. however, there is no other county in the united states that has something like measure p. they couldn't even dream of this. when people hear this, they are absolutely flabbergasted they we could do this. but then measure j was already an accomplishment, even though it was only for thirty years. the thirty‐year end was in sight; (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:884)(cid:882) was in sight. we had passed already almost twenty years of that measure. so fifty years [with the success of measure p] is not a permanent solution, but on the other hand it buys us enough time so that the next generation hopefully has a chance to really think things through, and maybe come up with a better solution of protecting the land. is that enough information? rz: i know that you have two children. i wondered what you think about this next generation, and what is the best way for them to become more aware of the need for the ag preserve? ve: my son is in the business. he is not an intellectual, but he hears enough from me and he has heard enough from his mother as well, and he sees what i have been doing. he reads the newspaper. he is pretty aware. he, himself, would never vote for development – there is no question. my daughter is even more extreme. she doesn't live here, but she is very clearly against development. 120

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the other families who are engaged in agriculture need to let their children get involved in the organizations that exist, and there are many ways of doing this and reading about it. there are lots of different ways, but it starts always with the parents. children who have bad manners don't have bad manners because they were born that way. it's because mother and father didn't pay attention. it's that simple. if they have bad land use, it's the parents. rz: but how do you engage the younger population here who isn't as directly involved in the wine industry? ve: well, we have many conferences. there are lots of little events all the time you can find out about where things are happening. now, it is of course not helpful that we have not a particularly good newspaper, but on the other hand, i would imagine there will be more on the internet. there will be bloggers for land use. it won't be me, i assure you, but there will be somebody blogging for good land use or twittering for good land use; something like that. other than that, how do children learn the need for world peace? how do they find out that muslims are human beings like us? it's the media. you hope that eventually it trickles down. but there is one other thing. i have noticed over the decades how proud the city population in napa is, or in any city actually, of our success as wine country. they all consider themselves part of that – it's the famous napa valley. we have the best wine in the world. true or not, it doesn't matter, but they all think that. the younger generation, many of them have jobs somehow related to the industry, and they see it. they get visits from relatives and they drive up and down the highway or silverado trail, and as the children become young adults, say they're twenty‐five and thirty, they begin to think a little bit. that's all you can hope for. you cannot turn back the wheel of history. you know that. if they want to destroy it, there's nothing you or i can do against it. that's all there is to it. so you do what you can do while you have some influence. impacts of tourism rz: alright, i have one last question, and then i'm just going to ask you if you want to add anything at the very end. the last question sort of follows on the heels of what you have already said. how do you envision the impacts of tourism on land use in the future? ve: tourism is, of course, the rock and the hard spot for us. it's the challenge as far as i'm concerned. in all fairness, we have to look at both sides. one is that anybody who has a winery wants visitors with deep pockets who buy a lot of wine direct. anybody who says that isn't true is lying. we all want that, me included. rz: to sell direct? ve: to sell direct, yes. on the other hand, it is one thing to get somebody to drive up in a car with some money, go to a nice restaurant for lunch, visit a couple wineries and spend a couple grand. it's something very different to hang out here for a week and bicycle and hike and hang out on main street in st. helena and stuff like that. that's where the problem comes. if you look at tourism in a different way, and most people unfortunately don't do it, we have (cid:885)(cid:888)(cid:887) days of the year. we have probably close to five million tourists; the precise number really doesn't matter. you divide this by (cid:885)(cid:888)(cid:887), and all of a sudden you have (cid:884)(cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:885)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people every day added to our 121

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population. sure, people say they come and they leave, but if every day a new group comes, you can clearly say they're here all the time. we don't have water, sewer, we don't have the infrastructure for any of that, and they're just a pain in the neck, to put it mildly. now, there are natural attractions such as hiking trails; mt. st. helena is very beautiful. they are the nice places where you can go and hike and learn more about nature. that's all fine and dandy, but (cid:885)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) [tourists] a day is too much for my personal taste. the bicycle tourism is, in many ways, the worst, and i'll tell you why. they don't buy, ever, because they can't take anything with them, and they don't come into the winery. first of all, look how they are dressed. secondly, they are smelly. [laughs] well, they are. i can imagine a guy who climbed (cid:884),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) feet with this bicycle walking into your tasting room, and everybody else takes off. i'm exaggerating only slightly, plus our highways are clogged with bicycles and it's dangerous at times. then we get the hotels because we want to have "quality" businessmen stay. so you look at hotels. the hotel produces, what do you call it, tot [transient occupancy tax].(cid:884)(cid:884) that's true, and it's a nice amount of money, but hotels also produce an inordinate amount of low income jobs. where do these people live, in what houses? where do the children of these people go to school? how do the social services take care of these families? if a typical middle‐class family that buys a house in napa in the current market for, say, half a million dollars, isn't producing enough revenue to pay for the services they are getting from the city, how is a low income family where people clean hotel rooms paying for the services they're getting? of course they can't, not in a million years. now the cities and the county get around this very elegantly. a few years ago, we had a huge controversy here in the county, and we were fighting against the largest development project proposed for several decades, called the montalcino resort in the southern end of the county, with hundreds and hundreds of rooms. the proponents and the supervisors who were for it, they would say we would get, i forget the numbers, it doesn't matter, so many millions in tot tax. we're going to do this and this and this. nobody looked at the cost that would be generated for the napa county school district, because the school district's budget is not part of the county's budget. nobody sees that budget. so, if no children come to school – and we have seen that in the city of st. helena – or when two children come into school, that's no big deal. if ten children go into a school, no big deal. if (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) go into the school, and this happens twice in a row, there's an issue on the ballot that makes everybody pay for a new school. the developer doesn't pay for this, but the taxpayer – that is the real cost that nobody pays attention to. when you look at the social welfare budget…for the department [napa county health and human services] that randy snowden(cid:884)(cid:885) runs for the county, it's gigantic. it is mostly done with money from washington and sacramento. now, money from washington and sacramento, where does it come from occasionally? from you and me. that isn't printed in any other place, and then miraculously dropped on california. no, it's california money, and they work on the budgets in the state and in washington and they send it back in the form of grants. so it's tax money all the way. when you have proper cost accounting, then you will find there is very little advantage in having tourism. now, the people who truly make money are the people who can, you might say, insulate their profits – the b&b's, the restaurants, maybe some smaller hotels. they get their profits from the tourists and that's fine, and you and i get the cost. that is the real issue. if anybody wants to challenge that, they should go to the mediterranean basin in europe and look at spain and italy and the former yugoslavia and turkey and greece, and see the destruction of nature, see the spoiled beaches, see the current economic situation in 122

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spain. it's somewhat similar to california. there was a huge real estate bubble. it's the nice weather and they built and built and built, and now they're belly‐up and now they have, what is it, (cid:884)(cid:882)% unemployment, horrible, in spain – it's absolutely horrible. now they're rounding up all the arabs they love to have for picking fruit; now they're all sent back to north africa. it's a disaster everywhere. go to the adriatic sea and see how the water is, what kind of algae problems they have. if you would start accounting for the needed environmental cleanup, nobody could begin to pay for that through the income from tourism. now it is, of course, unrealistic to assume that human beings will stop traveling. so i think the challenge for napa county is to regulate tourism, curtail it and make sure that you don't create a situation where tourism competes for resources with the wine industry. that is the real challenge. if i get the rich guys to bring me money for my wine that's wonderful, but somehow if the (cid:885)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) tourists ruin all the highways and then i have to pay in extra fees for fixing the highways, the usefulness of the direct purchase is diminished, shall we say. now, people will [still] want to come to the wine country, [especially] one so close to a big city. all these things have to be considered. the carbon footprint issue has to be considered. so there is a real challenge for the county to do it right, although, quite honestly, i do not see any serious attempt to do it right – none. the wine industry certainly is not in any mood to do anything to keep tourists out. everybody wants to have the right tourists, of course, the (cid:883)(cid:882)% richest people in this country. [as a vintner] i hate poor people. [laughs] i'm kidding, but you know what i mean. rz: it(cid:495)s a very big issue. and of course, the economic collapse that we're experiencing is making all of these issues more difficult. ve: very difficult. anytime you have an economic downturn like this, people are concerned about their own well‐being and their own pocketbook, understandably. they don't have time for the big picture. that is the real challenge for the politicians – that is the hour where politicians would be needed to have some intelligence and some courage to do it right on the local level and the state level and the federal level. on the federal level, it's best right now. on the state level it's falling apart, and on the local level, too. rz: so this concludes our interview. i just wanted to ask you if there is anything you want to add now for the record after your two interviews, anything at all that you want to say? ve: no, i want to say thank you. i mean, i could probably think of something if i reviewed the transcript, but right now offhand i have nothing else to say because you took notes of the areas that weren't covered in the transcript. rz: so this concludes the second interview with volker eisele and rue ziegler as the interviewer. thank you. [conclusion of interview.] 123

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james h. hickey oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture governments (abag) from 1964 to 1970, when he became director of napa county’s conservation, development and planning department. he served in that position until 1989. this interview took place at his jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler november (cid:883)(cid:883), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) participants: jh – james hickey rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: james hickey was regional planning director for the association of bay area home in napa, ca.] [tape (cid:883)] rz: jim, i just wanted to start by asking you a few questions about your early life. where you were born? jh: i was born in saginaw, michigan. it(cid:495)s located north of detroit, about a third of the way up the state. if you think of the state of michigan as a mitten that you see on the map, saginaw bay is between the thumb and the finger there, and saginaw is south of saginaw bay. rz: and why were your parents there? jh: my father was working for the railroad. rz: and had lived there for quite some time? jh: yes, he was born in saginaw. his parents came from ireland. rz: so jim, i wanted to ask you a little bit about your early education. you went to school in saginaw? jh: yes! rz: and what were your early interests as a child? jh: i was a trumpet player, and i was going to make a career in music. rz: really! i know you were also a football player. jh: in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:886), we had a very good football team. we won the class a state championship. rz: so you(cid:495)re a musician and an athlete. jh: yes. we also won the state track championship that year. i was captain of the track team, and played early years 124

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on the football team and the basketball team. rz: and in the band, what was your instrument? jh: the trumpet. i played in the school band and also in a band that did dances. i learned early on that there were people with a lot more talent and a lot more financial resources than i had. so music became an avocation, not a vocation. rz: and did you have siblings? did you have a large family? jh: i had an older sister and two brothers. rz: and what were your first thoughts about college? where had you wanted to go? jh: i hadn(cid:495)t planned on going to college, because those were the war years and you had to decide whether you were going in the army, the navy or the marines. college was something you would think about if you survived. my father had been in the navy in world war i and convinced me that that would be a good choice, so i joined the navy, and almost the day i graduated, i shipped out for great lakes naval training station in chicago. i spent about a year and three‐quarters in the navy in the amphibious force in the pacific theater. rz: what year did you graduate from high school and go into the navy? jh: i went in the navy in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887) … i caught the end of the war. i was part of the occupation forces in japan. rz: let(cid:495)s back up for a minute, because i forgot to get your full given name and date of birth. jh: james h. (cid:523)for henry(cid:524) hickey, and my birth date was may (cid:884)(cid:891)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:889). rz: all right, so you shipped out in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887)? military service jh: i was shipped out through san francisco. the first time i saw the bay area was courtesy of the u.s. navy. we were in an installation called camp schumacher, which now is the alameda county santa rita prison farm. it had some of those qualities when i was there in the service. they had barbed wire around it, and the barbed wire was pointing in and not pointing out. rz: and what were your first thoughts of the bay area as you saw it? jh: i thought it was very impressive, because you could run around all day wearing practically nothing and that night in order to stay warm you had to sleep with all your clothes on and your sea bag. i was in the bay area long enough that i worked several weekends in the canneries down in san jose. that(cid:495)s how you made extra money in those days while you were sitting around the shipping barracks waiting to move out. they looked for people to work in the canneries because they needed help in those days. i(cid:495)ve never felt the same about fruit cocktail! one of my jobs was shoveling those little white grapes – doing that with a shovel kind of takes the edge off it. but it was an interesting time in the bay area. 125

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rz: how did you get to san jose then? jh: they sent buses and hauled you to the canneries. that was very popular among the personnel. and, of course, for liberty you went into san francisco. in those days they still had the  what do they call them?  electric trolleys, and as a serviceman you could ride for practically nothing. and as a serviceman in those days in san francisco, there were places you could stay. it was, for a young man from the midwest, a whole new world. rz: and then you shipped out and you went to the pacific theater? jh: yes, i was stationed on a repair ship. we repaired all kinds of landing craft – lcvps (cid:523)which were personnel(cid:524), lcms (cid:523)which were tanks(cid:524). you know that old saying that for every fighting man there(cid:495)s ten people maintaining them? well, i was one of the ten. rz: and how long were you overseas? jh: i was overseas for about a year and a half. i came back through san diego and shipped back to chicago, and was discharged from the navy in chicago. rz: so this would be (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:888)? jh: (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:889). rz: when you went to san diego, were you intending to come back to california? jh: no, i think i was like most servicemen. the first thing you wanted to do was to get home. so i immediately opted to return to the hometown and found a job working for the local power company, like pg&e, only it was consumer power in michigan. having worked for them for one summer they told me, (cid:498)go get a civil engineering degree and we(cid:495)ll hire you for the rest of your life.(cid:499) so i went to michigan state university in east lansing, michigan. it(cid:495)s in the middle of the state of michigan. rz: and i guess you didn(cid:495)t have to pay tuition because you were on the gi bill? jh: yes, i was on the gi bill. that was the thing that made it possible for me to go to college. i certainly owe the military for that. rz: and i know your wife(cid:495)s name is virginia. were you married during this time at university? jh: we went together for four years before i went into the service. she wanted to get married, and i said we(cid:495)ll see what comes back after the war, because the shooting war was still on at the time i went in. and when i came back we got married. when we went to college we had one child, so we went to college as a married vet. that was an experience – living in the married veterans(cid:495) housing … it was almost like being back in the military, only your wife was there. rz: this was married students(cid:495) housing? jh: yes. 126

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rz: you have six children? jh: five. we were going to have six, but we decided to stop at five. rz: so … the oldest one was born while you were still under the gi bill at school. jh: actually the oldest was born even before i went to college. so when we went down there, we had a two‐bedroom apartment in the married housing section. rz: so what year was it that you went back to school? jh: i graduated from msu in (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:884) and it took me three years, so it must have been (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:891). rz: so your children were born in the late (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:882)s, (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s and (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? jh: right. rz: so now, by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:884), you(cid:495)re working again. first job in planning jh: i had graduated from college and was working for the city of oak park, michigan. it was a brand new city located in the detroit metropolitan area. the city had been fighting encroachment by the city of detroit; the eastern boundary of the city was up against the city of detroit. the city of detroit was looking for a new airport site and one of the places they were looking at was the oak park area. so oak park was very much concerned they weren(cid:495)t going to be the airport or the dump for detroit, so they incorporated, and they wanted to develop a city plan that didn(cid:495)t include either of the detroit projects. rz: and your degree was in planning? jh: in those days it was called landscape architecture/urban planning. i was in oak park long enough to complete the plan, and then the city adopted it and built a series of (cid:498)greenbelts(cid:499) around the city(cid:495)s industrial area. this was a strip park that was probably three or four hundred feet wide, and it ran all around the industrial park. then we put them along the mile roads coming out of detroit also, so we had strip parks around the industrial park and along the major highways. rz: now what do you mean about (cid:498)strip park?(cid:499) jh: well, i mean, you(cid:495)ve got a strip of land that runs the whole length of the back of the industrial development area, and it(cid:495)s in trees and grass and walkways. it(cid:495)s a narrow, long park that stretches either along the industrial area or along the side of the highway. the strip park is a greenbelt. rz: why did you go to ohio? jh: i was offered the job as the chief administrative planner for the first multiple county planning agency in ohio. it was called the tri‐county regional planning commission. it was located in akron and covered three counties: summit, medina and portage. 127

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rz: and this was…was this in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? jh: yes. rz: so this was a time when there was a lot of idealism and expectation about what regional planning could do? jh: absolutely. the idea was that rather than letting the state or the federal government come down with programs or proposals, the people in the region working together could come up with a better idea – a better plan to balance their water, sewer and transportation needs on an area‐wide basis, as opposed to each one going its own way and hoping that all the pieces would hang together and work. rz: and did you find that regional planning was working at this stage of your career? jh: we did have some problems with some of the local technical people – the county engineer in summit county had a different idea on who should be running the show – and we were successful in getting the program underway. we were successful in getting the concept and some of the programs initiated. but overall there was a lot of resistance to giving up any authority to an agency that the individual communities didn(cid:495)t control. they had to work together in order to maintain that kind of a balance, and some of them were used to just making their own decisions. rz: so you had already experienced difficulties. jh: yes. and at that point, the township which was next to the city of oak park, michigan, was working on incorporation, and they wanted a planner so that by the time the city was incorporated they would be up and running with a plan similar to what had happened in oak park. i was offered the planning director(cid:495)s job, and we moved back to the detroit metropolitan area. rz: and was that just for a brief period? jh: the incorporation was longer in coming than anyone had anticipated. under the township form of government, every year when they adopted the budget, you had to put your budget before the public and they could vote you in or out. and since planning has a habit of making people angry, it got to be a rather shaky situation, because the incorporation had stalled and the township residents who didn(cid:495)t like what the planning program was doing were out to sink the program. so it lasted only two‐and‐a‐half years. and it did incorporate, and it is a tremendous city. the first midwestern regional shopping center was located in southfield – that was a brand new idea. and j.l. hudson, who was the big department store in the detroit metropolitan area, built the first shopping mall in that part of the country. it was the northland j.l. hudson shopping mall. it(cid:495)s what you see all over today, but in those days it was a brand new idea. it was an education working with the designers and builders of that facility. rz: is it still there? jh: it(cid:495)s still there. still there and prospering. rz: so now, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886), you were probably back in michigan, but you then decided to come to california? 128

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jh: well, actually i went from the job in southfield, southfield township, back to ohio and worked for another regional planning agency – no, two regional planning agencies. one was located in springfield, ohio and consisted of the county and three cities, and i was director of that one. and then following that, i took a job in canton, ohio as planning director for the county and three of the cities – massillon, alliance and canton. and that was the last job i had in ohio before i came to california. rz: so by that time you had twelve years of experience in regional planning.. jh: yes. move to california rz: and how did you happen to come to california? jh: well, it was a very profound experience. my wife and i were at a national planning conference, at a cocktail reception, and they had posted ads on the wall for this job in the bay area, and she said, (cid:498)why don(cid:495)t you go apply for that job?(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)no, i wouldn(cid:495)t even waste my time, because if it(cid:495)s that good, someone in the bay area would be interested.(cid:499) she said, (cid:498)well, why don(cid:495)t you do it anyway?(cid:499) so i went to the room posted and i got an application. i filed an application and i got a call from them. they said, (cid:498)we(cid:495)ll fly you for an interview,(cid:499) so i flew out and spent a couple of days in the bay area. at that time the abag offices were in the claremont hotel. then i came back and was still working in canton, where i was now head of the transportation agency as well as the planning program and the building department. and i had outlived a couple of county engineers and some supervisors. i was one of the old‐timers already, and it was a pretty good job and it was a nice place to live. they were going to build a pro football hall of fame. i got a call from the bay area (cid:523)abag(cid:524) and they offered me the job. well, i(cid:495)d had a very good day, and i told them, (cid:498)no, thank you.(cid:499) i appreciated it, but not interested. well, apparently they thought i wanted more money, because i got another call from them two weeks later, and they said, (cid:498)okay, we(cid:495)ll increase the salary and we(cid:495)ll pay the moving expenses.(cid:499) well, i(cid:495)d had a bad day, so i said, (cid:498)i(cid:495)ll take it!(cid:499) rz: now, just to clarify for our readers, abag stands for the association of bay area governments. jh: right, that(cid:495)s the nine counties that surround san francisco bay. at the time of the creation of abag, there were (cid:891)(cid:885) cities in nine counties, and they joined together to form abag. rz: and how large was the staff at abag? jh: the staff for the planning program when i arrived was one – i was the only one. [end of tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] rz: so, jim, you were talking about abag (cid:523)the association of bay area governments(cid:524), which was not a large bureaucracy at this time? early days of abag 129

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jh: no, the staff was small – i was the only planner. i was hired at the time, and i had to put the staff together. and eventually, i wound up with a staff of ten people. the association was fairly new as an organization; it had only been created about two years before i came on board. my job was to do the regional plan and get nine counties and (cid:891)(cid:885) cities to adopt it. other than that, no problem! rz: so up to this point, there was no regional plan. this was the first. jh: correct. there never had been a regional plan for the bay area, because the bay area cities and counties could never agree on how to form an organization to do a plan, or what to include in such a plan. rz: and what were some of your early experiences? jh: well, in the beginning, the question was what would you put in a regional plan for an area of (cid:889),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) square miles (cid:523)(cid:889)(cid:882) miles long and (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) miles deep(cid:524). it was a huge area, and the logistics of bringing together all of these pieces and then making sense out of it was obviously the first big challenge. and then getting everybody to agree on it was the second. it took six‐and‐a‐half years to get the plan on paper, to get the members to agree on what it is they wanted to do, and then to get them to adopt it. and when they finally adopted it, all nine counties voted for it, and all but three of the three cities out of the (cid:891)(cid:885) cities voted to adopt it. rz: and what were the three that refused? jh: well, they were three of the smaller communities who were afraid that the bigger communities would use the plan to control their cities. rz: so they held out to the very end? jh: they probably would have voted (cid:498)no(cid:499) no matter what the plan included. rz: so this involved planning, including transportation, as well as building? jh: it included all of the land use and transportation. it included the economic concept, housing and it even included solid waste disposal. one of the elements of the plan was solid waste disposal, which is a little bit unique for such a plan. and part of the general plan was the bay shoreline. at that time, the bay conservation development commission had been created, and they were also doing a shoreline plan. our shoreline plan turned out to be more conservative than the shoreline plan they adopted. rz: which one took precedence? jh: because they were a state agency, and we were a local governmental agency, they had a precedent, so their plan was the one that controlled the shoreline. rz: what was the population of the bay area at that time? jh: it was around four or five million people at the time. rz: so it was a formidable task! 130

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jh: yes, logistically and politically, it was almost an impossible task. rz: well, you must have come up against a great deal of contentiousness. jh: first, you had to convince people that basically it was in their best interests to cooperate, and they could gain more than they could lose in being a part of a general plan of the entire area. and it was very elementary to see the benefits. i mean, you can(cid:495)t plan your water system; you can(cid:495)t plan your highway system; you can(cid:495)t plan anything by yourself when you(cid:495)re a part of (cid:891)(cid:885) cities and nine counties. you(cid:495)ve got to work with the other organizations, the other governmental agencies, and keep in mind (cid:523)in addition to the cities and counties(cid:524), you had agencies like the bay area rapid transit. we were doing the land use planning for bart at that time as well, because they didn(cid:495)t have a land use planning program. they were busy building bart. ac transit and all of those agencies, there(cid:495)s probably more of agencies of that nature than there were cities and counties, because you have special districts for water, for sewer, for buses, transportation, and airports. we did work on the airports also: the san francisco airport, the oakland airport and the san jose airport. rz: and, of course, abag included napa county. jh: oh, absolutely. one of the nine counties was napa. and at that time, first it was ralph trower who had been the mayor [of napa city] and his alternate was dewey andersen, who was a supervisor. rz: so you had quite a bit of experience with napa county through abag? jh: yes. in the six‐and‐a‐half years that we worked on the regional plan for abag, we worked on each of the counties, their planning concepts, and their planning programs. we had a committee of planning directors, so we knew all of the planning directors in the bay area at that time, because of the fact that they were part of the committee to work on the preparation of the plan. rz: who was the planning director in napa county at the time? jh: vernon cotter. and he was the planning director in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), when they came up with the ag preserve idea. rz: and was he a pro‐development or a pro‐preservation person? jh: i think vernon … played a role in the development of the concept of the ag preserve. he was the planning director at the time, and he worked on the development of the concepts for the preserve that were incorporated in the draft that was approved by the county, and worked with the legal department in the drafting of it. role in ag preserve rz: so what role did you play in the ag preserve of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890)? jh: well, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), i didn(cid:495)t play much of a role in it at all, because it was entirely a local action initiated by the napa county board of supervisors, the planning commission and implemented by the staff at the time. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), the association of bay area governments had finally agreed on a plan concept from the 131

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preliminary regional plan, which was the first step in getting to the final plan and getting it adopted. and it took an additional couple of years to get them to do that. but in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), when napa county was adopting the ag preserve, the association of bay area governments was adopting the preliminary regional plan. rz: now, what happened in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)? did you leave abag at that point, that year? jh: well, i was hired to come in and do the plan, so i felt i had completed the job they had hired me to do. the plan was completed, they had adopted the plan, and i was very much interested in what had happened in napa county with the agricultural preserve. so i may be one of the people who came to napa county because of the preserve. i thought it was a great idea. i thought it was a serious commitment to do some serious planning as opposed to the usual concept that agriculture is simply a holding action until you can get some industry or some commercial or some housing development to locate in the area. rz: had you ever encountered a similar county ordinance, or grass‐roots movement? jh: there was no similar ordinance or movements you could compare it to, but there were instances in some of the other jobs i had where agriculture was considered more than just a holding action. that it was an important resource. in one of the ohio planning jobs, we used agricultural soils information relative to septic tank usage in certain areas where the soil wouldn(cid:495)t absorb effluent; you simply couldn(cid:495)t build. it was just designated basically as no‐building areas; they had to remain in agriculture. that was a long time before the abag. rz: now just for the record, you showed me two copies of the general plan. jh: one was the preliminary plan, which was the first presentation of the concept. and the thing we had to do in those days was, we had to add up all of the existing general plans that were adopted in the area and show what that would look like if that was going to be the future – all those general plans put together. but there was a little quirk in the law at that time which said you had to have a general plan to have zoning, but the zoning didn(cid:495)t have to look anything like the general plan. so in addition to adding up the local general plan, we had to add up all the zoning ordinances. two of the alternatives that the general assembly of abag looked at in the preliminary draft were what the future of the area was if everybody realized either of these two plans. needless to say, it was not a pretty picture. you had some communities with residential areas up against industrial areas and so on. and actually, it helped a lot of communities, because they(cid:495)d never looked at their plan in that relationship to all of the surrounding plans, and they could see it on an area, region‐wide basis. and that alone probably would(cid:495)ve been worth the effort that we put into it, because a number of the communities (cid:523)marin county(cid:524) changed their zoning based on what they saw. they weren(cid:495)t fully aware of the relationship of their zoning to adjacent counties. rz: and abag was assuming a large population increase over the next years? jh: they were assuming a reasonable population increase, but you know, in those days counties used to celebrate when they had a million population. santa clara county had a big to‐do and a community celebration: they had a million people. a couple of years later, alameda was happy as it could be: they had a million people. bigger was better. 132

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joined napa planning department rz: now, i wonder if you could talk a little bit about when you left abag and came to napa county as the director of the conservation, development, and planning department? jh: when i came to napa, the planning department didn(cid:495)t have that long name yet, because the conservation aspect would be several years later with the adoption of new legislation in sacramento. the department consisted of the planning department and the building department, and also the local agency formation commission (cid:523)lafco(cid:524), which is the agency that every county has that looks at annexations and incorporations, expansions of utility districts and so on. at that time, all three of those were combined in what was called the planning department. later on, when the state of california passed conservation laws, then you got into environmental impact reports – that(cid:495)s when the name of the department was changed to conservation, development and planning. and the conservation was for the environment impacts, and the development was for the building inspection, and the planning was for the planning function. the county administrator at that time, al harberger, loved what he called (cid:498)umbrella agencies(cid:499) – which meant you got one director to head four departments, and you only had to pay one salary. rz: and why had you decided to leave abag and come to napa county? jh: i liked the action. where things were happening was at the county level. the regional program was interesting, but it was more philosophical rather than action‐oriented because as a regional agency, you really don(cid:495)t have any authority. at the county level, your program actually had a prospect of being implemented. you actually could see some results from the planning program. rz: because abag didn(cid:495)t have any force to implement its plan; it just provided guidelines? jh: it is an advisory body. it was a (cid:498)tiger with no teeth.(cid:499) everybody thought abag was going to take over, but abag had no way of doing anything other than coordinating local plans. rz: and what was napa county(cid:495)s reaction to the abag(cid:495)s plan? jh: well, they thought it was good for the county because it picked up the concept of agriculture in the valley floor, which was one of the primary concepts in the regional plan – the preservation of agricultural land. and so it fit the county(cid:495)s concept of a new plan. you(cid:495)ve got to remember, when they adopted the agricultural preserve, they had a general plan which allowed home subdivisions in the valley at one acre. you could(cid:495)ve divided the whole valley floor into one‐acre pieces and put houses on them. rz: who was your first contact at napa county, where you got the idea of actually moving over to napa county from abag? jh: the county had directed vernon cotter, the county planning director, to prepare a new plan for the county, and it should incorporate (cid:523)or focus on(cid:524) the agricultural preserve, the preservation concept. he had prepared a draft plan, and the county board of supervisors was not too happy, because it was just like the previous plan. so dewey andersen asked me if i would be interested in working in napa county, and at the time, it seemed like a good idea. rz: and dewey andersen was a member of the board of supervisors? 133

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jh: he was chairman of the board of supervisors at that time. rz: so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), you and your wife moved to napa? jh: yes. we used to come to napa county on the weekends when i was with abag. we liked napa county, and one of the reasons for coming to napa county is we thought it was a marvelous place. it has that feeling of home. it was a place we enjoyed. so we decided, why don(cid:495)t we stop visiting there and live there? rz: did you actually purchase this house [in napa city] then? is this the same house you had? jh: no, we had one further down the block that we rented for several years, and then we purchased this house. this was the model house for the subdivision. i think it(cid:495)s thirty‐nine years ago we bought it. rz: and were all your children still at home? jh: all except our oldest girl. rz: what were some of your earliest experiences in napa county? jh: in napa, they had a number of building inspectors; i think there were six or seven building inspectors. they had a chief building inspector, and we had a planning staff of about six or eight people. and i think lafco had one person who was assigned to it. and other than that, we had secretarial and graphics people. rz: and what was their role? jh: well, in the past, cities and counties worked out where they were going to annex property, and they petitioned a state agency at the time. and therefore, it was almost pro forma – you applied for it, you got it. and, for example, the city of napa annexed the stanly ranch by running down the highway with the incorporation line. and the highway was public land until they got out to the stanly ranch, and then they drew a line around the stanly ranch and annexed it. it was called a (cid:498)cherry stem annexation.(cid:499) if you think about a cherry being the stanly ranch, and the stem would be the highway. you could run up highways and down rivers, and so the state legislature created an agency that was made up of two supervisors and two representatives from the cities, and these people would jointly select one citizen member. so you had, in theory, a public member as the deciding vote. and that agency functioned separately from planning and building departments, and its job is primarily… and it(cid:495)s a very powerful agency. if they say (cid:498)no,(cid:499) you can(cid:495)t incorporate, you can(cid:495)t annex, you can(cid:495)t expand, and so on. as a matter of fact, it(cid:495)s kind of the sleeping giant in planning, because without its approval you can(cid:495)t do a whole lot of anything in changing your city(cid:495)s boundaries. rz: and does it still function in the same way? jh: yes, only now it(cid:495)s a separate agency in napa county. for seventeen years it was in the planning department, and then the county administrator (cid:523)they changed county administrators(cid:524) moved it up to the county administrator(cid:495)s office. and then i think there was some additional interpretation of state law, and now it(cid:495)s a separate agency. it(cid:495)s not even in the county office building any more. 134

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rz: how long are the terms of the officers? jh: i think it(cid:495)s the same four years as the city council or board of supervisors term of office. rz: but they actually take precedence over the board of supervisors in those issues? jh: yes, they(cid:495)re a separate agency under a separate code sections, and their (cid:498)yea and nay(cid:499) is the basis on which you either proceed to annex or you(cid:495)re denied the option to do that. rz: and how are the members of lafco selected today? jh: well, the board of supervisors usually appoints some member of the board to serve, and the cities in the county appoint a like number. [end of tape (cid:884)] [tape (cid:885)] rz: jim, you were just mentioning that the membership of lafco remains as it was originally. jh: i don(cid:495)t think it(cid:495)s changed; the composition hasn(cid:495)t changed. over the years lafco has been given additional authority, making it a stronger agency, rather than giving the same powers to the planning commission. creating special agencies is the way they do things in sacramento. early supporters of ag preserve rz: so now i want to ask you about your first exposure to some of the people who were very strong proponents of not only maintaining the ag preserve, but also expanding its sphere. who were some of the early people that you encountered in the county? jh: the county supervisors had been the prime movers with the county planning commission, who had stuck their neck out to adopt this concept which wasn(cid:495)t all that overwhelmingly popular at the time. it looked like, in the view of some of the land owners, that their property had been taken away from them and been made exclusively agriculture, and that didn(cid:495)t make them happy. so they sued the county over the legality of having an ordinance of that nature. but there were a number of support groups at that time active in the county. the upper napa valley association (cid:523)unva(cid:524) consisted of a lot of interested individuals living in the county who were very much in favor of preserving the open space land and preserving agriculture. and there was another group called cause. there were several of those groups that had large memberships. unfortunately, there are none of them left today; they(cid:495)ve all just gone by the wayside. they were a valuable resource in the planning in the county. rz: who were some of the people that you remember were active in the upper napa valley association? jh: well, in the early beginning of it, they had bob mondavi, louis martini and jack davies; they were all active in unva. they used to have an annual christmas dinner that was one of the big events in the valley. and there were also some other vintners and growers who were supportive. but there were more who didn(cid:495)t like the idea of being told that the use of their land was limited to agriculture. 135

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rz: and what was unva(cid:495)s role? what was their mission? jh: they would attend public hearings and campaign for those ideas that were pro‐agriculture, pro‐ conservation for the county. they were a very strong and outspoken group, and they would circulate petitions in order to provide the elected official with some backing for making the right decision. rz: wasn(cid:495)t there a plan for development that unva objected to – a hotel development? jh: after the general plan had been completely rewritten, focusing on agriculture as the highest and best use of the land, the plan was adopted and the rezoning (cid:523)according to that plan(cid:524) was completed. the voters had initiated a petition to create what they called measure a. measure a was a limitation on the amount of population growth to be allowed in the county. population growth was not to exceed the rate of growth of the state, the nation, the bay region, which at that time was one percent – i think it was (cid:883).(cid:884) percent. and that was approved by the voters in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:891), but they also elected a couple of supervisors who, with one of the existing supervisors, provided a development‐oriented majority to what the groups viewed as a pro‐ development board. one of the first things the new board did was fire the entire planning commission and appoint a brand new planning commission. so you had a whole new planning commission. one of the members fired was a lawyer, vic fershko, and he sued the county on the adequacy of the general plan. rz: well, we(cid:495)ve kind of jumped ahead of ourselves. let(cid:495)s get back to the general plan, because this was a very important contribution to the ag preserve, and this was your (cid:498)baby.(cid:499) jh: yes, it was … the problem was to put down on paper what people felt was workable and could be implemented. you have the public support, and you certainly have to have the elected officials(cid:495) support. otherwise, planning is an idle act. we developed some growth alternatives and mailed it to all of the registered voters…i think it went out with the tax bills one year and it was a questionnaire. we asked voters to choose among three different levels of population growth, and when the questionnaires came back, voters not only favored the smallest population increase, we had as many votes for less than the smallest increases than we did for all of the higher population figures. so the message clearly was that the voters in the county were not in favor of intensive development in the unincorporated areas. rz: so when you came to the county, did you begin working on the general plan right away? county general plan jh: yes, that was my first assignment. i mean, the big assignment was to get a new general plan, get a new zoning ordinance, and get the county rezoned in a consistent manner with the general plan. the ag preserve was just one section of the zoning ordinance dealing with land use on the valley floor. i mean, that(cid:495)s not the entire county. and consequently, the whole general plan needed to be redone to pick up that theme countywide. rz: and then the general plan would direct what would happen to the incorporated city areas? jh: the county has no power over the cities; the cities are totally separate entities of government from the county. the county power and the cities(cid:495) power are specified in state law, and the county cannot tell the city what to do and the city cannot tell the county what to do. in general, they(cid:495)re independent of each other. 136

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rz: so the general plan applies only to the unincorporated areas of the county? jh: yes, but since everybody living in the county is a citizen in the county, the people in the cities get to vote on measures that would impact the county because they are citizens of the county. rz: and now the general plan ended up being quite long, you said – (cid:885)(cid:887)(cid:882) or more pages? jh: yes, it was a rather long document. the problem was that nobody is probably ever going to read the whole thing. the concern was how to translate that plan into a more understandable concept, so we drafted two sentences that summed the plan up. if you could understand those two sentences, you understood what the plan was about. one was that (cid:498)urban development belongs in urban areas.(cid:499) and the second one was, (cid:498)agriculture is the highest and best use of the land in the unincorporated area.(cid:499) the statement, (cid:498)urban development belongs in urban areas,(cid:499) means that the county would not approve package water and sewer plants in the unincorporated areas. the county did not provide for shopping malls. the county general plan provided that the existing downtown areas in the four cities in the county would serve as the shopping centers for the unincorporated area. so there were no shopping malls, no used car lots, not… any of the things that you see in so many other counties. for example, in sacramento county, they(cid:495)ve got more people living in the unincorporated area than they do living in the city of sacramento – in other words, it(cid:495)s all pretty much urbanized. and that becomes the highest and best use of agriculture land. it is simply a holding action until the urban development arrives. rz: and where did the expression (cid:498)highest and best use(cid:499) come from? jh: it(cid:495)s a legal term in the state codes, dealing with land use in general plans. rz: what was jack fisk(cid:495)s role in determining that agriculture could actually drive the economy? jh: jack was the agriculture advisor – the university of california, davis, assigned him to the county. he had developed what he called an economic growth model, and that model was to demonstrate how agriculture could successfully provide a reasonable source of income for the county. in other words, a lot of counties believed they had to have industrial, commercial areas in order to make sufficient monies to provide services to residential areas. his idea was that you could do it with agriculture if you limited the size of the urban areas. rz: and that was new at the time, because weren(cid:495)t most counties looking at the number of jobs that could be created with development projects? jh: yes. however, if you do not have an unincorporated area which is populated, you don(cid:495)t need schools, you don(cid:495)t need water, you don(cid:495)t need sewer and you don(cid:495)t need the level of police and fire protection that you have for cities. and so actually, what the county was saying is that if you(cid:495)re going to build urban densities, and you need all those services, you should be in a city where the services are available. don(cid:495)t spread it all over the unincorporated area and then try to figure out how you(cid:495)re going to service it, because that simply complicates the problem of providing service and the cost of providing those services. so if you don(cid:495)t have the population, you don(cid:495)t have to provide the services, and therefore, from an economic standpoint, you can operate on a much lower service level, and agriculture will provide you with sufficient income to operate the county government. 137

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rz: so jack fisk (cid:523)whose real name was john(cid:524), was the county farm advisor. he was at the university of california, davis extension. jh: right. he was assigned to napa county; he worked in napa county. rz: and what was james lider(cid:495)s role? jh: well, jim was also one of the agriculture advisors, and they agreed on the concept of agriculture as an economic, viable future for the county. rz: now we(cid:495)re talking about … this is still in the early (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s? jh: yes. rz: when was the general plan completed? jh: the first draft of the general plan was completed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), and the final adoption and the rezoning were completed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:891). rz: and eventually the document was well over (cid:885)(cid:887)(cid:882) pages. i love your story about how you hired someone who was a grade school teacher. jh: that was when i was with the association of bay area governments (cid:523)abag(cid:524). when i had completed the preliminary regional plan for the entire san francisco bay area, my concern was that it was all full of (cid:498)planner(cid:495)s language(cid:499) that nobody else would understand. so i hired a writer who wrote textbooks for second and third graders in elementary schools, and i gave him a draft of the plan, and i asked him to read it and tell me what he didn(cid:495)t understand. after he had read it i had several meetings with him, and he would point out things that didn(cid:495)t make any sense to him. and i figured if he could write books for second and third graders, he ought to be a good source of understandable language for county supervisors, city councilmen and all of the technicians, including the planners, who were going to have to read the document and work with it. so the plan was rewritten in part, based on his recommendations. the other thing was the document was limited to not more than, say, fifty pages, and it had to be a size that you could fit in a filing system or on a bookshelf. rz: what about the napa county general plan now? jh: well, the napa county general plan was long, in order to comply with state requirements, but it was understandable in the (cid:498)two sentence concept(cid:499) that urban development belongs in urban areas and agriculture is the (cid:498)highest and best use of the land.(cid:499) if you accept that idea, you have the concept of the plan, and the details of the plan are simply how that(cid:495)s to be done. if you don(cid:495)t agree with that, then the details aren(cid:495)t going to make any sense to you, because you aren(cid:495)t going to move in that direction anyway. so, generally, if you believe urban development belongs in urban areas as you read the plan, there were five major goals. and the first goal spoke specifically to the preservation of agricultural land as the highest and best use of the land in the unincorporated area. rz: this was a very long process, putting the general plan together. you were saying from (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886) to (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:891)? 138

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jh: we had to develop a whole new general plan, as i indicated. we had to get the public input; there were public hearings required. then we had a preliminary plan. you hold public hearings on the preliminary plan at the planning commission level and at the board of supervisors level. then you prepare the final plan, and you go back to the hearing process again. you have hearings around the county, by the planning commission, then you have hearings by the board of supervisors, and then you finally have the adoption of the plan. once you have adopted the general plan, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), your zoning must be consistent with the general plan. that was a whole new idea in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). it used to be, your zoning and your general plan didn(cid:495)t have to look anything alike. well, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), the state law changed. it said, (cid:498)zoning and planning must be consistent.(cid:499) so when you adopt a new general plan, you then have to rezone the entire county, the unincorporated area to be consistent with the general plan. and what that means is you have to go back into public hearings in each of the areas of the county, and then you have to go through the actual rezoning, which involves more public hearings, and so on. so that was about an average length of time to develop a new general plan and get all the rezoning done. and, of course, then the county was sued over the adequacy of the general plan by the former planning commissioners. then we had to go before a superior court judge and demonstrate to him that our plan was consistent with the state guidelines for a general plan. then we had to go and rezone again to … satisfy the superior court; we had rezoned to be consistent with the general plan. and that took a couple of years. opposition to general plan rz: how contentious were the public hearings? what was the response? jh: the public was generally supportive of the concept of preservation of agricultural land, but individual property owners might be unhappy with it. obviously they felt that they could get more value out of their land selling it for a non‐agricultural use. although the price of the land for grapes  if your land was available for vineyards  the price, as you know, boomed in the county. starting in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), we processed one winery a month for ten years. i mean, that(cid:495)s (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882) wineries, and there just didn(cid:495)t seem to be any end to new wineries. at one point, one member of the planning commission added up what he thought were all the gallons of wine being produced, and he added up all the vineyards(cid:495) capacity, and he said, (cid:498)we(cid:495)ve reached the point where we don(cid:495)t need any more wineries, because we(cid:495)re at the capacity of the vineyards.(cid:499) well, that didn(cid:495)t last very long, but that was an idea that came along. i mean, we should limit the number of wineries, but needless to say, it never got much support. rz: now, who were the former planning commissioners who were objecting to the general plan? jh: well, vic fershko was a local attorney and he was … at one time he was president of the citizens group called (cid:498)cause,(cid:499) which dealt with housing and so on. he was one of the planning commissioners who sued the county on the issue of the adequacy of the general plan, which tied it up for, like you say, for two years, and in that time, got some new supervisors elected who were pro‐agriculture. rz: and who were the new supervisors then who were pro‐agriculture – do you remember who they were? jh: dewey andersen had dropped out many years before. henry wigger was gone. jack ferguson was no longer a supervisor, either, nor julius caiocca and pete clark … none of those supervisors from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). most of those supervisors were out of office, certainly before the end of the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s. 139

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supporters of general plan rz: these were the supervisors who were seated during the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) passage of the county ordinance for the ag preserve. jh: yes. rz: who in the county did you find most helpful as a proponent of the general plan? jh: there were a number of the conservation groups and the people who were associated with them, including some of the growers and vintners, including louis martini. [end of tape (cid:885)] [tape (cid:886)] rz: jim, we were talking about the people in napa county who were very supportive of the general plan, and you had mentioned louis martini. what about warren winiarski and jack davies? jh: warren and jack davies were supporters. the county needed someone from the industry who would say it(cid:495)s a great idea. the elected officials thought it was a great idea, but the industry was the one that was going to be impacted, and they needed someone who would step forward and say, (cid:498)you know, this is a great idea and this is good for the wine industry.(cid:499) that was louis martini and jack davies. jack davies thought it was a good idea, and he circulated petitions and appeared before the board to support it. louis martini would also testify in support of the preserve. bob mondavi supported it and wrote letters to the board supporting it. there was a small group of vintners and growers who supported it. rz: now, was volker eisele involved at this point in supporting the general plan? jh: somewhere in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889)‐(cid:888)(cid:890) minutes of the board of supervisors it indicates that volker at that time was a student at uc berkeley, and he appeared at one of the meetings and spoke in favor of it. rz: now, you handed me a document, which i just love. it(cid:495)s two pages long and reads at the very top, (cid:498)hear both sides on the ag preserve. the valley(cid:495)s future depends on your action now.(cid:499) was this circulated during the hearings on the general plan, or was this circulated at about the time that the ordinance came up for discussion? jh: this document was a petition that had been drafted for the signature of people to show their support for the creation of the ag preserve. i thought there was a date on it; i don(cid:495)t see a date on it. but anyway, it was in the files of the planning commission. i spent a better part of one summer going through those files and having them make copies of some of the documents. this is one of the documents they copied, which gives you the reasons why you should support the ag preserve, and then it lists the people who were in agreement. it was submitted to the board of supervisors before they adopted the ag preserve. the petition was to encourage them to proceed. rz: so this probably related to the series of public hearings that the board of supervisors was holding? jh: i think the date was cut off of the top of it. if i look on the copy i got, maybe it was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). that was submitted at one of the public hearings. the board of supervisors in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) used to meet on the second 140

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floor of the court building. they met in a room that had seating for twelve people. the room was so small that even if you were a department head making a presentation, you had to wait in the next room until they got to your item on the agenda. they only had room for a small table for the board members and seating capacity for twelve people. if they had a bigger crowd, they went up and down the halls and found an empty courtroom and moved into the courtroom. if you had a group that was bigger than the courtroom seating, you moved to the city hall and you used the city hall council chambers. and if that wasn(cid:495)t big enough, you either moved to the high school auditorium or you moved to a high school gymnasium. most of the hearings for the ag preserve were held in the high school auditoriums or gyms. rz: and what about the hearings for the general plan? jh: the general plan attracted attention, but not like the ag preserve. the ag preserve was a totally new idea, and it had a lot of opposition. the people who opposed it were primarily the landowners. the people who took it to court were a group of growers and vintners who claimed that it was unconstitutional, confiscatory, arbitrary and discriminatory; those were the words they used in their lawsuit. and then there was a group that realized that the county was serious about agriculture, and if you(cid:495)re going to invest a million dollars to develop a vineyard and a winery, you want to make sure that it(cid:495)s not like, say, santa clara county, where they thought you could have a section of urban development and then a section of agriculture and then another section of urban development. it wasn(cid:495)t very long before they realized that the agriculture part was not going to last because of urban development encroachment. they didn(cid:495)t like the [tractor] noise, they didn(cid:495)t like the bugs, they didn(cid:495)t like anything, and generally, agriculture lost there. so if you(cid:495)re going to invest a lot of money in vineyards and a winery, you want some insurance that your investment is not going to be overrun by a subdivision moving in next door. i think that helped generate a whole new group of owners in napa county. the people that moved in, came because of the ag preserve, not in spite of it. they came because they liked the idea, and they were willing to invest the money necessary for winery and agriculture, vineyards, because they had some protection for their investment. rz: so the hearings on the general plan were not nearly so contentious. jh: no, in terms of the general idea, there were some people who didn(cid:495)t like what had been planned for their property. the first general plan for the county was the one back in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887). it was done by a consultant out of san francisco, and the idea was, kind of, what would you like on your property? there were spots of commercial zoning up and down highway (cid:884)(cid:891); there was some industrial zoning up near calistoga. i mean, it was that kind of a plan. it was just, (cid:498)what would you like on your land?(cid:499) rz: what a big change! jh: yes, it was. the concept of the preserve was a change, and the general plan was a change. the board of supervisors, in revising the general plan this year, said, (cid:498)don(cid:495)t mess with it. just update it, but don(cid:495)t change it.(cid:499) rz: do you see the general plan as a (cid:498)sacred cow(cid:499)? 141

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purpose of the general plan jh: well, i think it(cid:495)s a (cid:498)sacred cow(cid:499) to the extent that you have to have your implementation ordinances, your zoning ordinance, your subdivision ordinance consistent with the general plan. the general plan is a policy document. the general plan says that this is what the elected officials in the county have committed themselves to do for the future. there are five goals in the general plan, and the whole series of policies is really the constitution for the county. and, therefore, for example, you know the policies and so on. but the question is, well, what does that mean? i mean, you could say, (cid:498)i(cid:495)m going to go from san francisco to los angeles.(cid:499) well, you can walk, you can fly, you can take a train, you can take a bus, etc. saying you are going to go from san francisco to los angeles is like a policy or goal, but you(cid:495)ve got to be a little more definitive before people can understand what you(cid:495)re talking about in terms of the trip. so the general plan includes a drawing, a picture, and what that does is narrow down the whole concept of the goals. it shows, on paper in a picture form, what it is that you(cid:495)re going to accomplish. and so the general plan really provides you with a picture of where the county is going with the zoning and with the subdivision regulations. and being consistent with the general plan, you don(cid:495)t have to be consistent the first year, but within a period of ten years, you have to be consistent totally. you can do it in increments. but again, if you(cid:495)re thinking of investing in the community, if you(cid:495)re going to build a business or you(cid:495)re going to buy a house or a piece of property, you want to know what(cid:495)s going to happen around you, and you should be able to look at that general plan and know with some certainty that(cid:495)s what the future will be for the next ten years. the state requires you to revise and update your general plan every ten years or so, but it doesn(cid:495)t say what you must do or how you must do it. i mean, you can simply readopt the existing plan (cid:523)if you want to(cid:524) or you can completely change it. rz: but it hasn(cid:495)t been changed very much since your authorship. jh: no, it(cid:495)s basically the same document. and you know, it(cid:495)s the same document and it(cid:495)s the same policies and goals that the people in the community have supported. andy beckstoffer says the agriculture preserve in the napa county is the (cid:498)will of the people.(cid:499) and that(cid:495)s true, because the people have voted measure a, which limited the number of housing units, and the people voted for measure j, which means that the board of supervisors can(cid:495)t change the zoning of agricultural land without a favorable vote of the people. it can(cid:495)t change to a more intensive use. it can(cid:495)t take agricultural land and turn it into subdivide‐ able land for homes or for industry or for business without a favorable vote of the people. that shows you that the county(cid:495)s citizens believe that urban development belongs in urban areas and agriculture is the highest and best use of the land. that(cid:495)s still the major concept. rz: and just to define measures a and j, measure a was passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882)? jh: it was adopted in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:891) and had to be implemented in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). its goal was to limit the population growth to no more than the region, the state and the nation; that was (cid:883).(cid:884) percent annually. for the unincorporated areas, that turns out to be something like (cid:883)(cid:883)(cid:887) building permits a year. rz: and then measure j. jh: measure j simply states that the board of supervisors cannot rezone any land in the county which has an agricultural designation to a more intensive use for residential, industrial, commercial without a 142

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favorable vote of the people. the people have to vote, and a majority of them have to agree with the change. rz: and it has to be a two‐thirds vote? jh: no, a majority. a simple majority. [break in tape] rz: so jim, you were talking about the general plan making so clear exactly how you were going to do something, including maps, for instance, which would show what? jh: what the diagram or map that(cid:495)s required as a part of the general plan shows is that urban development belongs in urban areas. it means that in the unincorporated area, you(cid:495)re showing agricultural land as the predominant use. there(cid:495)s very little or no commercial or industrial development, and that(cid:495)s what the individual would look at if he said, (cid:498)what does it mean, urban belongs in urban areas?(cid:499) well, you look at the general diagram and you see that it shows agricultural land is the predominant use of the land in the unincorporated area. you can relate your interest or your investment or your property to the picture of the future. rz: so you have a graphic representation. jh: a graphic representation – and it(cid:495)s not meant to be parcel‐specific. i mean, at a scale of one inch equals four miles, you can(cid:495)t be parcel‐specific anyway, because the width of a pencil line is wider than most properties, so you can(cid:495)t get down to the specifics of the general plan. but when you do a zoning ordinance, you have to be lot‐line specific. you have to get right down and be able to go to court with that document and defend it as, this parcel is in an agricultural area or it(cid:495)s out of the agricultural area. and therefore, that(cid:495)s where you get the precision down to the property line of various zoning categories. ag watershed issues rz: that(cid:495)s an excellent explanation. now i want to talk about the extension of protection beyond the valley floor to the hillside (cid:498)ag watershed(cid:499) areas. you were likening the valley floor and the watershed areas to a bowl? jh: in the beginning, when the board of supervisors and the planning commission were adopting the ag preserve, they said, (cid:498)well look, we(cid:495)re going to be restrictive in the valley floor, but i(cid:495)ll tell you what we(cid:495)ll do. we(cid:495)ll reduce the development standards on the hillsides.(cid:499) and by that, they meant they would allow steeper grades for roads and broader curves instead of … tighter curves, so that people wanting to develop in the hillsides would have an easier time of it. and i guess in part that(cid:495)s where you got the meadowood resort and the auberge du soleil developments. those were approved at a time when hillside development was considered to be permissive. well, as time went by, they began to realize that, as you say, it(cid:495)s all one vessel. you(cid:495)ve got a bottom in it and you(cid:495)ve got sides; it(cid:495)s all hooked together. if you allow the development on the hillsides to take place, that all winds up at the valley floor because, for example, the soils wash down and plug up wells and cause flooding. and so there was a concern that we had to look at the hillsides also as a part of the agriculture resource. 143

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and when they created the ag preserve, the hillsides were called (cid:498)agricultural watershed recreation(cid:499) (cid:523)awr(cid:524), and the (cid:498)recreation(cid:499) was a very broad land use definition. you could put in hotels for recreation and make all kinds of commercial developments in the hillside areas as a part of awr. so one of the early steps at the time was to remove the (cid:498)recreation,(cid:499) and it became (cid:498)agricultural watershed(cid:499) (cid:523)aw(cid:524). remove that recreation provision because that was almost total commercial. so the (cid:498)agricultural watershed(cid:499) then was considered to be a relatively small parcel size, and the parcel size was increased. the minimum parcel size was increased to (cid:886)(cid:882) acres, and eventually to(cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882) acres. again, this is a unique feature of napa county. the watershed for the napa river is totally in napa county; there(cid:495)s no part of a watershed in another county that can impact this watershed. if napa county pollutes the napa river, it(cid:495)s because of what napa county has allowed to happen. the entire watershed for the napa river is in napa county – that(cid:495)s very unique. napa county has complete control of water quality and use. we(cid:495)re fortunate in that regard. rz: now, i think when the (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre size minimum parcel was passed for the ag watershed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:886), there were some people who were protesting it and called it (cid:498)snob zoning.(cid:499) jh: at time, we had a watershed protest … back in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882)s, we adopted a watershed protection ordinance. along the napa river and the major streams contributing to it, there was a period when the price of grapes and the value of the agricultural land were such that you had some of the growers(cid:495) vineyards coming right down to the river. what they were doing was turning their tractors around right on the riverbanks, and a lot of that soil wound up in the river, and so the county adopted a watershed protection ordinance. it established a corridor along the napa river, and all of the major tributaries to the napa river, that could not be developed for any use other than for the protection of the riverbanks. because the riverbanks, the trees and the shrubs and everything along the riverbanks provided stability for the riverbanks when there was flooding. keep in mind that the more development and clearing that occur, the closer you get to (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882)% runoff. you get water falling in a wooded area, and the water is retained or delayed by the roots. you get water running off a paved driveway and off a shingled roof, you get (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882)% runoff. you may not be getting any more rain, but you(cid:495)re getting it all at once because there(cid:495)s no absorption by the ground. and the same thing is true with all of the little streams that contributed to the napa river; most of these were filled in and used for vineyards. and so the river had fewer tributaries, and you are getting more and more water runoff into those areas. and so you(cid:495)re concentrating it, and you(cid:495)re getting a faster runoff. therefore you(cid:495)re going to have more danger of flooding. so the watershed protection ordinance was an effort to try and provide some holding action for the rain, and a protection of the riverbanks from erosion and flooding. rz: and the watershed protection ordinance was passed before you retired? jh: yes, it was passed and it was assigned to the public works department to enforce. rz: and was that in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)? jh: no, it was before then. 144

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[end of tape (cid:886)] [tape (cid:887)] rz: jim, in the last tape we were just touching on the watershed protection ordinance. jh: it passed in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882)s, and as i say, it was assigned to the public works department. they had a very big workload, and i don(cid:495)t know how much enforcement it ever got. winery definition ordinance rz: now, if we could talk a little bit about what happened when you retired? what precipitated your retirement? jh: well, the problem that was becoming more and more apparent was that the number of events being held at wineries was getting out of control. one gentleman came along and wanted to build a winery so he could have weddings there. he wanted really to run a wedding chapel, but he was willing to build it to look like a winery. we had art galleries that would do credit to downtown san francisco. we had gift shops. and the problem was, that wineries are a unique kind of land use. you buy cornflakes, but you don(cid:495)t want to go necessarily and see where the corn was grown that was used to make the cornflakes. but when you get a bottle of wine, there is this kind of mystical, magical connotation – you want to go see where the grapes were grown in relation to the winery. so you allow wineries to locate in the vineyards, and if you looked at it objectively, it is an industrial processing plant located in an agricultural area. but it(cid:495)s not referred to in that fashion because wineries are a unique animal; they have that mystical, magical quantity. so they are permitted. my concern was that we(cid:495)re going to get someone who has a legal background coming in and saying, (cid:498)i would like to open a gift shop.(cid:499) and you say to him, (cid:498)i(cid:495)m sorry sir, that(cid:495)s commercial. we don(cid:495)t allow gift shops in agricultural zoned areas.(cid:499) and he says, (cid:498)well, i can name ten or fifteen winery gift shops,(cid:499) and you would say, (cid:498)well, yes, but that(cid:495)s a winery.(cid:499) so he(cid:495)ll say, (cid:498)ok, i(cid:495)ll call mine a winery, but i want to open a straight gift shop; never mind the wine.(cid:499) the problem you would have with that is obviously when you went to court, he could demonstrate unequivocally that there are gift shops in wineries throughout the valley that would do justice to downtown san francisco; there are all kinds of social and entertainment functions, and so on. all this is done in the name of agriculture – it was the weak underbelly of the agricultural preserve. the question that had to be answered was, (cid:498)what(cid:495)s a winery?(cid:499) it had to be defined, and it had to be defined in a fashion that made it clear that what was happening there wasn(cid:495)t an oversight, but it was by design. and so, i raised the question in a series of discussions and reports presented to the planning commission, (cid:498)what is a winery?(cid:499) it was not popular with the wine industry, because they felt that they had the opportunity to decide what was going to be done at their wineries, particularly some of the bigger ones. and so it became very, very contentious, and the board who had authorized the release of the reports that i had prepared, found themselves caught in a crossfire. and, to resolve the problem, they said to the industry, (cid:498)why don(cid:495)t you write a definition and give it to us, and we(cid:495)ll take a look at it and we(cid:495)ll see if we like it?(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)well, that(cid:495)s one way to answer the question.(cid:499) so the industry did a very good job. they wrote a definition, and the board of supervisors adopted it and it was fine. and shortly thereafter, it was suggested that i retire. i 145

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was removed as the planning director and appointed the executive director of special projects, and i was moved to an office up on the third floor of the county building. rz: how do you feel about that? jh: it was kind of lonely up there because i was the only one in the office. rz: what were your special projects? jh: at the time, we were doing a tourist study. it talked about tourism and what needed to be done to put it in the context of the valley. and the other project was – it had pointed out to the board that they were talking about regulating an industry of which they had very limited knowledge, and that they should look into the economics of the wine industry. they should have a better understanding of what(cid:495)s going on and where the industry is headed in the future if they(cid:495)re going to talk about regulating parcel sizes, land use, etc. so we had a study, an economic analysis of the wine industry, and that was one of the projects i was assigned. the industry, in general, felt that it painted too rosy a picture of the future. they thought it was too promising. and the next time the board had a public hearing on it, i think we had (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) different questions raised about the contents of the study, and the board decided they couldn(cid:495)t afford the cost to answer (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) questions about the economics of the wine industry. so that was the end of the project. rz: and the board of supervisors just summarily asked for your resignation as the head of planning? jh: no, they suggested that it was an appropriate time for me to retire. and i agreed with them (cid:523)laughs(cid:524). and so i retired in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). rz: so what do you think today about the winery definition ordinance? jh: well, i think that it(cid:495)s getting looser and looser again, and that(cid:495)s unfortunate. the industry can obviously police itself. i mean, it can limit what you(cid:495)re doing with the winery. but i think you can read in the paper, on any weekend you(cid:495)ve got all kinds of things going on at various wineries, and most of them are charitable and that(cid:495)s acceptable. tourism is becoming the big driver in the local economy. the wine industry is here to accommodate tourism; tourism doesn(cid:495)t create the winery business. you look at san francisco, fishermen(cid:495)s wharf, you(cid:495)ve got everything there now but fishermen. the fishermen can(cid:495)t afford to dock there anymore because the motels, the shopping … it(cid:495)s called fishermen(cid:495)s wharf, but you don(cid:495)t see any fishermen. it would be unfortunate if we had the napa valley with only a few wineries. i know that sounds ridiculous, but the closing of mare island sounded ridiculous. who would have ever thought they would close mare island? it(cid:495)s been there since the civil war – it(cid:495)s gone. the kaiser pipe plant located south of town was one of the major employers in the county – it(cid:495)s gone. those things can happen. and you think about the pressure that(cid:495)s going to be applied in napa county. the more the rest of the bay area develops, the more pressure there will be to locate some development in the napa county, because it has that appeal and the open land. it has that attraction. when you have people touring, they like to have all the accommodations they had at home. they want to have all the different food facilities, they want to have all kinds of overnight accommodations available to them, and there are always people happy to provide them. 146

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and that(cid:495)s urban development in the urban areas. if it stays in the urban areas, that(cid:495)s good, but if it starts spreading into the unincorporated area, that could be the end of the agricultural preserve. the ag preserve exists by three votes [out of five members of the board of supervisors] and (cid:885)(cid:882) days. that(cid:495)s three supervisors voting (cid:498)yes(cid:499) on any change and (cid:885)(cid:882) days for the ordinance making that change to become effective. and you don(cid:495)t have to take elimination of the ag preserve head‐on. you can just undermine it by changing the definition of what a winery is, or reducing the standards. that way you haven(cid:495)t changed the zoning, but you(cid:495)ve changed the standards that support the zoning. a french philosopher who visited the country back in the (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:882)(cid:882)s said that (cid:498)eternal vigilance is the price of democracy.(cid:499) certainly, eternal vigilance is the price of preserving the napa valley. it(cid:495)s the philosophy that, (cid:498)well, it(cid:495)s all over and we(cid:495)ve won the battle and we(cid:495)ve got enough regulations.(cid:499) every year there(cid:495)s more pressure to allow development, and it(cid:495)s all (cid:498)good stuff that we really should have.(cid:499) but, when you add it all up, you can wind up with a napa valley that looks like every other part of the bay area, with shopping and housing spread all over. and you know, maybe that(cid:495)s what the people want – but they voted a (cid:887)(cid:882)‐year extension for measure j. rz: the extension, measure p, passed in the november (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) election and that extends the… jh: right of citizens to vote on any change proposed in agricultural land by the board of supervisors for the next (cid:887)(cid:882) years. of course, there is an exception in there that might make a difference. time will tell. but, you know, it looks good. the economics are there. the investment in agriculture is there. the value of the land is tremendous for a vineyard, so it looks good. it looks good, and everybody who runs for the board of supervisors usually says, (cid:498)hey, i(cid:495)ll protect the ag preserve!(cid:499) and that(cid:495)s a declaration going in which is a commitment (cid:523)hopefully a goal(cid:524) or policy they can be held to. when they stop saying it, then you need to worry. challenges to ag preserve rz: what are some of your concerns about some of the challenges to the ag preserve today? i mean, we talked about tourism obviously being one of the largest challenges, but what other challenges concern you? jh: i think that is the largest, especially when you get an activity that(cid:495)s generating a billion dollars in revenue, and you look at all of the hotels and everything being built to accommodate tourism. in the city of napa, you can see that the demand is compounding and that puts more pressure on the ag areas. when you(cid:495)re waving dollars in front of some of the developers, they(cid:495)re going to figure out a way to locate something in the ag areas. i had a gentleman call me from new york who wanted to build an executive retreat up on one of the ridgelines. and he said, (cid:498)i was in napa last month, and i saw you have nothing like that!(cid:499) and i said to him, (cid:498)well, why do you suppose that is?(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)well, because nobody ever thought of it.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)no, i don(cid:495)t think that(cid:495)s it. but just supposing that the county didn(cid:495)t want executive retreats up on all the ridge lines.(cid:499) (cid:498)oh,(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i can(cid:495)t believe that.(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i could offer this to any other county in the bay area and they(cid:495)d snap it up.(cid:499) also, i had a root beer bottler who wanted to bottle root beer in napa county because he said, (cid:498)anything i can put napa county on i can sell.(cid:499) so there(cid:495)s an appeal, there(cid:495)s an attraction, and you know, that(cid:495)s not all bad. but it(cid:495)s a question of (cid:498)what do the citizens want to do?(cid:499) and that(cid:495)s what the general plan is supposed 147

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to answer for the people in the community, and if they don(cid:495)t like that general plan, then they should change it so that everybody knows what the ground rules are and where we(cid:495)re going. rz: are you concerned at all about the number of wineries that are now being taken over by very large corporations? jh: yes, because i think that makes it more of a (cid:498)check the bottom line for profit.(cid:499) back in the early (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s, you had the local owners. you had bob mondavi or louis martini or roy raymond come in whenever they wanted to talk about an expansion or a change. and then as the years went by, their architects would come in, not the owners, to talk to you. you wouldn(cid:495)t see the owners any more. and then as the years went by, you(cid:495)d see their lawyers. you were seeing more and more of the people who were working for the company than you were seeing the company owners, the people who were responsible for it. and as you get into more conglomerates, you see more and more of the lawyers. by definition a lawyer is someone whose anger you hire out. they come in to tell you what you(cid:495)re going to do. they don(cid:495)t come in to talk about the project in relation to the county(cid:495)s requirements. rz: i wanted to bring up one other thing, and that is criticism about the ag preserve as (cid:498)snob zoning,(cid:499) or the inequities that result from rising land values and the inability of lower income people who work in the county to actually afford to live here. i wonder what your thoughts are on that? jh: well, i think that(cid:495)s true, but that(cid:495)s not just true in napa county. in the grape industry there are all kinds of jobs, and admittedly maybe it(cid:495)s not the kind of a job that you(cid:495)d have in mind for your children. it spawns agricultural jobs, winery jobs, and sales jobs. you know, it(cid:495)s up and down the ladder, and tourism does that same thing. there are all kinds of jobs created, but maybe not the kind of jobs you want and so on. but you will find that in most [desirable] communities, the attitude is, (cid:498)my children can(cid:495)t afford to live here.(cid:499) none of my children live in napa. they have pursued the careers they wanted [elsewhere]. i probably couldn(cid:495)t have gotten one of them to stay in town. i mean, how many children want to do the job that their parents did? they all think they(cid:495)re going to do better, and thank god they do, because most of them do. my children are all doing well, and they(cid:495)re living all around the country, all around the bay area. and i couldn(cid:495)t keep (cid:495)em in napa if i wanted to! rz: well, jim, i want to thank you. this has been an excellent and very informative interview. this concludes our interview. [end of tape (cid:887)] [conclusion of interview.] 148

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preserving napa county’s agriculture office in 1968. today he is a practicing attorney with offices on jefferson street in napa, ca, where this jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler january (cid:888), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: ml – mervin lernhart rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: mervin lernhart was planning commission legal advisor in the napa county counsel’s interview took place.] [tape (cid:883)] rz: may i call you mervin? ml: certainly may. rz: mervin, i wondered if i could start out by asking some questions about your family. i was very interested to read that your family members were pioneers here in california, arriving in san francisco, i believe, shortly after the gold rush, and that your great‐grandfather worked for george yount? ml: that(cid:495)s my understanding, yes. rz: do you know what he did for george yount? ml: i think he was a farmer, but i don(cid:495)t know exactly what he did. rz: well, yount had a lot of acreage, so he needed a lot of help. but your great‐grandfather apparently arrived in san francisco in (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:887)(cid:887)? ml: yes, my understanding is that the family migrated from germany to the united states sometime around (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:886)(cid:891) or so. and i believe my grandfather was born in new orleans. and then i think that they, the family, went around the horn from new orleans to san francisco, and then from san francisco to napa. i don(cid:495)t know how they decided they were going to go to napa, but that(cid:495)s how that happened. rz: what part of germany were they from? ml: i have the name of the town, but i don(cid:495)t recall it offhand. rz: so you don(cid:495)t know what brought them to napa. ml: i don(cid:495)t. rz: and whether they were involved in the gold rush? mervin c. lernhart, jr. oral history 149

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ml: i doubt it. i think there were turbulent times in germany at that time, and i think that(cid:495)s probably the reason for the move to the united states, but i don(cid:495)t know why or how they decided to come to california or napa. rz: maybe they heard something in new orleans [about california]? ml: wonderful things, maybe. [laughs] rz: so i wanted to ask you a little bit about your early life. i know your father was a very prominent attorney and judge. ml: he was. i(cid:495)ll give you a little more background. my grandfather and other family members left napa valley and went to virginia city, nevada, while the silver mines were in progress there. and my grandfather was a druggist there, in virginia city, and my father and my uncle were born there in virginia city, and then came back to napa. rz: now your great‐grandfather was born in napa, though, right? ml: yes. rz: so he probably was a little boy on george yount(cid:495)s ranch? ml: i would think so. rz: if only he had written a diary! ml: well, that(cid:495)s true! rz: so they went to virginia [city], nevada, and then your father returned. ml: yes, actually, the family returned. the silver ran out, i don(cid:495)t know, sometime around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:882) or before (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:882), and they all filtered back, mostly to napa. rz: so your grandfather came back as well. ml: that(cid:495)s right. rz: and then … your grandfather became a druggist? ml: he was a druggist in virginia city, nevada and i don(cid:495)t know how or what was involved … if you were licensed or what you had to do to, to have a drugstore there. and interestingly, somebody contacted me in – apparently the family home in virginia city is still standing, and someone just recently, within the last year or so, converted it into a bed and breakfast. so i have intentions of going up there, but i haven(cid:495)t gone up there yet. rz: but it would be so interesting. ml: it would be. 150

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rz: so then your father spent most of his growing‐up years here in napa county? ml: that(cid:495)s true. rz: and was it your parents or your grandparents who actually…owned property here in napa city? ml: my grandparents on the lernhart side owned a home on calistoga avenue here in napa. and then on my mother(cid:495)s side – her maiden name was slater – there were a lot of irish relatives on her side of the family, and they had been in the valley for a long time, and they also owned land here. rz: and which family member was it who owned a boarding house at what(cid:495)s now main and first street, apparently where tuscany restaurant is? [break in tape.] rz: so mervin, you were saying that there was a german boarding house in napa city. ml: there was one at the location that you mentioned, and i don(cid:495)t know how long that functioned in that capacity. i understand that my grandfather lived at that german boarding house before going to virginia city. rz: and there(cid:495)s a street called lernhart street. is that named after your family? ml: it is. rz: in napa? ml: my understanding is it is named after my father, and i forget the year that that was developed, but in that area, there(cid:495)s a lot of streets that are named after city or county officials that were in office at that time. rz: maybe you could tell us a little bit about your father, because i think he was a very strong influence on you. ml: oh, i think he was. as i indicated, when my grandfather went to virginia city, he married a woman named maggie mare whose parents were from ireland. and my father and my uncle were born there in virginia city, and then my father and the family came back to napa sometime around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:882) or so. actually, for a time, my grandfather ran a drugstore in truckee, and that drugstore – the building – is still standing. and also, the building where the drugstore was in virginia city is still standing. but in any event, they came back, and my father worked originally for some time as a mailman. i know he worked at the tannery. he eventually went to stanford for a while, but i don(cid:495)t think he graduated from stanford. then from stanford, he went to hastings law school. he practiced …he worked for the united states attorney(cid:495)s office in san francisco for a short time, came back to napa and opened a law practice, and i think sometime around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:888), around the time i was born, he was elected d.a. and then i believe he became a superior court judge sometime around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:882) or (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:883). rz: was that when you were just about to go school, or in your early elementary years? 151

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ml: yes, he was a judge for i think seventeen years in all, and then he passed away in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:889). rz: and, to get back to you a little bit here. you were born in around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:889). ml: (cid:495)(cid:885)(cid:888). rz: and you were born here in napa county? ml: i was. rz: and so your full name is mervin… ml: conrad. mervin c. lernhart, jr. rz: lernhart, jr. – named after your father. ml: same name. rz: so you were very young. you were only twenty‐one when your father died. ml: that(cid:495)s right. rz: and had you spent all of your elementary school and high school years here in napa county? ml: i did. i went to parochial school, a grammar school at st. john(cid:495)s, and then i went to napa high school. i went to napa high school for three years, i got married, dropped out of high school, worked for the telephone company for a while, and then went back to school. and then went to junior college and then went to the university of nevada at reno. can(cid:495)t stay away from nevada, i guess. [laughs] and then to hastings law school, and then came back here. rz: you had to be pretty persistent to finish your studies while you were newly married. ml: that(cid:495)s true, but what i didn(cid:495)t know was that my father talked to the foreman and told him if he didn(cid:495)t work me hard enough so i wanted to go back to school, he(cid:495)d put him in jail. and i think that probably helped. [laughs] rz: that persuaded you. ml: yes, i think he was successful. rz: did you have siblings growing up? ml: no. rz: so you(cid:495)re the only child. ml: i am. 152

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rz: and … your father must have died, then, shortly after you graduated from college. ml: my father died i believe in august of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:889), and i was twenty‐one in september of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:889). and i was going to school at nevada at that time. rz: and you hadn(cid:495)t started law school yet? ml: no. rz: so, your decision to go into law was apparently influenced by the death of your father, to some degree? ml: i think it probably was, but it(cid:495)s something i(cid:495)d thought about prior to his death. rz: had you also considered civil engineering? ml: i was majoring in civil engineering, and i(cid:495)d worked in jobs that related to civil engineering. rz: when you were at the university of nevada? ml: here in napa county. rz: and then you said that you graduated from hastings school of law. what was the year of your graduation from hastings? ml: i graduated in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:884). i was at hastings from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:890) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:884). rz: so you were, of course, in the san francisco bay area in the very important early (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s when so many changes were happening. ml: yes. [laughs] rz: and i wonder if you started having strong feelings at that point about land use issues? ml: you know, i don(cid:495)t think i did. i don(cid:495)t remember focusing on that. rz: you always knew that you wanted to be a defense attorney? ml: you know, that(cid:495)s not true either. i just recall, when we graduated, sitting at a local tavern close to the law school with a friend of mine, talking about what we were going to do. and i remember he told me that he was going out to … i should go with him and we would open a small office in the haight‐ashbury district. and i told him, (cid:498)i think i(cid:495)ll go back to napa.(cid:499) and he did that, and ended up being a lawyer for – i can(cid:495)t remember the person(cid:495)s name – but whoever was the rock and roll producer for the grateful dead, so this guy became a rock and roll lawyer. i always wondered what would have happened if i(cid:495)d gone to the haight‐ashbury. [laughter] rz: a completely different lifestyle. 153

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ml: yes. i came back to napa and i went to work for a lawyer named dan york, probably because dan knew my father. and the york family is an old‐time napa family; there were [the two brothers] dan and dave york. dave had been a district attorney. at that time dave was in private practice and, i believe, a judge – or later he was a judge – and i think dave represented the city of st. helena and, i believe, calistoga. and dan represented the county counsel on a kind of contract basis. and i went to work for dan, and i had a private practice but i also worked as an assistant county counsel for him. and in that capacity, we kind of divided up who represented, who did what most of the time. i represented the planning commission and the school districts, so that(cid:495)s how i got involved in land use; i was representing the county planning commission. rz: is dan york still alive? ml: no, he isn(cid:495)t. rz: how long did he continue in that work? for quite a while? ml: well … let(cid:495)s see, the ag preserve was passed when – (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889)? rz: (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). ml: i think that dan passed away maybe three or four years after that. rz: he was older; he was your father(cid:495)s generation. ml: that(cid:495)s right. rz: okay. now i wonder if you could just tell us something about what you remember in terms of your very, very first experience representing the planning commission? ml: well, it was something that i hadn(cid:495)t had any courses specifically dealing with. my function with the planning commission was to work with the planning office in drafting ordinances, you know, land use and zoning and that sort of thing. and i would also represent the planning commission during the planning commission meetings, and if a legal issue came up then they would ask for legal advice. and if i could answer it at that time i would and if not, i(cid:495)d look the law up and we(cid:495)d do it at another time. but mostly we did it. i gave advice at the meeting that enabled them to do whatever they were trying to do at the time. rz: that was an incredible experience for a young lawyer. ml: it was. it was very interesting. i enjoyed it. rz: and dan york sort of mentored you through that. ml: he did, but dan didn(cid:495)t spent a lot of time with me. he kind of said, (cid:498)go do that.(cid:499) [laughs] i didn(cid:495)t have any idea what i was doing to begin with, but… rz: it must have been a little scary… 154

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ml: it was! [laughter] rz: it(cid:495)s a big responsibility. ml: yes. well, it was and then later – i can(cid:495)t remember the year – something called the local agency formation commission was formed, and i represented the local agency formation commission at its inception, and then for a while after that. rz: so that, that was lafco. ml: yes. rz: and lafco(cid:495)s mission was what? ml: lafco(cid:495)s mission, as i recall it, was to kind of regulate things between governmental entities and non‐ governmental agencies – for instance, whether or not you could form a water district. an example would be if they wanted to form a district up in lake berryessa for water to supply a development, a subdivision, or something. the planning commission would look at it first, but then lafco would look at it. or if there was going to be an incorporation such as american canyon, which happened years later, lafco would have been involved in that. and really planning at a governmental level. rz: sort of an oversight role. ml: right. kind of like abag, in a way. rz: yes. ml: coordinating governmental entities and quasi‐governmental entities. rz: and abag is association of bay area governments? ml: right. rz: i wonder when was the first time that anyone broached the idea of preserving ag land, that you recall. ml: well, i can(cid:495)t tell you the year, but it probably would have been three years prior to the adoption – somewhere in that time frame, i(cid:495)m estimating. but i can tell you what i recall was the progression on it. when assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882) was passed; i think it was passed before the so‐called williamson act. and, i(cid:495)m not certain of the name, but i think there was an assessor in san francisco named russ wallin(cid:883) or something like that – i(cid:495)m not sure that(cid:495)s accurate, but it(cid:495)s close to that. in any event, the san francisco county assessor had apparently considered things maybe he shouldn(cid:495)t have been considering, in assessing the property in san francisco. rz: so there was some contention? ml: maybe, to his own benefit or other people(cid:495)s benefit. so i understand that ab (cid:890)(cid:882) was adopted in response to that sort of activity. and what it did was to apply some limitation to an assessor(cid:495)s discretion 155

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effects of ab 80 and the williamson act in terms of assessing land. and what it really did was to say that the assessments have to be made on comparable sales within a certain area. i don(cid:495)t recall the area, but that was the idea behind it. rz: so if i had a property and the tax assessor was trying to determine how to tax me on that property, he would look at a nearby property that had recently sold. ml: yes. and specifically, at that time, the santa clara valley had lost a lot of prime agriculture land … the santa clara valley had been converted into subdivisions and other sorts of development, and lost. and so what was starting to happen in napa, and i think in other areas in california, was that you would have a farmer or some agrarian type of activity … [end of tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] rz: and mervin you were just talking about the assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882). ml: yes. what i was saying is that, in my recollection, is that the impact of assembly bill (cid:890)(cid:882), which required assessment based on comparable sales, really resulted in a lot of pressure to convert agricultural land to development. and the reason for that is, if you can envision urban development – usually subdivisions or similar type of residential development – along the periphery of agricultural land, then that land becomes the basis for the comparable sales for the agricultural land. now, when i say along the periphery, along the edge of it, the farther away you get into the heart of the agricultural land, the less the effect of those comparable sales for development purposes; at some point it tapers off. rz: yes. ml: but in terms of the land that is assessed based on those comparable sales outside of the agricultural land for the purposes of development, they resulted in the agricultural land, in effect, being assessed as though it were development land. that assessed value resulted in an increased taxation. so now the farmer is farming … i(cid:495)m saying farmer, but it could be a vintner or whatever ... anyway, the agrarian is working his land, but he(cid:495)s paying taxes as though it were development land. and that resulted in an increased tax burden on the agrarian land, and so it contributed to an incentive to sell to the developer, because you(cid:495)re getting taxed for it anyway. rz: something that wasn(cid:495)t anticipated, i assume? ml: i don(cid:495)t think that was anticipated. and then along came the williamson act, shortly after that. now, i don(cid:495)t recall the full name of the williamson act, but i remember it was the williamson act. rz: the full name, it was passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887), and it was called the california land conservation act. ml: okay. under the williamson act, as i remember it – and this is kind of a summary of it – but what the williamson act allowed for, was for the farmer to agree to maintain his land for agricultural purposes for a certain term. in return for that, his land was then assessed based on capitalized agricultural income rather 156

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than on comparable sales. so the williamson act, according to my understanding, was directed at relieving the pressure on the agricultural land that ab (cid:890)(cid:882) had created as a kind of an unintended consequence. rz: i see. ml: so the idea then was that the property owner could agree to these terms. if he agreed to keep his land for a certain number of years, then he would be assessed based on capitalized agricultural income, rather than comparable sales. rz: i think that was for just ten years. ml: it was more than just a year or two, but that sounds right. i don(cid:495)t really remember now. rz: and it then allowed individual farmers, or agrarians, to have some tax protection, but not in any collective way, in terms of the land. ml: well, yes. i(cid:495)m not certain of this, but my recollection is that one of the problems was that the williamson act required that the agreement to use the land for agricultural purposes. but i don(cid:495)t believe it imposed a limitation on what size or on division of the land. rz: no. beginnings of ag preserve ml: so you have this situation … fast forward with me for a moment…but i learned, or came to believe anyway, that the division of the land was almost as bad as the assessment for other than agricultural purposes. because if a farmer or an agrarian or vintner – i don(cid:495)t think there were vintners at that point, though – passed on and wanted to leave his property to his kids, he could divide it. and so, supposing he divides it into three‐acre, two‐acre parcels, then the ownership becomes fragmented. and there(cid:495)s this concept i was told by the local farm agency … i don(cid:495)t remember what they were called, but they were very important to the ag preserve. they came down and made a lot of recommendations. rz: was this the farm bureau? ml: yes, the farm bureau. jack somebody. rz: oh, jack fisk? ml: yes, jack fisk was a consultant who was involved in that and really an important part of the ag preserve, i think. so he, along with other folks, came up with the idea of imposing a – i think it was – forty‐ acre minimum lot size. so that would mean if you had less than forty, you couldn(cid:495)t divide it at all. and if you were going to divide it, you(cid:495)d have to have eighty, because forty would be – absent some sort of variance – would be the minimum lot size. now, i(cid:495)m just trying to remember what fisk and people that knew more about it said, and what i(cid:495)m telling you is what i absorbed from them. i don(cid:495)t know much about any of this stuff. but i was told that the basis of the ag preserve, in part, was that there was this concept of a minimum agricultural unit in terms of lot size to work the land economically, or to stabilize it, or whatever those sorts of concerns were. in the area 157

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that ultimately became the ag preserve, there was, as i understand it, what(cid:495)s called a micro‐climatology, and that means that the climate varies from different parts of the ag preserve. and also there was a variation in soil type. and, and different soil types are apparently … some are more suitable for agricultural use in general, and some are more suitable for vines, and you(cid:495)d have to talk to somebody from the farm bureau to give you much more information than that. but this idea kind of developed that we could blend together. so that was the basic setting for it. i don(cid:495)t know if i(cid:495)m getting ahead of myself here. rz: no, this is very interesting. ml: so the idea came up … i don(cid:495)t remember who initially had the idea, or if it was a joint effort, or what. a fellow named carter (cid:523)i think(cid:524) was the planning director, i think carter, vern carter. rz: oh, vernon cotter. ml: vern cotter, and a guy named al harberger were also important. he was the county manager at the time. and jack fisk was involved in this. rz: and jack fisk, i believe, was the napa county farm advisor. ml: yes, he was. and, as i recall it, he(cid:495)s the person who supplied the information regarding minimum economic units or what would be an efficient lot size or acreage to… rz: be a viable size … ml: yes, but in terms of working the land. so anyway, the idea developed that it would be possible maybe to blend, to strengthen, the williamson act, and to combine it in a way that we would avoid this business of the land getting divided, which was really the weakness, i think, that the williamson act had at that time. rz: yes, because it didn(cid:495)t address subdivision. ml: so the first proposal, as i recall it, the first idea was that we – we being the county – would make it a condition that you be in this agricultural zone that would restrict lot size, limit lot size to certain acreage. i don(cid:495)t want to say restrict, it(cid:495)s the opposite … would limit lots to a certain acreage, say forty acres or more. that(cid:495)s my recollection. it could be less or it could be more. it could(cid:495)ve been twenty, but i think it was forty – but maybe i(cid:495)m thinking of (cid:498)forty acres and a mule.(cid:499) rz: no, i think in the planning stages it started out as forty and got reduced to twenty, and then went later back up to forty. ml: okay, so it was forty acres – that(cid:495)s how the forty acres came about. so the idea was the county would create an agricultural zone, and in order to take advantage of the williamson act, you(cid:495)d have to be in that agricultural zone. so it was kind of a (cid:498)carrot and a stick(cid:499) in a way. now, if you agreed to be in that agricultural zone, you couldn(cid:495)t divide … the minimum lot size was initially forty acres. so then the only thing really left with that rudimentary idea in place was what land should be included in this so‐called … i don(cid:495)t know if we even called it the ag preserve at that time. but in this idea, this agricultural land was going to be combined with the williamson act. 158

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and that(cid:495)s where fisk and other people who were involved in it got involved, and they looked at the soil type and they looked at the micro‐climatology, and i guess they probably looked at historic land use and so forth. and so a large geographic area was identified. and after some refinement, that became the ag preserve. and that had certainly had various other conditions in it for zoning; zoning conditions and land use conditions and so forth, but essentially what i(cid:495)ve just said is my recollection of how it came about. there were other thoughts about it, too. they(cid:495)re kind of interesting. rz: yes? ml: yes, because of urban intrusions into agricultural areas. supposing you had land that is not suitable for agricultural development use because of soil type or something else. my recollection is that we had information that the urban use to some extent could be incompatible with the agricultural use, depending on traffic and all kinds of things. or perhaps the agricultural could be inconsistent with the urban, because of spraying and agricultural type of activities. so there was an idea to not only limit the lot size but to exclude from the preserve itself other uses. now that wasn(cid:495)t totally true. there are knolls there in the outcropping in the valley. as you go down, you(cid:495)ll see knolls. rz: yes. ml: and they(cid:495)re generally rocky and they(cid:495)re generally not suitable. my understanding is they(cid:495)re not suitable for agriculture – all of them aren(cid:495)t anyway. and there was some thought about what to do with those knolls, and i don(cid:495)t know whatever happened to the knolls, to tell you the truth. but i know some were included for the integrity of the preserve, even though those knolls themselves weren(cid:495)t prime agricultural land. now, to give you an example of some of the things that might have been thought about or people might still be thinking about: if those knolls could be zoned for residential use, then you would have what i think would be highly desirable property. you(cid:495)d have houses on a knoll surrounded by a kind of a sea of vineyard. it would be very attractive property, and i suppose you could have spun that off in a way; have something i think was called (cid:498)cluster zoning,(cid:499) you know, where the yards are minimal? and then there are a lot of things that could happen. the owners could have an interest in the vineyards surrounding it for tax advantages and so forth. but i(cid:495)m not sure any of that … whether that was for another day. i know we thought about those things. rz: but those things were discussed? ml: yes. rz: and i wanted to ask you now, how were these ideas discussed and debated? were these in small meetings? ml: yes, i think so. what i(cid:495)m talking about here are areas where it wasn(cid:495)t my particular area of expertise. it was jack fisk and the farm bureau, and i think there were other consultants, too. i don(cid:495)t recall; you know the names, but … there were meetings to identify what land should be included and not included. there were a lot of work groups, work meetings, and that was kind of a thing that went on for a time. early meetings on ag preserve rz: and this was long before the public hearings, of course. this was just trying to air the possible ideas. 159

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ml: yes, and that(cid:495)s how this came about. then, then when it reached the point where there were going to be public hearings, there was an area – not written in stone – but there was an idea of what was to be included. and there was also a pretty good working idea of what the limitations and restrictions and so forth of what that agricultural zone would be. the primary problem was the lot division – because if you think about it, if you(cid:495)ve got three kids and this is primary agricultural land, it(cid:495)s really a problem, because you can(cid:495)t divide it. rz: yes, that would be the most contentious issue. ml: that was a very contentious issue, probably the primary issue. then i also think there were some people who didn(cid:495)t want to be included because they wanted to develop the land or be able sell it for other purposes at some point. and that in some way was related, at least in some occasions, to the inclusion of… if you take a large enough area, like the valley floor, you(cid:495)re going to have a lot of prime agricultural land, but some land of lesser value for agricultural purposes is inherently included in that. and then there was the question as to what should be done with that? could it be available for use other than agricultural, because it wasn(cid:495)t as good for agricultural purposes? and that led back to this possibility of a conflict and so forth. and i think there was some provision that we put in there … i think there were some safety valves. by (cid:498)safety valve(cid:499) i mean a planning commission board can make an exception, that sort of thing, but i don(cid:495)t recall specifics on that. rz: were you looking at other counties in the united states and how they had addressed agricultural land? ml: i recall that, especially when it looked like there was going to be litigation, i think that the lot size that we imposed at that time was either the largest lot size or close to the largest lot size that had been imposed for zoning. rz: in the u.s. ml: that(cid:495)s what i thought. because the question is whether or not it(cid:495)s a taking, too. you know, if you limit the land… well, inherent in zoning is the question of whether or not you(cid:495)re taking. for instance, it(cid:495)s easier to see it this way. supposing you want to create a wildlife preserve, and then nobody can do anything with the land except that people can enjoy it. that might be close to the taking, for public purposes. rz: yes. ml: i don(cid:495)t think that was a good argument for the ag preserve, because i think maybe… the idea was that the highest and best use – which are kind of buzzwords – was probably for agricultural purposes. rz: but i know that there were a number of people who opposed it. ml: oh, yes! rz: some must have seen it as a sort of socialism. ml: well, yes, and taking their right to divide their land. the biggest thing that i recall were that people 160

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were really upset that they couldn(cid:495)t leave their land to their children or that sort of thing. and at some point in this process there were, i don(cid:495)t know what they were called, to tell you the truth, but let(cid:495)s say educational meetings. i remember we would go to meetings, and i remember in particular going to one in st. helena. i can(cid:495)t remember the name of the hall. i would go and cotter would go, and there were three or four of us. i can(cid:495)t remember whether al harberger was there or not; maybe jack fisk was there. but anyway, i recall being in st. helena, i recall being in … there(cid:495)s a rutherford grange building? and there were several of these sorts of meetings where the public could come and ask questions … rz: now, this was before the actual passage of the ordinance. ml: yes. rz: this was just to educate people. sort of public outreach meetings? ml: yes, that(cid:495)s my recollection. yes, and i remember that they were pretty heated on occasion [laughs]. there were a number of people who weren(cid:495)t very happy with the idea of the ag preserve. but, so these meetings were an effort to attempt to persuade them that it was in their interest to do this. ultimately, the ag preserve was passed, and the opposition was enough, as i recall, so it was kind of an act of political bravery for the board to adopt it, especially for the board members that represented the upper valley. opposition to ag preserve rz: now, there was a group that was involved in the early opposition, and i guess they were john daniel and b.c. solari and cameron baker. ml: yes. i remember that john daniel was very active in opposition to the ag preserve. so in any event, that(cid:495)s the background on it, and that(cid:495)s kind of what i recall about the purposes for which it was adopted, why it was adopted, and its goal really was to do what it says: to preserve agricultural land and protect it from economic pressures that would cause the owner to sell it or have to sell it to meet the tax burden. and to restrict the lot size and to impose conditions, zoning conditions, that would be conducive to continue agricultural use of the land. and i think that worked. rz: and your responsibility was to write that ordinance. ml: well, i wrote the ordinance and i was the legal advisor on it, and we wrote the ordinance. then after the ordinance was adopted… rz: and this was ordinance (cid:884)(cid:889)(cid:886), and i believe it was adopted in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). ml: sounds right. i was going to say (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889), but it could have been (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). but once it was adopted, this group that you mentioned – i think of mr. daniel, but there was a group... what was the name of it again? rz: the other names are b.c. solari and cameron baker. ml: did they have a name for that group? rz: united vintners. 161

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in the central valley in 1951. allied began purchasing grapes in napa valley in the late ’50s, and in 1964, [editor’s note: united vintners was the marketing arm of allied vintners, a large grape cooperative founded acquired inglenook.] ml: well, in any event, united vintners filed a lawsuit to have the ag preserve declared unconstitutional. rz: now, this was a different group from the united farmers? they were related? ml: was it united farmers? i don(cid:495)t recall what the names of the plaintiffs were at this time. rz: oh, i think the plaintiffs, the ones who actually filed the suit, were the united farmers, but i don(cid:495)t know who the individuals were. ml: i don(cid:495)t recall offhand, but i think daniel was involved in that. i would assume he was, and probably solari and the others. so that lawsuit was filed, and i represented the county, and that lawsuit was no longer in dan york(cid:495)s office, because i had left the office at that time or around that time. rz: so had you started your own private practice then? ml: yes, i believe so. either i had, or i was about to. in any event, i remember that case well, though, because the basis of the legal attack on the ag preserve was that the findings of the planning commission didn(cid:495)t support the provisions of the ordinance. and findings were the legal, factual basis upon which they… we find that this is all class a agricultural land, and there(cid:495)s this microclimatology, and the highest and the best use of the land is for agricultural purposes – and that a lot size of forty acres is necessary to economically develop the land to full potential. those sorts of findings. rz: yes. ml: not those, but something similar to that. and so the local judges disqualified themselves, and i believe a judge named judge golden was the judge. rz: and this was at what level of the court system, now? ml: this was in napa county superior court, and the findings were of particular interest to me because i was the lawyer that advised the planning commission and drafted the findings [laughs]. aside from wanting to see the ag preserve upheld, it would have been not good if the findings hadn(cid:495)t been sufficient on a personal basis. but anyway, it was kind of an interesting trial. what i remember about it was that we would go down to the city [san francisco] and there(cid:495)d be depositions. and i kind of thought of myself as a (cid:498)country lawyer(cid:499) – as i still do – and i remember, i(cid:495)d be at this whole law firm that had a whole floor and there(cid:495)d be mergers and what i thought was kind of heavy‐duty stuff. rz: and you were a very young attorney. ml: i was pretty young, yes. but, one of the more interesting things about it (cid:523)this is just kind of an aside(cid:524) was that, i don(cid:495)t remember how it came about, but we went to court in an airplane. i recall we went down to the napa airport and there was an aircraft that had a propeller in front and a propeller in the back, if i remember correctly, kind of like an old p‐(cid:885)(cid:882) or something. in any event, the judge was there and the court reporter was there and the other lawyer was there, and we flew over the valley and each of us could point out various things to the judge, and that was the purpose of it. 162

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rz: oh, i see. ml: but that(cid:495)s the only time i(cid:495)ve ever done that – and it(cid:495)s obviously the last time i ever! so, in the end, the ordinance was upheld, and that(cid:495)s really the last contact, the last involvement that i had directly with the ordinance. i represented, after that, some individuals or some corporations that were involved with some of the terms of the ordinance. i remember representing charles krug in a dispute with beringer that tended to involve the ag preserve ordinance, but it didn(cid:495)t change it or anything like that. rz: yes, it was more of a side issue. was there no appeal filed after the superior court case? ml: you know, i was thinking of that. i don(cid:495)t remember an appeal, but there may well have been one. i didn(cid:495)t do the appeal, but i don(cid:495)t know. rz: well, you were given the responsibility for successfully winning the case at the superior court level. in fact, you(cid:495)re called a (cid:498)legend.(cid:499) ml: [laughs] rz: for both writing the ordinance… ml: [still laughing] i don(cid:495)t know about that. rz: and for protecting it in court. ml: but in any event, the judge did decide that it was okay. rz: was that judge golden, do you think? ml: i think it was judge golden, and i think he was from, was it yolo county? i don(cid:495)t know where he was from, but he was kind of a crusty old guy. rz: and now, when you talked about going into san francisco… [end of tape (cid:884)] [tape (cid:885)] ag preserve wine court case rz: so mervin, you(cid:495)re being very modest, but you(cid:495)re saying that you(cid:495)re attributing the success of this court case to the work of a lot of people, including yourself, obviously. ml: well, that(cid:495)s true, but i, i thought, but what i meant by that was there was a lot of foundational work that went into it. and i think our legal position was solid because of the work that went into it, such as the work the farm bureau did and the work the planning commission did. you know, it(cid:495)s a fact as to whether or not land is, as i understand it, a certain soil type. and this microclimatology thing is important for grapes, very important for grapes. and i think that the microclimatology and the soil type are what(cid:495)s true for other areas where grapes are grown; there are vineyards around the world. 163

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and so i think there were a lot of reasons for supporting it, and not very many in opposition. it was really meaningful in terms of public interest, because we did have at that time what had happened in the santa clara valley. we – and i mean this collective group working on it – were certainly aware of it. much of that whole valley had just been lost, because there was no control over it and the developers just took it over. and once it(cid:495)s paved over, it(cid:495)s pretty hard to put it back. rz: and you were all very aware of that example. ml: that(cid:495)s true. so i think it(cid:495)s worked well. i said earlier, i think that other counties may have looked at that as a model, because it did combine a lot of different approaches to reach a common goal. and i think the agricultural preserve itself has worked. now, i haven(cid:495)t done land use in a long time, but i(cid:495)m generally aware of some other things. there were efforts to maintain open space in other areas, and i don(cid:495)t know how successful those were. i don(cid:495)t think they were as successful. i(cid:495)m thinking in particular down in south county. i think there was some effort to maintain some sort of open space or agricultural land. rz: in the southern part of the valley. ml: yes. rz: you mean where american canyon is? ml: in that area, but i wasn(cid:495)t involved in that in any way. i(cid:495)m not even sure i(cid:495)m right about what i(cid:495)m saying, but that(cid:495)s the impression i have. i know they tried to do it in some other areas, and i don(cid:495)t think it worked so well. rz: so was this your last involvement in land use issues? ml: i did other work on a private practice basis in land use after that. and somewhere around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), i was involved in doing some land use work for krug and some other people in the valley, but not governmental agencies. and the court appointed me to represent a young man who was charged with murder, and it was a very interesting case, and there was a change of venue, and we went to another county and it went on for a long time. and after that, i just kind of started doing criminal law, and i(cid:495)ve never really done any land use law, that i can think of, after that. i might have done something here and there after that, but nothing major. rz: so that(cid:495)s how you got involved in criminal law – sort of as an offshoot of... ml: well, before that, you know, napa was a lot smaller, and there were a lot less lawyers, and the law practice wasn(cid:495)t as specialized as it is now. and people would combine to do civil law and criminal law, so i always did a little bit, but that(cid:495)s what i(cid:495)ve done chiefly since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). and i might have represented some people from time to time, but nothing of any really major importance. i should say that at one time i also represented the county planning commission, and i did represent some people that developed land on a private practice basis, too, at that time. rz: people who wanted to develop their land, you mean, just like the ag preserve? ml: yes. i worked with george altamura on some land, municipal land, not county land, in the early … on the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s i guess, and (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s. 164

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rz: but now, that wouldn(cid:495)t have been land covered by the ag preserve, right? ml: no, entirely different. just really setting up uses for the sort of development that we wanted to keep out of the ag preserve, within an urban setting. but actually, that(cid:495)s the last real contact i(cid:495)ve had. i haven(cid:495)t done any land use law to mention in a long time. rz: well, when you wrote the ordinance were you the primary … you were the only person actually putting the ordinance into legal language. is that right? ml: that(cid:495)s true, but there was a lot of input from the planning commission and also from the county, from haberger(cid:495)s office. and as i(cid:495)ve said, fisk was important, the farm bureau was very important. rz: anybody else that you remember who was very helpful while you were writing the ordinance? ml: no, those are the agencies or the people, but the planning commission did an awful lot of work on it. they did the legwork, so to speak. i wasn(cid:495)t involved in it, but somebody had to identify what the limits were. was this type a or type b, whatever soil it was? i don(cid:495)t remember whether it was type or class a, but anyway the higher priority agricultural land. somebody had to identify this microclimatology and so forth, and that all came to me as something to work with. rz: that all came to you as a kind of a brief? ml: kind of information. rz: like a barrister would get a brief from a… ml: well … but we(cid:495)d sit down and write it, because the planning department had an interest in what they wanted in there, and my job was to do it in a way that would be upheld. but i(cid:495)m not suggesting that i thought of all these nuts and bolts or anything. rz: but you had to put it together in a way that it could stand up to the lawsuit. ml: that(cid:495)s true, and i was involved in the initial brainstorming, if you will, about talking of combining the williamson act with the zoning to limit the lot size. and the whole idea was to prevent the land from being converted to urban or uses other than agrarian or uses incompatible with agrarian use. rz: did you have any appreciation of what a landmark effort this was at the time? there wasn(cid:495)t any other county doing this. ml: yes, i think everybody knew that it was important, because i don(cid:495)t remember how many thousands of acres we rezoned, but it was a lot – the whole floor of the valley. but i don(cid:495)t think i remember people thinking this was going to be a landmark and so forth. building on the williamson act rz: nobody was sort of calling attention to the fact that other counties in the united states had not come… 165

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ml: well, the fact that other counties hadn(cid:495)t done it and the land had been developed and lost for agricultural purposes was important. rz: right, the sort of, the negative examples. ml: right. rz: but you didn(cid:495)t have any positive examples to model yourself on, so you had to come up with this on your own. ml: i don(cid:495)t think that we had any … i don(cid:495)t recall modeling this after any other … something that had occurred someplace else. but what it really did was to build on the williamson act, and, and it combined the williamson act with the zoning power, and the williamson act gave the farmer relief – tax relief. the williamson act insured that the land would be based, as i recall, on capitalized agricultural income as opposed to comparable sales. so that meant the farmer could work the land for profit without an economic (cid:523)tax(cid:524) hardship. and it(cid:495)s easy to see that if the taxes are out of line with the actual income derived from the land, that the owner(cid:495)s going to want to sell it. so the williamson act took care of that. what i think the agricultural preserve added to that williamson act was this limitation on lot size or division, lot division. if you put the two of those together you have an incentive to use land for agricultural purposes by eliminating this comparable sales pressure, and also you have parcel sizes where the only thing that could really be done with it is to farm it, where that(cid:495)s the highest and best use based on these factors such as soil type and climatology and so forth. there were other thoughts that i don(cid:495)t think are a part of the preserve. i don(cid:495)t know what(cid:495)s happened since then, but i don(cid:495)t know if they(cid:495)ve ever worked out. i think there was some thought given, if we restrict the valley to agricultural land, then the hillsides could be developed for residential purposes, and that would relieve that pressure, so to speak. i don(cid:495)t know if pressure is the right word, but you know what i(cid:495)m talking about, and i don(cid:495)t think that worked out. i think there was some effort at doing that on the hills surrounding… rz: to allow development on the hillsides? ml: on the hillsides, yes. i(cid:495)m not certain about it, but i think there were some efforts to do that on the west side of the valley. in any event, what my understanding was later was, that it wasn(cid:495)t economical, because of, you have to have a wide enough road for a fire truck to pass, and that sort of thing. so i don(cid:495)t think there ever was any major development on those hills to the east of the preserve. i see there is some development on some of the knolls, but that was contemplated when it was adopted. rz: but the land on the knolls was still zoned at twenty acres originally, and then of course it was… ml: i don(cid:495)t know how, i don(cid:495)t remember how we did that. i think it was included in the preserve, but i think there were provisions for some kind of variance because of the difference … because it wasn(cid:495)t suitable for agricultural purposes, as long as the development didn(cid:495)t interfere with the surrounding agricultural use. rz: and of course now the zoning on the hillsides is (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882) acres per building unit. 166

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ml: yes, it(cid:495)s large. i think that(cid:495)s good. rz: and the original land that was included in the ag preserve has expanded. ml: yes, you mean additional lands have been included. and i think there(cid:495)s been similar but slightly different types of efforts to preserve open space in other areas of the county, but i didn(cid:495)t work on any of those. rz: you didn(cid:495)t work on that. when you were working on this, did you encounter … were there people who were very angry at you, or voiced their positions strongly against it? ml: yes, i don(cid:495)t know if they were angry at me in particular, but i recall being up on the stage with … what was mr. cotter(cid:495)s first name? rz: vernon. ml: vernon cotter, and there were a couple of other people there. i don(cid:495)t remember, maybe george abate was there. was he an assessor at that time? rz: yes, george abate was the tax assessor, and i was going to ask … ml: he might have been there, too. and they were very angry. i thought we were going to get tarred and feathered before we got out of there. they didn(cid:495)t want to listen to any of those ideas. rz: the public? ml: a lot of them, well, at least… rz: at this meeting. ml: at least, a lot of the people at the meeting didn(cid:495)t want to listen, and they had pretty good complaints. i mean, you know, their idea was that they owned that land and they worked the land and if they wanted to leave their land to their kids, they should be able to leave it to their kids. or if they wanted to sell it off for their retirement, they should be able to. and it was a lot more valuable at that time as land that could be developed – and what(cid:495)s strange is, i think just the opposite is true now. rz: yes. ml: i think the agricultural land is more valuable than the development land now. rz: which i guess was the argument that jack fisk was making, that this would happen. ml: yes, and it did. and so i think, despite their worries, there might still be some problems on how to distribute the land to your heirs, but by and large, i think that the owners benefited. and i think the county benefited, and i think the state benefited. i think it worked. 167

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others involved in the ag preserve rz: was jack fisk a very persuasive person? ml: jack fisk was a very likable guy. he was an easy‐going, likable guy as i remember him. i don(cid:495)t remember him being involved too much in public speaking, but i do remember him being involved a lot … he was kind of go‐to guy when you needed to know something. rz: and he was pretty amiable? ml: oh, very amiable, yes. he was good. rz: what did he look like? was he tall or short? ml: i don(cid:495)t remember him being particularly tall or short. i think he was kind of a moderately heavy guy. i don(cid:495)t remember; that(cid:495)s a while ago. rz: did you all have long hair? ml: i had more hair than i have now, but [laughs]…i might now that i(cid:495)m bald. but, no, i don(cid:495)t think we all had long hair. rz: it was the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s! ml: yeah, but it was the end of the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. that(cid:495)s when there were sideburns and bell‐bottom pants and that sort of thing, but i don(cid:495)t remember jack fisk having bell‐bottom pants. [laughs] i(cid:495)d almost guarantee you he didn(cid:495)t. rz: he was more of a conservative kind of guy? ml: yes, he was. rz: what about george abate, the tax assessor; what do you remember about him? ml: well, george abate is a very likable … he(cid:495)s still alive, isn(cid:495)t he? he(cid:495)s a very likable, very outgoing guy, and a very friendly guy, and he was very well liked; is very well liked, i think, by everybody. george, i don(cid:495)t remember any specific instance, but george could probably charm even [john] daniel if he had to. george was a very amicable guy, very good. rz: what about al harberger? ml: al haberger … al was kind of short. he wasn(cid:495)t short, but he wasn(cid:495)t a tall man, and i remember he had kind of steel gray hair, and he was a very, very competent manager, i thought. rz: now, he was of an older age than you. ml: yes, he was older than i was, but i didn(cid:495)t work directly with him. i mean, he was involved in this, but dan york spent more time with al haberger, because dan was doing the fiscal part of it. and i was 168

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primarily doing the ag preserve, excuse me, the planning commission, and the school districts. and then later lafco. rz: and dan york, you were saying, was doing the fiscal part of it? ml: well, he would represent the board at the board of supervisors meetings, similar to when the city council meets, there(cid:495)s the city manager and the city attorney. so when the board of supervisors met, dan york would be there as the legal counsel for the county. he did the same thing that the present county counsel does, except that he was retained by the county and had a private practice besides. rz: oh, i see. ml: so, dan did everything with the county. he had responsibility for the county counsel(cid:495)s job with the county. rz: but you wrote the ordinance. ml: that particular ordinance. i wrote a lot zoning and land use ordinances. i guess i can tell you this, when i first started writing ordinances, i thought that the idea was to write the ordinance so it could be enforced, you know? then, as time went by, i(cid:495)d get a call from a supervisor who had a constituent that wanted to do something, and couldn(cid:495)t, and he(cid:495)d say, (cid:498)well, what can you do to help this constituent?(cid:499) i(cid:495)d say, (cid:498)well, we can(cid:495)t do that, because the ordinance is this way.(cid:499) he(cid:495)d say, (cid:498)well, that(cid:495)s a damn fool way to write an ordinance!(cid:499) so after that, i always wrote ordinances that had what i called a (cid:498)safety valve,(cid:499) that had a provision for a variance or a use permit or some way so that the supervisors or whoever was interested could point those possibilities out to their constituents. and then if the planning commission granted the variance and approved it, and if the board did, then it was an exception to the ordinance. things worked a lot better once i learned to do that. [laughs] rz: so the first ordinances that you wrote didn(cid:495)t have that sort of room for… ml: no, i had a lot to learn. [laughs] and later i learned to appreciate the value of flexibility, you know. and, and that(cid:495)s true in land use – i think there has to be flexibility, because if it(cid:495)s too rigid, the whole thing will sink. so flexibility is good. rz: yes. merv, i want to thank you so much for participating in this oral history by giving us a record of your own experiences, and i wondered if there were any that you would like to add before we finish? ml: well, i think i(cid:495)ve said this, but whatever involvement i had, as i(cid:495)ve said, there were a lot of other people that were involved also. but it(cid:495)s very gratifying to see that the ag preserve has worked as well as it has. i think it(cid:495)s worked well, and that makes me feel proud for whatever part i had in it. i think it(cid:495)s a success. rz: do you see any threat looming in the future to the ag preserve? ml: i don(cid:495)t see an immediate threat to the ag preserve. i don(cid:495)t see a threat at this time, but who knows? if, because of economic conditions or some sort of disease, the land couldn(cid:495)t be used for grapes or 169

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vineyards… before there were vineyards, i recall there were a lot of prune trees. i don(cid:495)t know if prune trees would produce the income to maintain the preserve. so i don(cid:495)t see any threat, as long as the product of the agricultural preserve is rewarding enough so that property owners want to keep it in agricultural land. but i think if the bottom fell out of the winery industry and, god forbid, there was another prohibition, or for some reason the land had to be used for a less rewarding agriculture use, i think the same pressures would return, and i think there would be a desire to use it for subdivision purposes. rz: it(cid:495)s never a guarantee. ml: no, but i don(cid:495)t think that(cid:495)s going to happen. rz: well, i(cid:495)m glad to hear that. thank you, mervin. [end of tape (cid:885)] [conclusion of interview.] 170

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thomas may oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture for heitz cellars’ awardwinning cabernet sauvignon since 1966. this interview was conducted in the mays’ jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler november (cid:883)(cid:884), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) participants: tm – thomas may rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: tom and martha may’s legendary “martha’s vineyard” has produced premium grapes private office on the grounds of their home and 34acre vineyard in oakville.] [tape (cid:883)] early years rz: may i call you tom? tm: please. rz: if i could ask you a few questions about your early life before you came to the napa valley. where were you born? tm: i was born near wilmington, delaware and lived there until i was boarding school age and i came to boarding school in southern california, thacher school in ojai. went east to college, williams college, and then by accident wandered back here to california because i flunked the draft when i got out of college. it was the end of the korean mess, and i was draft bait – not going on to graduate school – but i went from (cid:883)‐ a to (cid:886)‐f in four years, so i didn(cid:495)t know what to do with myself, not having figured out i was going into the service. and i fell back into teaching at my alma mater, the thacher school, for five years. by that time i had become interested in california wines and had visited this area a little bit. and when i decided that i(cid:495)d had enough teaching and for a whole heck of a lot of reasons locally, i wanted to get out of the area, so i was looking for another job and found a wife instead. rz: now, didn(cid:495)t you live in santa barbara for a time? tm: i lived in santa barbara briefly, but martha, her family is from santa barbara county. although she was living in san francisco at the time, working in san francisco. rz: how did you meet? tm: on a fill‐in‐the‐man from a party. she was having a little dinner party, and one of the gents had the flu, and another one of the gents was called to find out who else might be interested. and he called me and i said, (cid:498)have fork, will travel.(cid:499) so i came to the dinner party. rz: and this was in san francisco? 171

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tm: no, this was in santa barbara. she was with her family at christmas time, it was just before christmas in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:884). and so, it was a very pleasant evening. my contact was a fellow thacher contemporary who had just gotten out of the navy, and he was dating one of martha(cid:495)s cousins and so i kind of fell into that situation. martha invited me to join her and her cousin and boyfriend, so that(cid:495)s how we kind of got acquainted in the first few months. rz: now, after you were married, were you living in santa barbara? tm: carpenteria, yes. arrival in napa valley rz: and then not long after, you came to the napa valley. tm: yes, less than a year later, because we decided that since i couldn(cid:495)t find the kind of a job i was looking for within (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) miles of where we were, we both agreed that (cid:498)nine to five(cid:499) was not a very good way to go. and when she was young, she lived on an avocado and lemon operation in goleta, which is just outside of santa barbara. she lost her parents when she was thirteen and moved in with an aunt and uncle who ran a cattle operation in the northern part of santa barbara county. and so in her teenage years she was a cowgirl, and i might gleefully say, at the age of fifteen, she knew how to drive a hay truck and double‐ clutch! rz: wow! tm: so don(cid:495)t mess with martha. but we both figured rural was agricultural and that was probably it. i didn(cid:495)t want anything to do with cattle, and we eliminated animals in general. we looked for lemons in santa barbara, but all the area there that was good was being sopped up so fast in development, we didn(cid:495)t think we had more than about five years before problems were going to develop. and so, while looking afield, a friend of martha(cid:495)s with whom she had been living in san francisco said, (cid:498)well, i understand tom is interested in wines. why don(cid:495)t you go to napa county and see if you(cid:495)d be interested in growing grapes?(cid:499) so we came, we looked, we bought. rz: wow. tm: we came here to this location to inquire about another piece of property that was for sale, and this place had none of the desired elements that we were asking for. we asked a real estate salesman about this property. he said it was for sale, but it doesn(cid:495)t meet your standards, which we had to agree. but martha(cid:495)s intuition was right – it was such a nice piece of land. it was cold; it was almost sleeting in march. you couldn(cid:495)t see off the top of the hill. this little frame house here is where we came. it was cozy, warm, a big fire going in the fireplace and that driveway that you come up. that(cid:495)s what sold us on the place. so it didn(cid:495)t have a house of the standard we wanted. it was a new vineyard, only twelve acres – we were looking for forty acres. rz: oh, i see. tm: no production. 172

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rz: because it was too young. tm: yes, it was too young. and so… rz: it had been planted by belle and barney rhodes? tm: that piece that we looked at here, yes, it was belle and barney(cid:495)s. they had a two‐year‐old vineyard. rz: and that was all cabernet sauvignon? tm: it was cabernet. it was the first cabernet in napa county planted on axr‐(cid:883) rootstock, and we didn(cid:495)t realize that all of the county was watching that vineyard to see whether or not the rootstock was going to be as wonderful as that it was supposed to be. so, needless to say, we didn(cid:495)t realize all eyes were on us because of what was going to come out of it. but the rhodeses were more than generous in introducing us to their friends. rz: and they famously left you the two bottles of heitz cellar… tm: it was champagne, actually. rz: oh, it was champagne. tm: that hanns kornell made. rz: oh, i thought it was heitz? tm: well, they had a heitz label on it. it was a cuvee made for … i have a feeling it was hardly a cuvee. i think it was just another label, but let(cid:495)s not worry about the details. rz: well, i want to back up a little bit. we forgot to say what the year of your birth was? tm: (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:885). rz: and i wanted to ask you, when you were growing up or were in boarding school  either one  what had you thought you wanted to do when you finished your studies? tm: i didn(cid:495)t have any thought one way or another. i was too vapid for that. i didn(cid:495)t want to be a fireman, or a pilot or anything. i was just moseying along, i guess. rz: but you weren(cid:495)t thinking about getting into agriculture. tm: nope. it was a very steep learning curve, thank you. [laughs] rz: and, what were you doing just before you married martha? tm: i was teaching at thacher. but i had moved to santa barbara so i was technically in the city of santa barbara when i met her, having stopped teaching the previous spring. 173

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rz: and what were you teaching at thacher? tm: biology and geology. i was the head of both departments. rz: oh, really. tm: being a (cid:498)one‐man department,(cid:499) you understand. rz: so you have a scientific mind. tm: not too scientific, but it tends to be in that direction. i majored in geology in college. rz: at williams? tm: at williams, yes. but that appealed to me. i liked … well, by the time i got to williams, i had a lot of outdoor experience with pack trips and things. at thacher, i was much more aware of geology than a lot of my eastern contemporaries. the geology is all hidden in the east. in the west it(cid:495)s visible, so… rz: so true. tm: and so many of them had never been west of the hudson river, let alone the mississippi. not that that made me an (cid:498)a(cid:499) student by a long shot, but i enjoyed it all. rz: so this was a huge change for you. tm: true. rz: so now, when you purchased this property, martha was sure all along that this was the perfect spot. tm: i think she was (cid:498)the good wife.(cid:499) it was a challenge. rz: did she have difficulty adjusting to life here? tm: no. rz: because it was pretty countrified then. tm: i beg your pardon! [laughs] yes, we were the only people in our age group that we knew except george and mary ann gamble. all our first acquaintances were a generation or half a generation older than we. the kornells, the martinis, the heitzes, the mondavis … on and on and on … they were all older than we. it was just the way the community was made up. our age group had all fled there [napa valley] to go to the bright lights of big cities, while we were reversing and getting away from the big cities. so we had no friends of our age group for the first few years except the gambles(cid:884)(cid:886), who were casual friends. i mean, we weren(cid:495)t particularly close friends. they lived in oakville at that time. 174

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rz: had you known them previously? tm: no. rz: so when you came here, you didn(cid:495)t actually know anyone who lived here. tm: no. rz: that was pretty brave. tm: well, i don(cid:495)t know. if you(cid:495)ve got to go places, you(cid:495)ve got to go places. ignorance is bliss. rz: so when you found this property, there was an existing house. tm: yes, the frame house which is right next door to this building. rz: and the twelve acres of vineyard. tm: correct. rz: and anything else? tm: well, there was what we call the (cid:498)back (cid:886)(cid:882).(cid:499) there(cid:495)s about twenty‐five acres out back that is partly a meadow and some woodland, and not particularly suitable for farming, but that appealed to us too – that it wasn(cid:495)t so rigidly squared off into a field and a house. we like the kind of the wildness of nature and that appealed. rz: and were you living here full‐time? tm: absolutely. we haven(cid:495)t moved an inch in forty‐five years, forty‐six years. well, i take it back, about fifty feet from the old house to the new house. [laughs] rz: oh, so you built the new house? tm: yes. rz: and was that soon afterward? tm: we moved in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), so it had been five years in the other house. rz: so (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:885) when you purchase the property … tm: and, of course, it turned out that when we decided to buy it, we didn(cid:495)t know that the asking price was not the buying price, so we paid full freight for the whole thing. and people, of course, when they found out, said, (cid:498)oh, you paid much too much for it.(cid:499) so okay, first lesson learned, but we can laugh now. rz: does it make any difference now? 175

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tm: right! we were just a little ahead of the curve! rz: so the total acreage for the property when you purchased it was? tm: forty acres. rz: and you had the twelve‐acre vineyard that the rhodeses had planted. and how did you make the connection with joe heitz? tm: well, with the famous bottles, and then going to their place which was on the highway there, south of martini, and buying more wine. i figured that was a good place to start finding out what wines were like, so we bought some of their other assorted wines. and i remember, of course, the famous grignolino which they are still peddling. they also had a sherry, which we liked very much; i think he bought it from louis martini. and it was a good resource for  i(cid:495)m trying to think of the name they used for it  one‐third fizz water, one‐third lemonade concentrate and one‐third sherry, a summer drink, and you could get plastered on it very fast if you(cid:495)re not careful. rz: so did you meet joe heitz right away? tm: oh yes! joe and alice, yes. rz: and did you talk to him right away about seeking a home for your grapes? tm: no, we didn(cid:495)t even know about homes for grapes, and it was a young vineyard so we didn(cid:495)t have to worry about that. we thought we(cid:495)d learn, which we did. rz: well, i think it(cid:495)s interesting that you talked about already noticing the urbanization in the santa barbara area. so you must have been very pleased with how rural this area was. tm: yes, i think that(cid:495)s true. yes, even though metropolitan santa barbara was very slow, and kept fighting off urbanization, we were very conscious of it, and we just didn(cid:495)t want to get caught up in that. and having seen other areas of the state, how quickly things had moved in just our short exposures. first exposure to land use issues rz: well now, i wonder what was your very first encounter with the idea of preserving agricultural land here in napa county? tm: i think with this zoning possibility. rz: because i know it had been discussed for quite some time before. tm: i don(cid:495)t think we really got into it until it became the (cid:498)hot potato(cid:499) that it did, if my memory serves me correctly, which it probably doesn(cid:495)t. the supervisors had almost passed the ordinance without too much fuss, and a couple people much more savvy about real estate realized that this was going to zone them out of making their fortune and chopping up nice pieces of land like san jose. and so they jumped in and slowed everything down, to have it properly reviewed. i would probably say it was a way of trying to get rid of them, but that(cid:495)s hindsight. 176

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rz: was that true of most of the realtors in the valley? tm: the realtors were singularly silent  and i have a very definite exception  except for jim warren. and he had an ad or two in the newspaper about where he stood, and i(cid:495)ll bet you that maybe even [his son and local realtor] jeff could dig that out for you.(cid:884)(cid:887) but he made it very clear that he thought it was a good idea. and he(cid:495)s the only one that not only was for it, but it was in print, i think. but as time went on, it kind of came around, you know? (cid:498)remember we did it this way, and now we have a nice ranch for sale,(cid:499) for whatever. in other words, it was helping everybody, including the real estate people. rz: that(cid:495)s very interesting. so who was the first person that you discussed the concept of the ag preserve with? tm: i don(cid:495)t really recollect, although i rather imagine it was jack and jamie. rz: jack and jamie davies. tm: yes, because he was so vocal and was kind of a mover and shaker anyway. so certainly once things began to move, i felt very much tied to what they were thinking, what they were doing. rz: were you good friends with the davies? tm: we were becoming fairly good friends. they were, shall we say, (cid:498)our age group,(cid:499) and had young children. this was some of the crowd, shall we say, that we began to become acquainted with who were coming here with young families. so that made a natural kind of socialization. although with certain respects, they kind of had their sphere and we had our sphere. [break in tape] rz: so we(cid:495)re back, and tom, i wanted to ask you a little bit about your experiences in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). now you, you knew, of course, that something was going to be coming down the road in terms of the board of supervisors ordinance to protect ag land. tm: when the pr began to be more obvious in the newspaper and discussions around, we knew that this was a proposition which looked very interesting to us. they were trying to work fairly with the old‐timers and their land and the new‐timers and their concepts of what to do with the land. and i certainly empathized with the families, second‐, third‐ and fourth‐generation people that thought, (cid:498)well, it(cid:495)s time to get out of the prune business. now we can sell off the land as ranchettes and all our children and grandchildren can have a piece of the dear old farm.(cid:499) but us newcomers felt there was an answer to that question, taking away some of their rights, but also not giving us all what we won(cid:495)t have. i remember one of the things that was suggested was a one‐time division of the land by people who(cid:495)d owned land, certain acreage and a certain amount of time. in other words, you were three generations of ownership – okay, before this goes into effect on your farm, you(cid:495)ll have one chance to slice it up for your children or your grandchildren, and you had to have at least two acres or three‐acre slices. it wasn(cid:495)t a lot; it was something big enough to not to be too bad, but that was tossed out and laughed at. but that was a hope of trying to mollify the long‐time people, give them a chance to do what their dream slice was. 177

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rz: yes, because they saw that as a hardship, naturally, to not be able to divide their land. tm: yes. rz: now, did you participate in the public hearings? tm: yes, i did. rz: you did, because we have this interesting document here [promotional sheet for hearings on the proposal for the ag preserve]. tm: yes, that sheet you were just showing me that says, (cid:498)hear both sides of the ag preserve, here are the facts.(cid:499) and yes, i was participating a lot in that. i won(cid:495)t say lot, because i don(cid:495)t remember how many meetings there were, but jack davies was, i think, the real sparkplug in some of these meetings, and to make sure there were meetings in parts of the county. and i felt i was working with him as a kind of a co‐ worker and not a go‐fer, shall we say. and making sure we got the crowd and material, and talking to people here locally to see what i could get for help in terms of ideas or a crowd to show up and speak for the preserve and why it was a good thing. rz: did you have some meetings of just your oakville neighbors to discuss issues? tm: i do not remember. there was a lot telephoning, lots of one‐on‐one: (cid:498)do you know about this? or who can we find to help us with this? or some funding? or get some material? or get some information that would be helpful.(cid:499) i do remember making a collection of books and studies  and i don(cid:495)t even know where they came from  about the usefulness of a preservation system or not chopping up farmland because… [end of tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] public meetings on land preservation tm: where were we when we left off? oh yes, finding out what we were doing, i mean what i was doing and all this. there was a very dramatic meeting at one of the schools in napa, where i presented to the assembled multitudes a stack of books about two feet high to demonstrate the amount of research that had been put in on this field and what the county had done for research. and i took each volume and read the title and the opening sentence of it and said, (cid:498)and this is the report of…(cid:499) and then slap it on the table. and so by the time i was through waving my arms around and these things, it was about two feet high, all for the cause of the preservation idea and why it was such a good idea. rz: and were some of these studies showing that agriculture could actually be… tm: it was better [to have] agriculture than what was coming, or potentially coming. rz: yes, that ag could be an economic engine? tm: yes, that(cid:495)s right – that land could be very valuable as agriculture, and housing doesn(cid:495)t necessarily pay 178

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for itself because of all the added services. rz: and did you find that there was a lot of contentiousness at this meeting? tm: yes, but people were, i won(cid:495)t say hostile, but there were the pros and the cons, and you knew which side people were on by whether they glared or smiled at you. rz: was somebody moderating these meetings? tm: yes. rz: or how did they keep people from just talking at the same time? tm: i don(cid:495)t recall. i think it was supervisors or a group of county people and someone like jack [fisk] or someone from the preserve group standing and saying, (cid:498)this is what we have to say.(cid:499) there was back and forth on the thing, but my recollection isn(cid:495)t that good. it wasn(cid:495)t fisticuffs or anything; it was very… rz: it wasn(cid:495)t a free‐for‐all. tm: no free‐for‐all, blessedly, at least i don(cid:495)t remember one. but i think some of the real sadness was that families were divided, and that because we were newcomers, martha was positively ostracized in the markets in st. helena, knowing that she was on (cid:498)the wrong side.(cid:499) people wouldn(cid:495)t talk to her. rz: really? tm: yes, and obviously she wasn(cid:495)t the only one that was being treated that way, so it was that kind of hostility. it was very definitely everywhere. you almost had to see what side of the street you were on. it was kind of sad and nasty at times, people felt so strongly, insulting [other] people. one of the persons i remember was … i can(cid:495)t think of his name now. well, i(cid:495)ll come back to it. he was very pro the old‐timers, but he told you exactly where he was coming from and why. he was so open about it. he wasn(cid:495)t hiding anything; it wasn(cid:495)t a hidden agenda for him, and i just hated his guts because of where he stood. but as was pointed out by several people, (cid:498)well, at least you know where he stands, and yet so and so and so and so.(cid:499) they(cid:495)re not really telling you what they(cid:495)re thinking, they(cid:495)re covering themselves one way by sounding so good in another way, you know? ah, i know, it was mr. stralla, louis [(cid:498)louie(cid:499)] stralla. rz: oh, yes. tm: he was a character. i hadn(cid:495)t realized he was a gangster, too! i mean, related to a gangster. he was just so open about what was going on, what he thought about the whole thing. rz: he was related to a gangster? tm: well, the strallas that ran the gambling casinos off the santa monica at the end of prohibition, i believe. that(cid:495)s where his connections were in that direction. and i think it was his brother, i(cid:495)m not positive. rz: but anyway, he was very forthcoming and transparent? 179

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tm: yes, so you had to like him for his honesty, even if you didn(cid:495)t like his politics! rz: did you find, then, that a lot of people were keeping things very close to the vest in terms of their position? tm: yes, some people were kind of …well, it(cid:495)s not saying a lot, but you knew damn well they were lying. i guess after the fact, there were several people who had commented on how wonderful the preserve was and that (cid:498)we,(cid:499) meaning them and me, had done so much for it. i knew damn well they were completely on the other side. i thought, you lousy so‐and‐sos – now that you know which way this thing is sailing, and it(cid:495)s been successful and you are making money off it. that makes me think of, i believe it was one of the families. i believe it was the wheatley family, that the trefethens had bought their property from. i think they bought three families(cid:495) worth of property, but i(cid:495)m not sure that. but they were very anti the preserve until mr. trefethen bought the properties, and then they suddenly thought the preserve was the very best thing that ever hit napa valley. and, of course, that(cid:495)s my line of thinking. the trefethens are (cid:498)sainted(cid:499) by approving in a big way that this was a financially viable thing to do; that people were nutty enough to buy this farm land and pay a fancy price for it. i don(cid:495)t think that they even fancied they were going to get something at all for lots, for ranchettes. and it was right down next to napa, too – it wasn(cid:495)t up in the hills where nobody could see it. rz: but they could see, in other words, that they could get a fair amount of money without subdividing. tm: well, the ranch had just changed hands. i mean, there was going to be no housing, no nothing, it was [just] more ranch. i think a lot of walnuts came out for grapes, but i(cid:495)m not even sure, and that(cid:495)s beside the point. then several other sales of modest size helped prove it, too. rz: now, martha was equally involved in your efforts? tm: yes, not quite so loudly at meetings and so on, but she went to them. by that time we had young ones and it was a little harder for her to get away. rz: yes, now you have two children? tm: three. rz: and when were they born? tm: (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887), (cid:494)(cid:888)(cid:889) and (cid:494)(cid:888)(cid:891). rz: so you had very young children. tm: yes, and our oldest has down syndrome, which added another layer of care and complicated our lives a little bit. rz: oh goodness, yes. so that was hard for martha, of course. tm: yes. 180

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rz: how long were you then active? once the ordinance was passed, did everything quiet down or… passage of the ordinance and a warning tm: yes, i think it was, (cid:498)now the job is done,(cid:499) although i do remember a sort of a (cid:498)hurrah(cid:499) meeting. i(cid:495)d like to say it was at the college but that doesn(cid:495)t sound right. but anyway, it was in napa where they got secretary of the interior [stewart l.] udall to come and congratulate us on what we(cid:495)d done, and he did a very nice job. but he made a wonderful statement at the end. he said, (cid:498)just remember what you(cid:495)ve done and worked for, but it(cid:495)s in the record – and the state, the people in the real estate industry don(cid:495)t forget, and they(cid:495)re going to come back at you, so watch that you(cid:495)ve got … eternal vigilance on what you(cid:495)re doing. it(cid:495)s not all done.(cid:499) i thought that was a wonderful warning, and i think around that time that [state senator] peter behr had hoodwinked  it(cid:495)s the wrong word  had persuaded the state legislature to remove from the caltrans map of freeways, any freeways in napa county.(cid:884)(cid:888) and he(cid:495)d done it quite legally, but when caltrans realized what had happened, that they had been caught and were not going to be able to pave their way up here, the word got out, (cid:498)we(cid:495)re not going to do anything in napa county that we can avoid for as long as possible.(cid:499) in other words, you guys are going to be paying this for a long time. and i think we are – i think a lot of things don(cid:495)t get done in this county because it(cid:495)s on the caltrans (cid:498)blacklist.(cid:499) rz: and who was peter behr? tm: he was the representative from marin, sonoma and this part of napa county. he was a marin person and very conservation‐oriented. he was quite outstanding in conservation work, and he was in the legislature. rz: so he was a state legislator? tm: yes. other ag preserve advocates rz: well, that is a very interesting story. so who do you remember the most, that you worked with during this time? tm: well, as i say, jack davies was the most obvious one. looking at the list that you presented me with, i can(cid:495)t say that i worked with more or less any of these. actually, laurie wood had been doing some vineyard work for us, so he was there. lowell eddington was the local resident; i saw him at the post office, but i don(cid:495)t remember anything specific about him. chuck carpy, yes – the carpys, i think we were sufficiently close friends with so it was back and forth, talking about what(cid:495)s going on. dorothy erskine we knew as a very conservation‐oriented person who had done other work in this county in that direction. i see that they misspelled nathan fay(cid:495)s name. we knew nathan fay casually, more as a grower than because of that ordinance. rz: rather than from the work on the ordinance. 181

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tm: yes. and i see joe heitz(cid:495)s name here. i don(cid:495)t remember, other than the fact he must have agreed on the situation that … [break in tape] rz: so tom, we were talking about whether you remember any of these people, either on this list or the other one. tm: well let me take a look … i recognize many of the names, but i don(cid:495)t remember working particularly closely with any of them on this at this point. rz: what about warren winiarski? tm: yes, but i don(cid:495)t remember working together on a project or whatever. there seemed to be an awful lot of dashing around with a map or an idea, or coming up with new information from this point of view. i don(cid:495)t remember. now, we had a neighbor at that time, doug stelling, and his sister(cid:884)(cid:889) and he wanted to be a part of what was going on. and the sadness was that he and his sister(cid:495)s estate was run by some trustees in san francisco, all of them realtors, and somehow, their mother had tied up the estate so that they could not say anything about it until they were thirty‐five – and he was then twenty. it(cid:495)s a good reason to give your children your land, even if it(cid:495)s throwing it away – let them throw it away. don(cid:495)t let somebody else make money off it. but we tried to work with him a little bit, but he had no way to get to them, because they were doing exactly what all the other people were doing – it was a piece of real estate that they were going to sell off in pieces, and they did sell it, more or less in big pieces. rz: but he couldn(cid:495)t stop it? tm: he couldn(cid:495)t say a thing, which was very sad. same thing with his sister; i think they got thrown out of their house when they got a little older. i mean, the whole thing was a mess. anyway, that(cid:495)s the background. rz: but now when the ag preserve was passed, they couldn(cid:495)t subdivide any more then. tm: no, it was passed, and you are quite correct. rz: and then it was stopped. do you remember volker eisele?(cid:884)(cid:890) tm: ah yes, the (cid:498)sainted volker!(cid:499) yes! he is still working on it; he(cid:495)s the, what do we call, the (cid:498)lone outpost,(cid:499) i think for years. i don(cid:495)t know how that guy has done it. it(cid:495)s just unbelievable. he is wonderful and so, i guess, patient and just pushing along, pushing along. everyone laughs when volker gets up, but he(cid:495)s right. he(cid:495)s right‐on. rz: do you remember very much of jim hickey during this period?(cid:884)(cid:891) tm: other than the fact that he was with the county, a very good representative. i kind of got to know him after all the ordinances had passed. he continued to be with the county for a number of years, it seems to me. 182

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rz: yes. tm: so by going to other kinds of meetings with the supervisors and other things he had to deal with, i got to know him, maybe not so very personal. i mean, i just say hello to him or chat a little bit with him and his wife when we see him someplace. and i think he was one of the sparkplugs that made the damn thing work. rz: and then he authored the general plan, which reinforced the concept of the ag preserve over the next number of years. tm: yes. rz: were you sort of surprised at the extent to which you got involved in the community? you hadn(cid:495)t had that sort of experience before. tm: no, but, you know, when you get old enough to take care of yourself and have interests and ideas, you gotta get out there and put your mouth and your money together and do things if you(cid:495)re going to make a community work. you(cid:495)ve got to help each other. and i think the farming community and the vineyard and winery community, at that time, was so small that almost everyone knew everyone else, and there was a kind of (cid:498)help the neighbor(cid:499) feeling about things. i could call up any of those people with a dumb question like, (cid:498)i(cid:495)ve never seen a bug like this. now what i do?(cid:499) and if they didn(cid:495)t have an answer, they(cid:495)d say, (cid:498)why don(cid:495)t you call so‐and‐so, they live down in your area, and see what you can find out.(cid:499) i mean, and there were no kinds of secrets about things, and i know that people were lending each other equipment all the time. and particularly in the spring when everyone was beginning to disk and the disk broke down: (cid:498)can we borrow yours?(cid:499) or, (cid:498)as soon as you(cid:495)re through, can i have it for an afternoon?(cid:499) and it was just a, (cid:498)sure, do what you need to do,(cid:499) attitude –so very friendly and helpful. i(cid:495)m trying to think of what ben franklin said, (cid:498)if we don(cid:495)t all hang together, we get hanged separately,(cid:499) or something like that. but it was so small. i think it was that very friendly attitude towards everything. rz: and, and you were completely green in terms of… tm: absolutely, one of the idiots who didn(cid:495)t know what they were doing! and more and more of them keep floating in. [laughs] i still don(cid:495)t know what i(cid:495)m doing, but… rz: and so who did you say was managing your vineyard? tm: laurie wood. well, by then i had a fellow by the name of mack mccord, who had been managing the vineyard across the creek from us, which was then part of the krug holdings. and the krug people had, i believe, divvied off some of the land to somebody else, so he needed some other local … it was right next door, so it was easy to farm it, and so he farmed it for a number of years. rz: and, of course, from the get‐go, all of your grapes went to heitz. tm: yes, i asked barney rhodes who i ought to sell them to, or how i should do it, and he had some very interesting pointers about what to do or not to do for the size of the vineyard i had. one of the things that he had suggested – because he was sharp enough to know what was going to come out of there – was, (cid:498)you ought to go to a small winery if you can, and part of the deal is whether or not they(cid:495)re going to mix 183

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the wine. ask for a large number of gallons to be saved out of it every year that is unblended, for your own household.(cid:499) which, of course, is a nuisance for bookkeeping and so on, but that would be part of the payment, to get part of it held out. after the second year, there was no question about that, because the heitzes did it anyway. rz: were you quite stunned at the success? tm: yes, quite, but we are still stunned that people give a hoot about it. why do people get so excited about this? i mean, it(cid:495)s just another vineyard! but then people meet martha. (cid:498)oh, there is a martha of martha(cid:495)s vineyard?(cid:499) to which my answer is, (cid:498)well, it isn(cid:495)t aunt jemima or betty crocker, you know!(cid:499) [laughs] rz: well, it is considered the one of the most famous vineyards in napa county. tm: well, that(cid:495)s kind of hard to believe, that people get that excited over another vineyard, but it seems to work. but we don(cid:495)t like a lot of pr, i mean, that(cid:495)s fine. the whale that spouts gets harpooned, so we keep a low profile. well, i don(cid:495)t know if you remember the zodiac killer that was in full form when our kids were growing up. there had been some terrible murders in santa cruz county –a whole family was wiped out by some hippie types at one time; they just decided it would be fun to shoot up a family, a dentist, his wife and three children. and this zodiac, which they never caught, kept the newspapers going for weeks on what he was about to do, and how he could have been finding a school bus and shooting out the tires, and then shoot the children. i mean, it made wonderful headlines, but it was time for us to keep our heads down and not let on that anyone was doing anything. rz: not attract attention to yourselves. tm: not attract attention of any kind. the santa cruz county ones seemed to be the people who were more than a casual success – a fancy gate out front, or a new house on the hillside kind of thing. so we certainly qualified for that, the house on the hill, but you(cid:495)ll note [that] you don(cid:495)t notice [it] until you get here. rz: well now, did things quiet down in the county soon after the ordinance was actually passed? tm: my memory is yes, until, i believe it was bill jaeger(cid:885)(cid:882), who took the county to court on the thing which i found very sad and rather obscene. he, being a newcomer, made such a fuss over the whole thing, and we thought we were friends with that family. well, he had lots of land, and he was going to do what he wanted to do with [it] and it was spoiling his plans, as far as i could figure out. and fortunately, he lost the case. he didn(cid:495)t come up in my radar. [end of tape (cid:884)] opposition to the ag preserve rz: so we were talking about the lawsuit that was filed against the county over the ag preserve. tm: yes. 184

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rz: and do you remember how long that lasted? tm: no, i don(cid:495)t have any recollection. it was much too long, as far as i was concerned. i was so afraid they were going to be able to pull it all apart, but i did not particularly follow it to see what was, you know, who was saying what for what cause. i don(cid:495)t think it lasted very long; i think it was settled pretty quickly. rz: and there were a number of people who were signatories to the suit? tm: i presume there were. i don(cid:495)t think he did it alone, because there were still lots of people who felt that the zoning was not good, so i can see why they might want to help for the cause to undo it. rz: and i think the lawsuit went all the way to the state supreme court? tm: now that you mention, i think you(cid:495)re right. so it went up a level or two levels. i(cid:495)d forgotten that. rz: so how did you feel when there was a final victory in the state supreme court? tm: thankful. the lawyers always muck up everything, and that(cid:495)s one lawyer that didn(cid:495)t muck up something. rz: were you following that lawsuit closely? tm: no, i was scared of it. i just figured i(cid:495)d done my bit and if they were going to pull it all apart, i couldn(cid:495)t save it. i just … my energy just wasn(cid:495)t going to continue on that. rz: you had a young, growing family to concern yourself with. tm: yes, and it seemed to me there were other irons in the fire that needed to be taken care of  schools and gosh knows what else, the vineyard and so many of these things that when people begin to jump in, their fulltime job is to sabotage what you(cid:495)re doing – and you have a daytime job that(cid:495)s on top of whatever you(cid:495)re trying to defend. you know, sometimes these real estate people would come in with a big project – that(cid:495)s their business! that(cid:495)s twenty‐four hours for them. that(cid:495)s all they have to worry about, is how they(cid:495)re going to get a meal there. you and i have to do what we(cid:495)re doing and then try to battle whatever their crazy thoughts are. rz: yes, it(cid:495)s very different. now i wanted to ask you a little about the upper napa valley associates (cid:523)unva(cid:524). were you a member of that group? it was headed by lowell eddington? tm: right. rz: and they used to meet at the el real restaurant? tm: well, now that you mention it., we became members rather quickly when we heard about it, and i believe that our neighbor, ivan schoch, encouraged us to join, which we did. so we supported it to that extent. i never went to any of the meetings. i didn(cid:495)t even realize they had regular meetings at el real. rz: and what was their mission? 185

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tm: i think trying to keep things orderly and not get places divided, and i think their original mission was to try to keep the basalt rock(cid:885)(cid:883) people from using county funds to straighten out oakville grade, up to their quarry. and for about ten years we had semi‐truck trailers coming up and down the oakville grade in good weather; you could hear (cid:495)em from miles away with the dust and the clatter. and they managed to persuade the county they needed the roads straightened out in order to get to their quarry, which they won. but they were big people in those days, so i guess the old boys took care of the details. rz: now, was unva active before and after the ag preserve? tm: i don(cid:495)t know about before, but it was continued after the preserve. but i think they didn(cid:495)t try to worry about anything south of here, i mean, sort of oakville, yountville north. rz: it was definitely the upper valley… tm: yes. rz: as its name would indicate. vera peterson was, i think, a member of this group? tm: i don(cid:495)t remember her at all; i remember the name. rz: and someone has mentioned that there was a cartoonist for disney who was a member? does that ring a bell? tm: that doesn(cid:495)t ring a bell for me. rz: and a retired state park official? lowell eddington was the head of it. so you were a part of it, but you didn(cid:495)t regularly go to the meetings? tm: no, and i don(cid:495)t even remember what they were spending money on, but it was very modest dues and they were, i think, promoting the cause of whatever was, you know … no signage on the highway, or more trees here or whatever. i mean, just general tidiness of what(cid:495)s going on. and keep everyone informed as to what kinds of thinking were going on, a change of thought or improvements or the visioning of this or that property, whether that made sense. rz: well, it(cid:495)s interesting that it was a continuation in the same spirit as the ag preserve. tm: but the ag preserve was the whole county, and that meant a lot of land. i mean, people(cid:495)s huge parcels were involved, where they were worrying about whether or not you were going to have trees on a highway, or the highway department taking them all down because they were in the way of cars. i mean, any tree within five feet of the highway is a danger, it might get in the way of a car, is their attitude. you know those trees just south of yountville where the big white eucalyptus is in the divider? those trees were all supposed to come down – they were too dangerous because they were too close to the road. i mean, yoo hoo! that was their attitude when that road became four‐lane: take them out, get rid of them! and fortunately, there was enough human cry. it may have been the unva people, i don(cid:495)t recall. why don(cid:495)t we just save the trees? put a fence around them? the highway department said, (cid:498)oh, the limbs will get in the way of the traffic. they(cid:495)ll fall.(cid:499) oh come on, i mean. the whole attitude was, pave it over, get rid of any obstruction within … [laughs] 186

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rz: now, i wanted to talk to you a little bit about the ordinances that got passed after the ag preserve. we don(cid:495)t need to get into the details of the number of ordinances over the years, but the lands that were covered on the valley floor were expanded. more land was added. tm: i believe that is correct. rz: and then the watershed areas in the hills were added. tm: yes. rz: so are you in, or are you straddling the ag preserve and the watershed? tm: yes. rz: your property has both. tm: yes, but the parcel, the farmed parcel is in the preserve. but we own a parcel that(cid:495)s just outside the preserve, which has a little house on it. and as a matter of fact, when the williamson act became a cause célèbre, i deliberately did not need to put that one other parcel in the williamson act as a demonstration of my belief. i didn(cid:495)t need to because it was so small, but damn it, we put it in. rz: and that expires after ten years? tm: it only expires if you(cid:495)re going to do something with it. it(cid:495)s ten years … it has to have a ten year payout. i mean, okay, [if] i(cid:495)m going to put a supermarket there…the taxes go up over the next ten years to what the [assessed] rate for the supermarket would be. rz: but you can just continue it for agriculture. then you enjoy the lower tax rate. tm: yes, it(cid:495)s evergreen for ten years. rz: so you have two separate, legal parcels? tm: we have actually four now. but two of them…that one and then there(cid:495)s a little piece here at the bottom of the hill, a little bit of meadow there, which we bought from the neighbor who lived there. rz: so, prior to the ag preserve, you could have subdivided quite a bit. tm: yeah, two acres everywhere – ranchettes! rz: i wanted to ask you, why do you think napa county was successful in passing these land preservation measures as opposed to, let(cid:495)s say, sonoma county, which hasn(cid:495)t had as much success? tm: i don(cid:495)t think i can answer that, but i have a theory. it was sort of time and place. it [napa] was a small county, so the divergence of thinking is not quite so complicated. you don(cid:495)t have a coastal section and a timber section and a metropolitan section [that would] divide the way. sonoma is about what, twice or three times as big as napa county? and i would like to think [that in napa] there was a wave of people like ourselves who had come from places that were being paved over so fast, and they didn(cid:495)t like it. and so it 187

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became a kind of force unto itself. these people had fled the san jose [growth and traffic] damages, and we were a sufficiently large element in the voting population, and vocal, and i think had enough money to be able to throw money at things, where a lot of people locally were green, but their pocketbooks didn(cid:495)t have any extra change in them. and they were fortunate, most of them, in having at least some kind of wherewithal beyond the exact limits of their prowess to be able to push and shove and also had, i think, business experience. rz: yes. tm: in how to handle it, which i did not have, but certainly a lot of these other people that came in the ten years from about (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890) to (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:890) were fiscal whizzes who made plenty of money. and so they came for lifestyle and winemaking and all of the romance and so on, but realized that the bridge had been drawn up after they came in, so whatever they could do politely to tell people to go home would be great. [laughs] it seems to me at one point that the accusation came from vallejo was that this was a (cid:498)white county and blacks were not welcome.(cid:499) needless to say, there was kind of confusion over that, as to why they suddenly decided that we were white – and i thought, maybe it is. maybe the realtors are, but if my, my memory is correct, there was supposed to be a march from vallejo to the city of napa with this complaint in mind, and the realtors said, (cid:498)welcome.(cid:499) [but] there was no march. rz: really. tm: they had the (cid:498)cool(cid:499) to say, (cid:498)okay, come.(cid:499) rz: that(cid:495)s so interesting. tm: there(cid:495)re still no blacks! well, i do still see a few dark faces around, but … it ain(cid:495)t east africa. rz: was this in the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? tm: i would like to say it was the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s. mare island was still very much … but you could see another problem generating and fighting over that. rz: now, were you at all involved in – we(cid:495)re talking about the resulting ordinances that were passed after the ag preserve, those that were related to it in some way or another? were you at all involved in measure a, which limited the population growth to one percent per year? tm: yes, i mean, i(cid:495)ve dealt with whatever was going on that was [related to it] … i was on the [napa valley] grape growers board for a number of years, so i was involved when those things came in front of the grape growers. rz: oh, i didn(cid:495)t realize you were on the board. tm: and i don(cid:495)t remember how far back that one was, but, before and after those measures, because of being a grape grower, i was the [on the] pr [committee] for the grower flyer sheets and so on, and i knew more or less what was going on. and i tipped in if they were looking for some more money to help this or get somebody to do secretarial or whatever was needed, but i wasn(cid:495)t out there in front like volker [eisele] in going to all these damnable supervisor meetings. you(cid:495)d go there at nine o(cid:495)clock and you didn(cid:495)t get on 188

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the agenda until mid‐afternoon. everyone was tired. rz: well, yes, measure a passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), and then ten years later came measure j, which passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). tm: thanks to volker eisele. and now we have the present one passed – hallelujah! rz: were you pleased with the election results? tm: yes. what backs me up to the agriculture preserve is, the comment had gone through that, (cid:498)you know, the city of napa passed this.(cid:499) well, of course, the city of napa was the biggest population center, and if we hadn(cid:495)t had that population voting sufficiently for it, it wouldn(cid:495)t have passed. we all in the north end of the county could have been for the agricultural preserve, but if the city of napa wasn(cid:495)t, we would have lost. rz: yes. the population of the city of napa is half of what the county is already. upvalley and downvalley tm: exactly. and apparently, the general thinking was they realized they had a garden in their back yard and they didn(cid:495)t want to get rid of it! someone else was paying for it. [laughs] i(cid:495)m not quite sure it was that simple, but it was interesting. despite that, i don(cid:495)t know why there always seems to be this (cid:498)up‐valley, down‐valley.(cid:499) there(cid:495)s a magic curtain someplace. i think it(cid:495)s about darms lane. [laughs] (cid:498)up‐valley, down‐valley…(cid:499) nonsense. rz: was there as much of a distinction between up‐valley and down‐valley when you first came? tm: we weren(cid:495)t sufficiently, ah, educated into what was going on, although we very quickly were because we came from the south. you had to go through the city of napa; you couldn(cid:495)t go around at that point. we wanted to set up accounts in napa for a hardware store and so on, and they gave us the old one‐two about accounts that were so disagreeable that i thought the proper thing to do was to have the santa barbara business bureau send a credit report to the napa county business bureau to show that our credit was perhaps pretty good from where we came from. therefore, the local stores could phone in and ask, (cid:498)are these guys for real?(cid:499) they didn(cid:495)t even want to be bothered to call. they wanted to know what my grandfather(cid:495)s gold teeth were and what kind of… and finally i got so mad i said, (cid:498)why don(cid:495)t you call the business bureau?(cid:499) (cid:498)oh, we don(cid:495)t want to do that.(cid:499) and we went over there. i said, (cid:498)we sent a file. santa barbara says they sent a file months ago to you. where is it?(cid:499) they couldn(cid:495)t find it. it was sitting on top of the big file cabinet. each of us had a separate file. there were separate accounts in santa barbara because we weren(cid:495)t married. they had six years of me and twelve or fourteen of martha, and with a file like that, so big, they didn(cid:495)t know what to do with it. we went to smith(cid:495)s [in st. helena] for our pharmacy the next week. rz: in st. helena. tm: and i said, (cid:498)i(cid:495)d like to open an account.(cid:499) (cid:498)oh sure, you(cid:495)re local, aren(cid:495)t you?(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)yes. we(cid:495)re new.(cid:499) (cid:498)oh, never mind, phone number is fine. here, what do you want put on the account? kleenex? aspirin? hardware?(cid:499) 189

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rz: so they let you charge right away? tm: right away – you(cid:495)re local! i mean, that was the whole attitude, was – if you(cid:495)re local, you(cid:495)re fine. and so we looked that way [up valley] all the time unless i found it necessary medically [to go down valley]. otherwise i(cid:495)d be in napa more often. i also found that getting out of this office [here in oakville] was a help to do business. i mean, the phone rings, someone walks in, you know. the spigot broke down on the corner, what do i do? i(cid:495)m trying to settle something on the phone or get interviewed by important people. so i have a hideaway office in napa now, that i go to twice a week to do business. i mean, i don(cid:495)t get interrupted there! [laughs] also, it has all the file cabinets that i can(cid:495)t put in here. rz: well, that(cid:495)s a good idea. so you, then you commute back and forth? tm: yes, that(cid:495)s right. twice a week – big deal! threats to ag preserve rz: what about the winery definition ordinance? of course that didn(cid:495)t really affect you because you(cid:495)re not a winery. tm: no, but in fact it made me realize what some of these fellows were trying to put over [in terms of] the definition … i mean the abuse of a t‐shirt shop calling itself a winery. and the one that really frosted me was clos pegase. and he just wound up by just telling the county to shove it. he said, (cid:498)i can break you guys. forget it. you(cid:495)re already in hock $(cid:887) million. i can take you to court and keep you there forever.(cid:499) i mean, that(cid:495)s a nice way to do business, isn(cid:495)t it? rz: this is when the owner [jan shrem] was building [the winery, clos pegase]? tm: yes. there was supposed to be a parking lot for five, and then there was going to be some statues out front – and it was supposed to have some unbelievably small building for how many thousands of cases. i mean, the whole thing didn(cid:495)t make any sense at all. and they told him not to take the top off the hill that he bought – and he took it off. i wish we had a policing system in this county, a judge that would fine people. there(cid:495)s a building on dwyer road that(cid:495)s illegally high, but if i were a judge, i(cid:495)d say, (cid:498)take that goddamn cupola off. it(cid:495)s six feet high.(cid:499) i mean, it(cid:495)s a technical thing. there are two places in yountville that are illegally high – the buildings are about twelve feet too high. rz: but it got through? tm: well, they just say, (cid:498)shove it!(cid:499) rz: and do it anyway? tm: yes. well, i think that(cid:495)s another zoning situation at [bistro don] giovanni(cid:495)s. everybody loves giovanni(cid:495)s, including us. he [the owner] was allowed to tear down the other restaurant and rebuild on the footprint, which was passed after a good deal of argument, but he chose to put a porch outside, illegally – and they fought for five years over the porch in the county. then the county said, (cid:498)fine, okay, you(cid:495)ve got your porch. don(cid:495)t do anything with it. you cannot put tables on it.(cid:499) within weeks there were tables. okay, fight again, then they enclosed part of the porch. fight again. and then giovanni comes around and says, (cid:498)they(cid:495)re about to take me out of business because blah, blah, blah. i need to have this permit.(cid:499) 190

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well, i refused to sign it, because it wasn(cid:495)t his fault. i mean, it(cid:495)s his business, but the guy underneath was the one. and he gets away with doing it all the time … the [stanly lane marketplace] pumpkin patch? oh, the pumpkin patch, the children have to need a pumpkin patch. why do we need espresso at a pumpkin patch? jams? i mean, if you have enough money, you can get it zoned the way you want, but that(cid:495)s where we(cid:495)re leaking around the edges now. these little funny, little pieces that…well, three‐quarters of a million dollars put it on the ballot and made a case to the public, but if you(cid:495)ll need pumpkins, it(cid:495)ll pass. rz: well, that(cid:495)s what a lot of people say the biggest threat to the ag preserve is – this sort of leaking, case by case. tm: yes, exactly. rz: and over time, of course, the cumulative impact [can be a problem]? tm: yes, you(cid:495)re right. it(cid:495)s the snowflake effect. one snowflake doesn(cid:495)t bother you, but you get a glacier eventually! okay, let(cid:495)s get back to what you really want. rz: well, now i wanted to ask you actually more about what you see as the contemporary challenges to the ag preserve, so we(cid:495)re right on target here in terms of the list of topics. tm: yes, i think it(cid:495)s the chipping away at it, an acre here, two acres there. and the situation where it(cid:495)s sufficiently well‐funded by outside funds to convince the people in the county that they need another spa and a golf course and wonderful luxe houses. we keep talking about needing low‐cost housing – why are we building more luxe houses, and we(cid:495)re not building what we(cid:495)re supposed to be building? these people down there at the steel pipe yard – where are they going to get enough water? they(cid:495)re not going to build shanties for mexicans; they(cid:495)re going to build luxe houses. the houses need maids. where are you going to put the maids and the gardeners? that doesn(cid:495)t seem to come up. rz: that(cid:495)s the napa pipe project. tm: napa pipe, yes. i mean, this whole (cid:498)housing for napans.(cid:499) what a crock. i mean, it sounds so wonderful, doesn(cid:495)t it? we are short of houses – but we haven(cid:495)t built our number of low cost houses for the people who live here. rz: well, that is a huge issue today – the inability of so many people who work in the county to actually be able to afford to live here. tm: no, i hadn(cid:495)t realized [until recently]. eight o(cid:495)clock in the morning in american canyon, the northbound traffic is moving at two miles an hour. it(cid:495)s coming in from [all over] the county – all that area – yikes! i mean, i knew that coming in from vacaville was bad news, but that was an eye‐opener for me. it was … rz: and only getting worse. tm: yes. 191

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the future of the ag preserve rz: what do you think about the issue of tourism here, because a lot of people think that that(cid:495)s the single greatest threat to the ag preserve. tm: yes, it is. i think we turn off all the advertising, it would take ten years for it to be showing. it(cid:495)s gotten to be such a hot commodity. we started destroying our own successes thirty years ago. they couldn(cid:495)t resist, and now napa has become a (cid:498)byword(cid:499) for anything that(cid:495)s interesting, sort of like the word (cid:498)bermuda,(cid:499) or something. ah, you have kind of a code word for kenya – jungle drums and animals! i mean, all very exciting. rz: it(cid:495)s highly evocative, isn(cid:495)t it? tm: yes, and not helped at all by some of the people in the wine business who came here – the hell with the wine, let(cid:495)s just get them in the door. and why do we need golf courses and spas for all these people? i mean, that(cid:495)s the biggest waste of money in the county and [waste of] water. why do they want to become so limp that they have to have a spa when they go someplace? what(cid:495)s happened to the backbone of america! [laughs] rz: what do you think the position of the next generation is going to be? i mean, all of us who are older have been very vocal and supportive of the ag preserve, but what do you see as happening in the next generation? tm: that(cid:495)s a very good question. martha brought that up several times from things that she(cid:495)s dealt with. it(cid:495)s not going to work. i think that our generation was brought up on volunteerism much more, and there weren(cid:495)t so many divergent things to do, so it was easier perhaps to be a volunteer. but people who have spent a good deal of time volunteering – above their regular day jobs or having enough time on their hands raising children, when the kids get into high school – were able to help. that concept is not around much any more, and people with sufficient funds to have been in that fortunate position are now being divided three or four ways with the young, and so they don(cid:495)t have the capital themselves to start off that way. and they(cid:495)re all so busy listening to their ipods that i don(cid:495)t think they know what(cid:495)s going on around them a lot of the time. but of course, that(cid:495)s very unfair when you read about these wondrous things that some of the young are doing. but sometimes you wonder – is anyone tuned in? it insults me to see people with those things on all the time. and this business of (cid:498)phone to the ear.(cid:499) i just cannot believe that being in the safeway talking about what you are buying is so important. a fellow the other day said he was on a nature trail someplace, a nice day hike, and they passed a fellow who had a phone, at something like ten o(cid:495)clock in the morning, and he wasn(cid:495)t talking about anything particular. he was just yapping. three hours later, they passed him again and he was still yapping! now what – aren(cid:495)t you out listening to the birds and the bees? looking at the scenery, i mean? oh yeah, i think, other things may come into [it]… i have a horrible feeling this financial thing is going to sober up a lot of people, and we(cid:495)ve been floating on bubbles for so long. rz: what do you think the effect of this downturn in the economy is having? tm: i think the tourism is going to fall way off, because this is a very pricey area anyway. and so it(cid:495)s going to wreck tourism, but we need a little wrecking. 192

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rz: well, how do you feel about the future of the napa valley? are you optimistic or pessimistic? tm: i(cid:495)m pessimistic, but i think i(cid:495)m pessimistic about most everything, so that(cid:495)s not a very fair question in terms of talking to me about how rosy things are going to be. rz: you have two children who are here now. tm: well, they don(cid:495)t live in the county. one lives in santa cruz and one lives in  i can(cid:495)t remember the name of the county  in central oregon, albany, which is right near oregon state university. rz: i see, so you don(cid:495)t have any children locally. tm: no, but, they(cid:495)re dealing with the same things in a little different way. [end of tape (cid:885)] [tape (cid:886)] rz: so tom, you were saying you have a child who lives in santa cruz. tm: yes. rz: and they(cid:495)re dealing with these [same issues]… tm: the growth problems just like we are, in a sense; tourism, too  beach tourism and the residual back‐ to‐the‐land movement which they seem to be a part of. but it(cid:495)s growing; the paving‐over is growing so fast that the farms, the flower farms and the artichoke fields are all being paved over as fast as they can go. it(cid:495)s, as you say, it(cid:495)s all over the country that the population explosion is just … anything that has any remote touristy thing seems to be overflowing. rz: do you foresee a time when napa county voters might overturn the ag preserve? tm: i don(cid:495)t think they(cid:495)ll overturn it, they(cid:495)ll just run over it! let(cid:495)s get out the bulldozer. as [stony hill vineyard owner] peter mccrea says, (cid:498)the next crop here is going to be concrete.(cid:499) but yes, it probably is coming. rz: you see it as happening incrementally? tm: ah, it(cid:495)s illegal to discuss the basis of all our problems – people. let(cid:495)s turn off the baby machines. but that(cid:495)s illegal to talk about. as long as our world is popping out babies, it(cid:495)s just going to get worse. rz: do you think any of your children would be interested in coming back here to live? tm: good question. part of their inheritance is here. they both elicited a casual interest, but more as a financial one than a lifestyle one. our daughter and son‐in‐law in santa cruz are more in touch with farming, and so that interests them to some extent. our son up north is not particularly interested in farming as such, and he finds this whole area a bit crazy – just too california. and i think that he might like to have a pied‐à‐terre, but i don(cid:495)t think he wants to live here. 193

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rz: well, we(cid:495)re winding down, and i wondered if there is anything you wanted to add. tm: i(cid:495)d like to make a parting shot at the name of the organization, the j. l. davies agricultural land and preservation fund title. that name comes from two different organizations. the agricultural land preservation fund was a treasury that started in the oakville area in order to take the county to court over the lack of proper zoning in the county, that was illegal, in order to stop a hotel on the highway where mustards is now. it had been rocking along slowly for a number of years and had tried to help in terms of putting out some publications on the subject of agricultural preservation. then, when jack davies died, there was a huge outpouring of empathy for his enthusiasm for life and particularly for his being a star of the agricultural preserve and a fund was started. the two groups realized that they were on the same territory and decided, and in quite a biased way, i believe, to join forces. however, the agricultural land preservation fund treasury was a good deal larger than the other one, and somehow in the amalgamation, the j.l. davies [fund] comes out in capital letters and the ag fund sort just sounds nice at the end. but they were two [separate] organizations and i would like to hope at some time…that they are recognized as two, maybe even by abbreviating the title more like they did at copia, because that was too long a term. maybe we can just find another one [name] which would make me (cid:523)personally(cid:524) much happier. thank you. [end of tape (cid:886)] [conclusion of the interview.] 194

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donald john mcfarland oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler october (cid:883)(cid:889), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) participants: dm – don mcfarland rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: don mcfarland was a member of the napa county planning commission in 1968. this interview took place at his home in yountville, ca.] [tape (cid:883)] rz: don, could you give us your full name and where and when you were born? dm: my date of birth was may (cid:887), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:883)(cid:891). my full name is donald john mcfarland and i was born in berkeley, california. rz: well, to get started, i wonder if you could just share with us a little bit of information about your growing‐up years. so you were born in berkeley … dm: but my wife and her family were napans. and so although the early part of my career was spent traveling around the country, when we came back, we decided that napa was going be it. and that was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887). rz: was she born in napa? dm: she was born in berkeley, but her family was from napa county. rz: and where did you go to grade school and high school? dm: i went to grade school in berkeley, then marin county; we lived out in the country there, where my family had some property. then we came back into the town situation and i went to berkeley high school. rz: oh, that(cid:495)s an excellent school. dm: very good and very big. turned out that i liked it. and i was a (cid:498)track man.(cid:499) it turns out, and i(cid:495)m bragging now, that the sprint record i set in the county lasted for twenty‐five years. and the dumb people elected me president of the student body! and captain of the track team. that(cid:495)s where i met my wife. rz: you were a star! so was she in your class? dm: yes. early life 195

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rz: and were you dating in high school? dm: no, we just saw each other a lot. and then when we graduated, i was introduced to her, and we started dating, and she went away to ucla and i went to stanford. but we flew back and forth, you know, to keep dating. rz: what were your interests in college? dm: well, i was interested in land use issues, but i trained in political science at stanford. i was planning to be an attorney, and my family loved the country and keeping it the way it should be. and they kept me honest when i was a kid. rz: so where was it in marin that you lived briefly with your family? dm: san geronimo. rz: that is a beautiful place. dm: we had a good piece of property; we backed out onto a creek. and now the land we had has been developed into about six or seven houses and a school, and the county board of education is across the road from it. rz: what was the year of your graduation from the university, and where did you go afterwards? dm: i graduated in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:883), and i didn(cid:495)t go on from there because the war had started. and the father of a friend of mine was head of personnel for mare island naval shipyard. they asked me to come aboard and take charge of hiring people and setting standards, which i did for a couple of years. rz: so the position was like what we would call human resources today? dm: human resources, right. and they sent me to los angeles, and i was responsible for recruiting out of the los angeles area for hunter(cid:495)s point, mare island and hawaii. rz: that was a big job! dm: it was, it was pretty heavy. and then, then my deferment ran out and i went into the service. rz: what branch of the service did you go into? dm: i went into the quartermaster corps, and they put me  i was an enlisted man  and they put me in personnel relations. i was assigned to a battalion headquarters, and then i got promoted and my boss asked me to go to officers(cid:495) candidate school, which i did. rz: so now where were you stationed, before you went to ocs? dm: i was up in washington state. then in southern california, out in the desert; then in illinois, where we were preparing to ship overseas. 196

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rz: and where was your ocs training? dm: it was in virginia. rz: now were you married by this time? dm: oh yes. rz: so you got married fairly soon after college. dm: we did, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:884). rz: and your wife(cid:495)s name was? dm: bernice masters. it was bunny – they called her bunny! rz: so the masters family was from napa county. dm: right. her mother was a teacher for a long time in the county. rz: now, i wanted to ask you some questions about your early career. when you got out of the military, where did you go? dm: i went to work for shell development company in emeryville, because the head of that company was an old friend of mine from high school and talked me into it. and he put me in personnel and labor relations for shell development company. it was a research and development company. rz: now is this connected to shell oil? dm: yes, it(cid:495)s the research arm of shell oil. then, after a few years, they bought a company in denver and sent me back there to head up labor relations there. then they said, (cid:498)you(cid:495)re going back to new york, buddy, that(cid:495)s it.(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)no i(cid:495)m not.(cid:499) we came out here and decided to buy some property and get the heck out of that rat race. that was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:886). rz: well, that was a brave thing to do. dm: it was. people told me i was crazy. rz: now what did you do here in napa county? move to napa county dm: we bought some property in the coombsville area, and i started to figure out what i wanted to do. and right then, an old friend of mine owned a lot of property up at lake berryessa, and he kept talking to me about joining with him to develop that area. and i(cid:495)d never done anything like that, you know, but i agreed to it, and so we built what(cid:495)s now called spanish flat. while we were developing that area, i got very interested in how the land around that whole berryessa valley should be developed. and then we built 197

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two resorts and one central shopping area. and as i mentioned earlier, i began to get discouraged by the fact that it looked like the federal bureau of reclamation was not interested in the kinds of things, let(cid:495)s say, that [napa county planning director] jim hickey and i were, which was to keep things from getting overbuilt, from just crushing the lake. and so, when i could see they weren(cid:495)t going to help us do that, jim and i worked to build a plan. then old friends of mine had been trying to get me to form a company, and we did. rz: what was your company name? dm: it(cid:495)s called leisure enterprises, inc., but we were known by the names of the companies we purchased. we had a lawn and garden wholesaling and green goods growing company, and hard goods, which are tools and that kind of thing. rz: so it was quite diversified. dm: very. we had grant laboratories, which was in berkeley. it(cid:495)s a company that makes ant stakes [insecticides], very well known. and then we bought an athletic construction firm because i was interested in it. rz: and you ran these businesses from napa? dm: no, but i was willing, and my wife was willing, to move around the united states creating these things. and spending time at each location where we created a business, making sure it got started properly and heavily trained [staff]. so we were in washington, oregon, southern california, texas, salt lake city, utah and orlando, florida. rz: you moved around quite a bit. how many employees did you have? dm: our total was a little over (cid:883),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882). early involvement in land use issues rz: how did you first get involved in land use issues? dm: well, it was primarily the berryessa thing. while i was there, i had to force upon myself the fact that i had to know what was going on throughout the whole county and how it [land practices and policies] should be inter‐related, you know. and then i was asked to serve on the planning commission. rz: so, in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882)s, soon after you came to napa county, you joined the planning commission. dm: yes. rz: how were the members of the planning commission selected? dm: each one represented a different district in the county. and it turns out that the president of the board of supervisors, pete clark, was the one who asked me to serve on the planning commission. then what happened is that each district would ask the supervisor who was responsible for that area to try to get somebody in from their district. 198

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rz: and, this was, of course, long before jim hickey came to napa county. dm: yes, it was. rz: what were some of the land use issues you were involved in when you were on the planning commission? dm: some of them were things that had to do with just letting business, any kind, come into the towns and get on the periphery of the town, for example, and start to stretch the limits of the town, in effect. there was not necessarily a correlation between where they were and what the need for the land use was. and you could see that early on, some of the wineries needed protection, really, because people wanted to come in and buy land, and just put a big castle up. and they wanted to build up in the skyline, so it really got to the point where i felt, (cid:498)geez, somebody has to really fight this.(cid:499) and everybody was doing pretty well on the planning group. planning was doing a good job of that. rz: when you were on the planning commission, what was the general tenor of the county? now this would be in the late (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s, let(cid:495)s say. dm: yes, and mostly in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. rz: so, was it pro‐development or not? dm: it was sort of in between. we had quite a few members on the planning commission who were ag people, which was very good, but we had problems with the planning commission meetings, where people would come in and say, (cid:498)what right do you have to tell us what to do with our land?(cid:499) rz: it must have been pretty contentious. dm: to me, yes. i thought to myself, (cid:498)for goodness sake, why can(cid:495)t we settle on something to agree on?(cid:499) but it was the guy who was the planning director then who had his hands full, no doubt about it. planning commission members rz: was vernon cotter head of the planning department at that time? dm: yes. rz: and the planning commissioners included felix vanderschoot? dm: right, he was the chairman. rz: andrew pelissa? dm: pelissa was a vintner. rz: and kent ingalls? dm: kent ingalls, yes. 199

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rz: george blaufuss? dm: the blaufuss family were manufacturers in the middle of napa. rz: and fred berry? dm: fred berry, yes. rz: j. h. bentley. dm: bentley, yes. rz: and, of course, yourself. dm: right. rz: were the planning commission members evenly divided between pro‐development and not? dm: i think so. felix vanderschoot was a very good chairman, and he was very good in not letting people get carried away. in other words, he had the attitude that our job was to study things carefully, and then come to an agreement of some kind. rz: was he a good organizer? dm: he was. rz: how many terms did you serve on the planning commission? dm: two, at least. rz: and mervin lernhart was the planning commission(cid:495)s legal advisor? dm: he was. rz: how did the planning commission work, and how did it interact with the planning department and the board of supervisors? dm: ok, the planning department had the responsibility of preparing things that had to be voted on or talked about by the planning commission. and their job was to try to give us as well‐balanced an itinerary as possible, so we didn(cid:495)t get any bias from them. then we would meet, sometimes two or three times, on a subject to get some kind of direction. and then the chairman, felix vanderschoot, would declare that this is the decision of the planning commission on a given thing. and then the planning director would go to a meeting of the board of supervisors and he would represent us, so we knew for sure how things were going there. a lot of us went to the meeting to make sure we were represented properly, you know! (cid:523)laughs(cid:524) they did a good job. rz: and with the county administrator – who i think was al haberger in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) – how did you interact with him when you were on the planning commission? 200

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dm: very well! i mean, he did some things that i think laid a lot of the groundwork for where land use in the county went. and he had a good open mind, and he usually was quite cooperative. we never heard of him doing anything to give us a bad time. rz: what was his role as county administrator? what was his role vis‐à‐vis the planning commission? dm: he was head of all administration for the county. so if something came before him in that role that needed planning, he would refer it to our chairman, who would discuss it briefly with us, and then we would usually pass it on to the staff to do some research and some work on it. and al haberger was a very strong‐willed guy, but very fair, and his role was very good. rz: and now for the planning commission members – was this a full‐time job? dm: no. it(cid:495)s volunteer, you know. rz: volunteer – you(cid:495)re not paid. dm: no. rz: how often did you meet? dm: i should know the answer to this. it would depend a lot on the subject, and sometimes we had to meet more often. it seems to me we met at least twice a month. so the meeting had to be pretty well done, so we weren(cid:495)t wasting a lot of time. rz: and your function was to make recommendations to the board of supervisors on all land planning issues? dm: yes, and people who were trying to get permits or whatever had to come before us, make their presentations, and then we would vote on it. and that would be the thing that would go on to the board of supervisors, if they had to be involved in it. rz: i see. and what would decide whether an issue had to go forward to the board of supervisors? dm: it depends. a lot of it was legal issues, regardless of what our attitude was. certain things had to be done both by the planning commission and by the board of supervisors. there were some things, though, that had to do with land use, that we could approve and would go on from there. but there were some things that automatically went before the board. the more that we got into the ag preserve and things like that, the more it went before the board. rz: well yes, that was a huge issue. dm: there was a lot of public attitude. rz: how did the idea of an ag preserve first begin to circulate when you were on the planning commission? dm: one of the early proponents was [vintner] jack davies, and i got to know him then and liked him. i could see that he was absolutely committed to doing something about protecting land use in the county 201

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for agricultural purposes. he was early in the stage [of discussion] where [good] leadership became effective. otherwise, before that, it was sort of, you know, a little here, a little there. and he would come to every one of our board meetings to make sure that if you had any questions, he could speak on it. rz: and yet he wasn(cid:495)t involved with the planning commission or the board of supervisors? dm: no, he wasn(cid:495)t. i don(cid:495)t think he wanted to be. i think he wanted to be out there working with his peers and developing a solid position to bring before the county. this is something you might want to erase from the book, but when i left, i had just started the economic development corporation, and we were working hard to make it one that would protect the environment. and jack was close to me on that. he was only working part‐time with his new properties. so when i left, i called him and said, (cid:498)jack, how about you…(cid:499) [end of tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] rz: so don, you were telling us about the economic development corporation. you were working on it in napa county? dm: yes, it was a new thing, and i don(cid:495)t know why, but i was asked to head it up, and al haberger, who was the county administrator, felt very strongly about a role a thing like this could play in land development. in other words, that if you had a lot of money and you wanted to build a factory, you didn(cid:495)t have any more weight than somebody else who was better suited to the environment you wanted. and so we did that. we formed this organization, and we had representatives from each of the [napa county] cities. and we started talking right away about, (cid:498)let(cid:495)s be sure that part of our responsibility is not just to build an economy, it(cid:495)s to make sure it(cid:495)s well‐suited to what we want in this county and to the environmental considerations.(cid:499) rz: well that was extremely forward! dm: it was different from most economic development organizations, yes. rz: were you influenced by the emerging environmental concerns of the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, including rachael carson and others? dm: well, i think so. people who are involved in vineyards and that sort of thing then were naturally concerned, sure. rz: and what was your mandate with the economic development corporation? dm: well, it was to develop the organization first, to make sure it had a board that was very representative of the county in all respects, including land use. and then start working, get an economic development plan together and then start to administer it. and i just got started on that and did a few things, including bringing a couple of businesses in that were appropriate for the area. then my friends and i decided we were going to build another company, and i had to leave. rz: i see. now were you at this time serving on the planning commission? 202

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dm: yes. rz: as well as trying to put together the economic development corporation? dm: right. so there was cross‐fertilization there. rz: so when you set up your own company, you continued to be a member of the planning commission? dm: no, because the agreement was that i had to be building the company, and it took me out of the area completely. early thoughts of ag preserve rz: while you were on the planning commission, when was the first time that you can remember of a discussion about creating an ag preserve? dm: oh boy, i don(cid:495)t know if i could say that. i don(cid:495)t know. but each time we had a general hearing on the proposals that we had, we spent more time on it [the idea] than i thought we were going to spend. but i(cid:495)m glad we did. rz: and where did the proposals come from? were these people who came to address the planning commission? dm: individuals, yes. rz: individuals like jack davies? dm: yes. rz: or other members of the public? dm: from the public, a couple of vintners, maybe. rz: and was the planning commission initially fairly well disposed to considering an ag preserve? dm: it took some time, but felix vanderschoot was a very good chairman, very good. and al haberger watched us from the side, you know, and he was absolutely committed to the ag preserve idea. didn(cid:495)t say so, but we found out he was. and we were forever grateful that he did what he did. rz: now, what was the role of the planning commission in terms of the idea of creating an ag preserve? was the role to vote on an ag preserve, and then forward that on to the board of supervisors? is that how it worked? dm: right. rz: i understand at first you, the planning commission, had been considering a (cid:886)(cid:882)‐acre minimum lot size. but then the planning commission backed off of that, and recommended a (cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre lot size. 203

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dm: twenty. we felt the thing would sell better in the beginning at (cid:884)(cid:882) acres, with the idea that if it really is as good as we think it is, there(cid:495)s going to be a demand for it to be increased. and sure enough, that(cid:495)s what happened. rz: i see. that was clever. dm: well, it was practical. rz: so you start with something that(cid:495)s going to be more acceptable to the public, knowing that if it(cid:495)s popular, then people will want to expand that. approval by planning commission dm: even then, the night we approved it, we were up here at the yountville community hall. we approved it, and we had a lot of (cid:498)boos.(cid:499) that wasn(cid:495)t the majority of people, but there were a lot of boos. in fact, when i started to leave, walking out the back door, these two fellows who looked like they were vintners walked up to me and said, (cid:498)how dare you do that to spoil and ruin the value of our property?(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)i don(cid:495)t know. i think eventually you(cid:495)re going to find out that that [opinion](cid:495)s wrong.(cid:499) and i know now that it was wrong. but one of them took me by the lapels of my coat and started shaking me, saying, (cid:498)how dare you do that!(cid:499) rz: well, it was a brave position for you to take in the midst of a lot of objections. dm: yes, but it became clarion clear that it was a very, very good answer, and it has proved to be that. rz: so the planning commission voted on this (cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre minimum lot size, and then that recommendation was forwarded to the board of supervisors, who approved it. dm: right. rz: i read about a number of public hearings that were held, but it(cid:495)s a little confusing – who held public hearings? dm: it(cid:495)s a process that things like this follow. at the planning commission level you have to have public hearings, but then before it can be approved by the board, they have to have public hearings again. rz: i see, so you each have public hearings. dm: you bet. rz: the first stage is the public hearings held by the planning commission. dm: the planning elements, yes. rz: and did you hold public meetings in various communities in napa county? dm: we did. 204

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rz: and was there a lot of opposition at these public hearings? dm: no, as i remember. i(cid:495)ve thought about this many times, and i think a lot of not having a lot of opposition was that an awful lot of people didn(cid:495)t really know yet what it all stood for. that(cid:495)s why we took more time having more public hearings than ordinarily we would. but i never sensed a tremendous opposition to it, frankly. and maybe that was just wishful thinking or something, but there were people both in the so‐called ag preserve and outside of it who didn(cid:495)t like it, because they didn(cid:495)t want to be told what to do with their property. rz: yes, that is a common reaction. dm: sure. rz: the planning commission public hearings that were held in various communities – would all the planning commission members attend each of those hearings? dm: yes. rz: and how would you decide how many hearings were enough? did you just have one in each community? dm: yes, usually it had to do with the districts in the county, the five districts. but in a couple of cases we joined the two districts together because they were small. i think we probably had three major public hearings altogether. rz: and then how did you publicize the meetings? dm: by newspaper, anything we could. if we could get on local radio, we(cid:495)d do it – just making sure that any medium we had to get it to the public, we got it. rz: were they well attended? dm: yes, they were! not as much as i thought they would be, though. and – it(cid:495)s true with a lot of things like this – after the decision is made, you find out there are a lot more people out there who wished they(cid:495)d come to the earlier meetings. and we were stunned as well, you know. rz: because this was the first wave, this was the very first introduction? dm: right. rz: now, the planning commission then made this recommendation to the board of supervisors for the (cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre minimum acre lot size. dm: right. public hearings on ag preserve rz: then the board of supervisors itself conducted public hearings. 205

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dm: right. the supervisors would hold their meetings in the supervisors(cid:495) chambers. rz: and people would come there? dm: yes. rz: did you attend those hearings? dm: i always did, and most of our planning commissioners did. rz: and were those well attended? dm: pretty well, but still not as much as i thought they ought to be. rz: how many people would you say would attend a typical hearing? dm: oh, it depends. for example, the planning commission meetings were in large halls, and we would have somewhere between (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) and (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) people, where the supervisors would have probably between (cid:884)(cid:887) and (cid:887)(cid:882). but that usually was people who were really at the stage where they hadn(cid:495)t been satisfied yet. rz: yes, so they wanted to expand on whatever had been discussed at the planning commission level. dm: yes. rz: at what point were you most proud of what the planning commission was doing? dm: i think it had to be the night we voted finally to approve it up here at the yountville community center. i think everyone on the commission felt the same. and it was like somebody had taken a tremendous load off our backs, because whether people liked it or not, we were trying our darnedest to get full understanding and full participation, and we had a big turnout that final night. rz: what was your biggest disappointment in the ag preserve issue with the planning commission? dm: i think it was because there were quite a few people who were going to be affected by it who should have really understood it better, and that(cid:495)s my way of saying it. and they, in effect, were against it, and were very vocal when we passed it. they did the same thing with the board of supervisors. and i don(cid:495)t think it(cid:495)s appropriate for me to say it now, but it would be real interesting if you could track every one of those people who were against it, and see how they came out of it all right. rz: what were the most humorous events that you witnessed? dm: well, in an odd way, maybe this one: that we voted, and then i tried to leave the hall, and these fellows came up to me and grabbed me by the front of my coat and shook me and said, (cid:498)how terrible(cid:499) – how could i do that to them? i look back and think that was so silly because i think, in most of those cases, they couldn(cid:495)t control their property at all, but that(cid:495)s what they wanted. but what the control was, was this ag preserve that protected them, and they eventually found out it did. rz: but it(cid:495)s reasonable that some people would wonder where the value was going to go. 206

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dm: you bet. rz: now, the board of supervisors then approved the creation of ag preserve lands in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), i believe. dm: i guess so. i(cid:495)ve forgotten, frankly. rz: and then you were still on the planning commission when the board approved. what was your role on the planning commission after the approval? dm: it was to hear complaints on primarily technical things, to see if we could make sure there was no misunderstanding, and that(cid:495)s primarily most of it. it would be to help when somebody would come and say, (cid:498)i don(cid:495)t understand what this will do if you do this,(cid:499) you know. rz: yes, there would be a lot of questions, i(cid:495)m sure. and in that case, was mervin lernhart(cid:495)s role to advise you? dm: yes. rz: and there was a lawsuit filed, of course. dm: yes! rz: were you still on the planning commission when the suit was filed? dm: i was gone. rz: and the next role was to actually reflect the ag preserve ordinance in the general plan. is that right, [in] the napa county general plan? dm: right. rz: were you still on the planning commission at that point? dm: yes, i was. i left in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:888). rz: and in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:889), the board of supervisors, i think, passed an ordinance that expanded the lands that would be covered by an ag preserve. so that would have been just after you left. dm: it was, right. rz: but was that one of the issues that you did deal with? dm: it was. it made me very happy, looking at it from a long distance, to know that(cid:495)s what happened. rz: that they wanted to make it even more effective. dm: right. 207

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rz: then when you left the planning commission in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:888), were you involved at all in land use issues after that? dm: i was, but in other states. it had to do with the facilities that we would have to have in the various cities where we had development projects. and so it did help me working with the local authorities, and they were usually very pleased that i had had the background i had, because we didn(cid:495)t waste a lot of time arguing about things like that. rz: well, yes, you(cid:495)d been through it. while you were on the planning commission, how much did planning commission members talk among themselves, outside of the meetings? dm: no, we were very careful about that. and once in a while after a meeting, somebody would say, (cid:498)what did you think about that?(cid:499) you know. and, (cid:498)my goodness, i think that was crazy!(cid:499) but – no. rz: you didn(cid:495)t. dm: i certainly didn(cid:495)t, and the fellows i knew didn(cid:495)t do it. rz: you were not supposed to? dm: you(cid:495)re not supposed to, because otherwise it generally would be assumed that there would be some decision made outside of the meeting. rz: so there were no sort of backroom decisions being made. dm: yes. rz: did members on the planning commission get along even if they had differences of opinion? dm: you bet. good guys. rz: why do you think sonoma county didn(cid:495)t also create an ag preserve? dm: you know, i(cid:495)ve never understood that. i never have. and as a matter of fact, this is a limited consideration, but the ag preserve in napa county has been a very, very firm supporter of the wineries that have been built and succeeded here. and sonoma county is trying to emulate napa county – with the wineries, you know – so i don(cid:495)t know why they did not do that. rz: they are not as successful at land preservation. dm: no, they(cid:495)re not. rz: well, some people suggest that the city of santa rosa has a lot to do with it, because it(cid:495)s the economic engine of sonoma county. dm: it is. rz: but we have the city of napa, and it(cid:495)s obviously smaller than santa rosa. 208

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dm: that santa rosa attitude…[followed] on a direct line with people who commuted, even on a day‐to‐ day basis, to the bay area, san francisco and what have you. very heavy movement there. it was that way even way back. rz: it was on a commuter line, and napa wasn(cid:495)t. what are some of the challenges that napa county faces today? a lot of people talk about tourism as a big challenge to maintaining the ag preserve. but there is also the pressure for both affordable housing and increased housing. how do you see that? dm: well, as you know, there are state directives related to the percentage of housing you have to have available in your community to take care of employees. and it has been a problem in napa, where in order to satisfy those requirements, it has nothing at all to do with the good or bad of the county. it(cid:495)s a regional and state situation. in order to satisfy the requirements, there(cid:495)s always an argument about where we(cid:495)re going to put those buildings. and as you probably know, what(cid:495)s been going on a little bit in the past is that various towns and cities in the county have traded deals. in other words, they say, (cid:498)if you can take some of these buildings, it would be helpful; then we(cid:495)ll work with you on some other land use thing that would be helpful to you.(cid:499) rz: just trading, you mean? dm: yes. rz: these standards are set for the state by abag [association of bay area governments] – is that correct? dm: yes, some parts of it are determined by abag … but the overall administration of the distribution of people in a community is based on the state. rz: state mandate. and so they will determine each year how much housing needs to be satisfied? dm: right. rz: but of course, that works against the grain of the ag preserve. dm: well, it(cid:495)s been a real test, and a very important thing is for the people who are on that committee or commission is to understand the idea that there are certain circumstances in areas where we shouldn(cid:495)t have a lot of housing. and there are others where you can have an awful lot of it because it doesn(cid:495)t violate anything in terms of land use codes or natural habitat or anything. that(cid:495)s the big deal. it becomes a political thing, in effect. rz: yes, well, it seems unwise to have the sort of formula that gets applied despite the differences from one county to another. dm: yes, and other counties, i(cid:495)m sure, wished they could do the same thing. or they don(cid:495)t like what we have, the right we have. so it(cid:495)s a continual challenge on the part of the leaders in napa county to make sure we don(cid:495)t just blow the whole thing by starting to bring in a lot of housing for people. and you(cid:495)ll probably realize, one of the developments down at the old pipe mill, down below napa. they want to put quite a few, relatively inexpensive places in for, they say, workers in the county. 209

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rz: this is the napa pipe project. dm: right. [end of tape (cid:884)] [tape (cid:885)] rz: so, don, you were talking today about the current challenge facing napa county with the napa pipe project, which is a housing project that is still pending. dm: yes. rz: and this is a mixture of different kinds of housing, but primarily for employees here in napa county. and you(cid:495)re against it. dm: let(cid:495)s say that i(cid:495)m certainly against it in its present form. one of the major considerations here is to create almost like an island full of people, which obviously is going to demand services and this sort of thing. so you(cid:495)re going to almost create another small town in the process. and then, one of the arguments for doing it is that we can provide housing for the people who are in napa county. well, what will happen is that people outside of napa county will want to buy, and they can(cid:495)t be stopped from doing that. so now we get an increase in the traffic flow and congestion, which is a major consideration now going into napa. impact of tourism rz: so, don, i wanted to ask you, with all of your experience in land planning, what is your opinion today of tourism here in napa county? dm: it(cid:495)s a question. and as a matter of fact, a lot of the properties have been able to be developed as vineyards because they had tourists who paid to be there. but it(cid:495)s going to take some very, very careful guiding from here on out, because in the process of it [accommodating tourists], some of the wineries probably overdo it. so then what happens is, of course, we get people, people, people. rz: were you at all involved in the winery definition ordinance of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)? dm: no. rz: what do you think about the increased ownership of some wineries by large corporations? do you think that(cid:495)s a challenge as well? dm: i think it is, and let me give one example without identifying it. one of the wineries had been here for years and years, had a wonderful reputation and was part of the community and what have you. and this foreign organization bought them and became a remote administration in another country. even its employees here didn(cid:495)t like it, but they started getting pressure on them like crazy to bring in more tourists, to do more things that would put demands on the winery for things they weren(cid:495)t built to do. so that(cid:495)s an example. i imagine there(cid:495)s more than one right now in the county that(cid:495)s like that. 210

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future of land preservation rz: what do you think the future holds for napa county, in terms of land preservation? dm: there will be continuing efforts to fight, fight, fight for people who want to come in and develop their property for housing or whatever. it(cid:495)s not going to stop. so it(cid:495)s going to take commitment by the people who direct the county and by people who own property. rz: do you think that commitment is still there? dm: i think it is with quite a few of very, very important landowners in the county. but i think if you put your finger on it, the thing to be afraid of is that, as land is sold to people who are mostly concerned with their own interests, which could include overuse, that there(cid:495)s going to be a problem. no question. rz: now, what do you mean by overuse? dm: well, trying to develop the land for things, for density that it shouldn(cid:495)t have, that(cid:495)s all. rz: what about increased absentee homeowners here in napa county? dm: yes, there(cid:495)s a lot of that. rz: one of the critiques of ag land preservation is that it(cid:495)s elitist and it makes housing, of course, more expensive. and that(cid:495)s a problem for our hispanic community. what do you think? dm: i think it(cid:495)s largely superficial, because if you really get into it, you find out that most of the people who came here from mexico came here to work in the vineyards, and they do. and that, of course, attracts more than maybe we need and it might be a problem. but, if you were to look at the average earnings of the immigrant who is now working in the vineyards, compared to what he would have earned working someplace else, it(cid:495)s way, way higher – way higher. so my personal feeling is that the wineries have done a better job than i thought they would in that regard. rz: in housing their hispanic workers and providing for their welfare? dm: right. rz: well, are we stuck between a rock and a hard place with land preservation? dm: we are. rz: housing values escalate. dm: yes. rz: on the other hand, you(cid:495)ve preserved open space, so it(cid:495)s a very, very difficult issue and there are no easy answers dm: there certainly aren(cid:495)t. and in the planning process, you have to say to yourself, you look at all the 211

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considerations here, how can we tell that land owner he can(cid:495)t optimize the value of it himself? and i guess that(cid:495)s just part of what land use planning is. you better do it for the good of the community, taking into account as much as you can to honor the needs of the individual property owner. rz: and it(cid:495)s a tough job, and a constant, constant struggle to try to create a balance. dm: right. rz: what do you think about the next generation? do you see the next generation as being able to be as committed and active toward land preservation as your generation was? dm: you know, i don(cid:495)t know how to answer that. i(cid:495)ve thought about it many times and i think i don(cid:495)t want to answer it, because i(cid:495)m afraid. but that(cid:495)s why, to me, it(cid:495)s so important when you know what we know about what the land planning has done for this county, you better not just open the door and let it flow out. and it(cid:495)s hard to do because you have to tell people, we(cid:495)re going to extend it for another (cid:884)(cid:882) or (cid:886)(cid:882) years or whatever, and that(cid:495)s too bad. that(cid:495)s the way it(cid:495)s going to be. but you do that on the basis of all the considerations involved, which is how well balanced is the county in terms of providing things for people? and how do they do that? in this particular case, taxes and the taxes that come from visitors and what have you are very high. they pay a great part of the county(cid:495)s administrative costs. so i know quite a few young people who work for the wineries and they(cid:495)re having a great time, but it(cid:495)ll be a challenge. rz: when you were in the heat of this, were you finding that you had personal friends with whom you were at odds during the decisions to try to create the ag preserve? dm: somewhat, but it was mostly hypothetical, really. once the word got out as to what it really was and how well thought‐out it was and what the consequences could be, both good or bad, no problem. rz: and there(cid:495)s a question i forgot to ask you earlier, and that is, did the planning commission do a lot of research on other efforts to create ag preserves elsewhere in the united states? dm: oh, i(cid:495)m sure they did. i just know darn well that they had to. in talking with jim hickey, in later years, i never heard him argue or say anything bad about that. jim is a pretty pedantic kind of a guy, but he(cid:495)s also a good planner. rz: and, when the planning commission met, were you briefed by county staff in the planning department on the issues? dm: right. rz: so they, they must have provided research for you on other efforts to create ag preserves. dm: oh, sure. we used to ask a lot of questions, knowing that, first, it was right to do it. but second, unless we did, if something went wrong, we had only ourselves to blame for it. rz: because you needed to be prepared and know exactly what the issues were likely to be, coming up? dm: yes. 212

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rz: we are about to have an election, and one of the local issues to be decided is measure p, which would extend measure j for another (cid:887)(cid:882) years. are you going to vote for measure p? dm: i am. rz: what do you think is the likelihood that it will pass? dm: it(cid:495)s going to be close. my feeling is that if it(cid:495)s represented properly, and i hope that it is, that there(cid:495)ll be enough support to make it work. i think it would be a crime not to pass it because, even if this passed, as time goes by, if conditions really change a lot where it doesn(cid:495)t make sense, then the public can be heard from again and there can be a change in that law. you know, it(cid:495)s not a final thing, but it(cid:495)s a very strong guideline. rz: so on the whole, do you feel fairly optimistic, or fairly pessimistic for napa county(cid:495)s future? dm: my nature is – and it was this way when we passed the ag preserve – that i was really nervous about it, and when it passed as well as it did, i was pleased, but surprised a little bit. and so i(cid:495)m just hoping the same thing will prevail now, and i hope that there isn(cid:495)t so much opposition that(cid:495)s public‐based on selfish needs or wishes instead of the good of the county. rz: you obviously have a lot of good feelings about the county. you(cid:495)ve lived here a long time and been very active with it. would you have lived anywhere else? dm: oh, i probably would, but i(cid:495)m sure glad i lived here! you know, when we decided to come back here, it was a joy to come and see what this county is and what it has become over the years. it could have just gone crazy – we could be like another san jose or that area, you know? why not? have you ever driven down the highway in santa rosa to go to san francisco? it(cid:495)s wild! rz: it(cid:495)s pretty extraordinary, what we have here. dm: yes. rz: well, i want to thank you, don, for this oral history. i(cid:495)ve learned a lot and i(cid:495)m so glad that we(cid:495)ll have your own perspective in our archives. thank you. dm: thank you. [end of tape (cid:885)] [conclusion of interview] 213

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virginia simms oral history early life preserving napa county’s agriculture years. she has served on the napa city planning commission and in 1972 was the first woman to be elected to the napa county board of supervisors. she was interviewed in her home in napa, ca.] jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler january (cid:884)(cid:883), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: vs ‐ virginia simms rz ‐ rue ziegler [interviewer’s notes: virginia simms is a community leader who has been involved in land use policies for 40 [tape (cid:883)] rz: this is rue ziegler interviewing virginia simms on january (cid:884)(cid:883)st, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) and this interview is an oral history for the jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund oral history series project on the creation of the ag preserve. may i call you ginny? vs: please do. rz: ginny, i wondered if we could get your full name and your place and date of birth. vs: my full name is virginia anne hemphill simms. my date of birth is (cid:883)(cid:882)/(cid:884)(cid:886)/(cid:884)(cid:889) and i was born in hays, kansas. rz: alright. now i wanted to ask you a little bit about your early years and your early schooling, and then we'll come to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887), which i think is when you moved to california. vs: that's right. we moved to napa (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887). rz: so i wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your early years, and your early interests in grade school. vs: well, we lived in hays in the very early (cid:495)(cid:885)(cid:882)s, actually late in the (cid:495)(cid:884)(cid:882)s. the dust bowl began in that part of kansas, and so we lived there until probably very close to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:888), when we moved. my dad had a change in companies, and we moved to kansas city, missouri, stayed there for only six months and then moved st. joe, missouri where i spent the next nine years. so my early life was spent in a small town in kansas with a lot of family around. my mother's sister and her family my grandparents lived on a farm outside of wakeeney. in those years when we were in missouri, my brother and i would go out to the farm for extended periods of time. he'd help with the harvest and later the planting, and i'd assist with the house and kitchen. i wasn't very good at that. i started really young and i was probably more trouble than good, but during the summers there we did meet some neighborhood kids. it brought home the problem of what the dust bowl was doing, because when we would come back to the farm there would always be one or two families that had had to abandon their farm and had put everything in their car and headed west. so in those days we thought california was the end of the earth. they never came back, and you never heard from them again, so you just thought maybe they fell off. as a child, you thought, what happened to them? and in st. joe i went to school all the way through the ninth grade. it had a very good school system, really, 214

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move to california but it was a totally jim crow town. st. joe was the farthest north of a southern city in the united states. it was culturally southern. rz: and missouri had gone pro‐slavery. vs: yes, that was the old border wars, and the source of the dred scott decision was in missouri on the other side. st. joe is on the western edge and st. louis, where the dred scott incidents occurred, on the mississippi. we were on the missouri river. so i think culturally that was quite a shock, because i had never seen a black except in books until i was eight, and then within a matter of months i was in a community that was almost (cid:884)(cid:882)% black, and yet was completely segregated ฀ the back of the bus, the whole business. rz: what did your father do? vs: he was in life insurance. he was a manager from equitable life from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:888) until his death in, let's see, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:883). rz: now, where did you go to middle school and high school? vs: middle school was in st. joe, and i was fifteen when my dad was transferred out to california. the war had just begun. that would have been the spring of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:884). so my brother stayed back at westminster college in fulton, missouri. he stayed there to finish his academic year, but the rest of us all moved, and we came out to oakland, which was where my dad's new position was. rz: so he was with a new insurance company? vs: no, it was a promotion within equitable. rz: oh, i see. so you lived in oakland? vs: we lived in oakland, and went through high school at oakland high. then i went to scripps college for women for a year, and then came back to uc berkeley for a year, and then went to stanford and finished at stanford in the class of (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:891). rz: and what was your major in? vs: the last two years it was political science, but that was also the only thing i could do to get in and out in two years. having changed schools so many times, you got the units but you might not get every class credit. in those days it was kind of choosey. rz: what was your particular area of interest when you were at stanford? vs: well, i really loved poli sci. i had a music appreciation minor at berkeley and again kept that up at stanford. in college you're just sort of majoring in social life as well as school, and i just had a really good time at stanford then. rz: so at this point you hadn't particularly gotten interested in urbanization and growth issues? vs: no. i think i was interested in social issues, and i took quite a lot of comparative religion and philosophy while i was there all the way through, but i would say i didn't really have a major interest. i considered law school, but that was a long stretch, and all the men were coming back from the war, and it was during a time when there was a great deal of social pressure for women not to take their place. 215

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rz: yes, because by the time you were at stanford this must have been (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:889)? vs: it was (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:889) to (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:891), so the men started coming home during my freshman year in college. rz: yes, that's interesting. now, when you finished stanford, where did you go? vs: i finished stanford and went to work for general electric lamp company as a secretary and wound up … it was a very good job for a young person, because my boss had been an admiral in the navy, and he was the first person ever to get an appointment to the academy from having enrolled as a common sailor; having gone into the navy as a common sailor. so he was full of things that you could learn from right and left, and it was kind of fun, because, let's say my spelling or my grammar was probably as good or better than his, but not my knowledge of anything i was doing. it was great fun. rz: he was a very experienced person to be – he headed up his own company? vs: well, he headed up that division of general electric. rz: he had a very different kind of experience, having come from the military. vs: yes. he was a very interesting man. rz: he must have been very smart. vs: he was very smart, and he also had a very clear way of letting you know what he wanted – so that he wasn't gruff; he was just simply direct. rz: so you were exposed to good management and leadership. vs: yes, really, he was good. and i didn't work there a whole long time, because warren and i got married, and then our first child came within ten months, so i didn't work with mr. falge, admiral falge, for very long. rz: and now the ge office was in? vs: oakland. rz: and when did you marry warren? what year was that? vs: december of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:891). rz: and his full name is? vs: warren goodell simms, all family names. the warrens of the early warren families; there's a goodell family. so on his mother's side, it's easy to trace his bloodline back to the mayflower. a couple of our grandkids have joined the mayflower society; actually their mother joined it for them, just to keep that connection alive. rz: and now what was warren doing? vs: warren had actually been in the war, had come back, had finished his college at uc, and he went to work also for the equitable, for another manager in san francisco. rz: so he graduated from uc berkeley? 216

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vs: yes. rz: and ten months later, your first child was born in oakland? vs: yes. rz: and her name? vs: it's actually he. he was born in san francisco. we were living in san francisco by that time, and he was born at uc san francisco, there on the hill. rz: oh, yes. did you have a second child soon afterward? vs: no, it was three‐and‐a‐half, four years before wendy came along; douglas first and then wendy, and that's all the children that we have. rz: now, i understand that you belong to the american association of university women. had you joined already at this point? vs: i joined when i came to napa, which was in (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:887). rz: and by the time wendy was born … vs: she was about a year‐and‐a‐half old when we moved here. rz: so now we're coming to the time when you and warren moved to napa. vs: yes, we moved to napa. rz: why did you come? vs: well, the equitable had no agents up here working, and so they moved two men up here to work for the life insurance business in napa. so we came because of that, and also warren's godmother and godfather lived in the hills over in napa. they lived on the property now owned by mont la salle, so warren had been in and out of napa county as a boy. so he was very familiar with it. rz: did you meet warren through your father? vs: no, i met warren through my brother's wife. at their wedding in (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:887), warren had just come home from the service, and he knew my brother's wife. they had gone all the way through grammar school together, i guess up through eighth grade. i really don(cid:495)t remember how the schools ran then. so she found out he was home a couple of days before the wedding, and called and said, (cid:498)i hear you're home. do come to the wedding.(cid:499) rz: and the rest was history? vs: yes. rz: so now you moved to napa. where did you live? vs: we moved in (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:887), and lived in alta heights about a half‐mile or mile from where we are right now. rz: and warren is, of course, working with equitable. vs: he was, and then in about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:890), instead of selling life insurance he went to work for their training 217

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division, so that he was training agents in the various sorts of uses of life insurance – specialized uses, that kind of thing. his territory was about the western third of the united states at first, and so he was gone more than he was home for a number of years there. rz: then you have these two very young children. vs: yes. early community involvement rz: now, was this the point at which you joined the american association of university women (cid:523)aauw(cid:524)? vs: i probably joined aauw within a very short time of coming to napa. warren's godmother was here still, and she got me to join community projects. rz: and what was her name? vs: at that time her name was virginia wallace, but she married warren's father and later became another virginia simms. so we both were virginia h. simms, and she was very active in this community. she had begun the tb society; she was a founder of community projects; she was on the board of the local hospital. she was very, very active. she had married ed wallace and they had lived here. ed died in (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:891). rz: so she was a widow, and then she met warren's father, who was a widower. vs: well, no, he was divorced. rz: she was older than you, of course, and would you say she was kind of a mentor? vs: well, certainly in terms of getting into the community, she knew just about everybody. napa [city] wasn't very big in those days – maybe it was (cid:883)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), i'm not really sure – and she had been here since the (cid:495)(cid:885)(cid:882)s, so she and ed knew an awful lot of people. she had been instrumental in getting my brother who was an ob [obstetrics] graduate to come to napa, because they had lost the one doctor who birthed most of the babies. so she knew that. she knew art was coming out of his residency and wanted to entice him to napa, which she did. rz: now, did you also belong to the stanford club at this point? vs: stanford club did not exist at that point, not the local one. i belonged to the aauw and then i belonged to community projects. it's a women's service organization that, as far as i'm concerned, is probably the best‐run business in all of napa – very, very fine. they run a thrift shop, and used to put on an annual event, which they no longer do. they no longer put on what we called the fancy faire. rz: but they're still active. vs: they're still very active. they have a thrift shop down on third street, but they started with bundles for britain, and then when the united states got into the war they continued their work with servicemen, but broadened it with the thrift shop to make money to do those things. then they found they were making enough money that they began giving money within the community. so they are one of the big donor organizations – they built almost all the swimming pools, they built gymnasium bleachers, they would give quite a bit of money to things the school district couldn't afford. they gave money to the boys and girls club when it began. i'm trying to remember, but every year they give away quite a bit of money. rz: so you were able, through your association with warren's now stepmother and community projects, to get quite involved with what was going on in the community? vs: yes, i was. they weren't particularly interested in what was going on, but the aauw group that i was 218

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in had a lot of people who were familiar with schools, and they were familiar with that end of the community. rz: and what was your first sort of awakening to the issues of urban growth? vs: oh, gosh. rz: i read somewhere that rachel carson had an influence on you. vs: yes, when i read her book i recognized of course that that could happen anyplace, and there's so much of that book whose setting is lake county, the examination of trying to save something, and in doing so making a huge mistake. so that really interested me, and i guess the other thing was politically – i became interested in the local government, and how there was a city and there was a county. i hadn't paid any attention to how california was organized. rz: and for the record, the rachel carson book was silent spring, and that came out in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. vs: yes, i still have a battered copy someplace. by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:890) there was a (cid:885)(cid:882)‐person citizens(cid:495) committee selected to look at the preparation of college preparatory students in napa's high school. there was one high school, and one of the board members knew me, and so he appointed me to that committee, and that committee broadened my interest in what was going on in the community. by that time i had had to resign from community projects because i only had so much babysitting, and so i switched into the citizens(cid:495) committee. in other words, when i had to be at meetings was when i used my babysitting. rz: what were some of the projects that you remember with the citizens(cid:495) committee? vs: well, we actually looked at the composition of classes – what were kids taking, what was the content of the class. we looked at performance in written english and in all kinds of measures, and saw that the english intelligence of the kids was dropping – a small percentage, but very consistently lower each year. we didn't have a non‐mathematical life science. we didn't have any science in high school that didn't depend on math, so that was important. we were teaching what was called (cid:498)orientation(cid:499) in the seventh or eighth grade, and we got that moved into a second period of language arts to strengthen that. they'd never had an english curriculum for secondary schools that had really been worked on, so we prevailed on the then‐county superintendent of schools to pay for napa teachers for released time of a year‐and‐a‐half to learn and develop an english curriculum for napa schools. it lasted a long time. dr. mcpherson was the superintendent, and he was a wonderful guy with a great sense of humor. at one point, when we had been doing this and bugging them for about three years, he sent us all a letter of congratulations, hoping we would say, (cid:498)fine, we're through, we'll leave.(cid:499) and julian weidler was the chair of the committee, and we all talked about it, and he said, (cid:498)i'm just going to let mac know that we're not going anywhere until these changes are made instead of just suggested.(cid:499) so we didn't resign; we just kept studying. we did an interesting study on how kids who had gone from napa high to a four‐year school did compared with kids who had gone from napa high to the junior college and onto four‐year schools. what we found was that the junior college kids did better in their junior and senior year than their classmates who had gone to berkeley in the first year. they were coming in more able to perform in junior and senior year university level than the kids who had gone directly to berkeley, or directly to chico, or directly to sac state. rz: it sounds like a very important role for you, then. vs: it was fun because my kids were in school. i had one in school and another one just about ready. she 219

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first interest in napa growth issues was four by then. rz: so you learned a lot from the people who were on the committee. vs: i learned a lot. they were wonderful people. it was an incredible group of people. rz: now, you were all volunteers. vs: yes, but selected by members of the school board. rz: and when did you first start getting interested in the issues of growth? i know we had talked before, and you told me a lot about what was going on in napa county and you found that interesting. vs: well, yes. those early years i would categorize for my awareness about what was going on in napa county would be about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882). i don't think those first five years i thought very much about it, but by the early (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, city council had adopted or was on the brink of adopting – i don't remember the timing here – a general plan that was responding to a study that said that they could really succeed. and so they adopted a general plan that showed that the population by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887) or (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:890) ought to be (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people. the city of napa was maybe (cid:883)(cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people then, but in those days they were looking at models on the peninsula, and these communities were just exploding; they were successful, and they had industry coming in, and prunes just didn't cut it. but anyway, they were very pro‐growth oriented, and i realized that there was something wrong with that picture. i do remember that when silverado turned from a ranch to a country club, and then turned from a country club into the planned community that we now know, i thought that planned community would cause trouble in the long run because it was outside of the city and there was another subdivision very near there that was also on a water district. i realized that we were looking at and experiencing urban sprawl even as young as we were, even as tiny as we were, that the pressures were all on us. i think i got into local politics because warren knew a couple of councilmen and i met them, and then we had a woman mayor, jerry hemmerling – quite advanced. she was in aauw, and that's where i met her and several other women who were interested in local stuff, and so i was kind of meeting that group through aauw one way or another. i remember i decided that i would go to a supervisors candidates night. i don't know when this was – (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:884), (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:890), somewhere. there were about seven men up there. there were two seats being contested, i think. the meeting was in a school. i couldn't quite figure out what they thought the big problems with napa county were. i was trying to figure out, what did they want to cure? it didn't seem to me that they wanted to cure anything, and i was struck by their – this seems really, really nosy or really snooty – but i was struck by their rural character. the city council had a kind of patina of (cid:498)i'm from town,(cid:499) and i remember one man who was running, and he said, "napa county's main problem is always roads." i thought, this is a different group than i'm used to. but they were well‐meaning and they were not … i don't think we've ever had an elected crook, so to speak. i mean, it wasn't that at all, but they didn't understand how near we were to urban pressures. they were really nice men and really wonderful men, but they did not understand what was going on around them in the bay area as a whole. they just didn't have a vision of that at all. i remember thinking that it wasn't too good an idea to have a county‐supported development council if we didn't know what we wanted – that it looked like a wild chamber that would just go out, and if you were willing to bring some jobs to napa, then you were welcome, and they would do whatever they could. they didn't have a focus on what kind of jobs they thought were good, and i remember that there was a period along in there, again i'm going to guess the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, where napa made an attempt, however feeble, to land the automobile plant that is now nummi. they decided they were perfect for that. 220

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progrowth forces in the ’60s [editor’s note: the nummi plant in fremont closed in april 2010. on may 20, 2010, tesla motors purchased a part of the nummi site in partnership with toyota to work on electric vehicle development.] it's the combination gm/toyota plant. i guess it's in fremont now, but it wasn't fremont then; it came in. it was a gm plant and later on became what it is today. i realized that i did not think that that was going to work, that i thought the people had underestimated what a plant of that magnitude would do to their community – the numbers. rz: that plant today is? vs: that plant is still in operation, complaining because it has had to go back. it's taking at least two weeks(cid:495) vacation this month, and maybe more paid time. it makes both toyotas – it makes mostly toyotas. it has one gm truck, but anyway it's been in business for all these times. rz: so you were concerned? vs: i was very concerned when the local chamber said, (cid:498)oh, that's the thing we wanted,(cid:499) and they were all looking for it. i kept thinking, (cid:498)gee, i don't know that you do. i don't think you realize what you're asking.(cid:499) by that time we understood what was happening in san jose. as the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s wore on, the first big outfit to come into that part of the world was food machinery corporation, which basically was building tanks and industrial machinery, and all that kind of stuff. and then they were followed very closely by ibm and lockheed, and i don't remember them all, but by that time, you were looking at the peninsula just getting paved – sort of the end of the delicious apricot. it's just gone. the quality of apricot that they could grow in and around santa clara you cannot buy. it doesn't exist anymore. so people here were aware of that, but i don't think they understood. i don't think the board understood. i think a lot of people understood what that meant. so i wasn't agreeing with most of the people who had goals for napa. once i worked for a guy who became mayor and helped him, and then i got put on the planning commission. rz: now, this is after mayor hemmerling? vs: oh, yes. this was a guy by the name of ralph bolin, who was a minister. now, i think that was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) or (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). at the very same time as that happened, there were people getting very concerned about the loss of agricultural land. now, at that point, abag was coloring napa county all green. you literally could go down and look at the abag maps, and napa was just one big green swath for open space. rz: and abag was? vs: the association of bay area governments. it still exists. it colors us any old color that's in the crayon box at the time they have to finish their study, in my view. if red for commercial is in their box first, that's what they color. it's not made much sense in late years. so i realized that this group who were concerned about the loss of agricultural lands were probably right about a shift of our basic industry here. people were talking about an automobile plant, and people talking about this and that, and they were not talking about agriculture as any sort of lasting future, even though there were people talking about what had happened in san jose. so the board – i do not know which board member, or which group of them – but somebody on the board responded to a suggestion by the agricultural extension head here. rz: and this is the board of supervisors? vs: his name was jack fisk [napa county farm advisor], and the board of supervisors responded to his uc davis land use study 221

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suggestion that he could get money from uc davis, and get help from the ag department of uc davis, to do some work in a new method they had just perfected. this would find out where the costs were, where the profits were, who paid and who benefited if you change the land use from one thing to the next. it was not terribly sophisticated, but it was the first of those tools that davis had, and he persuaded the county board to apply and get these guys over here and get them working. so they agreed. they said, (cid:498)sure, we'd like to know.(cid:499) well, davis took about a year‐and‐ a‐half. there were two men; i think one was named tim goodman, but oh, my, that's a long time ago. rz: these were two economists? vs: two agricultural economists from uc davis, and they had tried this tool in some small piece of sonoma county, and they were tickled to death to have napa county to work on. and when they get through with this input‐output study, you could decide who would make money, who would be benefited, who would be hurt and for how long and that sort of thing. they came up with the fact that if napa developed the way the rest of the bay area was starting to develop, that it would lose money in the public sector and might even lose money on average wage in the overall wage. they were predicting this because they were replacing ag lands with homes, primarily, and the necessary commercial support systems. they did not do an analysis of anything like the nummi plant; they just said, (cid:498)here(cid:495)s what will happen if you replace this with that,(cid:499) so it became clear to the board then that to replace agriculture with houses was a loser, and that they would not benefit. even though everybody thought growth was your friend, this proved that that was not true in napa county. it showed that we would lose so much by allowing those ag lands to pass into subdivisions, that the government itself would be poorer and that the average wage in the community might even go down, which was a real surprise. so they picked up on that, and they decided they would try to preserve the best of the agriculture, based on the fact that it was producing agriculture, and they were good soils and that this input‐output said, (cid:498)don't let that get covered up with houses.(cid:499) rz: because part of the argument was, once you create these developments, now you have to provide schools and roads and infrastructural improvements. vs: right, and there were segments of the population that would benefit from that. for example, certainly, if you were in the construction business, that was a beneficial direction to go, but it was not beneficial for the average person. remember at that time our major employers were the state hospital, where the census … i can't remember what the census was. in the (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s it was the largest state hospital this side of the mississippi, and it still was the largest mental hospital this side of the mississippi entering the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. so i have no idea, because the new medicines came out right about then and emptied the state hospital, so i don't remember the census numbers. also, we had mare island. also we were beginning to have travis air force base, which had developed during the war. hamilton field had some of our people, and hamilton field was not being used that much anymore. that had been army. rz: and that was in marin county? vs: that was in marin, and travis was in solano, and then we had the veterans home. so we had a large, stable middle class income base, and so what they saw was that as you grow, you attract not only wealthy people, but also poor people. you get not only businesses that pay well but businesses that pay poorly. and so that showed san jose that would be the results they predicted. the board [of supervisors] was really hooked. they figured they liked agriculture, and they were going to hang onto it. so they drew this agricultural preserve – i'm going to use the figure (cid:884)(cid:890),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres, but it was the floor of the valley, the best and richest lands we had. rz: and this is after the passage of the williamson act, which happened in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887) or a little bit later, but not much. 222

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leaders in land use debate vs: it wouldn't be much. everybody was sort of interested in ag lands. they had seen what happened both in l.a. and here, and they were saying, (cid:498)how can we keep people in the farming business?(cid:499) so the williamson act was there as a tool, but nobody was really pushing it. but they were interested in saving the floor of the valley, and some of it was genuine interest in agriculture, very genuine, and some of it was, (cid:498)we can't let that city of napa pave paradise.(cid:499) there was a political element absolutely right in the middle of this. rz: what members of the board do you most remember being involved? vs: i remember henry wigger being the most vocal and probably the most effective in letting the community know how good an idea this was. julius caiocca was in a terrible spot. i think i mentioned to you when we talked last that julius was an insurance man, mostly in property, and had some interests in the agricultural, and he was from st. helena. he had a real hard time. he believed it, but he had a really hard time because his constituency was very conservative, and lots of ag people did not want anybody telling them what they could do with their land. you cannot say all of the farmers were all for it. that's not really accurate. so he had the worst time. rz: who were some of the other members, now? vs: oh my, let's see. there was jack ferguson. jack was an attorney. he was young. he could see what was happening and that he didn't want to lose the ag as an economic interest. he felt it was a vital economic thing to protect, and i think he'd grown up here. i think he sort of liked having the rural things around. rz: dewey andersen – was he on the board at this point? vs: yes, i guess he was. i remember dewey being for it. i remember that they had by this time hired [county administrator] al haberger. they had finally hired a county administrator! i'm guessing they hired him somewhere in the mid‐ to late (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. i don't remember; that would be interesting to know, but al was all for it. he had come from el centro, california and he really had a sensitivity to not losing the ag area. his huge contribution was not only to sort of guide the process, but also make sure there were a lot of public hearings and meetings and trot this thing around. but al was very wise in that he convinced the members of the board that they all five had to stand or fall together, and there was one who couldn't vote because he had a conflict of interest. rz: that was pete clark. vs: right. rz: now, to confirm, the members of the board at this time were: henry wigger, jack l. ferguson, julius caiocca, dewey andersen and pete clark. vs: right, and pete couldn't vote. rz: he couldn(cid:495)t vote because he had … vs: he was so deeply in agriculture that i think he had built‐in conflicts of interest. dewey was in auto service, henry was a mortician, jack was a lawyer, and julius i've talked about. rz: and pete clark? vs: oh, gosh. i never really knew what pete clark did. he was my [district(cid:495)s] supervisor, and every fourth year we would get new paving on all the potholes. he was the supervisor here in alta heights, and there 223

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was no one‐man, one‐vote, so they didn't want anybody from the city being on the board, and they divvied up the city of napa. nobody lived in the city of napa. rz: in other words, you could represent a district in which you did not live? vs: no, you had to live in your district, but the district came out of the city of napa like pieces of a pie. napa is still represented by five … rz: different districts? vs: five different supervisors. all five supervisors have some district in the city of napa, even the supervisor for calistoga. they don't want the city of napa getting ahead of them, you know. so they were really fascinated with this idea, and i think they were convinced that they were doing something really wonderful. i think they were aware that this wasn't being done anywhere else in an area that was being threatened by urbanization. i think they were very proud of the fact that they had gone through this, and there were lots and lots people at those public hearings. there were many meetings held to various citizens' groups to describe what the davis study talked about. there were meetings that were held, and they were not big public meetings. aauw might have one of them. somebody else might have them. various and sundry people, prior to the planning commission seeing this idea, had seen this explained to them – not thoroughly, but hey, this is new stuff here. (cid:498)we'd like you to look at it.(cid:499) so they were building a base [of people] who understood. rz: now, were these meetings also held in different geographic areas of the county? vs: i don't remember if there were very many of those or not. i was not aware at all of what they were doing outside much from, say, the city of napa south. i know they held meetings, but remember most of those early meetings were connected to civic groups, or they were not public. they were not being held by a public agency. they were informal. you might have them in front of the chamber. you might have them in front of rotary. you might have them in front of a farm group. they were just to explain what this was all about. they were selling the concept long before the idea of putting it into a zoning ordinance. rz: now, who would give these talks? would it be members of the board of supervisors? vs: once in a while, but a lot of them were the county ag staff. they might get one of the guys down from [uc] davis to make a presentation, explain what it was. rz: were there articles in the newspapers? vs: i would suspect there were. again, i can't speak for the st. helena star. my impression is that star(cid:495)s editor, starr baldwin, was very much in favor of the ag preserve. my impression is that he favored it, and so he did not really go to war in terms of using his paper. i think that probably there were enough businessmen, enough people. i don't remember – somebody would have to show me what the register was doing or saying in those days. i don't remember. rz: was lowell eddington very active at this point? vs: somebody else is going to have to fill in how lowell viewed the ag preserve. his wife, astrid, i know was in favor of it. she worked for the napa register [newspaper]. he had been on the board of supervisors and, let me see, when did he do all this? he was then on the golden gate bridge district board during the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. rz: was he influential? vs: i think he was influential. i know that both of them were, in their own right. lowell probably was 224

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upper napa valley associates more influential up‐valley than down, and he was a generation ahead of me, and i knew her a little bit because of the register connection. she would be around where i was, where lowell was not. rz: now, at what point did he begin the upper napa valley associates (cid:523)unva(cid:524)? vs: well, actually now, it's interesting that lowell's name is connected to that, and yes, it should be, but the upper napa valley associates did not come along until after the fight over the ag preserve. in other words, at the time when suddenly the lobbying became the most intense was after the planning commission ok'd it. now, you've met don mcfarland. so those hearings and the preface to those hearings were just almost bloody. there were people who you knew that were adamant that it would never happen, and there were others who were adamant that it absolutely had to. it was not government by silence, and it was completely visible. i think unva was formed, the spirit of unva was founded by people who were present by the end of the lobbying period; that was jack davies. it was lowell. rz: but that's later on. vs: i think it was forming itself during the hearings before the board and during that time. i don't know what its founding date is. rz: let's backtrack just a little. i wanted to ask you about dorothy erskine(cid:885)(cid:884) and william bronson, and also the first [land‐use] forum that i have been able to find information on. it was a more formal event that was sponsored by the uc davis agricultural extension and california tomorrow, which was a group that i think william bronson was in. vs: yes. rz: so that forum took place in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), and i wondered if you went? vs: yes, i went to that one, but i wouldn't say i knew many of the actors at that time, other than the ag group. i think that's when i got acquainted with a lot of these people, but they were not people that i was really all that acquainted with. i met dorothy erskine i guess in the later (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. it was a little bit later than that, and then it was dorothy who said, (cid:498)oh, we have to do all these wonderful things and preserve all this. you can do it.(cid:499) dorothy always felt anybody could inspire, could just take it and do it, and half the time you fell for it and thought you might be able to. but she was really unbelievable. dorothy, she had a weekend house up above calistoga. she lived in san francisco. when i met dorothy, i knew about her, because she was one of five women who had worked every connection they had to plant the seeds of bcdc [bay area conservation and development commission], the bay protection. there were five women. mrs. clark kerr was one of them; i've since met another one. about ten years ago i met another one. rz: was that save the bay? vs: save the bay. and dorothy also founded and added greenbelt alliance. now, greenbelt alliance, i have a hunch, really kind of grew out of both of those little nascent organizations. and which came first? i know greenbelt came after california tomorrow, but how much of california tomorrow it used i don't know. it's like we're all second cousins twice removed; once you get something like that going you see some of the same names. i remember michael heyman from cal [uc berkeley], who was a lawyer, later dean. dorothy had him in her grasp, so he would just put on all kinds of interesting things and turn the university over for these good causes. i think he later served as chancellor. i knew him before then, so i don't really know. rz: he would allow the university to be used for conferences? 225

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vs: oh, yes. you could say, (cid:498)who is it who knows about this?(cid:499) and he would be happy to tell you that so‐ and‐so knew about that. today, for example, the same sort of inner network has built in and around energy, global warming and certain environmental things. you can call [uc] berkeley, if you know the right person, and say, (cid:498)i need somebody to come and talk about this.(cid:499) there's a guy down there who is a professor who did the research that proved – this was five years ago – that had every state in the united states done what california was doing at that moment, that we would not be importing a single gallon of foreign oil. now, that was five years ago. anyway, those kinds of resources are available for you, and so he would make those kinds of resources available if you wanted to put together information. for example, what about a big freeway? if you wanted to put together something on how does transportation hook into this, if you wanted to discuss these impacts or what they were learning or what the front end of all of this was, you had [uc] davis and you had uc [berkeley]. rz: so it was a very good environment. vs: and dorothy was in touch with them all. rz: now do you remember, when you went to this forum in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) sponsored by the uc ag extension and california tomorrow, did william bronson speak there? vs: yes, he was there, but i was new at this game. that was sort of interesting to me. he was another name. i was impressed with california tomorrow, and here was the leader! rz: i think it was at this meeting he proposed the possibility of nationalizing the napa vineyards? vs: yes. the national vineyards had a constituency here for quite a while; the idea of nationalizing the vineyards and running them as a national monument kind of thing. the problem with that, as it developed, is that it's a charming concept for the funding of services, but the on‐site management is very difficult when you are under the national government, which thinks that you're so far across the hudson river that they're never going to find you. in those days california was a growing big place. i can remember my dad getting offered this thing in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s that they told him that he'd move to san francisco instead of oakland, because they were going to create two areas, and what did he want? he told them, (cid:498)that's very nice of you to ask,(cid:499) so he got everything from the california border down through all of monterey, all of the acceptable stuff all the way down almost to bakersfield, plus some of the east bay, the southern part of the east bay, and some of stockton. i mean, he had the agricultural heart of california in this urban area, and they didn't know a thing about it in new york. when he'd say, (cid:498)i'd like to have humboldt county,(cid:499) they said okay. (cid:498)i really need to have santa cruz county(cid:499) – okay. they were playing with little toy pieces of a puzzle. rz: like monopoly or something. vs: oh yes, so it was not a simple thing to talk about a national vineyard. i was never captured by it, although i think a lot of people in napa were. rz: and do you remember if dorothy erskine had a position on that? vs: i don't remember. she may have. rz: she was so good at putting people together. was she kind of a sparkly personality? vs: oh, yes. and by the time i got to know dorothy better, she already had grey hair, but she walked more briskly than most people did at twenty, and she was just full of ideas and enthusiasm, and she just influence of dorothy erskine 226

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charmed the socks off most people. rz: now, john tuteur told me that she was at the same time quite modest. vs: oh, yes. as far as her own contribution to it, you hardly could get her to admit it. you really couldn't. i remember – and don mcfarland would remember this, too – that after i met dorothy i just found her everywhere. she was dragging me to all these meetings, but in addition to that i was having a great time. she was here one time and she needed to go to sacramento to the parks department for something, and she didn't have a ride, except that her son would bring her to napa. i offered to take her, and she said, (cid:498)no, i don't want to do that,(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)well, my friend don mcfarland is going to talk to the people at [the] parks [dept.] about a little place that they're developing called berryessa, and he wants to talk to them about that.(cid:499) so don's story is that this gentleman dropped off this very old woman at the doorstep of his office, and she introduced herself, and he said he was looking forward to taking her to sacramento. so they drove to sacramento and parked, and they went into the reception office of the state parks office, and the secretary said, "hello, dorothy. what can we do for you today? bill will just love to see you. wait a minute; i'm sure he's in his office." she calls in bill mott, the head of the department, and she calls in all these other people. poor don, who is there with this one little question, called me up and said, (cid:498)you should have told me she knew all these people.(cid:499) i said i knew she knew them. (cid:498)didn't you know who she was?(cid:499) (cid:498)no,(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i never guessed.(cid:499) rz: she was very well connected. vs: out of her hard work, nothing but hard work. rz: very interesting. vs: yes, california owes her a lot, northern california especially. rz: so we're saying that the two agricultural economists at davis who were responsible for this study that looked at land use changes were goodman … vs: tim goodman, i think, was on that document. rz: tim goodman, and perhaps the other one was j.h. snyder, an agricultural economist at uc‐davis? vs: right. rz: that's very interesting. so that must have been like an economic model, a sort of early modeling system. vs: it was an early input‐output matrix modeling form, and the only other time i ever saw it used was when the city of santa rosa wanted to know something about the speed of money circulating, the velocity, which is factor in money. velocity is a really important factor, and so they wanted to know which of the monies had the most velocity in a local economy. they found it was welfare dollars – that welfare dollars never stay in anybody's pocket more than two or three days, no matter who they're dealing with. they're dealing with grocers who are on a short string. they're dealing with retail people who need that dollar. they're dealing with all these various people who all need the dollar quickly, and so a welfare dollar will circulate through the economy of santa rosa eight times before another kind of dollar, say, your house payment. rz: interesting. vs: so it's like eight dollars. 227

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other key players rz: because it keeps changing hands. vs: that's right. rz: very interesting. so you attended this forum. vs: i did. i don't remember a whole lot about it. i just remember thinking, that's just very interesting, and i remember being very interested. i don't know where i went from there. rz: and now, when i talked to john tuteur, he told me that george abate was also very active at this point. vs: he was. george abate, because he was the [napa county] assessor, had looked at the williamson act and realized that it was a good tool, but it was very, very limited. george saw the limitations of the williamson act right away. he wanted it to work. he was not opposed to it, as many assessors were, because it made their jobs harder. they had to be prepared to assess your piece of property as agriculture. they had to be prepared to assess it one of two ways, and justify those, and then figure out which one was best for you. rz: and the two ways would have been market value for development purposes... vs: market value and income. rz: and its agricultural value. vs: right, but he was all for it. george was good ฀ i think of george as being the kind of guy that wanted to make it work, and he had enough imagination to know that it was important. i have a vague voice. george had enough imagination to realize what this would mean, and he understood that this was more work, but he was really in favor of it. he really liked the idea of preserving agriculture. rz: and was he a forceful speaker? was he persuasive? vs: he wasn't a salesman. george was very matter‐of‐fact; he was very warm. he had a nice … well, when you meet him you'll know. rz: i've talked to him on the phone, and he seems just very straightforward. what you hear is what it is. vs: that's it. rz: now was al haberger … vs: al haberger came to napa, and as i've said i don't remember which year, but i do remember that henry was really high on him. i think dewey [andersen] was one of the people who really felt they needed a county administrator. otherwise i can't really recall. i was not in on that discussion in the board as to what to do, but i know that in al's case, i think they got the idea of the position and then went looking for somebody, and talked to various statewide board members. rz: because this was a new position. there has not previously been a county administrator. vs: no, nor had there been much of a county planning director, either. i don't remember when we changed over from clyde cassidy. rz: who is clyde cassidy? 228

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vs: he was planning manager in napa for years and years and years. he was from public works; he was an engineer. rz: so al haberger's role as county administrator was what? vs: he was then like a manager that the board [of supervisors] hires. he works at the whim of the board. he does what the board outlines him to do, and the first one gets to sort of define the limits and the potential of the job, because they have an idea of, (cid:498)i want somebody to run that department a little better than that department head is, and to overlook and train these people.(cid:499) our auditor was functioning as the financial manager, but we didn't have a personnel department until al came, i don't think. rz: did he have line authority? vs: yes, he did. he had the power given to him by the board at any given time, which is what i mean by describing the job – by making the job the way he wanted to work it out. if there was any sort of power vacuum, he – and he was very good at it – and any other executive officer in a county of california would expand the job as soon as they can and wherever they can. the one department they don't like to expand is welfare, because they don't understand it, and who does? it's very complex and it's very state‐regulated in a lot of ways. so if they have a good welfare director they're happy. rz: they don't have to worry about it. vs: they try not to. rz: so al haberger had a very influential position. vs: he had an absolutely central role in this thing being passed into that [ag preserve] ordinance at the time it was and with the four votes. rz: did he help to organize these meetings that were now going to be held before the napa county planning commission? vs: i think he helped organize them. i don(cid:495)t remember, either, when jim hickey came, but i think he was the last. rz: i think he came in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882). vs: and there was a county attorney named steve hackett, and steven i don't think was the county attorney who drew up the ag preserve, but he became one of its earliest defenders and implementers. steve was instrumental, and so was al, and later jim hickey, in making it work. rz: what about mervin lernhart? vs: mervin lernhart was the attorney from the county counsel's office who had been assigned that area. rz: so he worked for steve hackett? vs: he worked for the county counsel, and i don't think steve was the county counsel at that time. rz: yes, i have the name of the county counsel. it was someone else. vs: and i know one of his kids went into the sheriff's department, became the coroner and is already drafting the ag preserve 229

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retired. rz: so we're talking about dan york. vs: yes. rz: he was the county counsel and merv lernhart was his deputy. he was just a young kid. vs: oh, he was really young. rz: fresh out of law school. vs: i know it. rz: so the two of them were responsible for drafting the language that would eventually become ordinance (cid:884)(cid:889)(cid:886)? vs: i think so. now, i wasn't on the inside of government at this time. so when you ask me that, i have to say they held positions, so that would probably mean they were responsible. but maybe someone over … it might have been al, but there may have been somebody from the planning commission that said, look, it should read this way. i don't know. rz: did you go to the meetings that were held before the planning commission? vs: yes, i went to one of the planning commission hearings. i think i just went to one. rz: so i'll throw out some names and see if there's anything you remember about them. vernon cotter was planning director. vs: yes, he is what happened to clyde cassidy. vern cotter took over. yes, right. rz: and he was very pro‐ag preserve? vs: i don't think vern particularly led or followed; i think what he did was implement. that is, if al and the county counsel and everybody was going to do this, he would be in on the writing. he would be in on all the meeting arrangements, but i don't remember him being a person who felt he should push either way. but i might be wrong. rz: what about eric borgwardt? vs: yes, i remember him, but i don't know what he did. rz: he was assistant planning director, so he must have been under vern. jack fisk apparently participated in these hearings? vs: yes. rz: he was then state liaison to the county for agriculture. vs: right. rz: so he must have presented. vs: i'm sure he presented along with these other two ag guys. jack [fisk] was the one who got many of the little local meetings going that i told you about. 230

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rz: earlier, yes. and aldo delfino. vs: al was ag commissioner, i believe, for the county, and his family had been around quite a while, and he would have defended agriculture completely. whether or not al felt it was somewhat of an intrusion on farmers(cid:495) rights is something i don't know. a lot of people connected with ag did feel that intrusion. napa county was zoned one house, one acre – the whole county. rz: correct. were you involved with an organization called one house, one acre? vs: no. rz: had the napans opposing wastelands been created yet? vs: napans opposing wastelands, inc. let's see. napans opposing wastelands did not exist in the ag preserve years. napans opposing wastelands, inc. came later. it was an ad hoc [group]. rz: we'll get to that later. vs: yes, it was an ad hoc. now, i think napans opposing wastelands, inc. [now] was formed that way because there was no now [national organization of women], so you know it was a while ago. [later] somebody said, (cid:498)there's a national organization with your name.(cid:499) rz: so once the hearings took place before the planning commission, then the planning commission presumably got on board, and then they held their own public hearings through the community. vs: yes, and i know they did go up and down the county. rz: so they would go to calistoga or st. helena. vs: you'd have to look, but i don't think they went to american canyon … [tape (cid:884)] rz: so now, we were talking about the public hearings the napa county planning commission was holding at this point. vs: now, by that time there were people building a kind of a network of support, whether it had a name or not, and there were two people who i remember ฀ well, there are really four. those four are jack davies, who had the immediate understanding of the importance of contacting people in the community to get them to call their supervisor, write their supervisor, show up. he had the concept of how to do that and the importance of it, so he and jamie would be in napa working to help this group. they were here a lot, and not conveniently. she had a little kid, and i think she was pregnant maybe, during part of it, and that was hard work for both of them. rz: so they were going down to the county offices? vs: well, okay. person number two was ellen buehler. now, ellen buehler was active in the league of women voters, which at that time was pretty good, and it was ellen who also had started a league study on this. in other words, they made a study group so they were way ahead, and she knew people who knew about it and were for it. rz: and who were the other two people? vs: well, one of them was janet altman, i believe. now janet was also active in the league. i'm trying to think who else. i thought of one but no, she wasn't active by then. 231

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rz: what about warren winiarski? vs: you'd have to ask warren about that part, because jack [fisk] also might well have gotten warren involved. i don't remember warren being here but i don't know up‐valley people. rz: that was more up‐valley. what about felix vanderschoot? vs: felix was a [county planning] commissioner, and felix was devoted to this idea [ag preserve], absolutely devoted. rz: and was he quite persuasive? vs: well, felix told you what he thought and why, and he was clear. he wasn't a speaker. he could talk perfectly well but he just wasn't a speaker. the guy that was is andy fagiani. is he on that list, the planning commissioner list? rz: no. i have the name andrew pelissa. vs: andy pelissa is who i'm thinking of. andy pelissa was very simple in his expression, but he was persuasive. there was something about andy that if he told you it was so, then you would listen, and then he would explain to you why. i think andy persuaded a lot of people. i think felix persuaded, not ag people, but urban people, city folk. and during that time the seeds of unva had to have been forming. it seems to me they came out of this fight saying, (cid:498)we have to have an organization.(cid:499) that was just too dicey. i(cid:495)m not sure of that, but that's what i think, because we took the idea of napans opposing wastelands to jack davies, and jack said, (cid:498)i can't join you because you're going to be too political.(cid:499) now of course, some in our group took that as an insult and some took it as a fact, but he was right. we were formed to affect the decision making of the commission and the board, and unva was not. unva was formed to sort of do long studies and be persuasive. rz: more of a community‐based organization. vs: kind of. they were all up‐valley, and there wasn't anything wrong with that, but they didn't want to recruit down here. it was in later years that they decided they would welcome some members from napa. rz: do you remember then a very big distinction then between the lower valley and upper? vs: oh, yes. it was upper napa valley, not united. today it's united, but then it was upper napa valley associates. rz: were there ill feelings between up and down valley? vs: there was a lack of understanding, maybe, but i don't think so, no more than you see now. what it is, is a difference of experience. where you live, your community is very, very different and it has different sensitivities. in the upper napa valley itself is the place where the (cid:498)good guys(cid:499) are, and napa was where the (cid:498)riffraff(cid:499) lived, and everybody knew that. but there wasn't a lot of friction; it was just simply that those were assigned roles, from their perspective. now, from napans opposing wastelands' perspective, we felt it didn't matter to us who belonged, as long as they belonged, and as long as they had something to contribute. one of our lovely first members was fred monhoff, an architect from calistoga who was just wonderful. he's long retired, but he would come all the way down for these dumb bag lunches in the park, and we had people from all over. rz: and he was an architect. so your meetings would mostly be luncheons in parks? 232

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vs: well, we didn't know anybody who had room. it was a good thing the weather was good that year. rene di rosa quickly found out about us and showed up. rz: and other names that i have here include kent ingalls. vs: kent was soft‐spoken, and honest as the day is long. rz: he was a [napa county planning] commissioner in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). vs: yes, i think so…the terms i can't tell you. rz: don mcfarland and george blaufuss were also on the planning commission. vs: george lived in the city of napa, and he was really interested in planning. george was a wit. he was funny; he wasn't terribly serious. i mean, he cared a lot about values, but he just wasn't real serious sometimes. if he didn't have an interest in it, it really didn't interest him, but i think he did have interest [in the ag preserve]. he was witty, he was bright, but if george became interested in something he was very interested. if he was not, he was totally disinterested. i think he bought into the ag preserve. i think he gave it good press, if you will, but i don't think it meant that much to him, in a way. i think if it came across, it's a great idea; if it doesn't, we'll move on. that sort of thing. rz: what about fred berry? vs: fred berry was very quiet. don would have to tell you if fred berry understood it. i really don't know. i suspect that he did, but i don't know. rz: and then j.w. bentley? vs: sorry. rz: this was when we started getting the opposition coalescing, isn't it? vs: yes. when the opposition coalesced, it was almost … there's always a group in every community that does not want more restrictive zoning, period – that group plus those agricultural owners who did not want anybody limiting their potential for, frankly, selling their land. they didn't want to be fixed in the grape business or any agriculture business, and that was the group. i'm sure john daniel(cid:495)s motivation was that of a libertarian. (cid:498)the government has no right to tell me what i can do with my land and my future.(cid:499) i think that was the motivator for those in the ag community who did not support it. rz: what about b.c. [(cid:498)larry(cid:499)] solari? vs: oh, my god, i haven't heard that name in a long time – a name from my past. that's all i can tell you. rz: cameron baker. vs: he was another one. rz: so cameron baker, john daniel and solari all formed the united vintners? vs: yes. rz: and the united vintners was strongly opposed. opposition to preserve coalesces 233

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public gets involved in issue [editor’s note: b.c. solari was president of united vintners, which was the marketing arm of grape cooperative allied vintners, based in the central valley. united vintners purchased inglenook from john daniel in 1964.] vs: yes. i don't know but they may have been the group around which the court cases then got filed. rz: yes, i think so. so now, in mid‐january of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) the napa county planning commission, having completed their hearings, approved the ag preserve ordinance and sent it, i guess in draft form, to the board [of supervisors]. vs: they sent it in completed form, and the board had the right to change it. it's not like a real draft. it's an ordinance itself and as a board member you receive it done. now, you probably have already been receiving copies as they're working through it all along, but what you get is… rz: you get the final ordinance. vs: exactly. rz: so they send that to the board of supervisors and then the board of supervisors had to have hearings. vs: right. rz: and so their hearings were held in march of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). i wonder if you can tell me what you remember about those public hearings. vs: i went to one, i think, or two – and only two. the one i remember the clearest was in redwood junior high's big auditorium or gymnasium. they had a big room anyway. it had a stage, but it also could be used for a cafeteria or it could be used for a gym. it was a big multi‐purpose room. it was in the evening so that everybody could come, and that was new for the board. they were holding evening hearings on this, because they realized they needed to give everybody an opportunity. i can remember that by that time i had been involved in one school tax election after another, because napa had grown despite everything else, and we were building schools like crazy. so i remember the parents in the room that i knew from that school bond, school group, from that election group that built gradually over the years. i said to those people, (cid:498)really, i've had enough. i don't know about you, but i've had enough. there are kids pouring out of these new small subdivisions, and we just can't keep going. we just honestly have to say, (cid:494)save that farmland,(cid:495) and stop this paving for a while,(cid:499) and on that basis, i got an awful lot of them to appear at those hearings. i only remember saying, (cid:498)you do not have to pay to educate a grapevine, and the public doesn't have to pay for that,(cid:499) and that's all i can remember saying. undoubtedly, knowing me, i said much more, because the people i was after at that time were the activists in the school building and in the school‐paying‐for community. other than, let's say, the chamber of commerce, which is always political, we didn't have partisan politics involved in local issues. the other place where we had hundreds of names and people who would go door to door were in these myriads of bonds and tax elections that we have. rz: so were there a lot of people who handed out brochures? vs: no, i don't remember that. we were really not very sophisticated – i don't know who the (cid:498)we(cid:499) was, being truthful with you. i think jack davies found most of the money that was spent by the (cid:498)pro(cid:499) people. the county has the legal right to describe the issue and to describe the results financially. they have the legal right to do that, but they can't say, (cid:498)vote for this because it's really nifty.(cid:499) the stuff they pay for, just as with schools, has to be informational only. 234

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rz: now, was there a lot of acrimony at this particular meeting? vs: yes, there was. at both of the ones i went to. this was the biggest meeting, at redwood, but there were others. i went to one other that was smaller. rz: where was that one? vs: i don(cid:495)t remember. it was down in this area, but i don't remember. i remember that always you had, was it …larry solari? it seems to me that might have been what he called himself. anyway, you always had this hard core group of people who said, (cid:498)you can't do that to me.(cid:499) it was, (cid:498)you have no right to zone my land, to fix me on my land.(cid:499) it was fascinating, because no one questioned, this is what i think is so hilarious looking back, nobody questioned they would definitely have a market loss by going under this zoning; not a single person, as far as i know. it was all done on community values, on the community paying if it got paved. nobody argued, (cid:498)yeah, your land would be worth something when you're done.(cid:499) nobody. but by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886) they were paying more for grape land than they were for subdivision land. inside the ag preserve it was more money than if they had sold that same ranch two miles down the road for a subdivision. rz: and people would have not been able to believe that would happen so quickly. vs: i wouldn't have believed it, and therefore went to the pacific legal foundation thing on the county. i said, (cid:498)i need to hear how the other half is living,(cid:499) so i went down to san diego to sit in on one of their things, and this guy gets up and he says, (cid:498)the worst example of all is napa county. you should see the bottom is falling out of their land values.(cid:499) i was mad, and i stood up and i said, (cid:498)you are entirely mistaken about values in napa county.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)if you really want to know, you need to go there, and you'll find out that the value inside that zone is twice the value outside that zone as of now.(cid:499) he looked at me like he could have killed me, and i didn't care. i thought, (cid:498)that man is running around, millions of dollars behind him, spreading that falsehood!(cid:499) rz: that was the pacific legal … vs: legal foundation. they're still very active. they're always against everything. rz: interesting. how do you remember the acrimony being played out at these two hearings? vs: i don't remember anything physical. i do remember there were times when i thought it would be. we always had a police or sheriff's deputy there after the first meetings. he was kind of like a sergeant at arms, and hung back. they weren't standing up in front with their uzis, but they were there. they were there, and i was always glad they were there. i always felt that many of the men were very, very angry people, and they were true libertarians. they really did believe that this was going to kill them. rz: do you remember john daniel being very angry? vs: john was very outspoken. john had a better control of his anger than some of his compatriots did, as far as speaking in public. you knew john was angry, but you didn't confront a raging (cid:498)i'll kill you guys(cid:499) kind of guy, where there were others who did. rz: do you remember any of those individuals, their names? vs: no, i just remember they all looked heavy, and they all wore jeans, and they all looked to me like they were growers, but i don't know that they were, because later on i think some of them were just investors in the winery or members of the co‐op or something like that. at the time they all seemed to me to be opposition heats up 235

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[editor’s note: united vintners was not a citizens’ group based in napa valley, but was a marketing firm for a grape coop in the central valley. united vintners had owned the inglenook winery in rutherford since buying it from john daniel four years earlier, and may have participated in the lawsuit.] farmers or people that i knew were in the wine business, and that wasn't very big then, you know. there were only about eight. i don't know; i never counted them. rz: the ordinance was still to come. so now, on april (cid:891)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), ordinance (cid:884)(cid:889)(cid:886) passed, and the creation of the ag preserve was well on its way, and there was a lawsuit filed against that board. vs: correct. rz: by the napa valley united vintners. vs: right. rz: that was led by john daniel. vs: yes. rz: do you remember the law firm? vs: oh, geez. i remember seeing their – i did go to the [california state] supreme court hearing on that. rz: now, it did go to the supreme court? i talked to somebody who said it didn't go as far as the supreme court. vs: no, i think it did. it might have been the appeals court. no, was this ag preserve or the other one? anyway, i went to this hearing. i didn't go to the supreme court on that one. i went to the supreme court on another one – on measure j. rz: okay. vs: it took a long time to wind its way through the courts. i don't think we ever doubted that we were going to win in the courts primarily because it was such a modest beginning. this wasn't done saying, (cid:498)stay out of napa county.(cid:499) this county looked green, and looked bigger than god when you laid in these few acres in the bottom, and so this was a very modest little local zoning ordinance. even by [california state] supreme court standards this thing was nothing. it was a little early. they hadn't the state regulations. there were no eirs [environmental impact reports] yet and i, this guy dan curtin, who is the zoning guru of california, i don't think he'd written his books yet, but when you really came right down to it, it was the re‐zoning of a pocket of land to preserve its agricultural productivity. how are you going to say to somebody, (cid:498)i used to have a house on one acre, and now i can't have one on twenty? i used to be able to build all these houses, and now i can only build one on my twenty acres.(cid:499) well, how is the supreme court going to say you've been deprived of your rights? even in those days i never understood it. in the east there was all manner of wild zoning stuff going on, and out here you would have thought we were taking away their water! really, as a person, and i was a planning commissioner for the city [of napa] at that time, and so i understood. i was reading planning law. i was reading everything i could get my hands on, and i still looked at that and i thought, there is no way that a supreme court is going to throw that out. rz: well, it was only a little bit more than (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) years since the gold rush, so in a sense it wasn't a new ag preserve wins in court 236

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concept. vs: yes, but zoning law had been federally understood in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:882)s. communities all up and down california were zoning for this many houses here, and trying to get parks. growth was everywhere around you, and there were all kinds of quid pro quos. (cid:498)you've got to build a park if you build twenty homes,(cid:499) all that kind of stuff. it was beginning, so i never understood. i understood later, when they put in aw [agricultural watershed designation], and we really, really, really down‐zoned napa. i felt if john daniel had been alive, that one would have gone to the supreme court. rz: now you're talking about the agricultural watershed, but first … vs: by the general plan that really re‐zoned most of napa. was that (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:888), (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:887), (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:888), (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:889)? rz: that was (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885). but now, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) the suit was resolved – you're not sure at which court level. vs: no, i'm not, although i thought it went all the way. i know measure j did. rz: and then two years later, you run for the board of supervisors, and what was it that motivated you to run for the board of supervisors? vs: probably that it was an interesting challenge, probably because i had seen them do some pretty dumb things. i mean, that was a real (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882)s mentality on that board, and al [haberger] didn't mind that it was. they were a lot easier to lead than anybody with new ideas; they didn't have new ideas. they were still letting the rest of the county grow, and we didn't have a general plan. they didn't have a way to hang on to anyplace else. all we had was this (cid:884)(cid:890),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres [in the ag preserve]. in the rest of the county you could have built anything you wanted, just about. rz: and the ag preserve was on the floor only, and went as far south as oak knoll? vs: right. it came a little further south here and there, little tiny bits of it. rz: and up until now it's not on the hillsides, otherwise known as the ag watershed? vs: right. rz: so you ran on [a platform of] controlling growth? vs: yes. rz: and i understand you won (cid:887)(cid:884)% of the vote. vs: i bet you that i won about (cid:887)(cid:882).(cid:882)(cid:891)%. i would not have won the run‐off. if i were not elected in june, i would not have been elected in november. i was running against tweedledum and tweedledee, and they just looked alike, and they campaigned alike, and they were just the same thing – alike, alike, alike. here i was, somebody not alike. rz: who were your opponents? vs: jack ferguson and jack baughman, who is no longer with us. so as i said, they were like tweedledum and tweedledee. one would say the same thing as the other. (cid:498) i think he's right,(cid:499) (cid:498)i think he's right,(cid:499) and it wasn't exciting. it wasn't interesting. rz: jack ferguson was (cid:498)pro.(cid:499) joins board of supervisors 237

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vs: he was (cid:498)pro(cid:499) the ag preserve, but jack wasn't going to go any further [than that]. i always felt that he just sort of ran because he thought he'd been on it before and he thought it would be a good idea. i was wanting to turn the place upside down, which was why i got defeated four years later. rz: but you were the first woman ever on the board of supervisors. vs: yes. rz: that was big. vs: well, you can only imagine the shock when the three members of the board were confronted with their first woman – and this kid who ain't even thirty. rz: you were that young? vs: no, john [tuteur]. john won in the same election. rz: oh, yes. he was about thirty‐one. vs: he was about thirty, thirty‐one. sam was really young when he got in. sam was the second youngest ever to get in. rz: that's sam chapman? vs: sam chapman, and that kid down in santa cruz was two months younger than sam, so he was the youngest to ever be elected. rz: how old were you at this stage? vs: well let's see. (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884) was the election year, (cid:495)(cid:884)(cid:889). what was i? forty‐something? yes, forty‐three, forty‐ five. rz: so you were a young woman. and how did we get to the agricultural watershed coming under the concept of the ag preserve? did this happen when you were on the board? vs: yes. rz: so you were elected to the board in the fall? vs: well, i came on the board in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885). january, (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885). rz: so then you sat … vs: [on] the redoing of the general plan, what john and i both ran on, was an understanding of getting a general plan that was agriculturally oriented. rz: because now there was another lawsuit. that's around this time? vs: i think that's later. rz: didn't that force you to re‐draft the general plan? vs: yes, one of them did, and my recollection is that while i did vote for the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885) plan, the general plan process went on and on, and the final pieces of the general plan were done after i was off the board; there 238

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controlling urban growth were still pieces hanging out that were very central. they were still hanging out. it may have been just my impression. rz: yes, i think the vintage inn lawsuit was actually in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). vs: yes, that's way down the road. this was just moving from a cow county to one with urban pressures, that's all. i had spent four years on the city planning commission, and it was on the city planning commission that i realized what growth was really about, because one night we approved (cid:888)(cid:887)(cid:882) new homes in napa. i said publicly i will never, ever do that again; we are through growing like that. and that's how harold kelly and i got together. it was harold who was working on the city end of the growth. rz: now, john tuteur was saying that this whole issue of agricultural preservation was on two legs; one is growth control and the other one is protecting ag land. vs: well, the third leg, and i've talked to you about this before, and it must be in there, the only reason the ag preserve has survived is the city's rul [rural urban limit line]. without it, it [the ag preserve] would have gone long ago. rz: but doesn't that fall under the rubric of controlled growth? vs: by whom, is the question, and we can't beg that question. should the county have continued? they were willing. what about the city, with a general plan that says it's going to be (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) by the year … i mean, that was the revolt of the city. the revolt of the people who lived in the city of napa was as important to the preservation of agriculture as the ag preserve itself. in the long run, it was really more important, in my view. rz: now, you say (cid:498)the revolt of the city.(cid:499) what do you mean? vs: mothers and fathers just simply had a hissy fit. they decided they were going to annex [adjacent land], and they did annex (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) and some odd acres at the corner of silverado trail and trancas, monticello. that(cid:495)s what you look at when you go up silverado trail, and you have to stop and jog across the creek and then go up. what you're looking at was to be a big subdivision, with all kinds of markets and everything, and they annexed it. they saved it, saying, (cid:498)growth is good – i(cid:495)m on my way to silverado, we're going to annex it tomorrow,(cid:499) and the citizens revolted, and i was among them. there was a big, big group [opposed to the annexation]. they collected signatures, and they collected money, and they got a petition to put it on the ballot that they had to de‐annex it. the city sued them, and they went all the way through the courts proving that yes, indeed, a city's annexation was referendable. the city said, (cid:498)you can't referend an annexation,(cid:499) and the state supreme court said, (cid:498)sure you can,(cid:499) and so they had referended it. now, when they did that, the council, in its embarrassment, not only put the annexation on the ballot, but they decided they would be sweet and they would put on something called an advisory vote, which was a new thing. and john dunlap(cid:885)(cid:885) carried the legislation that allowed us to have an advisory vote on growth, and the advisory vote gave people three choices. one was, i think, (cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882), and one was (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882), and another was (cid:889)(cid:887), and everybody put (cid:889)(cid:887). rz: this is growth levels? vs: yes. rz: we're talking about napa city, that it could grow to any one of these three levels. 239

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creation of the rul vs: yes, they said, (cid:498)which level do you want?(cid:499) rz: and the vast majority said (cid:889)(cid:887)? vs: oh yes. i don't remember the numbers, but they were out of sight, and now i think harold kelly is on the city council, and dorothy is about to come on, and they're a lot of good people. rz: and this is still when you're on the city council; you're not on the board [of supervisors]? vs: no, i'm running for the board and then i get on the board. i've gotten off the [napa city] planning commission so that i could run, so it's all in that range, a series of elections. the city de‐annexed the property, and then they started listening to reason. they finally decided, (cid:498)oh gee, we do have a problem,(cid:499) and that is when one of their planners came up and said, (cid:498)why don't you decide to build a line around the city, and hold hearings on that line, and simply say that you want the fill‐in inside the line before you'll consider expanding your limits?(cid:499) it wasn't necessarily city limits. it was something that looked for growth. i mean, there were lots but it was a line [the rul] beyond which they didn't plan to grow. it immediately removed the pressure off the ag preserve, and it took the pressure off of coombsville. it took the pressure off of carneros. it took the pressure off of every side they had. so then when they came in with something like (cid:498)ag watershed,(cid:499) nobody cared, because the action was in the city, and they had to stay in the city to do anything. i think our first ag watershed zoning was only forty acres. rz: yes, and then later it grew to (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882). vs: in some places, yes. rz: in some places. now, wasn't there also a strip or band around napa city where the zoning was ten acres? vs: the county did in its general plan look to the development holding part. their theory was this: you hold parcels in a large enough piece so that if it becomes time to develop it, it will be big enough that you will get a developer who will do something with it. they don't like working in an area of half‐acre lots. it's over. so yes, they did a ten‐acre, i think it's called (cid:498)rural residential(cid:499) or something. they still have it, but it was in this coombsville area, which was all shot with smaller parcels, and by saying you could have ten it just about fit what was there anyway. there weren't very many parcels that were out of that size, and so all the people who were in it were fine. they were grandfathered, and then if you had thirty acres you had some home sites, but they couldn't go down to this two‐and‐a‐half acre and five‐acre size, because a developer isn't interested then, and what you get is just hash. that's in the county, not the city. that's what the county did with lands outside the rul. rz: it's outside the urban limit. now, at what point was any growth for napa city up to the vote of the people? you were talking about that. vs: i was talking about the longwood ranch and the subsequent votes – the vote to de‐annex, the vote to pick the new population goal and then, ultimately, the establishment of the rul. now today, if you want to amend the rul, you have to have the vote of the people, but not then. rz: it's not a city council decision. vs: right, not any more. rz: and when did that happen? 240

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social services come to county vs: just recently, maybe in the last four or five years. harry martin carried it. it would be about then. rz: so then in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:889), we have the agricultural preserve being expanded further south into north napa city, or to salvador. vs: salvador and down big ranch road a bit. but also in those intervening years, and i would have no idea when, they came out to carneros and made an ap there. i think there were three ap's; i'm not sure. rz: now dowell martz and sam chapman … vs: came on the board in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:887); january, '(cid:889)(cid:887). they were good guys. they were pro limiting growth, pro agriculture. the nice part of the change is that by that time now, the board is also pro social services. in other words, john and i never could pick up that third vote on that kind of stuff. rz: now, what do you mean? vs: well, john and i could never pick up a third vote in terms of food stamps. that was optional, by the way, and there were a lot of things in the social services that services didn't provide or we provided them at such a minimum. it was the beginning of what we now know internationally as the ngo [non‐ governmental organizations] movement, but those were new non‐profits coming into town, the oeo ‐ office of economic opportunity. rz: that was a federal agency. vs: yes, it was a federal program, but it was able to spin off non‐profits, and so all of those things were festering, too. so we had a lot of change in the areas of mental health, in the areas of food. we never could get a total county clinic from it, so that's where clinic ole, bless their hearts … rz: filled the gap. vs: filled to this day. rz: now, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882) we came to measure j, and that required a vote of napa county residents to change or amend the ag preserve. vs: yes, sort of. the whole ag‐designated area is by now is (cid:891)(cid:882)% of the county by this time and measure j said that if the board wanted to change the zoning from aw to any other non‐agricultural use it had to make findings, and the findings had to include all urban sources, whether it's near this and near that, or it went to the voters. now, i am unclear, but i think i remember that that first language said that they could allow the zoning, and then you would have to referendize if you thought they were wrong. you'd have to get a referendum. rz: so in other words, more reactive. vs: yes, you'd have to gather all of the services again and do that. i don't remember whether it was the board. if the board, of course, went the other way and violated its own general plan, the idea was still that you have to referendize. you can't take it to court. you force it on the ballot; that(cid:495)s your best way. so all this said was, (cid:498)hey, if you want to be anything other than ag in any of these ag areas, you have to make a series of findings as a board.(cid:499) and you could probably make those findings right out by silverado junior high; you could probably make those findings on that area out there. there are sewer stubs out there, city water stubs out there, a bus within six blocks. you could probably do it if the board decided that it wanted to put some garage there or some nice cow barn that wants to sell stuff. 241

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future of the ag preserve rz: you're saying today this is possible? vs: today they still could build it, because they probably would make the findings. they could say, (cid:498)sewer is right there, water is right there, it's annexable to the city. you're within xyz of all these things. there's a city park half a block away; there's a school yard next door.(cid:499) you could probably make all those findings on something right next to silverado if you wanted. they don't want to, and nobody wants them to. rz: do you think that this is going to continue, this protection of the ag preserve? vs: i think the protections are pretty well honored. i think they're going to pick at the edges. that's what i was doing today from (cid:891) a.m. to (cid:885) p.m. – this attempt to put this enormously attractive international golf course with (cid:887)(cid:886) houses in the middle of pope valley. rz: you mean aetna springs? vs: no, i mean the luciana golf course [project]. aetna springs is an old resort. a mile‐and‐a‐half away, the same people [developers of aetna springs] want to take this little pristine valley and make a world class golf course with (cid:887)(cid:886) dwellings. rz: and that's the same developer. vs: but, of course [they say], (cid:498)we're not connected. the eir says we're not connected, and the eir says the houses aren't even connected with the golf courses, but we've looked at the houses and we're okay.(cid:499) rz: and the developer(cid:495)s name is? vs: criswell radovan. rz: so this was a hearing? vs: that's where i was, at the hearing held by the [napa county] planning commission. rz: now, at what point did you get off the board of supervisors? vs: by request. i was defeated in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:888), so i only stayed on there four years. rz: and you were replaced by harold moskowite. how did you feel about leaving the board? vs: well, i'd never been defeated quite like that, so i went through that. i also felt that harold wasn't going to be very good for napa, and they did have to work around him for quite a while. rz: he was pro‐development? vs: yes, and he was one of those who felt, (cid:498)you can't tell me what to do with my land.(cid:499) he had a lot of land and he had a lot of money. rz: what was his profession? vs: farmer developer, rancher developer. rz: was he in napa city? vs: he lived up in berryessa at that time. he now lives down here, but he lived in berryessa at that time. 242

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rz: now, you and john tuteur were pretty much like‐minded on most issues? vs: most issues, yes. rz: and you became good friends as well? vs: right. we've had a little testing lately, but that's okay. rz: i just want to ask you if there's anything that you wanted to add to the record about your experience with the ag preserve? vs: no, as long as you've added the rul and that progression. i think people tend, particularly in this context, in the jack davies context, to view this as agricultural history, and i think its interface with the necessary urban history is not understood. i don't think many of them understand that, and i don't think they understand that the…[entire] community has to be [considered as a] whole. they view their industry in many ways like general motors views detroit or flint, or wherever they have plants. in other words, the community is lucky to have them, so you shouldn't complain and (cid:498)don't mess with me now.(cid:499) rz: you're talking about the wine industry. vs: i'm talking about the whole business. now we have the most enlightened farm bureau of any in california, beyond any question. the director of that is superb. it's sandy elles. she's just superb, and they have always been good. they've always been good, but the simple truth is that even they do not understand what they owe to the city councils who are not fighting them. they do not understand what they owe to those people. rz: well, i want to thank you, ginny. vs: oh, i took too much of your time. rz: no, it was a wonderful interview. thank you very much. [conclusion of interview.] 243

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john tuteur oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler january (cid:884)(cid:882), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: jt ‐ john tuteur rz ‐ rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: john tuteur is currently napa county assessor, recorder, county clerk, and registrar of voters. this interview took place in the napa county recorder’s office in napa, ca.] [tape (cid:883)] early life rz: this is rue ziegler interviewing john tuteur at (cid:890):(cid:885)(cid:887) a.m. on january (cid:884)(cid:882)th, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) at the napa county recorder's officer in napa, california for the jack l. davies ag fund(cid:495)s history of the agricultural preserve. john, i wondered if we could just start off by getting some brief biographical information: your full name and where you were born? jt: well, my name has actually changed. i was born john tuteur, jr. on october (cid:884)(cid:890)th, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:883) in cleveland, ohio and i was educated in cleveland until i was twelve, when we moved to california. my grandfather passed away in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882) and my dad and mother decided to come to san francisco to get away from cleveland heat in the summer and snow in the winter. so my father had a farm, a business and a home in cleveland, and he bought a ranch, a home and a business in california, and we moved out here in the summer of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:884). now, talking about changing my name, when i ran for office for the first time in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884), i decided i didn't want to drag (cid:498)junior(cid:499) around on my materials for the election, and my dad graciously consented to become (cid:498)senior,(cid:499) so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884) he became john tuteur, sr. and i became just plain john. so i've been john tuteur for the last (cid:885)(cid:888) years. rz: so you had your early schooling years in ohio? jt: through the fifth grade, and then i came to san francisco and i went to the town school for sixth, seventh and eighth grades, and then i went south to the webb school in southern california for high school. and then i went east to college; i went to yale, where my father had gone many years before. rz: when you were in california, were your parents living in san francisco first? jt: that's right. napa was a weekend home. they bought the ranch in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:883) for thirty‐nine dollars an acre and that included a house, two barns and (cid:884)(cid:886)‐head of cattle, plus (cid:883),(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres, which was a good buy in those days. but we lived in san francisco. my parents lived in san francisco until my stepmother passed away in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891), and that point dad moved to the ranch full time for the last three years of his life. my wife and i moved to the ranch in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889), when i finished graduate school in berkeley in english literature. 244

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rz: to back up a little bit, you lived with your stepmother? jt: and my dad. my mother passed away in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885) after we'd been here for eleven years, and then my dad remarried in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887), and then my stepmother passed away in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891). my dad didn't think it was fair that he outlived both his wives, especially because his second wife was twelve years younger than he was, but unfortunately she died from a rare form of lung cancer very quickly in the summer of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891). rz: so you went to middle school and high school in san francisco. jt: i went to middle school in san francisco and then to high school in southern california. the webb school is in claremont; it's a boarding school. my parents continued to live in san francisco. rz: and they continued to use the napa valley home as a weekend home. jt: right. early interest in natural world rz: when you went to high school at webb, did you get inspired with land use issues, or what were some of your interests in high school? jt: well, it's interesting. i was just at webb yesterday. on our way back from vacation i stopped by. the only accredited high school museum in the united states is at webb; it(cid:495)s called the ray m. alf museum and it's a paleontology museum. ray alf was a teacher at webb and he would take us out into the desert in barstow to collect fossils. so he really was one of the major influences on my life, in becoming attuned to the natural world and the whole idea of the scope of evolution and what it means to be a human and where our context is in the history; the geologic history of the earth. so that was a very important influence. in fact i was just telling the director of the museum that yesterday, so it's funny to repeat it today. but you know, that was my first camping experience – in the desert in barstow. we'd go out for the weekend friday and camp friday night, saturday night and then come back sunday, and that was really the exposure – and of course ray alf was an inspirational teacher. he was just imbued with a love of what he did and a love of life and a love of the heavens and a love of the earth, and so he was quite an influence on almost all the young men. it was a boys' school at the time. it's now a coed school, but he influenced all the young men that he came in touch with, so i think that was the first real seed of my awakening to what it meant to be a part of the natural world, and how important it was that humans try and protect and interact with their environment rather than conquer it. rz: and what happened to ray alf? jt: he lived to be ninety‐seven, i think, and died just maybe ten years ago. rz: and so a museum was established in his name? jt: he actually founded it, and of course it was named after him, and it's become very important. let's see, i'm going to celebrate my fiftieth reunion this coming october at webb, and he was leading peccary trips, which is what they were called, because they discovered a wild pig called a peccary. that happened before 245

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me, but he had been out in the desert since the (cid:495)(cid:885)(cid:882)s, and so he had a long history of that and he brought all of his collections back. that was the foundation for the museum. rz: now, when you graduated from webb you went to yale. jt: that's right. rz: and why did you choose yale? jt: well, my father felt that since i'd probably be a california person it would be good that i experience another part of the country. i mean, i was twelve when we left ohio and i didn't have a great deal of interaction with what it meant to be a midwesterner as a child. so he asked that i go east to school and, of course, he was a yale graduate – although that wasn't a primary reason i went to yale. unfortunately i didn't sample yale's academics to the level i wish i had now, looking back almost fifty years later, but it was a wonderful experience and i did graduate and i was accepted to the school of advanced international studies at johns hopkins. but my mother passed away the year i was working in new york for a student organization, so i instead of going to johns hopkins in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886), i came out to berkeley to be near my father. and i got married in july of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886) so my wife and i moved to berkeley, and it was wonderful in those days. you could rent a professor's house while they were on sabbatical for $(cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) a month, so we lived in three different professors' houses, which was great for a young couple starting a household – to see how other people do their households. and so i studied political science at yale, but i spent most of my time at yale with an extracurricular group called the association of international students of economics and commerce, and i spent the summer of my sophomore year working in monaco on the french riviera, my junior year working on the italian riviera in a bank, and then i was the national president of that organization for the united states from july of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:885) through june of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886) and lived in new york, and that's where i met my wife. rz: and then when you went to berkeley, to the university of california at berkeley. what program were you in there? jt: i was in a master's of english literature program, and again i was starting to pay attention to the natural environment – you know, i think what i absorbed at webb was not that conscious. it didn't turn me into a crusader for the environment but it was always there. at yale that wasn't as important; it wasn't a focus of what i was doing. i was more interested in the international scene and i already spoke french. i learned italian and german while i was at yale, and i was sort of looking at an international career, but then when my mom passed away i decided i'd come out to berkeley and try the academic side, because i'd spent a lot of my time at yale on the extracurricular activity of traveling and those kinds of things. so i came out to berkeley and i went into the master's programs in english lit, which was more of an intellectual challenge. it was at that time that i really became more familiar with the ranch. i had spent summers here and summers at the ranch, but when we moved back it became our weekend home, too, at the ranch. early land use influences and then at that point … one of the other great influences in my life was the sierra club exhibit format books that david brower put together. i don't know if you're familiar with them, but in wildness is the 246

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preservation of the world, by thoreau, was one of the first of those books, and we have the whole collection. they really gave a person a sample of the gorgeousness of what was there, and of course, they spoke about the drowning of the glen canyon by the glen canyon dam. what humans can do to the environment really became a focus of the sierra club, and those books were a very powerful means of people seeing what could happen … what was there and then what could happen to it. so i think that was the second major influence, and that sort of got me started down the role of … well, we owned this beautiful (cid:883),(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)‐acre piece of property in the napa valley, and in the napa valley  that was (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887), (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889)  all the controversy was going on then with people for open space. and dorothy erskine, who was another major influence in my life, had a summer place in napa, and she had started some community activist movement towards preserving the napa valley because she was active throughout the bay area. one of the great stories is of course that in the (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s, people would drive down to where cupertino, sunnyvale and campbell are now, to look at the orchards like they come to the napa valley to look at the grapes. it was that destructive urban sprawl that happened there, plus the filling of san francisco bay. so those were the two huge bay area‐wide controversies. one was (cid:498)save san francisco bay,(cid:499) and i can(cid:495)t remember the three founders of save san francisco bay… i know it was kerr, mclaughlin … sylvia mclaughlin, and i can't remember clark kerr's wife's first name, but they were the triumvirate that really got the save the bay going in the late (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s and early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s and got the protection for the bay underway. rz: and dorothy erskine was very involved in saving the bay. jt: well, she was mostly involved in people for open space. i'm sure she had a hand in everything, but she was not one of the founders of save the bay. but people for open space really started agitating about what was happening in what is now silicon valley. it used to be blossom valley, and as that got paved over it became the rallying cry. so we started a group here and one of its themes was, "don't go the way of san jose." that was about the time of the ag preserve. now, those were really two different movements; one came from an agricultural preservation point of view; the ag preserve. it turned out to be a wonderful land preservation and growth control measure, but i don't think that's where it really came from. i really think it came from protecting the agricultural community, and i'll talk a little bit about that and how george abate, my predecessor as county assessor, fills in that piece of it. at the same time dorothy erskine and people for open space were moving towards managing cities sprawling out into the countryside, and that is more where i was focusing. so there were two organizations that got going around that time, not related to the ag preserve. i was not directly related, as a young member of the community, in the ag preserve at all, other than trying to remember back forty‐ some years. i think i was aware of it, but that wasn't where our focus was. it was more protecting the areas around the cities from being overrun, as was happening in the south bay and in lots of other parts of the bay area. so we found there were … the two groups that got started. one was specific. it was  i'm trying to remember what the full name was  but it was save schwartz canyon, which was up in the north end of the valley, east of calistoga. there was a piece of property up there that's part of, or will become part of, robert louis stevenson park. so i was active with the group that helped raise $(cid:885)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) to buy a (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:882)‐acre parcel from the duff family, and dorothy helped us with that. also very active with that was the nature conservancy, and that's how i met si foote, who became the napa land trust founder with his wife, june. si was our consultant. he was a dollar‐a‐year man. he already retired from his company that he built, 247

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called tab, which made office product shelving and other products, and he made a lot of money and then sold that. then he and june moved to the napa valley. i think they lived in the south bay or in the peninsula; then they moved to napa around that time, in the late (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, but while he was still commuting to napa he was our advisor on raising the money. then we gave the property to the nature conservancy to hold it after we had acquired it, which i think would have been in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889), (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). i can(cid:495)t remember the dates. then the other group that i was active in was napans opposing wastelands, now, and we took on trying to get the cities and the counties to cooperate and not allow urban sprawl. that's one of the areas. we were sort of a daughter group; although we weren't formally affiliated with the people for open space, we were sort of on that model, and ginny simms and myself and several other people were active in napans opposing wastelands, which again was not ag preserve‐oriented. we didn't support the ag preserve. i don't remember us being involved. rz: was this about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890)? move to napa county jt: oh, yes. this is (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) or (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890). my wife and i moved here, i believe, in may of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). we built our house in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887), and i think we moved up when i finished my master's program at berkeley, so it was in may of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) or june of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). starting then i was very active with both of those groups, the save schwartz canyon group and napans opposing wastelands. and then dorothy was in and around all of that, and she was really one of the catalysts for all of that happening. then in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:891) and (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882) i became the environmental aide for john dunlap, who was our local assembly member in sacramento. i was a volunteer; i wasn't paid, and then i worked with him for (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:891), (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882). also at that time, i became employed by the office of economic opportunity here, called oeo. it had a different name that i don't recall right now. rz: it was the local napa county office for the federal agency? jt: that's right. i was the deputy director, and we had a couple of programs – one for job training, and several others that i was active in. i only served in that capacity for about eighteen months to two years – i don't remember exactly. i don't have it on my resume. i had to submit something for a senate appointment to a group, and my wife said (cid:498)don't forget that.(cid:499) i'd almost forgotten i'd done it, but i didn't have the dates. rz: so you were a federal employee during that time. jt: i was a federal employee for that short period of time. i think i was a federal employee. i may not have been a federal employee. it may have been passed through so i may have worked for a non‐profit rather than being a federal employee. i was a non‐profit employee. working with john dunlap i became very aware. i became very aware of some of the environmental issues, not just in napa county, but around us. there was a big lead smelter over in crockett, and downwind horses were dying from eating the grass that was lead‐poisoned. we got involved in that and those kinds of things, so my whole environmental consciousness was raised from the land use issues here, from working with john dunlap on other issues. the beginning, not of global warming, but of air pollution was a big issue then, and john was one of the founders of the coastal commission. so from save the bay to the california coastal commission, sea ranch was a huge controversy around that time. there were all these currents going on, and in the middle of that was the ag preserve, but – switching over to the ag preserve again – i was not very aware of the ag preserve at the time, because i 248

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was busy on more land use controls around cities. the opposite of that is protecting agriculture, and of course the ag preserve didn't come all the way to the city of napa. the ag preserve at first stopped up by oak knoll, and it wasn't until later, i think i was on the board when that happened, that we expanded the ag preserve down to where it comes down to salvador and picked up that piece of land. but the ag preserve was not … well, i guess it was around the cities of yountville, st. helena and calistoga. i'm not sure if the ag preserve went all the way to the east and west sides of calistoga. i can't remember if it went up to tubbs lane, but we may have added that later. the ag preserve was primarily ag‐focused. it was just a coincidence that there were three towns in the middle of it, and that the ag preserve helped to preserve their boundaries. those towns weren't very interested at the time in expanding. there was not a lot of pressure to annex lands to yountville; the town of yountville, the city of st. helena or the city of calistoga. so fortunately they had not gotten on the kind of growth kick that gilroy and morgan hill and campbell and sunnyvale were all fighting, and cupertino, over what was going to take over which orchard to become which housing development. the upper valley wasn't that aware of that, but the city of napa was starting to have those kinds of pressures to expand. so i was focused more on preserving the rural boundary, now called a residential urban limit line, or an urban limit line, or urban growth line. they were being passed all over the bay area in the last ten or fifteen years. this is what the greenbelt alliance does, which is an outgrowth of people for open space. it was first people for open space and then it became the greenbelt alliance. rz: so it was an outgrowth of dorothy erskine's organization. jt: of course. i just went to the fiftieth anniversary of that movement in san francisco. dorothy, of course, was memorialized there, but dorothy just really caught the tenor of what needed to be worked on. i don't think dorothy had a lot to do with the ag preserve, because she was more concerned about urban sprawl. now of course, the ag preserve works now. in hindsight we see it as being a sprawl preventive measure but that isn't what was being done then. one of the great rallying cries of those supporting the ag preserve was, (cid:498)let's pass the ag preserve and we'll put the houses in the hills.(cid:499) right? so the ag preserve was not seen as a sprawl prevention measure, but as an agricultural preservation measure. and of course i got a lot of flak when i became a member of the board of supervisors and we shut down growth in the hills, because those who were opposed to the ag preserve came to us and said, (cid:498)but they promised us that we could now expand in the hills,(cid:499) and that wasn't where i was coming from when i ran for office. rz: i want to get to that in a minute. jt: sure. influence of dorothy erskine rz: i want to come back a little bit to dorothy erskine because so many people have cited her as an influence, and so i wondered if you could tell us a little bit about how she was so persuasive and influential. jt: it's really hard to describe. it wasn't that she was a charismatic person or that she was a great speaker 249

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or that she had a big program. she just was there, and she was persistent in a wonderful way. she was very friendly and very warm, and she just had a vision and it just kept oozing out of her and … you caught it. it's hard to describe but it was an infectious kind of enthusiasm and also commitment. you just watched dorothy and she was just at it all the time. she'd help with this and she'd help with that, and of course this wasn't her full‐time residence, so she was busy all over the bay area. and i was trying to think, preparing for today, but i just can't remember. i mean, i know there were some meetings where napans opposing wastelands got together. dorothy was not on the board and didn't participate in it, but i'm sure she came to some of our original meetings or gave us some ideas, and the same with the schwartz canyon. i'm pretty sure dorothy had some peripheral influence on that, but i just remember, you know, i'd see her on a weekend and we'd sit and talk and it was just that kind of thing. it was more as a role model for what someone who cares about the bay area is than being a specific kind of person. i mean, si foote was different; si brought some technical knowledge. i don't mean in the sense that he was a land use planner, but he'd been trained by the nature conservancy and he had some ideas on fund‐ raising and those kinds of things. so he was more of a person who brought some tools with him. i didn't remember dorothy as being a tool person but more just an influence person; more of a mentor. so that's how she did it, and she did it all over the bay area. it wasn't just myself. i mean, last year at the fiftieth anniversary of people for open space, which was founded in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:890), that was the only thing talked about – and of course her son, john erskine, lives here in the napa valley. rz: does he live in calistoga where dorothy had lived? jt: outside. the family still owns that property which is almost due north of calistoga off of highway (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:890) on a little side road just before you go over the county line into sonoma. john lives up on the west side of the valley, i think, between st. helena and calistoga. i'm not exactly sure. i could look his address up, but i'm not sure where he lives. rz: but it sounds like dorothy erskine(cid:495)s role was bringing people together who were interested in the same kinds of issues. jt: exactly. rz: i read that she would have dinner parties and put people together, and perhaps her ability to mix people and to be welcoming and gracious socially was a huge contribution just in and of itself. jt: right. janet thiessen is writing a book about her. her manuscript is completed, so i(cid:495)ll give you her contact information, because janet's finished a book on dorothy erskine and that might be helpful for you to talk to her. rz: i'm looking forward to reading it. what did dorothy look like? she was a small, petite woman? jt: yes, she was everybody's grandma. i didn't know her when she was younger. i'm sure she was a looker, but by the time i knew dorothy she must have been in her sixties i would think by then. i'm not sure when she was born, but i'm sure she was in her sixties by then, so she was about my dad's age. rz: dorothy was born in (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:891)(cid:888) and died in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884). 250

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jt: so she would have been, let's see, sixty‐eight or something, so that was a pretty good guess. my dad was born in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:890); my mom was born in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:882) – so they're the same generation. rz: and dorothy must have also been effective, because she had been involved in land use issues for so long, since around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:890)‐(cid:885)(cid:891). jt: right. i wasn't familiar with her past history. dorothy was never the center of attention. dorothy did not come and tell you what she'd done to protect the bay area, much like the three founders of save the bay. they just saved the bay. they weren't out there saying, (cid:498)we saved the bay;(cid:499) they were just busy saving the bay. dorothy was the same way; she didn't parade what she'd done or any of that. she didn't come on as a leader. she wasn't a person who organized the troops, as you said. it was much more subtle than that. it was just being there, being an example of a person who was committed to a cause and successfully committed to doing it. dorothy's profile was very low in terms of publicity, as far as i knew at the time. rz: now, i read that u.c. davis extension service co‐sponsored a series of conferences that dorothy was involved in with the citizens for regional recreation and parks, that they started in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:891) and held every year until (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:883). i don't know where those were held, but that must have started people thinking in napa county, because i think these conferences were somewhere in napa county. jt: i didn't participate in those. rz: but do you know anything about them? jt: no, i don't except i think i had heard vague rumors of them later. because by the time i was heavily involved, the ag preserve was already in place. so it was in place in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), and that was just about when we were getting moving with napans opposing wastelands, which had, as i said, a different focus. rz: you were in the thick of things in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, being in berkeley, especially in the late (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. that's when everything was happening. jt: we got there just when mario savio was leading the free speech movement, and we left just before the tear gas hit, so we missed people's park. so i was there from september of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886) until january of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). rz: an incredible time. now the next instance that i find of any kind of public meeting is a forum that again was co‐sponsored by the u.c. davis agricultural extension, this time with an organization called california tomorrow. this was a forum that was in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), and i wonder if you remember that. jt: i don't. i remember the name california tomorrow. i'm trying to remember who was active in that. rz: william bronson, who was a member of the sierra club, was also a member of california tomorrow, and he was the editor of a magazine called cry california. jt: oh, i used to subscribe to that so i do know. now when you say that it jogs the memory, so i was probably a member of california tomorrow and do remember reading cry california, yet i don't recall going to that meeting. i might have, but i just don't recall that. it's really funny how non‐involved i was, with as active as i became. that's what led to my running for the board of supervisors and my interest in 251

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the community and dorothy's bringing me into that, but i wasn't on the ag preserve side of that. i don't recall going to any of the meetings or the public hearings. rz: william bronson was a person who, at that forum that i mentioned in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), proposed the nationalization of the napa valley vineyards. do you remember …? controversy over ag preserve jt: oh, i remember that controversy. that was one of the reasons that people reacted so strongly against the ag preserve. there was this idea that it was the taking away of all private property rights, so that was the main controversy. it wasn't whether we wanted to preserve agriculture or not, because most of the opponents were in agriculture. they were not city folks … they weren't developers. i don't recall any developers being on the other side, although that may be a mistake, but there was no specific plan to develop the area between yountville and st. helena. we were way ahead of that curve. the county was nowhere near that yet. you know, we're a little backwater, thank god, because highway (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:883) runs up through the sonoma area, santa rosa, and that's why it grows ten times as fast as napa. highway (cid:890)(cid:882) runs on the other side of us up through solano county, which grows ten times as fast as we do. there is no four‐lane road coming out of napa county except the highway coming into napa county, and when it ends at yountville – there was a lot of controversy; the freeway was supposed to go on to calistoga. i don't think i was involved in that battle, although i may have been on the periphery. that was before i was on the board of supervisors, but the county rose up in arms against that and the state dropped that plan. but, you know, everything else going out of the county is a two‐lane road. if you go west to sonoma you go out a two‐lane road, (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:883). if you go out to fairfield you go out a two‐lane road, highway (cid:883)(cid:884) through jamieson canyon. if you go to middletown you go out a two‐lane road, which is highway (cid:884)(cid:891) going up over mt. st. helena – and which is not a rapid road. if you go north to geyserville it's a two‐lane road. so napa was really protected by its lack of transportation infrastructure. no rail line runs through napa county; it used to run up to calistoga, but then of course it stopped because it couldn't get over the mountains. so we've been protected by our geography, and we are probably the least settled county in a major metropolitan area because of, one, the ag preserve and two, the additional growth controls that came in place with the ag preserve – everything else we've done to preserve the rest of the county. rz: just as an aside, now, i read that napa is the second highest county in california in terms of property value per capita. jt: that's right. marin is ahead of us and san francisco is behind us, but that's because we're such a special place, and so much has been done to preserve napa county that people are willing to pay a lot of money to live here, to farm here, to have a business here. that's why we have such a high assessed value. we have an over $(cid:884)(cid:889) billion assessed value in a population of around (cid:883)(cid:886)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), so we rank way up there. other counties our size and population have an eight or ten or $(cid:883)(cid:884) billion assessed value so we're way up there. it's because of the steps taken by the public and the elected and appointed officials to protect what napa valley has to offer and to take advantage of the natural constraints that protected us. it's pretty hard to protect the area between novato and cloverdale when you've got a four‐lane or six‐lane freeway running through the middle of it. it's much more difficult. 252

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so in napa, the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) conference you mentioned, and the other ones, were one piece looking at this, but the other thing that happened in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) and what i wanted to talk about is george abate. state property assessment reform rz: so we're back now, and you want to talk about george abate, your predecessor? jt: that's right. well, what happened was  and it's really strange, but it's a very key component of what happened to make the ag preserve occur  was that in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s there were scandals among assessors throughout california, unfortunately. george abate was not in any way a part of that. but what happened was the assessment practices in california were relatively loose, and each assessor had his own ability to set the amount of value of the property that would be assessed – so it could range from (cid:883)(cid:882)% or (cid:884)(cid:887)% or something like that, and counties had different assessment levels. some counties averaged (cid:883)(cid:890)%; other counties averaged (cid:883)(cid:885)%. it was much less organized, and unfortunately several assessors throughout the state were taking money on the side to keep people's assessments low. that scandal broke in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886) or (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887), and two assessors committed suicide. the assessor in san francisco, whose son i went to school with, russell wolden(cid:885)(cid:886), committed suicide – i think in early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888) or late (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887). his son was rusty and he must have been a junior. and then the assessor in alameda county, whose name i don't remember, committed suicide, and several assessors were sent to jail. what came out of that was a reform movement, which is appropriate, and that reform movement was carried by a vehicle, a bill in the legislature, called ab (cid:523)for assembly bill(cid:524) (cid:890)(cid:882). the interesting thing is if you say ab(cid:890)(cid:882) as (cid:498)ab‐eighty,(cid:499) it's george abate's name  absolutely unrelated  but i'm the who discovered that, i think, and i just love that. george was doing his best job, and always has been, and one of the reasons i'm assessor is because i said, (cid:498)i want to be like george abate,(cid:499) with honesty and integrity and fairness and all of the things that george still stands for. but this controversy was swirling all over california, and what the legislature did was step in and took away from local assessors the ability to set their own assessment ratio. they said all property in california will be assessed at (cid:884)(cid:887)% of its fair market value, and they set some new criteria for how you determine fair market value, and it really changed the practice of assessors throughout the state, to follow state guidelines. the state board of equalization became somewhat more of an oversight agency, and they began sending teams into every county and surveying how they were doing, not looking for dirt but just making sure that the assessor was following state practices. protecting napa ag land so all of that came about in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), and george abate, being very forward‐looking, realized that he was going to raise a lot of farmers' values. because he might have had them at (cid:883)(cid:885)%, not because they were giving him any money, but because he was doing his best to protect agriculture within the legal confines that he had. he realized that they were going to jump up to (cid:884)(cid:887)%. well, (cid:884)(cid:887)% of $(cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) is a lot more than (cid:883)(cid:885)% of $(cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), and so he got out and started talking to the board of supervisors, saying, (cid:498)you've got to do something about this, and that the only way i'll be able to protect agriculture,(cid:499)…well, let me back up. there's one more piece i have to say. at the same time, the state legislature realized that they were going to have a huge impact on agriculture, and they created something called the california land conservation act, known as the williamson act, after john williamson who was an assembly member from the central valley. i think the williamson act 253

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passed in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), but it must have been around the same time. rz: in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887). jt: okay, (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887). now, it was not necessarily a companion piece to ab(cid:890)(cid:882), but it was in that same mode. i'm not sure that john williamson was trying to do it in order to save farmers money, but he knew that with the urban growth pressures, stuff was happening around san jose. some of the best farmland in california is now covered by houses throughout what was blossom valley and is now silicon valley. he saw that happening throughout the state, that california was losing enormous amounts of agricultural land, with the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887) through (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887) boom that was happening all over the united states after the war. and so he wanted to give farmers a way of protecting themselves from increased taxes, because california law says that you're taxed at your highest and best use. so if you can build a house on it or subdivide your hundred acres into lots, you have to be assessed at what a developer would pay you for it, not what you earn as an agricultural enterprise. and so williamson said if farmers agreed to put their land in a contract to keep it in agriculture for ten years in the future, we'll assess them at its agricultural value, not its fair market value, and the key to the williamson act is something called an agricultural preserve. you have to have an agricultural preserve before you can have a williamson act contract. that's where our ag preserve comes from. now let me just say that it's my interpretation. i don't know if this is true, but it makes sense to me logically that this is the reason it's called the ag preserve and not the vineyard preserve or the grape protection area; because the concept of an ag preserve was in the williamson act in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887). and so what george said to the board of supervisors was, if you want to protect your farmers from higher taxes … he could see what was happening down in silicon valley from an assessment perspective, as morgan hill and gilroy were out‐annexing each other. land values were skyrocketing and people were having to sell their property because they couldn't afford the taxes. they had to sell to developers, so george came to the board and said, you don't want to do that here. he said, look, we've got the williamson act and this concept of an ag preserve and if you put an ag preserve throughout the valley floor, we can then begin having contracts with people. i think that was george's contribution to that point. he sort of ran around like paul revere and … he was at some of the public hearings, i understand, and he would tell the people there, whether they were for or against the ag preserve, (cid:498)look, i don't care whether you're for or against the ag preserve but you've got to understand what's looming in the background. there is this wave of assessment increases coming and the only way we can stop those is if there are land use controls, and then williamson act contracts that allow me to assess the land as agriculture and not as potential homes.(cid:499) because with a twenty‐acre minimum parcel size, even without the williamson act, george could say, nobody is going to buy that to split it up for homes. you know the expression that zoning is three votes in thirty days. even though it's only three votes in thirty days, there is a provision in the revenue and taxation code called rnt(cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:884).(cid:883), section (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:884).(cid:883), which says the assessor must recognize an enforceable restriction, and zoning is an enforceable restriction. so even if there hadn't been a williamson act, george could have used the twenty‐acre minimum parcel size to continue to assess agriculture as the highest and best use in that area, because you can't build a house on twenty acres. i mean, you can't subdivide into twenty‐acre ranchettes. it's happened in other parts of the state but not in napa valley. 254

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rz: but now you're talking about after passing the limit to twenty acres … jt: well, but he went out and said, (cid:498)if you create an ag preserve i'm going to have the rationale to hold assessments at agricultural values rather than increase them just based on the zoning without even having to have a williamson act contract. just the twenty‐acre minimum zoning is an enforceable restriction that i as the assessor can legitimately recognize as keeping the value of the property down.(cid:499) so let me just back up to say that zoning ordinance in napa county was passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887). in fact that's the first zoning ordinance, i think, throughout the state, because state legislation allowing zoning took place in the mid‐(cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s. there was no zoning anywhere before that and it was seen as a huge intrusion on private property rights. i don't know if you're aware, but houston still has no zoning and so the whole idea of zoning was a big controversy. i didn't follow that. i'm not a scholar in land use, but i'm sure that the zoning ordinance passage in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887) and the subdivision map act and all of those things that came in following that required governmental controls on splitting land and doing all of that. so in napa county the board of supervisors had taken a one‐acre minimum parcel size outside of the city, so all of napa county was zoned one‐acre minimum. what happened at the public hearings was george said, (cid:498)if you're zoned one‐acre minimum and i'm a developer, i'll buy your (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres and put (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) homes on the land, so i'm going to have to assess you at development land rates. but if the board of supervisors re‐zones this entire area to twenty‐acre minimums i'm not going to assess it as development land – i'm going to assess it as farmland.(cid:499) later, people would pay millions of dollars for a twenty‐acre parcel to build their fancy house on, but at that time they wouldn't. there was either tract housing or rural land. there weren't these mega‐mansions and steroid houses that we have today. there may have been in pebble beach and san francisco but there weren't in the outlying counties. george cares about napa valley. i think he was born here, but i don't think he was a control freak on growth, or that he had a strong feeling that growth should be in cities as opposed to somewhere else. but he was committed to agriculture, and he could see this wave of assessment increases coming down the road once ab(cid:890)(cid:882) passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). that's really what triggered him to go talk to the board right then. so whatever else was going on in the community, i think, unlike most of these efforts today, this was not a community effort. the board really ran this effort. the board listened to george abate. these were not control growth freaks either, you know, the five board members who passed the ag preserve and their predecessors in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888), (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889) and (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890) were not out to save the napa valley from growth. i mean, they all expected the cities to grow and so on, but they did understand protecting their constituents from tax increases in a way that made sense. at that time robert mondavi started the winery in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), which was sort of the modern beginning of napa valley's prestige and interest. robert mondavi was out beating the drums for napa valley. i don't know how involved he was with the ag preserve but he certainly recognized what a special place this was, and he was giving all this publicity. so that was a trend, the mondavi focus on the quality of the napa valley, and george abate is getting on his horse and riding through the streets saying, (cid:498)watch out for tax increases,(cid:499) and the board of five supervisors were listening to that. that was sort of the magic formula that gave the impetus or the rationale for the ag preserve to be passed. you did have an agricultural resource that was worth protecting. you had tax reasons to protect it, and you had robert mondavi and the growing interest in the napa valley all coming together as a way to get the ag preserve. 255

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public hearings on ag preserve rz: now, before the ag preserve was actually passed in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) there were a series of public hearings; i think in two sets. one set was before the napa county planning commission and another set was held by the planning commission. were you in… jt: i think there was one set held by the board. rz: and that's later. jt: yes. rz: and then later, the board of supervisors. so actually there were three layers of public hearings? jt: right. rz: and i wonder if you were involved in any of these public hearings? jt: i don't believe so. i really don't. it's hard to believe that i was as active as i was. i wasn't a political candidate or anything. i never thought of running for the board of supervisors until later, but no, i don't think i went to any of those hearings. i don't even remember being terribly aware of any of that. it's really strange – i just don't have a memory of it. i know i wasn't out there on a drum roll. if i had been at the hearing it would have been about the city of napa trying to annex a piece of property or something like that. i was much more interested in urban sprawl than i was in agriculture protection at the time, but i look back with some amazement that i wasn't in the middle of that thicket. i don't think i attended any of the public hearings. i wasn't solicited. we had a cattle ranch. we didn't have any room for grapes, and i don't recall that there were many opponents to the ag preserve who weren't in the ag preserve. in other words, there was nothing like the pacific legal institute. there was no organized group. i don't remember the farm bureau or the cattlemen's association being on one side. the farm bureau probably was in favor. we've had a forward‐looking farm bureau for years, probably one of the best of the state. unlike most of its colleagues around the state who were relatively conservative on private property rights  sagebrush revolution types – it was different in napa county. they've been very aware of how important it is to preserve the land resource that makes napa so special, and they've been good on issues like regulation of agricultural wastewater and those kinds of things. so they have been a voice for sanity so that we didn't get too much regulation, but on the other hand they've been very supportive of large lot zoning and all the things that usually farm bureaus don't do. so i don't know what their role was at the time, but i'm sure volker and others can tell you people who did. rz: i wanted to ask you what you remember about the legal suit that was filed following the approval of the ag preserve in april of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). jt: the main opposition argument was that this was an encroachment on private property rights and that raising the parcel size from one acre to twenty acres was an overuse or a misuse of the police powers that opposition to the ag preserve 256

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the county had. remember, that was very controversial when the county was given police powers back in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:887). zoning was very controversial. i don't know my california history from (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:887) to (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890) very well, but locally and statewide and nationally, as far as i know, this was the first time large‐lot zoning was used to preserve a specific area of land. lancaster county, pennsylvania came out to visit us sometime when i was on the board because they were thinking of protecting the area where the amish are, and they looked at the ag preserve as a model. i'm sure others have been done since then, but this was the first time that large lot zoning was used to protect an entire (cid:884)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882)‐acre region in the united states, to the best of my knowledge. there were specific zones like gettysburg, but nothing that was not historic or otherwise recognized or wasn't a national monument. one of the arguments against it was not nationalization, but there were some people who said it should be a national monument. (cid:498)if you want to take it away from us, pay us for it.(cid:499) that was the big issue; a misuse of the police powers, or what's known as inverse condemnation. (cid:498)you took my rights away to use my property without paying me for it, but the united states constitution says you can't take property without paying for it. that's what the crown used to do in england, and that's why they passed that as a part of the declaration of independence.(cid:499) so there was all this wonderful tradition in america of private property rights and individual rights, and that's where this was coming from. the opposition didn't want to necessarily sell to developers. they thought this was overreaching of the right of the government to do something. that was the main opposition argument, and of course that carried right on into court: (cid:498)your ordinance is faulty. you can't do that.(cid:499) that's my understanding of the court suit, but it went all the way to the supreme court saying that this was an overreaching of the police powers that were granted to local agencies. i think it went to the supreme court, and i think the supreme court upheld the board's right to do that, and that was the end of the lawsuit. rz: the california supreme court. jt: i believe that(cid:495)s right. rz: and the names of people who were involved in the suit that i have are john daniel, b. c. solari, and cameron baker. jt: well, the first two i know. john daniel was the inglenook owner and solari still owns property in the ag preserve. their family owns land up by larkmead lane. there are still solaris here, and john daniel(cid:495)s daughter is robin lail. the lawsuit was a watershed, not just for napa county, but it was also a state watershed. it recognized the authority of boards of supervisors and city councils to take what the opponents saw as extreme measures to protect land and to use the police powers for the good of the community. that was a very important lawsuit. rz: and that was resolved sometime around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883), and two years later you ran for a position on the board of supervisors. 257

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jt: well, one other thing happened in between, and that was another group that had to do with urban sprawl that you need to be aware of. it was called caus, and the leader of that was an attorney in town named vic fershko. his real name was avigdor fershko and he's since left town. vic was a sabra from israel who was born in israel and then immigrated to the united states. so vic started citizens against urban sprawl [caus] and this was all a piece of this. i'm getting back to the movement i was in, which was controlling urban sprawl. it was not the same as the ag preserve, but this happened before i went on the board of supervisors. the city of napa wanted to do a cherry stem annexation from the corner of trancas and … actually i don't think it even got to silverado trail. the city limits were down around soscol and trancas where the chevron station is now, and i'm not even sure that's in the city, but they wanted to run a cherry stem annexation out trancas street and take in johnny miller's land. it was called longwood ranch and i'm not sure johnny miller owned it then. it was over (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres and annexation would have allowed napa to jump over the napa river in that area and over milliken creek and develop more land. the city council passed the annexation and vic filed suit. vic wanted to file a referendum to overturn that action, and the city attorney claimed that an annexation was not subject to referendum. so vic filed suit, and the court of appeals upheld the right of citizens to file a referendum against an annexation proposal. rz: now, was vic filing this on behalf of caus? jt: yes. rz: and he was a legal aid attorney? jt: i don't remember. i know he went into private practice. i don't remember exactly what he was doing when he did this. i think he may have been in private practice but i'm not sure. rz: and he lived in napa, obviously. jt: yes, i think he lived near the area that was going to be annexed. so vic filed suit and the court of appeals upheld the right of citizens to file a referendum against an annexation, and it went on the ballot and it was defeated. in other words, the annexation was turned down. so we now had another important lawsuit from napa county – the first upholding the police power and secondly a referendum for annexation, and that sets state law. nobody's ever challenged it. the third one is measure j, which we can talk about in a few minutes. so all of this was going on, and one night during that time ginny simms and i went to a city council hearing. i can't remember what it was about, but at (cid:884) a.m. we weren't home and my wife was panicking, because i told her i was going to a hearing and she thought i got run over by a bulldozer or something. so she called ginny's husband  i still remember this  and warren said, (cid:498)no, ginny's not home either.(cid:499) she knew since we were in separate cars that we hadn't been in an accident, but i learned from that to call home when you're going to be late. so ginny and i were working together a little bit on those kinds of things. ginny was much more active, because she lived in the city of napa and was very active on growth control, stopping urban sprawl, that kind of effort, and i was sort of tagging along. 258

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the williamson act and the county the final piece of the puzzle was that the board of supervisors in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:891), i believe, formed a committee to decide whether to do the williamson act. the williamson act is permissive; it's not automatic. so each board of supervisors had to decide if they wanted to do it. for some unknown reason, probably because i'd been sticking my face in a lot of meetings, i was asked to be on and represent the cattle industry. i was not the only representative. george abate was on the committee and i was on the committee, and there were four or five others i don't remember, and we reported back to the board in, probably in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:891), that we thought the williamson act was a good idea. that reminds me why i think george abate was not pushing the williamson act in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888)‐(cid:888)(cid:889) as a part of the ag preserve: he was pushing the minimum zoning as his way to protect farmers from assessment increases. george was very supportive of the williamson act, but it didn't happen until afterwards, and ironically not a lot of the vineyard owners in the ag preserve went into the williamson act because many of them had old values when prop (cid:883)(cid:885) came through. it didn't pay them to go in because they made more money under agriculture with vineyards than their old factored base year value under prop (cid:883)(cid:885). so there wasn't a lot of williamson act activity in that area until after prop (cid:883)(cid:885) passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890). we signed a williamson act contract, our family. we weren't the first, but we were one of the first in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), and our cattle ranch has been under the williamson act for thirty‐some years. the williamson act runs for ten years, but it automatically renews at the end of each year. rz: but you have to go through a renewal process? jt: it's automatic. so once you sign, unless you send a notice of non‐renewal or the county sends a notice of non‐renewal, it essentially runs forever. the planning department handles the williamson act paperwork and gets the contracts and holds the public hearing. the assessor's job, in napa county anyway, is limited to just doing the assessments once a contract has passed. so those two things were going on; the caus action against the annexation giving another tool to those who wanted to control urban sprawl, and the williamson act with the ag preserve, sitting out there as the crown jewel of napa's moving in that direction. rz: so now, we wanted to hear a little bit about when you first thought that you might like to run for a position on the board of supervisors. jt: what i understood all along, and also in talking to ginny simms, was that the ag preserve wasn't going to stop urban sprawl. there are really two legs to this monument – you have to get the cooperation of the public and the cities. it did, as i said earlier, help stop urban sprawl around the up‐valley towns of yountville, st. helena and calistoga, because at least two of those are surrounded by the ag preserve and there was no way their town council or city council was going to try to expand into the ag preserve. but that wasn't the case with the city of napa nor with the whole idea that had been talked about in ag preserve time, in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890), of development in the hills. we knew that if we got development in the hills or all around the city of napa, we would outgrow the boundaries of what napa county meant, not just as an agricultural wonderland, but also as a growth control and managed growth area. protecting the hillsides rz: because now, at this time in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885), were the hills protected? 259

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jt: no, that was the missing piece. there were two missing pieces of the puzzle. the ag preserve had protected the valley floor, but the two missing pieces of the puzzle were the urban limit lines around the city of napa, and then protection of the watershed, because the valley floor is no good if houses covered the hillsides. you're going to have runoff and pollution and you're going to kill the vines that are growing in the ag preserve. nobody looked at it from an ecological point of view. i'm not saying that they weren't forward looking, but if the hills were surrounded with subdivisions… if you look down in southern california in orange county and riverside county, all the hillsides have been carved up. the vines would be dead because of all that urban runoff and everything, so you'd have a wonderful ag preserve and no vines. but nobody was thinking that way at the time, that it was a greater ecological issue. you had to protect the entire watershed, not just the valley floor. i wasn't coming from that ecological perspective, i don't think. i was coming from the perspective of managing the growth of napa county. probably in the back of my head somewhere at some elemental level, probably listening to dorothy erskine, i understood the hills were important, not just as open space of beauty and scenic views and parks, but also because they were part of the vibrant system that is the bay area. if you screw up the hills and the watershed, you're going to ruin whatever is below it, whether it's the bay with urban runoff  which is still an issue  or the vineyards in napa county or sonoma county or any farmlands. if you pave over the hills you're going to cause problems even if you protect the valley floors. so that was going on. i still don't remember what ginny simms and i went to, but i started to attend some board of supervisors' hearings and we met in the old historic courthouse at the time. it's funny … i never thought of running for the board of supervisors. i was going to be a citizen activist and do those kinds of things, and i was teaching part‐time at the junior college level with my master's. i have a lifetime credential so i can teach junior college. i went to some board of supervisors' hearings and i was astounded at what i felt was the non‐constituent‐ friendly nature of the board. i thought they were arrogant. i thought they didn't listen. it wasn't directed at me personally – i just got this vision of, that isn't the way america is supposed to be, and i was frustrated by that. in the meantime, i was working in sacramento for john dunlap as a volunteer environmental aide. rz: and you were commuting? jt: yes, i would go up to sacramento once or twice a month with him. it wasn't every day and i realized that i didn't want to be in sacramento. i learned three things from john dunlap: one, you can be a politician and you can be honest and you can be compassionate and you can be bright, because john is all of those things. most of us have this unfortunate impression of politicians in the united states – there has been this impression that politics isn't for people who are for integrity or honesty, etc. so i'd learned that, and i also learned i didn't want to be in sacramento. i mean, sacramento … it's just passing bills, and i'd go crazy there. i realized from listening to dorothy erskine and others and with the lawsuit over the ag preserve that there was a lot of authority at the local level; that you could make more of a difference in terms of growth at the local level than you could at the state level or in congress or anywhere else. so sometime in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) i realized that i was going to have to run for the board of supervisors if i wanted to participate. i didn't live in the city so i couldn't run for city council. i lived in the unincorporated area. 260

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run for county supervisor so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883) the board re‐districted, which they have to do every ten years just like the legislature and congress does; the decennial census. it's also called reapportionment. and what they'd done is, they moved the boundary line between two districts. before that, ginny and i were in the same district before, and she mentioned to me that she was going to run. well, they moved the line so that she was in one district and i was in the other, and they put the unincorporated area of american canyon in my district, or what would become my district, because nobody wanted it. it was a problem. i love american canyon, but at the time they were seen as the stepchildren and sort of rabble‐rousers and all of that. it was a small community of (cid:886),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people. so i decided i was going to run for supervisor, and i ran against the chairman of the board, who was dewey andersen. so ironically, i ran against somebody who had helped pass the ag preserve. rz: now, this was district (cid:886)? jt: district (cid:887). dewey had been in district (cid:887), but district (cid:887) had not included american canyon before. so looking back with hindsight, i feel a little bad for defeating dewey, but the ag preserve was no longer an issue. i certainly didn't run on the ag preserve and frankly neither did dewey. i'm not sure, but i think he mostly ran on what a bad person i'd be if i was on the board of supervisors, which was a mistake, and the reason i won in the primary against the incumbent chairman of the board with (cid:888)(cid:885)% of the vote. the reason i won in the primary was threefold. one, i don't mean dewey personally … dewey is a fine human being, but the arrogance and the inability to listen and the sense of not being a public servant on the board was not just true of dewey. but dewey demonstrated that, and he hadn't waved to anybody or acknowledged anybody for the eight years he'd been in office. he sort of assumed he'd be re‐elected running against this unknown upstart who was only thirty‐one years old. so that was reason number one. reason number two was, dewey spent the whole campaign talking about me, which was a mistake, and i'll tell you a quick story about that. the third reason was i knocked on every door in the district three times, and the third time i knocked people said, (cid:498)if you come to our door one more time, john, we're not going to vote for you.(cid:499) and the funny thing is i never mentioned dewey's name once during the campaign. i wasn't running against him. i was running for the office. i linked up with senator john tunney, who was senator then. lake berryessa was an issue, and i came down on the side with senator tunney, that it should be returned to the federal government, because i thought the county was doing a terrible job managing it. i ran on the issue of managed growth and containing urban sprawl. i didn't run on the ag preserve. i had nothing to do with that, and dewey did, so i didn't mention that. but i knocked on a door near the end of the campaign way out in the boonies on jamieson canyon road, and the guy who came to the door said, (cid:498)i(cid:495)ve been waiting to meet you.(cid:499) i said, (cid:498)really.(cid:499) he said, (cid:498)i'm a dentist, and one of my patients is dewey's campaign manager, and all she talks about is that john tuteur is all ecology, ecology, ecology.(cid:499) and he said, (cid:498)as soon as she said that i said, (cid:494)hmm … that's interesting.(cid:495)(cid:499) so i met that dentist, and that's where i heard why i was going to have a chance of winning this election. at the time, i ran the most expensive campaign in napa county history – i spent $(cid:888),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884). 261

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so i was elected in june of (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:884) and ginny was elected at the same time. so i wasn't the youngest person ever elected to the board, but one of the youngest, and ginny was the first woman elected to the napa county board of supervisors. it took that long to do that after they got the vote, and ginny simms ran against two men and they each got (cid:884)(cid:886)% of the vote in the primary, and she got (cid:887)(cid:884)%, so she and i were elected in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884). i was a different kind of candidate. i wasn't an attorney. i wasn't a small businessman from the community, which had been most everybody and the farmers. i wasn't a real farmer. everybody knew i was a gentleman farmer, so to speak, so i was really a new person on the board, as was ginny. we came from different backgrounds than most board members had had in the past. so there was the two new of us and then another gentleman was elected, gene norriss, and he owned a furniture store in town; very nice guy, relatively conservative. his name was eugene, but he was known as gene. so we came on the board, and one of the remaining members on the board was henry wigger, who was another member who had voted for the ag preserve. henry wasn't up for election that time and he retired the next time, in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886). and then marshall sears was on the board, and he wasn't on the board for the ag preserve. he'd been elected in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882) and was finishing his first term. so whoever had voted for the ag preserve in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:890) from his district had gone off; juli caiocca had gone off. he had retired in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) and marshall sears had replaced him. so ginny and i got on the board, and we took office in january, and in february we took the first step towards real management of growth in napa county, which was increasing the minimum parcel size from one acre. other than the twenty acres on the floor of the valley, everything else in the whole county was one‐acre minimum zoning – all the hills, all the other valleys, everything else. so i'm trying to remember the exact number … from one acre to five, ten and forty, depending on how close you were to the city of napa. rz: in the watershed? jt: yes, everywhere in the county, so most of the county went to forty acres at that time. rz: but the valley floor was already at twenty. jt: yes, we didn't change that. we did everything but the ag preserve. the ag preserve was sacrosanct at that time. we'll get there. we did raise the ag preserve later, but in the beginning we just took the surrounding area, so most of the county went from one acre to forty acres. probably (cid:888)(cid:887)% of the county went from one acre to forty acres in february by an emergency ordinance, because we saw what was about to happen. it was a unanimous vote, including the three other members of the board who didn't come from our background. rz: did you have to have public hearings for this? jt: not many, because it was an emergency ordinance. we then had to have public hearings afterwards. but the other thing we needed to do was we needed to update the general plan of the county, so that was the first step. the second step was we did a mail‐out survey to every resident of the unincorporated area of the county, and we did that probably in late (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:885) or early (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), and we asked them what they wanted the county to be in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). they had three choices. the city of napa did its own mail‐out about the same time as santa rosa did, and they asked what the population should be in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), and the choices were (cid:889)(cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), (cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:884)(cid:887)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). they 262

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got an overwhelming response of (cid:889)(cid:887),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882), which is about what the city of napa population is today in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891). so the public was very interested and whether it's nimby, you know, (cid:498)not in my backyard,(cid:499) or whatever the reason, the public has always been very supportive. they didn't have to vote on the ag preserve, but they voted down the annexation of the silverado trail area that we talked about with caus. once it got on the ballot it went down overwhelmingly.that was really the first public vote. these other things weren't votes; they were sort of informal. it wasn't on the ballot – it was just mailed out and people mailed back in. we did the same thing, and we mailed out some concepts for the general plan, and one of the choices was whether urban growth belongs in urban centers. we got i think it was something like a (cid:883)(cid:884)% return on that mail‐out, and a (cid:885) to (cid:886)% return is considered absolutely phenomenal. so we got a (cid:883)(cid:884)% return and it was about (cid:890)(cid:891)% who wanted the slow growth urban‐centered option. so using that we began drafting the general plan. rz: now, at this point was jim hickey(cid:885)(cid:887) on board? jt: jim came in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882). rz: so he was on board now as director of planning. jt: conservation and all of the planning. the other thing that happened was in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886) marshall sears, i think he retired, and a guy from angwin named dowell martz was elected. and then henry wigger retired, and sam chapman, who was a young attorney in town, was elected. so we now had a four‐person majority on the board: ginny, myself, dowell and sam. rz: because you were all slow growth proponents. jt: right, and we had run on that issue. well, sam had also run and so had ginny and myself a little bit on, you know, helping the disadvantaged and making sure the county was providing adequate health care and doing those kinds of things, but the primary issue had been growth in those elections. so now we had a four‐member majority. poor gene norriss was out there by himself, but gene participated and voted in favor of many of the things. beginnings of general plan so we drafted a general plan, which i think was adopted in late (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:887). it called for urban‐centered growth and the protection of the watershed for natural purposes, and then we did the zoning ordinance, which continued that interim zoning ordinance – the five, ten and forty acres – all the way through. by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:889) we held hearings throughout the county, and we implemented two major zones. we implemented the rural residential, which was everything around the city of napa. by the way, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:888) ginny was defeated by harold moskowite, so harold was on the board, but it was still dowell, sam and myself, so we had a three‐ person majority. i think in some cases dowell, harold and gene norriss continued to support our position on some of these issues, because they were getting a lot of public feedback that it was important to control growth. so we passed a zoning ordinance, which essentially stopped any further division in napa county. rz: now, you were talking about creation of two zones. 263

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jt: the main zones were rural residential, which was ten acres, and that was around the city of napa. that's about where it was, and also down in american canyon, which still had some urban zoning because it was already developed; there were subdivisions and things down there. and the net effect of the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:889) zoning ordinance was that around the city of napa, where the greatest sprawl could occur, no further subdivisions were allowed in the county. so the city was not worried that the county would begin creating subdivisions around its borders so they'd be under pressure to annex. so they could put in the infrastructure and do what the general plan said, which is that urban growth belongs in urban centers. the county was going to get out of the growth business. and the other zone was agricultural watershed and that was a forty‐acre minimum zone and that covered (cid:889)(cid:882)% to (cid:890)(cid:882)% of the county. rz: you mean together, the two zones. jt: no. the ten acres was just a small band around the city of napa. the forty‐acre zone was pretty much everything else, and sometime around that time, the minimum parcel size in the ag preserve was raised from twenty to the forty acres it is today. rz: and that occurred in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:891)? jt: i was on the board when that occurred. so that was sort of the end of what we had done in the growth control area. when i left office in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) we had forty‐acre zoning throughout the county, except for the small area around the city of napa, and then we had the area in american canyon which was still accommodating growth, and i voted for a couple of subdivisions down there. they had to be phased, but that was a logical place if napa county was going to accept housing, that it was in an area that was already developed. there are some vineyards around american canyon, but not a lot of them. it wasn't prime agricultural land. rz: but you felt that there should be a kind of escape valve to let off some of the pressure for development. jt: exactly. now, the final thing that happened was a citizen initiative called measure a that occurred in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). even though we zoned the county forty acres, if some developer wanted to come in and do ranchettes he could buy a (cid:888)(cid:882)(cid:882)‐acre ranch and create fifteen forty‐acre parcels. so measure a said not only is the zoning forty acres, but the county can only issue a (cid:883)% growth rate in terms of building permits, which worked out to about (cid:883)(cid:886)(cid:883) building permits a year. rz: and this applies to both incorporated areas and … jt: just the unincorporated areas, because the cities were supposed to grow. so measure a passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), and that's when i retired from the board. two terms had been enough and i wasn't going to be a career politician in that kind of job as a policy maker. so i retired from the board. ginny had been defeated in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:888), so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) the board switched to where sam and dowell, who were still on the board, became a minority. and we had a terrible board  no reflection on the individuals, but they were awful. but a lawsuit was filed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:883) or (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:884). 264

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board of supervisors in the 1980s rz: do you remember the board of supervisors now? there was dowell martz ... jt: dowell was on. sam was on. bill white was elected in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882). john mikolacjik was elected to my seat. he was elected to the (cid:887)th district. sam was (cid:883)st district. bob white. harold was still on. he represented the (cid:886)th district. rz: so that's five. we had dowell martz, sam chapman, bob white, john mikolacjik. jt: and harold. wait a minute, bob white isn't right – bob took sam's seat. it must have been bill chew who took over for gene norriss. he was the first asian in napa county who was elected, i'm pretty sure. so it was harold moskowite, bill chew, sam, dowell and john mikolacjik. that was the board. of course, sam and dowell were in a minority because john mikolacjik, harold and bill chew were not happy about a lot of what we'd done, and they tried to approve an inn in the unincorporated ag area, the vintners(cid:495) inn, i think it was called. rz: the vintage inn. jt: right. and immediately the farm bureau and a guy named taddei, who is still around – i can't remember his first name – filed suit on the grounds that the general plan wasn't complete and hadn't been updated, and that there was no housing element. i think we'd done a housing element but it might not have been adequate. i can't remember. we didn't do it on purpose. rz: but the general plan had been completed some time ago. jt: right, but it wasn't adequate, and the suit worked. the judge ruled that nothing could happen in napa county until the general plan was updated, so that essentially froze everything from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:886). so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884) bob white replaced sam chapman. sam went to be congresswoman barbara boxer's chief of staff, by the way, and remained with her up until recently as her chief of staff when she was senator, too. so bob white replaced sam chapman and mel varrelman replaced dowell martz. so now the board was harold, john and bob white being the bad guys, so to speak and mel… oh, bill chew was still on. so we had a four‐person (cid:498)bad(cid:499) board, meaning they weren't happy about anything that had happened since (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). of course nobody dared attack the ag preserve, but they weren't happy about forty‐acre minimum zoning, et cetera. so that was the board from (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:884) to (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886). rz: who was the single voice? jt: mel varrelman from up‐valley. so in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) or (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:887) or (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:888) the board finally managed to complete the general plan, and in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:888), i think, the board changed again. i think kathleen mccullough replaced bill chew in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886). she was the second woman elected to the board of supervisors. i'm pretty sure that's right. so kathleen mccullough came on in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) and that replaced bill chew so that was the (cid:884)nd district. harold was still on for the (cid:886)th district and jay goetting. rz: so we're talking about the board in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:886) being favorably disposed to … 265

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jt: you had mel and jay and kathleen, who were a majority, and so that time period from (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882) to (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) with the lawsuit was enough, and now they began taking actions strengthening what had been going on before. not a whole bunch had to be done. we still had forty‐acre zoning in the unincorporated pretty much except for the ten‐acre zoning. we still had measure a in place, which has recently been extended because it was going to sunset in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). it was extended, i think, for another twenty years, so we're still at (cid:883)(cid:886)(cid:883) building permits a year with some exceptions for affordable housing. so measure a is still in place. at some point between (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) and (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:882) i believe, they raised the minimum parcel size in the unincorporated area to (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum zone. i'm not sure what date that was. it may have been (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:883)or (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:891). rz: i don't have that date here. key measures in county jt: that's where we are today. we've been there for twenty years with the ag preserve at forty acres and the rest of the county at (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882), except for the ten‐acre zoning around the city of napa. i'm going to conclude with the last two pieces that really are important here. one is that in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882) measure j was passed by the voters, and that said anything that intensifies the use in an agriculture zone must be approved by the people. rz: as opposed to just the board of supervisors. jt: exactly. and so we've had a number of measure j votes over the years, from as little as outdoor seating at a single restaurant to permitting a produce stand somewhere else. we also had two huge subdivisions proposed for south of the city of napa by where basalt has the rock quarry. they were defeated (cid:890)(cid:883)% to (cid:883)(cid:889)%, et cetera. rz: was that the napa pipe project? jt: no, that's an older one. it was measures x and y, way back when. rz: so in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:886) the county established a (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum in the ag watershed and open space areas? jt: right. and then the final big event that occurred in this tapestry after measure j was the incorporation of the city of american canyon in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:884). that was the final piece of the puzzle in getting to where we are today, seventeen years later. we have the city of american canyon, which has grown very rapidly within its boundaries. we now have an agreement between the city of american canyon and the county that their boundaries will be held at a certain level for twenty years. so it's sort of an informal urban growth limit line, not a formal one passed by the voters, but the city of american canyon and the county have both agreed that they don't want to grow more than x into potential agricultural area. rz: now, when does the clock start on the twenty years? jt: now. i think it started last year, so … rz: it's another twenty years, more or less. jt: really, i(cid:495)d say the last piece of the puzzle is that the city of napa passed a charter amendment that does not allow its rural urban limit line to be expanded without a vote of the people. the city of napa 266

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established its rural urban limit line many years ago, but it was only the city council that controlled it, and then a charter amendment went on to say that only the people could expand it. so the city can't annex because of the caus lawsuit way back in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) or whenever that was, and they also can't annex because they can't expand their residential urban limit line without a vote of the people. there are a couple of development pockets in the city of napa in the existing residential urban limit line, but they(cid:495)re not very large. i mean, there's one (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882)‐home potential development which is in the city's rul [rural urban limit line], but it(cid:495)s still in the county so it could be annexed. it would be controversial. rz: what about the napa pipe project? jt: napa pipe is in the county, and that's a big issue as to whether it should be in the county or it should be in the city. and i guess the final influence was the state horning in with requiring certain kinds of housing targets for every city. that started in the late (cid:494)(cid:890)(cid:882)s or early (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:882)s, and that's been a huge controversy, because napa county keeps saying regional housing goals should not pave over vineyard. so there's been that controversy. and the city and county and american canyon and napa have been trying to negotiate where the two cities will take napa's share of the growth, in return for the county helping to pay for it. so that's been ongoing. but just as a snapshot of today, measure j was just extended to (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:887)(cid:890) from (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:885)(cid:882). you have (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:882)‐acre minimum zoning, which is not being challenged throughout most of the unincorporated area of napa county. you have the ag preserve forty years later still in place with a forty‐acre minimum parcel size, which is kind of nice because those two match in terms of years and parcel size. maybe it should add an acre for every year it gets bigger, but i don't think that'll happen. you've got the continuing issue about the county having to absorb housing, but overall we've had a very fortunate time with the cooperation between the urban growth centers  calistoga, st. helena, yountville, the city of napa and american canyon  and the county, with everybody realizing urban growth should be in the urban centers. and we've managed to preserve this in the seventh largest metropolitan area in the united states, when you look at the sf/oakland metropolitan area. or maybe it's fifth largest. you've been able to maintain this little jewel of napa county primarily because of its geographic location. that's one big leg of it, but the others are the actions taken beginning with the ag preserve in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) and continuing on now forty years later. because of that we don't look much different than we did then in terms of growth. rz: and as you said, thanks to a public that has been surprisingly supportive  surprising in that you won't find this in other counties. jt: well, it's changing. other counties are getting more like napa county. in contra costa county some cities have adopted urban growth boundaries. in the south bay a lot of that is going on. people have seen what have happened, but napa county has been very consistent. the passage of both measure j's, the referendum overturning the annexation of the city of napa from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) on … that was really the first public vote to protect against urban sprawl, the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) vote to overturn that annexation. that was just within the city of napa, but it was an important vote. that was the first one, and the last ones were measure j and measure p, which just passed and have to do with preserving the future. rz: i thought measure p was the extension of measure j to (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:887)(cid:890). 267

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jt: no, measure n was the extension of measure j. i don't remember exactly when that vote was to stop the annexation, but from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) to (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890)  thirty‐eight years  beginning with the ag preserve, we've had the continuing sequence of events of public official actions like the ag preserve and the general plan and others by the cities and the county and the votes of the people. so it's worked very well. rz: to what do you attribute the strength of the public support? jt: well, three things. one unfortunately is nimby. i mean, we've got it; we don't want to see the county ruined. but secondly it's education. i think people have learned what can happen. i think the support for measure j to protect the watershed is an understanding of the ecological consequences of not allowing growth to chew up the hills because it can destroy what's down below. i think the vote in favor of the river project back in march of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:890), which passed after three attempts … rz: this is the river flood control project. jt: right. and the reason it passed was because a citizens(cid:495) group had done an incredible job of making an ecologically sensitive river project with no concrete ditches and large expansions and overflow areas for floodwater. so that's part of the education and the understanding. we were ahead of our time in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890), but now i think we're getting the support of the general understanding of how fragile our environment is, not just locally but globally. i think all of that is coming together. so i think nimby to some extent was responsible, unfortunately, but also education and the leadership of the people who have been elected to office  city council and board of supervisors and school district members. they took the lead and presented the public with general plans and options that make it able to preserve what's so special about the napa valley. rz: it's striking to me that there has always been this strong voluntary support within the community. i mean, people just dedicating enormous amounts of time to attend meetings and strategize and hand out flyers and that sort of thing. do you find that striking? jt: well, i'm not familiar with other areas since i've been here all these years. i know greenbelt alliance has these same kinds of grassroots movements. save the bay is one of the best examples of that. so i think we've got a consistent record of taking the right actions, but in many cases it's because citizens, as you said, got together. measure a was a citizen initiative. the referendum to stop that annexation, which was the first public vote back in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), was a citizen initiative. measure j was a citizen initiative. so you're right that citizen activists have brought a lot of this to the community, so they could act on them. future of napa county rz: i wanted to ask you now just a couple of questions about where we go from here and what you see in the future for napa county, given what you've told us so far. do you feel optimistic or pessimistic, and why? jt: oh, i'm very optimistic. with a forty‐year tradition and no major break in the dam, we haven't even had to put our finger in a hole in the dike. we have the issue of the state and the housing allocation – that's always going to be there, and who knows in this current economic crisis and the current budget crisis whether the state might not do something silly and pass some law that could have some kind of impact. but other than that kind of exterior force, i don't really see any reason that napa county would want to change. 268

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napa county has done a great job in the last ten or fifteen years in building affordable housing – not the county, but the cities in cooperation with the county. the county has been adding from the purse to do that and the cities have been accommodating the growth. it's nowhere near where it should be. i think that locally the issue is no longer how fast we grow or whether we grow, but just maintaining what we're doing and being a good citizen in the bay area. i think the big issues now that'll affect napa county are the national issues – the economy, health care, education. all of the things that are being talked about at the national level. i think that we're in pretty good shape for the future. with measure j in place you're not going to have a developer come in and spend a million dollars to do something. i mean, napa pipe is an issue but that's not even settled yet, and who knows what's going to happen with that? if it's annexed to the city that might be a solution. i'm not saying that i support or oppose that, but it's not a done deal by any means. and then the angwin eco‐village concept … who knows how that's going to play out? i mean, the county did shrink the urban bubble up there, but there's still room for some of that development, but i don't see that moving very rapidly because of the public opposition within its own community. that's not a measure j vote because there is zoning up there in the urban bubble that exempts it from measure j. rz: where does that stand now, the angwin development? jt: they've reduced the number of units and it's still kicking around. it hasn't been presented to the county yet, and i think with napa pipe they're doing some studies, but i don't think there's a formal application yet for the county. i believe the studies are being presented and that will require a general plan amendment, and that hasn't been done yet either. the tools are pretty much in place, and i think state law is very supportive of what napa county is doing in terms of using the general plan and the police powers through the zoning ordinance to do what we're doing. i don't think we're some kind of a renegade outfit that's operating outside of what the standard procedures are within the state of california. i think we've just been fortunate to have done it right over the years, with the contribution of both the city and the county and the schools and, as you said, the activists who get out and go to the meetings. rz: i want to ask you about some of the challenges that people have been talking about, not the least of which are the demands to meet the needs of tourists. we have five million tourists a year, and those tourists are demanding all kinds of services. i wonder how you see those demands for additional services impacting napa county? jt: well, i think the concept that urban uses belong in urban centers has worked. we haven't built the vintage inn because of that lawsuit. there are new hotels going up in yountville. there haven't been any in st. helena recently, but calistoga has just built a big new resort that's inside the city limits of the city of calistoga. we have three hotels under construction or almost complete in the city of napa, and a couple more being talked about. the only big resort that's being talked about, and it's sort of dead in the water because of the economy, is montalcino down by the airport, which the board passed a number of years ago. that's in an area that was going to use spray fields from sanitation districts and other things. but most of the tourist accommodations are coming the way they should be. still, a lot of tourists are day tourists, so traffic is one of the impacts, and we are seeing those impacts down in american canyon especially, and up‐valley during harvest. you can wait for an hour to get through the city of st. helena. there's the issue about weddings at wineries and some of those things but i think those are on the 269

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periphery. i think we're going to be able to accommodate our tourist industry and not lose what we've got and i think the cities stepping up to the plate. there are new hotels going down in american canyon. they have two now and they have another one under construction, and then there's one by the airport, which is a legitimate use in an industrial zone for airport‐related things, but i don't see … rz: and also along the river here in napa. jt: yes, they're both in the city of napa. so i think the urban‐centered concept is going to work and will accommodate much of the tourists' interests. the traffic is going to be the worst, and maybe someday a wine train expansion could handle tourism or a rail line from the ferry in vallejo up here could do some of that, but that's in the long‐distance future. rz: and what about the affordable housing issue? how do you see that playing out in the next twenty years? jt: well, given the current real estate market a lot of housing has become affordable, but i think american canyon is committed to more affordable housing. the city of napa still has several projects that they'd like to build. it's never going to meet the needs, but i think this whole popping of the housing bubble is going to help make housing more affordable generally without having to have targeted housing. i mean, we have homes selling under $(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) in napa – not many, but a few – when the lowest‐priced home a few years ago was $(cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882). so that's quite a drop, and i think that's going to stay stable for several years. i don't see another bubble in the housing market for a while. who knows how long? but we're not going to shake through this housing crisis in the next six months. it'll probably be eighteen months to two years before we reach a set level where we can start building again in terms of new construction, where there's some room in the city of napa and american canyon. there(cid:495)s not much room left in st. helena or calistoga or yountville, but i think we're going to be able to manage that. i think the state housing pressure is going to relax somewhat because of the current housing crisis and the economy, so i don't see that being quite such a big issue until the end of this decade or into the next; halfway through the next decade. rz: now, i wanted to ask you one more question, and then i want to ask you what you might want to add that we haven't covered. you're in your third term now as tax assessor and county recorder? jt: actually, in my combined office, in my third term. i was first elected in (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:890) to the combined offices. i was first elected as assessor in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:889) and i held that office for eleven years before they were consolidated. they were consolidated in january of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:890), and i was appointed to the consolidated position and then ran for the office later that year. rz: and is there a term limit for you or not? jt: no. throughout california some mayors and some council members have term limits, and i think in some of the charter counties some boards of supervisors do, but there are very few term limits at the local level. there are none that i know of for assessor, district attorney or sheriff, which are the three constitutional offices in the constitution at the local level. rz: and so how long are your terms? 270

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jt: four years. rz: and so when does this third term expire? jt: in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:883) in january. i'll be running again in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:883)(cid:882). rz: good for you. john, would you like to add anything that we haven't covered? jt: i don't think so. i think we've taken a pretty comprehensive look at what's happened here, from my first involvement with the mid‐(cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s through today, so i can't think of anything i need to add. rz: it's been a great sweep of history. well, thank you very much on behalf of the jack davies ag preservation fund. jt: my pleasure. rz: this is the end of the interview. [conclusion of interview.] 271

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mel varrelman oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler october (cid:883)(cid:886), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) participants: mv – mel varrelman rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: mel varrelman, a certified public accountant and financial planner, maintains an office, mel varrelman & associates, on railroad avenue in st. helena, ca, where this interview took place.] [tape (cid:883)] early life rz: mel, i wanted to just start off asking you a few questions about your background. i think you come from salinas. is that correct? mv: salinas, that(cid:495)s correct. rz: you were born and brought up there? mv: well, i was raised there. i was born in santa barbara, but i don(cid:495)t remember it because i think i left at a very early, early age. i was raised in salinas. rz: and did you go to elementary and junior high there? mv: elementary, junior high school and high school. rz: and what were some of your interests when you were growing up? mv: well, i was a typical teenager, so i guess i was interested in girls, cars and anything, any trouble that i could possibly get into. but i was also involved in the agricultural programs in high school. i took agriculture mechanics and general study of agriculture. i was in the future farmers of america and had the opportunity to be involved in raising livestock and working in farming and ranching. and when i was an older teenager i used to hire out to various ranchers to handle cattle – de‐horning, branding and just generally working cattle. early interest in agriculture rz: did you think you would be a farmer? mv: i think i would have been a farmer. i would have been a rancher or a farmer if i would have had the wherewithal to do that, of course. it(cid:495)s just like most farmers will tell you – they need a fortune to start with so they can survive until it(cid:495)s all gone. 272

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rz: and salinas was, when you were growing up, totally a farming community. mv: well, it was a very viable farming community. it still is a very viable farming community. row crops then were of course the big thing: lettuce and other forms of row crops. it(cid:495)s a prime agricultural growing region. the soil is absolutely superb, the conditions are superb for farming, so it has a great farming history, and frankly, i do really enjoy reading about the history of the salinas valley, because it(cid:495)s rich with cultural activities and many other things. one of my favorite authors, of course, is john steinbeck, who is not a favorite of most people from salinas. until they discovered his tourist value, i don(cid:495)t think they wanted him around. that(cid:495)s why herb caen referred to it as the cultural capital of california, because they basically ostracized john steinbeck. rz: oh, is that right? i didn(cid:495)t know that. well, when you graduated from high school, you went to berkeley, is that correct? mv: no, i actually went into the navy. i spent four years in the navy. i went in as a child, played sailor for four years and came out as a grown‐up. and then i went to work in the electronics industry in san jose, and started going to college, and transferred up to berkeley and finished up my college career in berkeley in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). rz: and when you were in the navy, where did you go? where were you stationed? mv: well, i went to electronics school back in great lakes, illinois, which is north between chicago and milwaukee. i spent about a year back there and figured out in a big hurry why i would not live there. and then was assigned to an amphibious squadron in the pacific fleet and traveled between san diego and japan. rz: and that was for four years. mv: yes, about four years. rz: and now, why were you interested in going to berkeley? did you have a particular plan for study? mv: i guess berkeley was always a place that i was interested in, for some reason. my brother and i used to play football on the front lawn, and he(cid:495)d always pretend he was from stanford and i(cid:495)d always pretend i was from berkeley. and, and he was always bigger than me so he always won. but it was just someplace i was just always interested in and wanted to go to. and going to berkeley meant a great deal to me in my life, so that(cid:495)s where i wanted to be. rz: was he your only sibling? vm: well, this is a complex story, very complex story. i was a foster child, and this was a foster family and so i was raised by a foster family in salinas. and in conaway(cid:495)s book, he talks about that.(cid:885)(cid:888) the mistake he makes in his book is that he says i was raised by a poor foster family. actually, i was a poor boy raised by a foster family, so he got the modifier wrong. rz: and the foster family had children? mv: just one – dan. 273

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rz: that was your brother. mv: yes, and dan and i are extremely close, and i was extremely close to that family. they are very, very important to me in my life, and they were just my family. rz: when did you go to live with them? mv: when i was in the first grade. rz: oh, so you were older; you weren(cid:495)t an infant. mv: no, i was not an infant. and tressa, my foster mother, used to say that i went out and selected them to live with. she used to say that i was luckier than most children because i got to pick the family i wanted to be with. rz: well, you were very lucky to be well‐matched. mv: she was a very special person to me, and she was able to take me in. you know, i basically tell people that i was a victim of world war ii. the war basically saw my family just disintegrate, like a lot of families did during world war ii. mine was one of those. and when my grandmother and grandfather died in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:887)‐(cid:886)(cid:888), i think i lost all the stableness in my environment, and tressa represented stability to me, so that(cid:495)s where i wanted to be. rz: and what was the name of your foster family? mv: ellison and tressa davey. rz: it(cid:495)s not varrelman? mv: no, not varrelman. varrelman is my name. rz: now, i wanted to ask you little bit about your experience at berkeley. what did you study? mv: physics and chemistry. rz: and did you plan to teach afterward? mv: i wasn(cid:495)t sure what i was going to do afterwards. i thought i might go into teaching. i actually took a job with a company down in pasadena. that only lasted about a week, and then i quit and came back up here, and then decided to go into teaching. joined st. helena police force rz: and i understand that you worked the graveyard shift as a policeman for st. helena? mv: i did. yes, when i got back up here after leaving pasadena, i needed a job, of course, and took a job with the st. helena police department, and took all the graveyard shifts so i could go to school during the day. and it was kind of interesting being a police officer. being a berkeley graduate, coming into a small, 274

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rural conservative community as a police officer was sort of out of context with what you really do with your life, i guess. and i think a lot of the officers referred to me as (cid:498)the egghead,(cid:499) which was always kind of fun. one of the first questions i asked the sergeant when he was showing me the rounds, i asked him if i really had to carry a gun, whether that was important or not. and certainly, this doesn(cid:495)t set well with most police officers – they don(cid:495)t want a cop out there without a gun. [laughs] so he allowed as to the fact that yes, i had to carry a gun, so i packed a sidearm. it wasn(cid:495)t that i was unfamiliar with weapons, because certainly i had been around them all my life, and when i was in the navy i was in the gunnery department and handled all kinds of weapons. so weapons were not something that was novel to me. i just sort of hooked it all up to the idea they(cid:495)re not really a necessary part of civilization. rz: well, what would you do in the graveyard shirt? mv: look for things that were out of place – basically, you know, be available if there was a problem. and there were some interesting things that happened. occasionally you(cid:495)d have a drunk driver driving all over the street. occasionally you(cid:495)d have a bar fight that you(cid:495)d have to go in and work on. one time i had a family beef that occurred on one of the side streets, and when i went down there to deal with the family fight, the mother came running out and asked me if i was all by myself. and i told her that, well, the calvary is out of town right now, so yes, i(cid:495)m all by myself. and she told me that i probably wouldn(cid:495)t be able to handle him by myself, because the last time it took two officers to take him in and subdue him – and he had just thrown a knife at his wife. and so i walked in, and this guy was built, oh probably, probably about (cid:884)(cid:885)(cid:882) pounds and about (cid:887)(cid:495)(cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:499) and solid muscle. i mean, this guy was a rock – and for some reason he held his hand out to his wife, and i put the cuff on his hand; he stuck his hands behind his back and i walked to the car and booked him. and when one of the other officers who later became chief, andy angel, came in the next morning, he asked about him, and he said, (cid:498)you took him how? all by yourself?(cid:499) they were blown away – you know, here(cid:495)s the egghead who brought in somebody who was difficult to handle! [laughter] i think it was just blind, stupid luck, myself. rz: and you were getting your teaching certificate during the day, so where were you studying for that? mv: wherever i could. i mean, i was doing graduate work in chemistry and doing teaching credentials work, as well as doing student teaching; that had to be part of curriculum. and so i was just studying wherever i could. sometimes i(cid:495)d have a book in the car when i(cid:495)d be out on a patrol, and pull over and sit under a street light for an hour and read. so it was just wherever i could. rz: and were you doing practice teaching at st. helena? mv: no, actually over in santa rosa. rz: but you were living in st. helena at the time. mv: yes. rz: and did you get the job in the police department because you answered an ad or … 275

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mv: no, i had a friend of the police chief call him and say, (cid:498)we(cid:495)ve got a fellow here who needs a job. do you have an opening?(cid:499) and they did! so i got the job. it was political influence, pure and simple. rz: so was this during the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s, now? mv: it was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). again, that was being out of berkeley. berkeley at that time had gone through the free speech movement and it was, of course, going through the anti‐vietnam war experience. i was not directly involved in the free speech movement, but i supported it, strongly. i was not directly involved in any of the organizations that opposed the war, but i opposed the war and attended a lot of the rallies. i did not believe in violence so i didn(cid:495)t participate in any violent activity, but certainly supported those things, which sort of put me out of step with st. helena and the police department. it was kind of an odd mix really, if you want my opinion, but it worked out, and i made some good friends. i still have friends who were in the sheriff(cid:495)s department at the time and are now retired, and certainly former police officers who i think in a couple of cases have passed away, who were friends for a long, long time after that. rz: and now, remind me – you graduated from berkeley in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886). mv: (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888). rz: were you there at the same time volker eisele was? mv: apparently we were; didn(cid:495)t know each other. i know volker was there in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:886) when the free speech movement was going on, and so was i. we were both there at the start of the free speech movement, but he was in doctoral program and i was an undergraduate. and berkeley is the kind of place where you could meet someone one day and never see them again the rest of your life, it(cid:495)s so huge. rz: now, when you got your teaching certificate, you taught school in st. helena. vm: i taught school in san francisco for a year. at a  actually it(cid:495)s torn down now  but it was a predominantly black high school. very interesting experience. i actually enjoyed it a great deal. it was right next to the haight‐ashbury; (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:891) is when haight‐ashbury was in its heyday. rz: did you have long hair? mv: no, as a matter of fact, i looked like i stepped out of a macy(cid:495)s ad, with a blue suit, short hair and white shirt and tie. i mean, i(cid:495)m from the country; that(cid:495)s the way you dress when you do those things. and i got along very well with the students, as a matter of course of things. after a while, i think they began to understand me, and i certainly began to understand them. and they were interesting, interesting kids. rz: is this high school? mv: yes. rz: okay, so what grades were you teaching? mv: i was teaching ninth and tenth and eleventh – mostly algebra. taught all mathematics; that(cid:495)s all i ever 276

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taught, was mathematics. rz: they weren(cid:495)t too rough on you? mv: nooo. there was an incident one time when i had a class  this was a remedial class  and one of the students who was sitting back in the class was being a little bit of a smart aleck and he was saying, (cid:498)pinkie this(cid:499) and (cid:498)pinkie that(cid:499) and, (cid:498)hey pinkie, hey pinkie!(cid:499) finally he said, (cid:498)hey pinkie!(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)what, blackie?(cid:499) and the whole class went dead silent, you know – and i sat there and i said, (cid:498)well, i(cid:495)m either a dead man or, you know, we(cid:495)ll get over this.(cid:499) and in about a minute i(cid:495)d say they all broke out and started howling, and just turned at him and said, (cid:498)darrell, he really showed you! boy, darrell he took your number.(cid:499) and then it really dawned on me that the one thing that they really respected was honesty, and if you were honest and straight with them, they would be honest and straight with you. rz: that(cid:495)s so interesting. so then, after a year in san francisco, did you… mv: i transferred first to fairfield and then came over here; that was in the middle school – eighth grade. rz: you taught middle school, eighth grade – and was that called rls then? mv: robert louis stevenson school, yes. rz: and how long did you teach? mv: i taught for about thirteen years, altogether. first venture into politics rz: and then i know you ran for st. helena city council. mv: i was on the city council. rz: when did you run for that? mv: i first ran in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884); there was a contest with no challengers. three councilmen were basically unopposed, and about a week and a half before the election, i took out papers to run a write‐in campaign, because i always believed there should be a contest. and i finished fourth out of four, so i figured i did pretty well. [laughs] and then two years later i ran as a serious candidate for city council, and won. rz: and how large was the council? mv: it has five members. rz: five members. so that was your first political experience. mv: that was my first step into elective office, yes. rz: how long did you serve there? 277

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mv: well, i had a disrupted career. i served four years, ran for mayor against the incumbent, was defeated, and was set down for a couple of years. and then i told my wife, (cid:498)that(cid:495)s it, i(cid:495)ll never run again. i(cid:495)m through with politics.(cid:499) but then i filed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), ran again and was elected. actually i was the highest vote‐getter in the second go‐around, and was re‐elected back to the council. and i told my wife after about a year, (cid:498)i think this term is it. you know, i(cid:495)m really tired of this. i(cid:495)ll quit after this term.(cid:499) and then i was cornered by volker [eisele] and a group of people to run for county supervisor, and finally agreed to do that. and so my wife has decided i(cid:495)m untrustworthy – i can(cid:495)t be counted on to be committed to anything that i can tell people. rz: now, just for the record, what is your wife(cid:495)s name? mv: rosemarie. rosemarie mcmahon. rz: when did you marry? mv: we actually got married in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) – second marriage. rz: oh, you(cid:495)d been married previously. mv: i was married previously, yes. i went through … actually between (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890) and when i was defeated for mayor in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), i went through a whole change‐of‐life pattern. i developed a tumor in my neck – it was about the size of a golf ball – and had it taken out. at the time they were removing it, i didn(cid:495)t know if it was malignant or benign, and so you do a lot of thinking during a period of time like that. and i decided i wasn(cid:495)t happy with the way things were going in my life, and changed everything. rz: did you have children with your first wife? mv: i have a son. he(cid:495)s a fireman/paramedic up in anacortes, washington, and he(cid:495)s unmarried and thirty‐ nine. and i have a daughter. rz: now, is your daughter with your second wife? mv: my daughter is adopted with my second wife. rz: what is her name? mv: kaele – and my son(cid:495)s name is martin. rz: so now let(cid:495)s get back to your political career. so you served for how many years altogether? mv: about six‐and‐a‐half years on the city council. rv: even though it was interrupted. mv: yes, it was interrupted by the election. i took a two‐year vacation from the council and then did another about two‐and‐a‐half years beyond that, and went to the board of supervisors. rz: and this whole time you were living in st. helena? 278

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mv: right. rz: and now, when you first got involved with land use issues, was that about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882)? first involvement in land use issues mv: it was around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), actually. the mobile home park out on pope street was proposed and was before the council. actually the council had approved the mobile home park, and a group of citizens had passed a petition to put it on the ballot, and because none of them lived in town, the council would not let them attend a forum and speak in opposition to it. so i called up a council member and said i would like to speak in opposition to it, because i(cid:495)m concerned about the direction that we(cid:495)re going in this community. and they asked me if i circulated the petition and i said (cid:498)no.(cid:499) and they said no, i can(cid:495)t speak against it. so i, you know, this was really stifling all debate as far as i was concerned. they did that. they did it pretty effectively; stifled all debate on it. it was ultimately passed and approved and built, but, i would have certainly opposed it publicly then, so i started probably looking into what was going on. i vaguely remember the issue of the ag preserve and its passage; i didn(cid:495)t understand it when it was passed. i didn(cid:495)t really pay that much attention to it, but i remember when it was passed. rz: because that was passed while you were a city councilman. mv: no, it was passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). rz: oh, that(cid:495)s right. mv: so i had actually left berkeley, came back up here in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888) and was here until i finished my credential program, and then i went down to san francisco and later moved back up here. so i was aware of it. rz: now, where was the mobile home? mv: the mobile home park(cid:495)s on pope street, right next to the river. rz: oh, that one. mv: yes, and it floods all the time – bad location, bad idea. nice park, but a bad location, bad idea. rz: now, i know that volker eisele was encouraging you to run for the board of supervisors. mv: you(cid:495)re so polite! rz: how did you first meet volker? mv: oh, i guess when i was on the council. actually i think i met him (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886), or i think it was in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886), when they were passing the measure a petition, and i was running for council and our paths crossed then. and i wouldn(cid:495)t say that we became friends, but certainly became acquaintances, and i guess he watched my activity on the council. we became a little bit closer; i had friends that were friends of his. we sort of got to know each other. but the thing on the board was, he called me, and in his very strong accent said, (cid:498)mel, we want to talk to you about the county board of supervisors.(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)why do you want to talk to 279

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elected to board of supervisors me? i don(cid:495)t know who needs to run. you know, i(cid:495)m not there. i can(cid:495)t think of anybody to run.(cid:499) so he just kept after me and after me and after me, and finally he said, (cid:498)mel, we want you to run!(cid:499) [laughs] rz: and now this was, was this (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882), already? mv: it was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:883) when that occurred. the contest was actually (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884), and the election occurred in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884), so i was seated on the board in january of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:885). rz: and when was your last year on the city council? mv: it was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884). rz: so you just went directly from one to the other one? mv: from the council to the board, yes. rz: so you were seated, then, on the board of supervisors in january of (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:885). did you think you would become so involved in land use issues? mv: well, by that time i knew that local politics was about land use. i guess my misunderstanding of the board of supervisors was that i thought it was like the city council, only a little bit larger agency – and i probably could not have been more wrong in my life. i missed that one by a hundred yards. it is totally different, but land use issues are the same; it(cid:495)s just that agriculture is more prominent at the board of supervisors level than it is at city council level. and the land use is still there and the land use planning. rz: yes. [end of tape (cid:883)] [tape (cid:884)] rz: mel, we were just talking about how different your experience was joining the board of supervisors from your previous experience on the st. helena city council. could you just tell us how it was different? mv: well, the land use, of course, is a broader issue, a much more difficult issue, because of the amount of dollars involved in land use decisions at the county level. the wine industry, when i went on the board in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:884), was still relatively in its infancy. i mean, there were some wineries in the county. many of them were making money, but it hadn(cid:495)t risen to the level of notoriety that it is today. so there was a lot of pressure to develop napa county in other directions, and the real big difference was the amount of pressure because of the number of dollars that could be made in just turning a few acres of land into some other kind of development. i recall one conversation i had with a developer who said he would never develop in napa county. he said, (cid:498)i don(cid:495)t care what the price of land is in napa county – it(cid:495)s cheap and you can make a lot of money developing it.(cid:499) and he was a developer who had made a fortune, so this was somebody whose conversation i did not take lightly. rz: was there still a lot of divisiveness about the ag preserve? 280

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mv: no, that was a set issue. people by that time had accepted the ag preserve. there were still hard feelings, i think, among some old‐timers. one of my neighbors on kearney street was louis stralla, who had been the mayor of st. helena at one time. and he had been a friend of julius caiocca, who was the chairman of the board of supervisors, and when julius voted for the ag preserve, those two men never spoke to each other again the rest of their lives. both of them went to their grave never saying another word to each other. it was as bitter a feud as i(cid:495)ve ever seen, and it was because julius basically voted the wrong way, as far as louis was concerned. rz: oh, i didn(cid:495)t realize that they never had anything to do with each other after that. mv: never again. rz: were there other instances like that? mv: i(cid:495)m sure, but i don(cid:495)t know of them specifically. that(cid:495)s one that i did know about. you know, i knew both men fairly well; knew louis quite well and knew julius quite well. rz: this developer you that were mentioning earlier, was he local or was he … mv: al wilsey. rz: oh, that was al wilsey. mv: yes. rz: alright. and what were some of the first land use issues that you were presented with at the board of supervisors? mv: when i went on the board, there was a big issue over what they called the vineyard inn, which was going to go in north of yountville, and it was a fairly big development. and there was a lawsuit filed against the board of supervisors on that issue, basically saying that the general plan was not up to date and, therefore, they couldn(cid:495)t move forward with it. and so that was the issue, but the lawsuit actually tied up the general plan for a couple of years, and there was not a lot of land use decisions that we could make, because of the lawsuit. rz: was jim hickey now in the planning department? mv: he was the planning director at the time.(cid:885)(cid:889) rz: and was this a big learning curve for you? mv: huge! [laughs] it was huge. the board at the time was basically a four‐to‐one split on land use issues, and i was the one. so it was four members against me, and they all supported the vineyard inn north of yountville – and i would have opposed it, but the lawsuit tied that up. so several land use decisions that did come up during that period of time were generally decided on a four‐to‐one vote. rz: did that make you very unpopular among your colleagues? 281

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mv: no, i don(cid:495)t know that it did. it was kind of an interesting relationship. one of the supervisors was john mikolajcik from american canyon.(cid:885)(cid:890) and (cid:498)mickey,(cid:499) i think, had an eighth grade education, was a very unsophisticated man, but had levels of intelligence, you know, that you had to recognize – and certainly was a very thoughtful and kind person. anyhow, there was one meeting  and i can(cid:495)t even remember what the issue was  and i really didn(cid:495)t say much in the meeting. i just made my points and voted (cid:498)no(cid:499) on the issue, and then went on the radio and just blasted the board of supervisors. i just unloaded on them big‐time. and before the next meeting mikolajcik pulled me aside and says, (cid:498)mel,(cid:499) he says, (cid:498)i don(cid:495)t care how you vote, or what you do. but if you(cid:495)re going say things, you should say them in this room and not at the radio station, where we at least have a chance to answer you.(cid:499) and i think that was probably singularly the most important lesson i ever had in learning to be a county supervisor. and that was to learn that there is a protocol you should follow, and there(cid:495)s a respect you should lend to your colleagues, and if you do that, then they will respect you in return. so i never forgot that lesson, and i still feel it was one of the most important political lessons i(cid:495)ve ever had in my life. and it was kind of interesting – so here(cid:495)s this fellow who(cid:495)s working on a master(cid:495)s degree being trained by a fellow with an eighth grade education – and grateful that he did it, you know, because he really taught me a very important lesson. and so i think, when we developed those relationships, they knew that they could disagree with me and that i would respect them for that disagreement. if they were honest in their disagreement, if that(cid:495)s how they believed, then we would get along. and as a matter of fact, two members of that board i was actually very fond of were mikolajcik and harold moskowite. rz: and who were the other members of the board at the time? mv: bill chew and bob white. bill had been a former city councilman. bob white was elected at the same time i was. he and i were the rookie members. rz: and the board had been quite pro‐development then? mv: it switched back and forth. actually in the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s it was not pro‐development, and shifted in the (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s. during the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:890) election i think it took a shift that way – three members to two members. and then in the (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:884) election, four to one, so it really shifted hard to the right, if you want to use that term that term, (cid:498)right/left.(cid:499) you know, i don(cid:495)t think that(cid:495)s an adequate term, but that would at least be one way of describing it. rz: and how did the vineyard inn issue get resolved? mv: well … by the time the lawsuit was finalized and the general plan could be brought up to date, there was a change in the board, and i think the developers walked away from it anyhow. they just saw this as a losing deal. i can(cid:495)t remember if it ever even came to a vote. rz: and now the ground was clear for preparation of a general plan? mv: well, we actually updated the general plan during that period of time, and probably had the general plan updated somewhere about (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) ‐(cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:887), i guess. but also there was a board election in (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:886) that shifted the scope of the board, or the make‐up of the board. 282

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rz: now, i was going to ask you who your closest allies were when you first got involved. i know you said there was a change in the membership of the board of supervisors. mv: there was a change in the make‐up in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:886). kathleen mccullough, the former mayor of yountville, was elected, and she was on (cid:498)my side.(cid:499) and jay goetting, who had been a news broadcaster in napa, was elected, and he was on my side, so we now had a three‐two majority. rz: big difference. preserving land from development mv: it was a difference, yes. then we started doing things. the general plan was behind us; the lawsuit was behind us. the first thing we took on was strip development up and down the highways, and actually turned back a lot of potential commercial real estate up and down highway (cid:884)(cid:891) or highway (cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:883) going over toward sonoma. a lot of the commercial development we turned back to ag land, so that the commercial developments could not occur. we didn(cid:495)t take land that was developed; we took land that was undeveloped. we probably eliminated, i don(cid:495)t know how many, parcels of potential development up and down the highways, that would(cid:495)ve changed the whole fabric of napa county. i think that was probably an important decision that isn(cid:495)t really fully understood or recognized for its value, because when you take something that isn(cid:495)t there and you don(cid:495)t let it happen, people don(cid:495)t notice it, you know. and that(cid:495)s what that is, you know. there was no development there, there was no development proposed – we just eliminated the possibility. rz: was there resistance to this? mv: of course. we were taking lands that people had owned, you know, however they got the property, and taking away their right to develop it commercially, which probably reduced its value in their minds. on most cases it was historically transferred within the family so there was no loss in value to them. their property was worth more than what it was when they bought it or got it, and so there was no loss in value in reality – it was just potential loss that they thought they had. the next big thing was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:887), when we instructed the staff to develop the winery definition ordinance, which was probably as blood‐letting an ordinance as the ag preserve. it was a brutal, brutal battle, and took five years from the time we introduced it to the time we finally adopted it. winery definition ordinance rz: and how did the idea first come about? mv: you know, it became apparent to me and i know in conversations probably with volker and with others, that winery development was in itself becoming problematic. you know the first step was, of course, eliminating strip development. well, then we saw wineries coming in who could go in on an acre parcel, set up a building, sell t‐shirts, glassware and wine, and never produce a drop. so all of a sudden, this looks like a retail liquor store to me, and indeed, that(cid:495)s what they were. and the other thing that happened – i had a couple of fellows come in and tell me they wanted to build a brewery on highway (cid:884)(cid:891), and i told them that the industrial park was a great place for a brewery, no problem. and they told me they liked the ambience of highway (cid:884)(cid:891). well, ambience means tourist traffic going in front of the door; that(cid:495)s what that meant. but there(cid:495)s no relationship between a brewery and what 283

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we do here – absolutely none. we don(cid:495)t grow any hops, so they would have imported all the raw material. so it was really an industrial complex in the ag areas, which didn(cid:495)t make any sense to me. so we introduced the idea of a winery ordinance to address these issues, and actually put it to a committee of vintners, growers and farm people to help frame this thing. and that probably was the big mistake. rz: and why is that? mv: well, i think we would have had an ordinance in about a year if the staff would have developed it. we would have argued it out in the boardroom and passed it over objection. as it was, it took the vintners and growers almost five years to come to resolution. the (cid:498)plus(cid:499) side of it is that almost all the vintners and growers have bought into the winery ordinance. and there are a couple problematic parts of it that i presume somebody could find, take issue with, but nobody will, because like i said, everybody bought into it. so the plus side is they bought into it. the negative side is that it took a long time to get there. two supervisors actually lost their jobs over it; they were defeated in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:890) – and it was kathleen and jay. and mickey was re‐elected, and who else was re‐elected? rz: and that was kathleen mccullough and jay goetting? mv: yes, kathleen and jay were defeated in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:890), and fred negri and john mikolajcik were elected to the board. rz: and you weren(cid:495)t up for re‐election? mv: no, i was not up for re‐election. rz: at that point, if it had been imposed from the outside, do you think that that would have … mv: it(cid:495)s hard to say how that would have gone down. you know, it would have gone down hard with some of the vintners. there(cid:495)s no question about it. some of the vintners would have really been unhappy with it. there were vintners that were unhappy with the final result, period, so there would(cid:495)ve been some hard feelings. as i said, the upside is that the vintners, as a group, essentially bought into it. the downside is, i think there are some weaknesses in the ordinance, that should have and could have been addressed and weren(cid:495)t. you know there were some compromises made that probably shouldn(cid:495)t have been made. rz: what would those be? mv: it had to do with food services and basically turning these places, some of them, into restaurants. you know, a little broader than just a winery. a winery, in my view, is allowed in the ag preserve because it(cid:495)s an exception to the rule. the ag preserve is a place to grow grapes. the winery is an industrial complex that belongs in an industrial zone, so this is an exception to ag use. the fact of the matter is it takes the raw materials from surrounding it, processes it and then produces a product, so it has a relationship to what(cid:495)s grown there. and that(cid:495)s the reason it(cid:495)s allowed as an exception to the rule. so that(cid:495)s why the brewery didn(cid:495)t make any sense, because it was not – it was just an industrial complex. and most people don(cid:495)t think of a winery as an industrial complex, but that(cid:495)s indeed exactly what it is. and so they exist as an exception to the ag zoning. one of the problems now, with the winery ordinance, as far as i(cid:495)m concerned, is that you can have a winery go into a plot of land in one end of the county and grow their grapes at the other end, so they(cid:495)re trucking this stuff up and down the county. and that creates other 284

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kinds of problems for both the industry and the people who live here, and the whole, the whole atmosphere of the wine industry. and before i left the board, i was suggesting that we look at that as an issue, and actually require new wineries to be able to grow their grapes on their own properties, which would have been a significant change. rz: so you(cid:495)re talking about a connection between an area where you grow the grapes and where grapes are manufactured into wine… mv: a nexus between the winery and the stuff that is grown on the ground. rz: so now, with the winery definition ordinance, for the record, if you could explain what that regulated. mv: okay, basically the major changes were that the wineries were no longer allowed on an acre parcel, and they required a minimum of ten acres to build a winery, which was a major change that took a lot of smaller parcels out of the mix for potential winery development. the next major change was that all new wineries coming in had to use seventy‐five percent napa county grapes for their product, which is huge when you think about it. so a winery comes in and they want to produce a cabernet – seventy‐five percent of their grapes have to come from napa county, and that(cid:495)s a very restrictive relationship. it(cid:495)s also a problematic one, you know, because there are maybe some trade issues that could come up under that. but most people, the last time i had a conversation with leaders in industry, they seemed content with the idea that indeed the seventy‐five percent rule was okay. rz: and how was the oversight, to ensure that the seventy‐five percent rule is adhered to? mv: they have to file reports with the napa county ag department. rz: okay, so when your staff was preparing the winery definition ordinance, who was the most helpful to you in terms of fleshing out this issue? mv: oh, probably, probably volker [eisele] more than anybody else. you know, there were so many people that talked to you on these issues, it(cid:495)s hard to identify one individual. volker was certainly crucial, because he and i saw eye to eye on a lot of things, and he was able to keep me informed on what was going on in the conversations between the vintners and the growers. but i would hear lots of things from lots of different people. wineries play politics rz: among the vintners, who were the most receptive to the idea? mv: oh boy, i(cid:495)m not sure there were many that were. they took a very hard line on it. as a matter of fact, the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:890) election, if you will, shows just exactly how set in stone they were on this issue. they held a huge meeting down at the marriott in napa, and the meeting was to introduce prospective board members and board members who were up for re‐election to the vintners, and discuss the issues before them. and the whole thing was a set‐up to basically promote their candidates, who were the two who were opposing the incumbents. and that(cid:495)s exactly how it worked, and it was actually set up by a couple of the major vintners. and john mikolajcik, interestingly enough, was not there, but he didn(cid:495)t have to be because they weren(cid:495)t interested in 285

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hearing what he had to say. they were interested in basically setting up mccullough and goetting for defeat, and they were able to do that. in a sort of a back‐room way, i told the vintners that this was not a good idea, for them to get into supervisorial politics on a two‐year basis, because they have to then start winning every two years and when they lose, it will devastate their industry. and they are better off not playing the supervisors(cid:495) game. and that was the last year they did that, actually. they pulled away from that. i think they understood that that(cid:495)s not necessarily a good idea, to go out front on supervisors(cid:495) election, because like i told them, their industry is on the table every time they do that. and this is not what(cid:495)s good for us, not good for napa county and not good for them. rz: now, when did they winery definition ordinance finally pass? mv: i think about (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). i think paul battisti had been elected then, defeated harold moskowite, and we passed it then, i believe it was passed. rz: now i want to go back just a little bit in time, because i wanted to ask you, when you first got involved with land use issues, were you familiar with the williamson act? mv: the williamson act? a little bit. the williamson act is fairly complicated, you know; it(cid:495)s a tax program more than anything else, and it(cid:495)s a fairly complex set of rules. probably john tuteur is the most versed individual in napa county on that, and he was versed even before he became the assessor, you know. that has always been one of his strongest issues. i have some understanding of the williamson act. rz: but the williamson act is just sort of case by case, and doesn(cid:495)t actually… mv: yes, actually, a lot of properties will not opt into williamson act because it doesn(cid:495)t do that much for them. the williamson act actually works better for marginal farms, farms that aren(cid:495)t highly successful and [don(cid:495)t] make a lot of money. rz: where farmers get a lower tax rate… mv: tax break, yes. rz: based on the production of the farm rather than on the marketable value of the land. mv: right, and you eliminate any ability to change uses, you know. you give up the ability to change uses. rz: but only for ten years – is that correct? mv: yes, but you have to opt out of it. you have to elect out of it. otherwise it keeps rolling over, so it takes a while to do this. and it(cid:495)s actually a long timeframe for somebody to make that decision. so i think a lot of farmers, if they(cid:495)re making a lot of money on their properties, they aren(cid:495)t necessarily that into… [end of tape (cid:884)] 286

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[tape (cid:885)] mv: you were asking about the scope of the job, and when i left after twenty years, i was still learning. and i think if i were still there, i would still be learning. there(cid:495)s just an immense scope of issues that go with that job, that i don(cid:495)t think people even realize how much and how diverse it really is. very fascinating job. at no time during the twenty years did i say to my wife, (cid:498)i think i(cid:495)ll quit. i think i(cid:495)ve finally decided that it(cid:495)s maybe a good time now, because it(cid:495)s time for somebody else.(cid:499) rz: but you enjoyed it. mv: i enjoyed the twenty years i was there – enjoyed every minute of it – and learned a tremendous amount. rz: does staff prepare briefing materials for you on the various issues? mv: yes. rz: is that how it works? mv: yes, and they meet with you, talk it over with you. i was a guest … one of the department heads, dan corsello, who was head of health and human services, invited me to a forum down in the bay area, meeting with people who work in health and human services departments throughout the bay region. they wanted to talk to a county supervisor to find out how you do this as a staff member. and what i told him was that there should be no surprises. your board members should have a good idea of everything that(cid:495)s going on before they even walk into that room – so you brief them, you talk to them, you bring them up to speed. and one of the complaints was, (cid:498)well, they don(cid:495)t pay attention to us when they(cid:495)re talking during board meetings.(cid:499) and i said, (cid:498)well, why should they? they already know what it(cid:495)s all about.(cid:499) i guess in the bigger boards they do other things. on our board, i think we paid quite a bit of attention to them. but the importance is, if you(cid:495)re not prepared when you go in there, you can(cid:495)t get prepared while you(cid:495)re there – it(cid:495)s just impossible. rz: so you have to spend quite a number of hours really studying the issues. mv: yes, i think it(cid:495)s a full‐time job. rz: is it considered a full‐time job? mv: i don(cid:495)t know. [laughs] i always thought it was a full‐time job, but i also did this, so i did two things. rz: now, i know that you became a certified financial planner. where, along your career, did that happen? mv: oh, i did that probably i think in the (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s. you know, while i was on the board. rz: and so you were launching that career while you were serving. 287

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mv: i had my business here, and i was trying to develop the credentials necessary to perform in this activity. i always viewed the job at the board of supervisors as a four year job – i just happened to get re‐ hired every four years. i didn(cid:495)t think i was going to get re‐hired five times, and so i always figured i needed a place to go after i left the board. i didn(cid:495)t realize i was going to be there for twenty years. key issue is growth rz: now, i have read that you saw very quickly after coming to the napa valley that growth was really going to be the key issue here. mv: it was and [still] is. rz: but you felt it from the start. mv: you know, that actually goes back to salinas. salinas, as i told you earlier, was one of the prime growing regions of the world, and i watched the city of salinas grow out into the ag lands. and it occurred to me then, as a high school student, that this was not the way we should be doing things – that if we keep growing like this, then we(cid:495)re not going to be able to raise the food that we need to support our populations and our civilizations. and it was a shame to use prime ag lands for urban development, urban sprawl. i didn(cid:495)t realize how big an issue that really is until i actually got on the board of supervisors, or even on the city council, starting seeing what the potential was. so i think my attitude started there, and i saw in napa county the same potential to grow. the city of napa went through a growth plebiscite in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884), where the citizens told the council that they wanted to freeze the city limits at that point. they didn(cid:495)t want to expand them out. they passed a sewer treatment bond in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887) that was sized to allow for a city of (cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) people, and they were looking at expanding their borders down to solano county and out into carneros. so the entire southern part of the county would be basically san jose north. as a kid growing up, i can remember going through san jose, santa clara and campbell and all those little communities, and seeing all the orchards that were in santa clara county, and each one of these little tiny communities in between these orchards. now, if you find a fruit tree, it(cid:495)s in somebody(cid:495)s back yard down there. and so, seeing that as a young person growing up, it(cid:495)s easy to translate that potential to napa county, which is, of course, right on the bay and has great access to san francisco, great access to the industrial areas and is certainly an ideal place for people to build huge subdivisions. measures a and j rz: well now, i wanted to ask you, at what point did you get involved then in measure a? mv: measure a meaning? that was the mandate on the number of building permits issued? rz: i believe measure a had to do with limiting population growth to one percent per year. mv: that(cid:495)s it, that(cid:495)s the same one. rz: okay, the same one. 288

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mv: actually i was not deeply involved in that. initially, no, that(cid:495)s when i was running for city council, and i knew it was out there. i think i voted for it. rz: because that passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) and you weren(cid:495)t on the board yet. not until january of (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:885). mv: right. rz: but you were (cid:498)for(cid:499) it? mv: oh, absolutely. rz: and then ten years later, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)… mv: we re‐introduced it. rz: now, measure j required the vote of napa county residents, as opposed to the board of supervisors, to convert ag land to non‐ag uses. mv: that(cid:495)s the general plan – to change the general plan, modify the general plan. rz: modify the general plan; putting the decision‐making in the hands of the voters. mv: yes, under measure j, you cannot take ag lands – anything that(cid:495)s designated ag lands in the general plan  and convert it to an urban use, which is the only alternative, without a vote of the people. unless it meets certain conditions: it has to be contiguous to the city, it has to have infrastructure, it has to be marginal ag lands or not useable as ag lands, which is really hard to find. i mean, you can always find an ag use on anything. and basically, some findings that you literally had to make in order to approve it by the board of supervisors. rz: now going back to one of the earliest issues that you got involved in, which was limiting commercial development along highway (cid:884)(cid:891), or preventing it from occurring, actually – that only required the majority vote of the board of supervisors. mv: it was the board of supervisors(cid:495) decision, right. rz: and then measure j would obviously broaden the … mv: the commercial development along the highway was simply a zoning issue. the board of supervisors today could do that. well, today they would have to modify the general plan, but then these were parcels that were in an ag zone, and all we had to do was to just conform them to agriculture. rz: oh, i see, i see. mv: so it was actually a zoning change, which is a little bit easier to do. rz: and i wondered if you could clarify a little bit the relationship between some of these measures and, let(cid:495)s say the ag preserve and the general plan. the general plan implements the ag preserve. 289

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mv: absolutely. yes, the ag preserve is a part of the general plan, and basically the general plan has as one of its mandates that we preserve agriculture as the highest and best use of the ag lands. rz: and every county is required to prepare a general plan. mv: yes. when i was on the executive committee at county supervisors association of california, i suggested that we require every county in california to have an agricultural element in the general plan, and try to get state law changed and mandate that. and the objections i got to that came from san francisco and l.a. san francisco, because they said they had no open space. and i said, (cid:498)well, you have a farmers(cid:495) market down there, what(cid:495)s wrong with that? that(cid:495)s agriculture. and you certainly can grow flowers, not counting the other crops that are sometimes grown in basements.(cid:499) but l.a., which has a lot of open space, objected because they don(cid:495)t want to tie up any of their open space with ag land. rz: what other counties now were interested in pursuing something like napa county? i know napa county was the first to pass this kind of ordinance. other counties views on land use mv: we were the first to pass the ag preserve and the first to pass the measure j type ordinance. the first county i know that wanted to do a measure j type ordinance was stanislaus county. and the county supervisor down there, named roland starn, wanted to do this and wanted to push it forward, and he was a peach farmer as well as a county supervisor. he wanted to see stanislaus county preserved. and when you think about what(cid:495)s going on now, with housing development and housing problems in that area  where a lot of those housing starts have created the housing crisis that we have today, particularly in the central valley  he was way ahead of his time in that area. but the farm bureau in that county, and three members of the board who were all farmers, opposed it bitterly, because they view ag lands as their retirement plan, because they can sub‐divide them and sell them off and then live happily ever after. rz: well now, what about west marin? mv: actually all of marin operates almost to a different drumbeat. i wouldn(cid:495)t say that they are an agricultural county per se, but they(cid:495)re one of the first counties to ever pass a tax to buy open space. you know, most of their hills have been purchased by the county so that they(cid:495)re held in preservation in perpetuity, so their land use planning is a little bit different than ours. the county that would be more like us would be sonoma county right next door to us, because they have a viable ag industry, and they certainly have people over there dedicated to open space and agricultural preservation – but they(cid:495)re almost ruled by the city of santa rosa, because santa rosa can do basically what it wants, and so they get trumped. the same thing happens in solano county. they passed a measure a in solano county, which is similar to our measure j, except that the cities can grow anytime they want. they can just annex land, and so it basically trumps the whole issue. so really the bottom line in ag preservation  and people don(cid:495)t really realize this  is having city councils that buy into these conditions, and then a city population like the one in napa that basically told its council, (cid:498)no, we don(cid:495)t want you to expand your borders.(cid:499) and when i was on the board, we would have regular meetings with the city council in napa to talk about common issues. and in about the early (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:882)s, there was a proposal to develop (cid:883),(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) acres south of napa, 290

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right on the border of napa, into residential and commercial. and they first talked to the city of napa about doing this. the city of napa said, (cid:498)well, we(cid:495)ll annex you and then you can build your properties out.(cid:499) and we were meeting with the city council, and i said to the mayor, i said, (cid:498)are you planning on expanding your borders to incorporate any new development?(cid:499) and the mayor immediately shot back to me, (cid:498)no! we have no interest in expanding our borders,(cid:499) which absolutely killed this project at that spot. because then they had to deal with the county, they had to deal with measure j, and that required a vote of the people. the people voted it down. rz: and the limits, the so‐called urban bubbles, are… mv: the urban bubbles are different. the cities, of course, have their city limits, they have their sphere of influence, and their boundaries. and most of the cities will buy into their boundaries, and they know that if they want to expand their boundaries, they(cid:495)re in for a real fist‐fight over that. the urban bubbles are little splotches of urban development throughout the county that aren(cid:495)t connected with any of the cities, and they(cid:495)re little bubbles – they(cid:495)re little circles that are drawn around them. and i think most of them were drawn in a sort of arbitrary manner, you know. you go look at a map and say, (cid:498)oh, here(cid:495)s angwin,(cid:499) and you draw a circle. (cid:498)and here(cid:495)s berryessa,(cid:499) and you draw a circle. and i think that(cid:495)s how most of them were developed – they weren(cid:495)t developed artfully. and one of the problems, of course, with doing anything on the general plan, is it then becomes a legal document and an art form. rz: how, today, can an incorporated city expand its boundaries? mv: well, what they have to do is they have to make a decision to do this. they have to come up with reasons for doing it, and then they have to go through the local agency formation commission, lafco.(cid:885)(cid:891) lafco basically holds the key to that. the only city in the county right now that has a real interest in expanding its borders that i know of is american canyon, and they would like to expand their borders. at one time, they would have liked to take their borders all the way up to the city of napa, which would have created this huge conglomeration that the city of napa actually was restricting itself on. rz: how does the county weigh in on these? mv: well, the county has two members on the lafco, out of five, so it gives it a little bit of strength. you have to have two members, of course, that agree to not expand the borders, which is not always an easy to do. and then the four members of the lafco take a public member, and usually the public member is the swing member, so you always try to get somebody who is leaning against expansion of city borders. most of the up‐valley cities and the city of napa aren(cid:495)t interested in expanding the borders, for different reasons, so that sort of isolates american canyon. and so far, it(cid:495)s been relatively easy to get the lafco to be opposed to those kinds of things. but lafco is established in california – the whole lafco concept was established in california to promote orderly growth. and for me, in california, that(cid:495)s an oxymoron. rz: who names the lafco members? mv: the board selects its own two members [to sit on lafco]. the city council rotates them, i think. the city of napa has a permanent member, and then the small cities select a member on a rotating basis. rz: so it really depends on… 291

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mv: what the make‐up of the board is. rz: and that(cid:495)s always subject to change. mv: that(cid:495)s right. this is the supreme court decision at the presidential level. [laughs] hillside erosion control issue rz: now i wanted to ask you, also, how you first got involved in the hillside erosion control issue, which resulted in an ordinance passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). mv: yes, (cid:495)(cid:891)(cid:882). south of calistoga, actually where the castle is now (cid:523)sattui(cid:495)s castle(cid:524), the owner of that property stripped his land, and the whole property slid down across the highway. and this occurred in the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s, and it was a monumental slide. the next big slide was when the one above bell canyon, the city of st. helena(cid:495)s water reservoir, when they stripped that land and it slid down. it became obvious that we had to start putting into place some measures to control the erosion of land. i had conversations with [enologist] dick peterson [dr. richard peterson], who was developing vineyards up at the top of soda canyon, and he was showing me some of the ways that they controlled erosion up there, which made a lot of sense to me. and so we then started initiating the discussion on erosion control, and we brought in united states department of agriculture land use specialists, and all of those people came up with an ordinance to control erosion. most of the good farmers practice those things like dr. peterson was doing up in soda canyon. rz: and had been doing for a long time? mv: yes, these were not things that were necessarily novel. most of them knew how to do it. what we did was to codify it into an ordinance so that we made everybody do it, and anybody who got a permit had to do it. and what we were able to achieve was to reduce erosion to basically its ambient level; its natural erosion level that would occur without any human interaction in the hillsides. and that goes a long way to preserving the rivers, preserving the waterways, as well as preserving the soil in the hillsides for growing. and any farmer will tell you that if the soil isn(cid:495)t good, you(cid:495)re not going to grow, so they want to keep the soil up there. rz: why were these vineyard developers, early on, not actually conforming to the sort of erosion control? mv: well, i(cid:495)m not sure they were good farmers, you know. this is a subjective term, but i think there are good farmers and there are not good farmers. if you look at the history of agriculture in the united states, you can see bad farming practices going back to (cid:883)(cid:888)(cid:886)(cid:882), and in some cases they(cid:495)ve wasted the soil to the point where it(cid:495)s not productive any more. and i think agriculturists and farmers have learned over the years how to take care of these things. when i was studying agriculture at salinas high school, one of the things that we learned was that whenever you have ground that is fallow, you plant it with something. you put a cover crop in it that holds the soil in place. and the cover crops were very valuable in holding soil in their place. it(cid:495)s now interesting to me that a lot of the vintners now use a cover crop between the rows – when i first came to napa county, none of them did that. they(cid:495)d take it all down to dirt and lose a lot of topsoil that way, even at the lower levels, because you(cid:495)ll get movement of soil even at the shallowest of slopes. 292

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but again, reading agricultural books, studying agriculture in salinas high school, i knew that was the wrong practice, so it made a lot sense to me that we operated in a different manner. and so i think we were able to put in some of the better methods of soil preservation into that ordinance, and i think a lot of farmers bought into it. we came up with an ordinance that was really great for preserving soil and for preserving the hillsides, as far as erosion goes, and preserving the river to maintain its quality as a river for supporting the wildlife that depend on the river for its existence. so i think it accomplished a lot of things. and the head of the local usda [u.s. dept. of agriculture] actually took this ordinance nationwide as a model ordinance for showing how to preserve soil in the hillsides. the sierra club filed a lawsuit, which i think was probably one of the most devastating lawsuits filed in california; they filed a lawsuit against us because apparently there was an agreement between the director of planning at that time and farmers, that they would not have to do an environmental review, even though that was mandated by state law. the sierra club knew this, and rather than write us a letter saying that you(cid:495)re not following state law, they filed a lawsuit – so it really tied up agricultural activities in the hillsides for a long time in napa county. it created a lot of economic hardships for a lot of farmers who were farming the hillsides. rz: is this the ceqa? (cid:886)(cid:882) mv: it was the ceqa issue. that was the sierra club versus napa county. and so it tied up … rz: and ceqa, for the record, stands for? mv: california environmental quality act. so it tied up preparation of hillsides for vineyards for a long, long time – cost farmers a lot of money and cost the county a lot of money. and this thing could have actually been handled by a simple letter, because i think the board would have directed staff to take care of the issue. but more importantly, counties up and down the state of california then backed away from hillside ordinances, simply because of that lawsuit. santa cruz was considering one; santa clara or santa barbara was considering one. monterey county, i think, was considering one. they were considering one in sonoma county. so there were maybe half a dozen counties throughout california who were going to try to adopt an ordinance to take care erosion control, erosion problems in their hillsides with an ordinance similar to our ordinance. but when sierra club filed the lawsuit, they all backed away from it. so in an effort to assert themselves … [end of tape (cid:885)] [tape (cid:886)] effects of sierra club lawsuit rz: so, mel, you were talking about other counties that backed off of hillside ordinances. mv: yes, they backed away from it because they didn(cid:495)t want to get in, tied up with lawsuits with sierra club chapters in their own county, or with anybody else in their own county that may have an ax to grind with agriculture. the, so the result of that lawsuit was, i think, devastating statewide. for napa county, it cost us a lot of money. set us back a number of years in actually coming up with an 293

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ability to effectively farm the hillsides – and i don(cid:495)t think most farmers were trying to overwhelm the hillsides. i think most of them were trying to integrate into the hillsides and work with the hillsides. but at that time, the sierra club had an attitude that any human activity anywhere was wrong. unfortunately… rz: including agriculture? mv: including agriculture. and what they don(cid:495)t realize, and didn(cid:495)t realize, i don(cid:495)t believe, is that agriculture basically is the thing that keeps this county an open space environment. it basically preserves the environment more than anything else. any other activity would be far more harmful to the overall welfare of the county. and you know, that was a group of people in the sierra club that are no longer there; they(cid:495)ve been replaced, i think, because there were some within the sierra club upset over those kinds of things. i think the other side effect was when we tried to come up with hillside two, the second hillside ordinance. i think by then, there was such a hardening of attitudes over the first experience, on this lawsuit, that we had a very difficult time coming up with the second ordinance. and really the fundamental purpose of the second ordinance was to preserve the streams coming out of the hillsides, and preserve groundwater, to make sure that the farmers weren(cid:495)t just taking the water, dumping it into the stream and flushing it into the river and into the ocean – but that they actually were trying to get it percolate back into the ground to replenish our groundwater system, which would, of course, help agriculture and the human population throughout napa county. rz: was this the idea of creating these catchment basins? mv: the catchment basins. they already require those; that(cid:495)s there. but right now they can dump, you know if they need to dump those basins, they can dump them into the stream and just shoot it down the stream and into the river. what i think we wanted to do was to see them take those basins and spread the water so that it would actually percolate back into the ground and become part of the groundwater system, which is the natural sort of thing to do. and also preserve the banks of the hillside streams so that they didn(cid:495)t slough off if they were farming too close to those streams. and there were a lot of farmers that accepted these concepts, but there were a lot of them that had suffered under the first hillside ordinance lawsuit, that i don(cid:495)t think wanted to go through this sort of thing again. and so we had a real difficult time passing what i think would have been a tremendously strong environmental measure in napa county, that would have helped agriculture in the long run. rz: so there were two hillside ordinances. mv: two of them. rz: i didn(cid:495)t realize that. so the first hillside ordinance was passed in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882). mv: yes. rz: and when was the next one? mv: the next one we started somewhere around (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:890), and worked on it right up until, it was still being worked on when i left the board in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:884). and the board passed an ordinance, a very modest ordinance, that year after i left. then there was a referendum filed on it; it was overturned by the people. 294

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rz: oh, so it was not successful ultimately. mv: not passed, no. unfortunately. rz: well, there was a big issue that sparked, i think, the effort to pass an ordinance, and that had to do with the bell canyon reservoir? mv: that was the first ordinance. that was hillside one. rz: that was because what was found in the reservoir? mv: well, it was actually dirt. i mean, this whole hillside just sloughed off into the reservoir because of the farming practices of that particular farmer. it was one farmer. there were two people up there farming; one was fine and the other one wasn(cid:495)t. the other one was following practices that were detrimental to hillside farming. and oddly enough, these are practices that, if you were to go to germany or to places like that, in italy, where they farm steep slopes, they(cid:495)ve been doing this for a thousand years. and taking care of those slopes, because a long time ago they realized that if they didn(cid:495)t, they wouldn(cid:495)t be there very long. rz: yes, it just seems so common sense. mv: it is common sense. but sometimes people will come in, and they want to build a vineyard and they want to build a winery, and they want to show it to their friends and they want it done in a hurry – and they strip the ground, and pretty soon the ground goes into the river. rz: without fully realizing what they(cid:495)re doing. mv: not understanding what they(cid:495)re doing. rz: now, how do most grape growers feel about this now? what about … it was delia viader, i think, whose vineyard slipped. mv: she also had a second incidence right after the ordinance had passed. rz: she did? mv: yes, she(cid:495)s been to that well twice, i think. rz: how do you find most grape growers respond now to this? mv: most of them that i know do not like the farmers that basically violate the land that way. you know, it does two things: it makes farming unpopular with people who don(cid:495)t farm. and it also, i think, hits them at a very important part of their whole existence, and that(cid:495)s the preservation of land, so they can use it to grow. rz: it(cid:495)s for the common good. mv: absolutely. 295

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rz: so everyone benefits. mv: absolutely, and i think most grape growers understand that. that(cid:495)s why most of them were following good farming practices before we passed this thing. it(cid:495)s just a few who were not. we had one instance where we were shown some photos where the gullies in the vineyard were six feet deep from the erosion – and this particular individual, this particular property owner, opposed an ordinance to preserve soil erosion. he didn(cid:495)t really, didn(cid:495)t get a lot of sympathy from the board. rz: and was that, were these gullies rectified? mv: well, they had to be eventually, but this fellow lost a lot of good soil. rz: well, now i wanted to ask you a little bit about why you think napa county has been more successful with some of these ag preservation measures than other counties? why napa? why ag preserve works mv: after people bought into the ag preserve … well, it(cid:495)s interesting. i(cid:495)ll step back a little bit. one of the things i like to do is i travel around. whenever i travel to other places, i like to read letters to the editor. i love to read letters to the editor. and for a long time, whenever i(cid:495)d read letters to the editor, i(cid:495)d always find somebody complaining about growth. i don(cid:495)t care where it was, reno or timbuktu, i read letters that said: (cid:498)dear editor, you know we(cid:495)re growing too fast,(cid:499) or, (cid:498)we(cid:495)re taking something out of open space.(cid:499) on and on and on. rz: it seems to be universal, doesn(cid:495)t it? mv: it is, it(cid:495)s the universal thing. so you look at napa county, bring it back down to napa county, and most people like these small towns. even in the city of napa, the residents like napa as a not‐ overwhelming town. so people like this. they don(cid:495)t want to see that change; people don(cid:495)t want to change. so they tend to buy into this idea of controlling growth. people have seen what it had done to santa clara county. people have seen what it(cid:495)s done to fairfield and vacaville, suisun valley, so they really don(cid:495)t like this. then you bring in an agricultural product that makes money, and that adds to the equation. you know, if we were growing grapes and these guys were losing their shirts growing grapes, we would not be able to preserve the agricultural base in here. it would not last. we wouldn(cid:495)t make it. so the fact that the ag industry in napa county is a very viable industry and people can actually make a good living growing grapes, is extremely important to the whole concept of agricultural preservation. and it(cid:495)s almost like a three‐legged stool, you know. the people like it because it keeps the community small and the open space is rich. farmers like it because they can make a living growing their product here. and the public members can then keep it in place by voting in and enforcing the ordinances to do these things. but without one part of the stool, it all falls apart. rz: well now, why would sonoma not be more successful? mv: well, they don(cid:495)t have the three legs. they don(cid:495)t have the people on their side. the people who live in the city of santa rosa, a lot of them out‐commute – you know, santa rosa and rohnert park and that 296

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whole urban mass there. and so a lot of these people aren(cid:495)t really committed to the small town, because it(cid:495)s not a small town; it has just grown overwhelmingly. and so there(cid:495)s no feeling about keeping it small – it(cid:495)s too late. and so they don(cid:495)t have the people on their side. rz: well, what do you think some of the challenges are for the future then, with, let(cid:495)s give an example, an increase in absentee ownership here in napa county? mv: i think that(cid:495)s serious. that(cid:495)s not the most serious issue. the most serious issue is actually the housing requirement the state(cid:495)s going to impose on napa county every few years to meet its housing requirement. rz: is this low‐income or affordable housing? mv: no, it(cid:495)s everything. it(cid:495)s just housing, period. a portion of it has to be affordable housing, and there(cid:495)s no way in the unincorporated area that you can build affordable housing, you know? i mean, that(cid:495)s nonsense, because you have to build the infrastructure to support it. whenever you add the infrastructure to the cost, it(cid:495)s not going to be affordable. so it(cid:495)s impossible to do that. so what abag [association of bay area governments] and the state housing folks are doing is, they(cid:495)re basically looking at the bay region and saying, (cid:498)napa, your fair share of this [requirement for increased housing] is…(cid:499)(cid:886)(cid:883) well, you know, if we have that fair share, then we(cid:495)re sharing it with solano and santa clara and alameda county and marin county and some of the other big urban counties out there. and that does not help us in the long haul, or in the foreseeable future, for making sure that we have open space, because we have a limited amount of area in the unincorporated area where we can meet those [abag] goals. actually, in the cities as well. rz: it seems very inequitable, considering the differences. mv: you know, it actually goes back, oddly enough, to the tax base, because housing development doesn(cid:495)t pay its own way in any tax structure. contrary to what all the proponents for prop (cid:883)(cid:885) might think, it does not do it – it may pay forty percent of what the cost of actually maintaining services for that family really is. so it(cid:495)s really the industrial base and the commercial base that pays the tax. and in napa county, part of that comes from the ag industry, because they are our large industrial base. so you have this tax base out here without housing and you can do quite well. when you start adding housing in, then you start diminishing the quality of your life, because then you don(cid:495)t have the taxes that you can spread. so a county like solano county does not have the same tax base; they(cid:495)re expanding. one of the reasons those cities are expanding is to keep the revenue flowing into their community so they can keep paying for their services. once they stop, they will then start going down in quality of life, because they won(cid:495)t be able to pay for all those services. and that(cid:495)ll come – there(cid:495)s a point where they can(cid:495)t grow any more. so what we really need to do is, we have to redesign our tax structure throughout the bay area if we(cid:495)re going to preserve napa county. it has to be redesigned in such a way that we actually share more equitably among the counties, but nobody(cid:495)s willing to take that step. i mean, this is a very huge step in inter‐county cooperation; it would be huge to do that. but that, in essence, is what has to happen in order to make sure a place like napa county can preserve its open space and agricultural base. you know, if we go back to the state(cid:495)s mandate, the state has two mandates: provide adequate housing and protect agriculture. and to protect agriculture is the one they ignore. 297

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rz: how do you see some of the other challenges, like the current level of tourism? mv: well, tourism. i don(cid:495)t know how we ever get away from tourism. tourism is a very destructive thing, i mean, anybody who thinks otherwise is just not thinking it through very clearly. they bring a lot of money into the county, there(cid:495)s no question about that. they support a lot of our industries and a lot of our activities, and certainly a lot of people(cid:495)s lives depend on tourists. without tourists we wouldn(cid:495)t have nearly the quality of life that we have, so it(cid:495)s one of those things where it has this double‐edged sword kind of effect. and the other side of it is, that there are too many cars on the roads, too many people overwhelming our services, too many people overwhelming the communities, too many people overwhelming just what we have here, so as to make it at some times intolerable as far as living. as i said, i grew up in salinas which, as you know, is not far from carmel, and carmel, for me, is one of the garden spots of the world. i just think carmel is one of the most beautiful places i have ever been in my entire life. even as a young kid, what i wanted to do is grow old in carmel. i thought that the bay there, where the carmel river flows down into that crescent bay … i just wanted to grow old there. that is just what i wanted; to walk on that beach as an old man. but carmel is overwhelmed with tourists. if you go there on a saturday and you go from the highway to the beach, it takes you almost an hour – and it(cid:495)s about three‐quarters of a mile. i mean, it(cid:495)s just awful. and i can remember when i was on the city council, taking with the mayor of carmel at that time, and… rz: was this clint eastwood? mv: no, it wasn(cid:495)t clint. anyhow, i was talking with the mayor, and he said that their police department had thirty‐five members, and it was a town the size of st. helena. and when i was on the department, we had eight members, and i think it grew to ten. so this was because of the tourists. i sat in on a tourist conference one time with an economist from the university of california, and he said a very interesting thing to me. i just really enjoyed it. he said the worst example of tourism is carmel, because people go there for what they have. the best example of tourism, he said, is taiwan, because nobody goes there, but they buy their product. and that was interesting, that was very interesting to me, and so i thought of napa county. napa county is in between, you know, because people can buy the product without coming here, but they come here and buy the product. so it(cid:495)s a little of both, you know – it(cid:495)s a mixture of carmel and taiwan. rz: how interesting. well, i(cid:495)m wondering what other challenges do you see ahead? such as, let(cid:495)s say, wineries being purchased by large corporations? mv: well, the problem of course with that is that they(cid:495)re just (cid:498)bottom line(cid:499) people. they(cid:495)re sitting in corporate boards back in new york or someplace like that, making decisions. and if it doesn(cid:495)t meet their bottom line projections or doesn(cid:495)t meet their requirement for dividend distribution, then they want to peddle the asset, or break up the asset, and do something else with it. rz: and they(cid:495)re not concerned at all about ag preservation. mv: not at all, they don(cid:495)t care about agricultural preservation, they don(cid:495)t care about hillside preservation, they don(cid:495)t care about the communities, they don(cid:495)t care about anything. and so it(cid:495)s not a real good deal, i don(cid:495)t think. you know, there are large corporations that are actually good corporate citizens. i can(cid:495)t say all corporations are the same. some are awful, but some are good quality citizens, and we(cid:495)ve had both in 298

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napa county. future of ag preservation rz: well, i wanted to ask you just a couple of other questions. one is, how do you feel about the future here for napa county in terms of ag preservation? mv: it(cid:495)s a tough fight. it(cid:495)s going to be a tough fight. clearly the strength is in the ability of farmers and vintners to grow crops, make good money on them. but it(cid:495)s a tough fight. there(cid:495)s going to always be people wanting to expand the borders of the cities, and there(cid:495)s always going to be people who want to expand into the unincorporated area for housing. we see that going on up in angwin right now, where they(cid:495)re wanting to develop quite a bit of property up there for housing. that is going to have a huge impact on people who live down here in the valley floor, and the highways and even the ag industry in the long term. the more non‐agricultural people that you bring into a county, the more you get to the sonoma county model, where you have people who are disinterested in agriculture and just view it as something that exists, that they(cid:495)re not connected with. you(cid:495)re talking about the future fears that i have, and that would be that more and more people come in. anyhow, new people moving in may not have a sensitivity to agriculture and open space that a lot of people have who have lived here for a long time. they may not understand the relationship between small town lifestyle and the importance of agriculture. so i think if we start seeing more urban development, such as the angwin development and others that might want to occur in american canyon and even perhaps in napa, is a shift more to the sonoma county model. in that model the urban population has less sensitivity to the needs of agriculture and the open space requirements for agriculture, and they then start making decisions and seeing decisions made that are detrimental to agriculture in the long run. one of the things that could happen with water shortages, particularly in the up‐valley and even in napa, is more interest in tapping into the groundwater system. st. helena already has some wells into the ground water system. calistoga has talked about it. napa has talked about it. and i think even yountville has talked about it. if they start drawing water out of the groundwater, it could basically destroy the groundwater basin, which would then destroy agriculture in napa county. so there are a lot of problems with growth that could be very harmful to us if we(cid:495)re not very careful and not very cautious of how we do it. and in the city of st. helena, when i made arguments against their building the well, even though two members of that council made their living in agriculture, they didn(cid:495)t make the connection between serving the urban population and protecting the groundwater basin to protect the broader community, which i think is absolutely critical. so people at the city council level can make decisions, even though they will support some of the broader ordinances, that can be very detrimental to the long‐term preservation of agricultural open space. rz: if you had to guess about the future of agriculture in napa county in, let(cid:495)s say, thirty years, what would be your guess? mv: i think it will be much smaller than what it is in land mass. i don(cid:495)t think the land mass would be as great – may still exist, i really don(cid:495)t know, but i don(cid:495)t think it will have the same land mass. 299

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rz: do you think that there(cid:495)s anything unique about the political system here in napa county or sort of the political traditions, that make these land preservation measures easier to pass? mv: well, you know, it(cid:495)s again the people understanding that to maintain the small towns, you have to maintain the borders, whatever that means. and it(cid:495)s always been kind of fascinating to me – when measure p goes up for the voters in three weeks, we(cid:495)ll see how they vote. but it(cid:495)s my guess that two‐thirds of them will support this. so two‐thirds of the population in napa county right now supports slow growth, if it(cid:495)s presented as a slow growth measure. about fifty‐five percent voted against the hillside ordinance two, which was a preservation measure to preserve the hillsides and to preserve agriculture and help to protect the open space. but they didn(cid:495)t draw the connection between that and growth, and the connection wasn(cid:495)t made for them, so they basically turned it down. so they actually turned down something that could have gone a long way to help agriculture meet some of its long‐term needs, i.e., putting water back into the groundwater system and preserving the groundwater system a little bit better than we do currently. and when that nexus is not made … [end of tape (cid:886)] [tape (cid:887)] rz: mel, you were talking about urban populations and their relationship to agriculture and open space. mv: as i said to you, if the connection is made between growth and the preservation of agriculture and open space, they(cid:495)ll vote overwhelming for the growth issue which favors agriculture and open space. if you cannot make that connection – as we were unable to make that connection between the second hillside ordinance and growth, the connection between growth and development – then they tend to sever that tie and can vote those things down. even though that issue can be as important for the preservation of agriculture as any other issue out there, such as measure p or measure j or measure a. rz: do you think the second hillside ordinance or something like that might resurface? mv: i hope it does. all the work has been done; it(cid:495)s there. it just needs somebody to resurrect it at some point in the future, and i think they need to take a different tack in presenting it to the public and to the community than was taken on the first go‐around. rz: is that something you would like to get involved in? mv: well, i(cid:495)m not sure i have the energy any more. [laughs] rz: well, you(cid:495)re still obviously very actively involved and informed. mv: yes, it would be good to see it come up, and it(cid:495)s one of those things that somebody who had some serious political skill, i think, could put it through. the person who was pushing that issue at that time, i don(cid:495)t think had the political skill, the political wherewithal. rz: and who was that? mv: mike rippey. 300

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rz: oh, yes. well, what about the next generation of napa residents? do you see leaders emerging from the wine industry? mv: no, i think this for me is probably one of the scariest things, is not seeing young people who want to step up to the plate and actually take over a local political position. it(cid:495)s kind of interesting – in this year of a national election we(cid:495)re seeing so many people enthused about the presidential election, and i guess they(cid:495)re expecting large quantities of young people to vote for the first time, and participate, and many of them have been actively participating. and i(cid:495)ve even talked to a couple of young people who have traveled as far away as pennsylvania to work on this election, so these are people that have gotten deeply involved in it. i think we need that same level of interest at the local level. the national level is extremely important, but our daily lives are directed from the local level. rz: thank you for your perspective, mel. this ends our oral history. thank you. [end of tape (cid:887)] [conclusion of interview.] 301

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warren winiarski oral history preserving napa county’s agriculture leap winery in 2007. he was interviewed in two separate sessions, both of which were held at his home near jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund interview conducted by rue ziegler january (cid:889), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891) participants: ww – warren winiarski(cid:886)(cid:884) rz – rue ziegler [interviewer’s note: warren winiarski was a vintner and grape grower in 1968. he sold his acclaimed stag’s the winery, north of napa, above the silverado trail.] [tape (cid:883)] early life rz: warren, i wonder if we could just start out with you giving us your full name and date of birth. ww: warren winiarski, and my date of birth is october (cid:884)(cid:884), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:884)(cid:890). rz: do you have a middle name? ww: paul. that was for my mother(cid:495)s father. stephen, my son(cid:495)s name, is from my father. and his middle name is barbara(cid:495)s father(cid:495)s name. rz: which was? ww: dvozak. stephen wanted to do that with the next generation – if he had one son, it would be warren. but he doesn(cid:495)t have a son, so one of the daughters(cid:495) names is arren, which is warren without the (cid:498)w.(cid:499) rz: oh, that(cid:495)s great! [laughter] well now, your father, stephen winiarski, was born in poland? ww: he was born in the united states. he was the first of the siblings to be born here. they immigrated around (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:891)(cid:886). rz: from what area in poland? ww: the winiarski part of the family immigrated from northern poland, in the bydgoszcz area. rz: now the name winiarski means (cid:498)winemaker(cid:499)? ww: it means (cid:498)from a winemaker.(cid:499) rz: so were there winemakers in your father(cid:495)s family? ww: well, actually, my father was a winemaker. i mean, during prohibition in the united states, people were permitted to make up to (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) gallons of wine for family use, and he made  i don(cid:495)t think he ever made (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) gallons  but he made fruit‐flavored wines, honey wines and, as far as i know, no grapes were used. but it(cid:495)s possible that they bought grapes in the italian fruit market when grapes came in from california during prohibition for winemaking. rz: we(cid:495)ll get back to that, but first i want to ask you about your mother. your mother(cid:495)s name was? 302

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ww: charlotte would be the nearest english equivalent. and, her maiden name was lacki, an (cid:498)l(cid:499) with a little cross through the upright part so that softens it. i(cid:495)m told there(cid:495)s a town in poland called lacki, near krakow. rz: so was she born in poland as well? ww: no, she was born in the united states. rz: like your father. but they were first generation born in the u.s., and their families settled in chicago, or in the chicago area? ww: in chicago. rz: and were you the oldest child? ww: no, my sister, who passed away, was the oldest of the three of us. my younger sister passed away in an accident, and my older sister passed away about five years ago. rz: and i know that you grew up in the northwest side of chicago in a very tight polish community? ww: yes. rz: there(cid:495)s a lot that has been written about your early years, i know, all the influences on you, so i won(cid:495)t ask you to go through all of that material. but i did want to ask you particular questions related to your sense of community and place that influenced you when you were growing up in chicago. i know you(cid:495)ve talked a lot about the solidarity of the community, and the polish national catholic cathedral, i think, is a very strong social center of your community. ww: yes. remembering chicago’s polish community rz: how were your parents and their friends and other relatives bound so closely together? ww: well, the church was a large part of that, because the community in that particular neighborhood was a little mixed, but it was mainly parishioners from the cathedral in that area. so it was a strong sense of cohesion, social cohesion and the community feeling. you knew your neighbors, and you knew your neighbors who knew your neighbors. the neighborhood was like a little town within the larger city, and, it had its confines and it had its infrastructure. it had its service entities, like drugstores and butchers and bakers and shoemakers and beauty shops and clothing stores. it was sort of self‐sufficient within itself – it appeared to be self‐sufficient within itself – because all these needs of a basic physical and moral kind were met all within a geographical, limited area. rz: how large was this area? ww: well, it became a little diffuse at the edges, but i would say it was maybe, let(cid:495)s see, if we did it carefully, i would just guess it was a couple of square miles, maybe a square mile. i have to do that in terms of blocks because eight blocks constituted … i don(cid:495)t know whether you are aware of the blocks in chicago. they(cid:495)re all different; all of the city is a little different – some are square, some are rectangular, and eight long‐sided rectangular blocks constituted a mile. i(cid:495)m guessing it was a couple of square miles. the community sense, the neighborhood sense, became more intense as you got to the various centers within that large polish community. if you were twenty blocks away, if you were forty blocks away, it felt a little different. there were still poles and the signs on the stores were still frequently in polish, but it was another group – it may have been a roman catholic group. 303

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it may have been centered around the schools or the high schools. those neighborhoods would have had people from that area. my grammar school was named after one of the heroes of the american revolution who came from poland to help with the american revolutionary cause. rz: and who was that? ww: [casimir] pulaski. rz: and did you live close to the cathedral; was that the social center for your community? ww: yes, it was, right. and we were about three blocks from the grammar school. where i and my siblings all went to the school. rz: did you all grow up speaking polish at home? ww: yes, we all went to polish school, and we all could speak polish, and we did, in the early times. actually, it may have been (cid:887)(cid:882)/(cid:887)(cid:882) between english school and polish school. it was after public school. rz: well, you were lucky that you lived in that neighborhood, because so often, first generation american children who don(cid:495)t live in their ethnic communities lose their native tongue and try to assimilate by speaking english. ww: yes, i was lucky. and because polish makes certain demands on the articulation of the sounds, which are quite wide in their phonetics, the need to pronounce all the syllables, learning other languages was easier because of that training in polish in the beginning. learning french and italian and a little bit of german and now spanish, it(cid:495)s much easier, because the range of sounds was already covered. in polish, it is quite a demanding phonetic scheme. it does make quite an extended demand on the ability to phoneticize the sounds that are in the alphabet. rz: so you(cid:495)ve mastered the most difficult. ww: yes, the most difficult – learning how to play golf on sand, i am told, instead of grass causes you to learn the most difficult strokes more easily. rz: now, were your parents a very strong influence on you in terms of community involvement, community activism? ww: i would say so, within our own community, because our own community had organized social events, and it was taken for granted that we would be part of that. part of growing up and part of living was being part of that social milieu, and we all did it very unconsciously. it was more of an organic kind of participation in things within the community. rz: more informal; it was just part of the everyday. ww: yes. when i say organic, i mean more organ‐like because you were part of a larger organ. you were organismic, if you want to use that term. rz: a larger microcosm. ww: right, it was a real community in the sense that you participated naturally. rz: and were there lots of debates about issues of the day? is there anything you can remember, for example, what was happening in the neighborhood itself? ww: i would have to think about the kind of things that we did as a community  as a church community 304

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 and then as a secular community, which was not (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882) percent polish. in the things that were done, it just seemed as though there was a large tapestry of activity, social activity in which we had views or in which we had … there were no divisive issues that i remember. what was happening to the community was rather stable, i mean, within that context, things were stable for all the time that i was growing up, and then as i left, the changes in the community, i was not part of that anymore. so i can(cid:495)t really speak to how the neighborhood organized itself in any way. rz: it must have been a hard time, though, because of the years of the depression when you were growing up. ww: i don(cid:495)t think there was a larger social apparatus to deal with that. there would be no one to whom … i mean there was public health. i remember public health stations within the community, but i was pretty young at that time and the political issues were not things that i was aware of taking place, as a community. we had our wards and we were represented at city hall, and i would think that the social services were adequate to deal with the hardships that were taking place. rz: what do you remember your parents discussing or being concerned about? ww: you know, i don(cid:495)t have a strong recollection about particular things except the usual domestic kinds of things. and the hardships were things that we couldn(cid:495)t do and things we had to resolve, because of the overall economy of the country was difficult. rz: your father ran a livery business, is that right? ww: yes. rz: and how did that business begin? ww: it was inherited from his father and continued then by him, and i think it began as a hauling of material, for coal and fuel in the winter and ice in the summertime. these were the times i remember  you may not – before refrigerators. you remember the first ge refrigerator that had the compression unit on top? big coils on top, kind of a sphere that coiled on top. and actually, before that there were wooden cabinets that had various compartments, and one of the compartments had ice, block ice. rz: oh, you(cid:495)re talking about an icebox. and your father would deliver the ice? ww: well, he(cid:495)d have people…they ran the business, and they would have people working and delivering ice. rz: so you went to high school in your community…and then at some point, you applied to the university of chicago. ww: yes. so i went to a technical high school. the high school wasn(cid:495)t exactly in the neighborhood, but it was a good school and i wanted to go to it. they had a college prep segment, but in the first two years i did the technical aspect of it also. it was training for vocations, and so they had various shops: wood shop, machine shop, electric shop and print shop, which was very interesting. lithography was just beginning, so that was one of the shops. and within those technical courses for the first two years there was also latin  no, latin was in the third year. so there was english as part of the technical curriculum of the first two years. [end of tape (cid:883)] 305

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early education [tape (cid:884)] rz: so, warren, we were talking about your technical school and the broad range of education it offered. ww: well, it was very good, because it had not only the technical aspects, but it also had the sciences that technology is built on, for example, chemistry and physics. and one had to do algebra and calculus, and you had to do the theoretical disciplines, and then you did the practical technology, so to speak, which grew out of those applied to physical principles  the chemical principles  for actual use in print shop. we mixed the inks and so on. i didn(cid:495)t do the linotype, you may remember from journalism. newspapers used to be made with linotype with lead castings, and i didn(cid:495)t do that particular shop. i think that may have been a technology that was sort of passing out of the scene anyway at that time. but learning how an automobile engine worked  the internal combustion engine  that(cid:495)s an applied technology which is physical. but we did the physics also, so we did the basic, primary sciences and then applied technologies to human convenience, human applications, automobiles. the principles of physics and chemistry as it applied to internal combustion of a certain chemical substance called gasoline. so all of this was sort of mixed together, and you had to take all these courses. at the same time, you were taking the basic humanistic sciences and disciplines, and after that first two years of the mixture you could specialize. then i did latin and i did french, and i did more history and humanistic disciplines after that in the last two years, so it was very good. rz: what was the name of the school? ww: lane technical high school. it(cid:495)s still operating. rz: have you been back? ww: they had a class reunion. unfortunately, i couldn(cid:495)t attend it, but there are still some members of that class who get together from time to time. and they have an alumni association. it was all, it was all male at that time, but i think now the curriculum is a little bit different and they have women who attend class. rz: so how did you decide to go to the university of chicago? ww: by that time my interests had become awakened by the humanistic disciplines and even at lane, and i was reading more generally and, and i thought i would study more of that kind of thing which interested me, more broad in the humanistic discipline. so i did that. it was not quite resolved, i guess, for me, whether it would be the applied discipline, because i had to think about what i was going to do to earn my own way as a person, and eventually have a family. so what was that going to be? and i thought maybe that those humanistic disciplines could be kind of subset in something i could do vocationally, and i thought that would be perhaps forestry. and so i spent about a semester at the [colorado state] university at fort collins, which is a school of agriculture and mining, and they had a forestry division. the college years ww: and then a major change occurred when i read a book called how to read a book by mortimer adler. that really made a very profound impression on me. he talked about a college that devoted itself to reading the great works of the western tradition, reading those books carefully and becoming acquainted with the great western traditions of science and philosophical thoughts. and that sounded more in tune with my mind; that really put me in that new direction. rz: wasn(cid:495)t robert m. hutchins one of the great believers in this? 306

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ww: yes, he was, and he tried to do it at the undergraduate program at the university of chicago. but he was not there when i was; they were dismantling that program. rz: when you left colorado you went back to chicago? ww: no, when i was there at chicago, i attended lectures. i didn(cid:495)t really matriculate at the university of chicago; i attended lectures there, and they were also at the broader level of the humanities. but then i went to fort collins. and later i could(cid:495)ve gone, i could have matriculated into the undergraduate program at the university of chicago, but i didn(cid:495)t, and that(cid:495)s because this small college in annapolis, maryland devoted itself completely to this hutchins formality of education, no electives whatever. so this was a pure form of what was already being dismantled at the university of chicago. rz: st. john(cid:495)s college in annapolis, maryland was a very small school. how many students were there in the four‐year program? ww: at that time i think there may have been less than (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) total, because my class started with about ninety, and at the end of the freshman year, with some having dropped out, i think by the time the class graduated there were more or less thirty‐something remaining from that class of ninety. it wasn(cid:495)t for them, or it was too difficult, or for one reason or another their minds changed, and so i(cid:495)m just guessing at the time of entering the freshman class, there were maybe (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) or fewer total students. this was shortly after the war, and there were veterans who had come back, and there were people who were very much engaged in non‐humanistic studies. they needed to get vocational training. you know, people who had gone off who had been trained in the armed forces for that four years; they were all building their levittowns, and also needing jobs – needing to get into the new economy and the new industrial occupations which were developing. rz: you graduated from st. john(cid:495)s in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:885), so you entered when? ww: (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:890). rz: were there particular professors that you recall who had a large influence on you? ww: yes, there were. but they all had significance, because they were all, we were all working the same thoughts and thinking the same ideas. and, and the teachers, or the tutors as they called them, were there to help you elucidate. i mean, no one teaches you how to think. you think because you are a human, but your thinking can be more disciplined. you know, birds fly because that(cid:495)s what birds do. and people think because that(cid:495)s what people do – humans do. and no one can teach you that. mother birds don(cid:495)t teach their hatchlings how to fly; that(cid:495)s what they do. and fish swim because that(cid:495)s what they do. so the idea that st. john(cid:495)s teaches people how to think – they show thinking as i guess as birds show their hatchlings, by flapping their wings, but they just somehow actuate what is potentially there. and so they were all influential in that regard. with their thinking, you were thinking better. rz: and learning the process of thinking in a more critical … ww: not quite (cid:498)learning,(cid:499) but examining the process. perhaps not learning it, because that(cid:495)s what you do. no one actually teaches you, and you don(cid:495)t learn how to do it – you do it. but you do it sort of reflecting on what you are doing, and that makes the doing of it more, more explicit and more part of you. i don(cid:495)t know if that(cid:495)s clear, but… those classes were very small and it(cid:495)s all required, all four years of math and four years of language and four years of sciences, laboratory work and repeating the great experiments that are in the western tradition. and four years of thinking on broad issues in small, self‐helping groups. you(cid:495)re doing the thinking together with your two tutors. the college always had two tutors in the seminars, so that you wouldn(cid:495)t do the little thing that we described with the board of supervisors – you wouldn(cid:495)t get attached; you wouldn(cid:495)t be talking to the tutor. you(cid:495)re talking among yourselves, and the tutor is there to help guide that process, but not to direct it. 307

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rz: so this is very different from other schools in the (cid:495)(cid:887)(cid:882)s, who were so dependent on rote. ww: yes, to that extent. but i mean, in mathematics, two and two are four, and if you come up with the answer (cid:498)three,(cid:499) you(cid:495)re doing something wrong. so there(cid:495)s a certain amount of rote, but the seminars were more a place where the broadness of speculation and interpretation and discussion took place – groups, different sections within your classmates. [break in tape.] rz: so, warren, we were talking about st. john(cid:495)s having a very tight community feeling to it. ww: community of learning. yes, community of learning, and maybe some of the dropouts were people who were impatient and didn(cid:495)t respond to that. i can(cid:495)t say, but it(cid:495)s speculation that some of the people were unresponsive to that kind of situation where there was a mutuality of learning, and you dedicated your intellectual resources to thinking about the same kinds of problems and helping each other to be enlightened, to come to some grasp and to understand. you all were devoted to those who loved that kind of thing, whose insight flowed from that kind of participation that was mutually supportive and enhanced each other(cid:495)s ability to learn. rz: and in your senior year, i think, you met barbara dvorak, who was a freshman at the time? did you know right away she was going to be someone of interest? ww: thinking back on it, there were little signs, but i don(cid:495)t think i grasped those in the same way that i did upon reflection later. i could have. there were observations that i made that were interesting. rz: you had a lot of things in common? ww: because, yes, we had gone through the same … i had gone through everything she was going through in discussions, so there was a large basis of communality of interest. graduate school rz: and in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:884), you completed your studies at st. john(cid:495)s and went to the university of chicago for graduate school. what was your area of interest? ww: it was political science. [break in tape] ww: so barbara was at st. john(cid:495)s as a freshman, and there was a lot we had in common, because i had already gone through that program – the issues and some of the books that were in use. naturally the curriculum changes a little bit; they have an instruction committee and they do change some of the books that they read. they changed some of the ways of presenting the material, but that(cid:495)s small compared to the overall continuity of the program, so that going back and talking to freshman today, after all these years, we can talk about the same issues that we did then. rz: now, i know that when you were in graduate school, you studied machiavelli. ww: yes, i started in the political science department, and that was a little narrow. i did not want to be a constitutional lawyer. i still wanted to continue that broad approach … political science is divided into political theory and public administration, and constitutional law and political theory was more interesting to me. and i could do that in still a broader context. [end of tape (cid:884)] 308

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studies in italy [tape (cid:885)] rz: so, warren, you were talking about political science. ww: then i changed from political science to the committee on social thought, but still maintained the relationship within the political theory department with a man named leo strauss. so i was actually a student of leo strauss, but within the committee on social thought; that was my formal affiliation in the university. so i took courses with david grene and yves simon on philosophy and the founder of the committee on social thought, john neff. we read tocqueville together. we read thucydides with david grene and i read aquinas with yves simon. they were great teachers. and, it was, again, reading and discussing. reading the works independently, and then discussion, and then there were other little groups that met. leo strauss had some additional groups that met, reading hegel and also attending his seminars, a series of seminars during that time. at a certain point, the origin of modern political thought began; to understand that became pretty important for me. conventionally, at least, descartes is the beginning of the philosophic tradition of modernity; machiavelli believed himself to be the origin of modern thinking, leading then to hobbes and locke in the english tradition. so machiavelli(cid:495)s chapter (cid:883)(cid:887) in the prince announces the departure from all previous political thought, political philosophy. you might remember he said, (cid:498)others have imagined republics and principalities in the past, but i leave behind those imaginings and those kinds of republics and principalities in the past because i wanted to present something that(cid:495)s useful for the effectual reality.(cid:499) and that announcement is generally taken as a radical departure, machiavelli(cid:495)s approach to thinking about political things. ww: i spent some time doing that, and that was very interesting. i also spent some time in italy working on machiavelli manuscripts and guicciardini and others of the italian political tradition. rz: and that was like field work for you. you were at the croce institute? ww: yes, the croce institute in naples. that was more general; it wasn(cid:495)t specifically machiavelli. i was still reading machiavelli and still getting traction in italian to be able to read more fluently, and then i continued that work at the university of florence, where i was able to have access to manuscripts of machiavelli(cid:495)s writings. rz: that must have been very exciting. ww: yes, very. there(cid:495)s a wonderful room which has light at the top level all around in the laurentian library, biblioteca laurenziana. it(cid:495)s a fantastic room. attendants bring you the manuscripts, and you can spend all day looking at these works. rz: so then you returned to chicago and spent six years teaching in chicago while pursuing a doctorate? ww: yes. rz: and that was from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:886) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)? ww: to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886), actually. yes, i got my masters …i wrote the chapter in the history of political philosophy edited by strauss and cropsey, and then i thought i had said everything i could at that time. then the lure of wine as an alternate way of life was very strong. i picked that up in italy – the love for wine, and wine with food – and so that all was a new element, a new dynamic in the equation of how i wanted to live the growing interest in wine 309

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rest of my life, and that became more appealing than continuing in academia. rz: and you turned away from an urban life. ww: yes. rz: was that something you were very consciously trying to change? ww: do you remember what was happening in the cities in the early (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s? rz: well, there was a lot of migration to the suburbs, of course. ww: yes, but there was rioting in the (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:882)s. university of chicago was in the middle of that – not as much as in watts or in pittsburgh or in new jersey and new york – so that was part of it. that was an aspect of it. i had always had a green thumb, and i always loved the country, and barbara loved the country, and we continued to go on vacations during the summertime in chicago while living those years at the university. we always went to … i taught at a place called the clearing in wisconsin. jens jensen, the landscape architect, had a school there where i taught humanities. and also, on our honeymoon, we went on a portage trip through canadian lakes, and so barbara loved the rural life as well. and so all these things came together, and we decided that we wanted to raise our family and live in a more rural setting than was possible if i continued in an academic career. rz: and barbara had grown up in the city herself, in baltimore? ww: yes, but she always loved the country. her family had a place they called the shore and that was on the chesapeake, on one of the rivers that emptied into the chesapeake bay. and her family had had many (cid:498)shores,(cid:499) places where they lived at the water, and her summers were spent at those places. she had a natural affiliation, a natural liking for those places, so our summer vacations took on this character. and every time we came back to the city, we would long to go back to the country, so that made the sense of the wine and the country come together. the adverse conditions in the city came together with the feeling that i had really said everything about machiavelli that i knew, and i was wondering why i was continuing to do that. it would have been alright; it would have been satisfactory. teaching has satisfactions that no other field has, and so there was a little tension between those two. but all things considered, we decided to look for an alternative where i could still read and think and study and reflect, but it would be in a slightly different context of our overall life situation. rz: well, it was a very brave decision, because it was a very big change. ww: it was very imprudent, in retrospect, and, i don(cid:495)t know whether you know this, but i had become acquainted with philip wagner, and we were very friendly. rz: yes. now philip wagner was the editor of the baltimore sun. but he was also a winemaker? ww: he was also a winemaker and a geneticist and a plant breeder. he was looking to put something in the vines that were typically grown in the eastern part of the u.s. and modifying them. i don(cid:495)t know whether he actually did the cross‐breeding, but he was constantly selecting for the improvement of the wines that he could make on the east coast that were appropriate for the place where they were grown. rz: that was unusual, then, for winemakers to be so involved in the growing aspect. ww: yes, that is absolutely correct; they left that to somebody else. but he really went back further, more deeply and continually selected the hybrids that were being made available, and i don(cid:495)t know whether he actually did the breeding himself, but he certainly was making selections for his particular part of the country. he wanted to grow grapes that were pleasant, agreeable, charming and sensitive to the locations 310

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to where they were. rz: appropriate to the climate? investigating possibilities in california ww: yes, appropriate to the climate and its conditions. i had the choice either to do it with the hybrids on the east coast or to go to vinifera grapes on the west coast. it could have been either one, because what philip talked about was very compelling also. because that would have been also the community and locality and appropriateness, which is a good combination. and that had a compelling force, for the same community, the sense of it all growing out of the soil in that particular area, the whole idea of terroir, could have been on the east coast, too. but i elected to come to california for a different reason. rz: now, you came to california in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886). ww: yes. rz: and what was going on in california in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886) that particularly attracted you? ww: in the grape growing region? rz: yes. ww: well, actually, we also had thought about the possibility of santa fe, the basin formed by the river; the river that goes through new mexico, the rio grande. part of the rio grande basin goes through new mexico. there was fruit growing there; there were apples growing there. they were fantastic. it(cid:495)s like the hood river, in a way; it has its own appropriate, genetic sensitivity, because of the winters, because of the growing season, and there are places that grow fantastic apples. rz: and you spent some time there? ww: i spent some time there, and they are now growing grapes. they are growing vinifera. their hard winters mean it(cid:495)s a little tough, but they make the appropriate adaptations. and they(cid:495)re making sparkling wines, which is not bad. so it(cid:495)s that kind of idea, that philip wagner had, that is spreading all over the country in different locations. and i thought about that, but really california has always been the winner. a model was martin ray, and i spent some time with martin ray, but that didn(cid:495)t quite work out. rz: now, that(cid:495)s in santa cruz. ww: that(cid:495)s in santa cruz, but that was a model that i read about while at the university of chicago, and i wrote to martin ray and i spent some time there. and, and the napa valley was also a possibility. and i was exploring those different possibilities in the napa valley. turned out neither one had the job. at the old souverain, however, there was a job. rz: but first you went to santa cruz. ww: i tried that; that was one of the possibilities. mayacamas was another possibility. i was looking for that small place where you could make unique, distinctive wines that supported an agrarian life. rz: and one that had a very strong sense of place. ww: yes. rz: that always seems to be very important. now, philip wagner … 311

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ww: had his own vineyard, boordy vineyards. it was in just a suburban setting outside of baltimore, but he had other growers who grew grapes for him in westminster county, for example, outside of baltimore. rz: now, i know that you were with martin ray in santa cruz. how did both you and barbara react to santa cruz as a potential place to settle? ww: well, i was still doing the exploring at that time. and having spent a week up there with martin and his wife and their children, that was something really fantastic, but it didn(cid:495)t work out for other reasons. and so, the next thing was to try the napa valley. one thing that worried me about the napa valley was the railroad track. it wasn(cid:495)t quite agrarian enough. [laughs]. and it was bigger. i mean, what the wine train now uses – those tracks were here. i think when we came here there was even some freight still being carried on those trains. the railroad was here. rz: so that bothered you. ww: every so often, yes, seeing those tracks, that was a negative. rz: what else made you somewhat ambivalent? ww: about the napa valley? there were all the growers here who were of interest that i knew about were in the mountains. and martin ray was in the mountains as well, so that would have been alright. the reason martin ray was first, is because he had a job available, and i didn(cid:495)t know of any other jobs in the valley that were available that would serve the purpose of an apprenticeship as well as providing income. we had two children then, and i had to think about what to substitute for my university salary. and so, there were no jobs in the napa valley at that time, and i had to make that search to find opportunity, make it economically feasible to make the move. [end of tape (cid:885)] [tape (cid:886)] winemaking in the ’60s rz: so warren, you were saying that maynard amerine at uc davis was very discouraging when you contacted him, i guess, through philip wagner. ww: no, philip wagner actually wrote the letter. i wrote to philip, and he wrote to amerine. rz: and maynard amerine said this is very foolhardy? ww: yes – very unlikely, difficult, next to impossible. very discouraging. and he was right, because the typical job required a credentialed person, a person with training and experience. rz: even then! ww: even then. there were lots of people who came up in the (cid:498)old school,(cid:499) but what was changing in the valley was, the (cid:498)old school(cid:499) was being replaced by people who were more interested in quality and … how do you do that? how do you get that quality? i mean, there were wines in this valley, there were a couple of white wines which were sweet and clean looking, but they got clean looking by adding (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882) parts per million sulphur. malolactic fermentation was very little understood – controlled malolactic fermentation. brad webb was the first to have a controlled malolactic fermentation, and that must have been only about two years before we got here. 312

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rz: oh, so everything, the whole field was changing. ww: it was changing, and maynard was right. [break in tape] rz: we were talking about what a courageous thing this was for you to make such a large change in your life at this juncture in your thirties. ww: or imprudent in the extreme. it was guided by the very powerful desire to make it work, and a willingness to learn, the willingness to start the process of learning – and a certain self‐confidence in my ability to learn. st. john(cid:495)s did a lot to give me that confidence. then later [the university of] chicago, not the earlier part, the later chicago. rz: yes, your graduate school experience. so now you and barbara and your first two children came across by station wagon to california and you ended up, as we know, in the napa valley after having experimented with santa cruz. but santa cruz was on your own, without barbara and the children. ww: yes. and naturally the first trip to napa meeting lee stewart, going up to mayacamas where i thought i had another possibility. and bob ellsworth said, (cid:498)i was telling you in my letter, there was no job.(cid:499) and i came here and i called up and i said, (cid:498)i(cid:495)m seeing about the job,(cid:499) and they were very urbane about it and they invited me up for lunch. there wasn(cid:495)t really anything – he thought he was very clear in saying, by our correspondence, that there wasn(cid:495)t a job here, but i misinterpreted that somehow in saying there was a job. but anyway… rz: bob ellsworth was the owner of mayacamas? ww: he was the manager at that time. rz: so now you went to work for lee stewart at souverain. and this was on howell mountain, and you and barbara settled in a small cabin there? ww: the rossinis were original settlers in a little valley, along crystal springs road. there(cid:495)s a little valley in there that used to have the name dago valley on the maps. they(cid:495)ve had some sensitivity training since then! [laughter] and along crystal springs road and that was below the souverain winery and vineyard, and lee found that place because he had been getting some grapes from the rossinis. there had been a vineyard there; there had been a winery there. when we got there, there were no grapes. the grapes had been abandoned. nils venge now owns that winery; he bought that building. it(cid:495)s a stone building. so that(cid:495)s how we got that little cabin they had, which was their original house when they settled there. and there is a connection between the rossini family and the kornells, and i(cid:495)m trying to remember what that connection was … they were neighbors, but there was also a family connection. rz: well, was the rossini vineyard not in grapes when you were living there? ww: it got wiped out continually by the frost. it(cid:495)s a little narrow valley, and they planted it originally on the hills to get out of the frost. but what happens in those little choked‐off valleys at both ends is, the cold air is like water, it sinks to the lowest place, and it starts to build up. and it would build up and it would go right up that hill. normally cold air flows down. if there(cid:495)s an exit from the valley, it flows out and it goes down to the next lowest place. and as it goes down, it(cid:495)s kind of like a tumbleweed…and picks up the the move to napa valley 313

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warmer air. so typically, on these hillsides in the open valley, the cold air comes down; it flips over, flips over again, flips over again, and it keeps picking up warmer air from above. so typically hillsides in a well air‐drained valley will not be frosty. if it(cid:495)s a closed off valley, which crystal springs was, it is difficult for that air to get out, so it just builds up higher and higher. and the rossinis would always get wiped out, so they finally abandoned the vineyard. it may also have been because lilly(cid:495)s husband died and she was left with that property. their first house was a typical house of that time, typical rural california – one single high point to the roof, and then it slopes down to four corners. outside of those four corners you have an outside porch. rz: so this was the house that you moved into. ww: this was the house. it was their original house. later they built the more typical, bungalow‐type house with a more complicated roof and internal structure and not a porch all the way around. that(cid:495)s where lilly was living later. it was just fifty feet away from the one we occupied. rz: oh, it was very close. well, what a big change for you and barbara and the children. i mean, you came from urban chicago. ww: i know, it was fantastic. we loved it. rz: and there weren(cid:495)t that many people living on howell mountain then! ww: no, there weren(cid:495)t many people living in that little crystal springs valley either. and we had a garden. we got there late so the ground was very hard, but we worked it up in the springtime. we had our own plants and produce. rz: you became very self‐sufficient, growing your own vegetables … ww: yes, well we loved doing it. that was part of why we came. we love to do those things. rz: and wasn(cid:495)t there a fruit orchard nearby where you could just pick fruit? ww: there was. there was a prune orchard, so we picked the prunes. they were given to us. we were allowed to pick. that was over on the kornell side. rz: oh, and you just loved it right away. and barbara had no qualms about such a big move. ww: no, i don(cid:495)t think so. and we caught a big salmon the first year – it came up the stream and that was kind of a sign for us that things would work out. rz: so the stream was very close to your house, and you caught a salmon right there? ww: yes, it came up the stream and was there to catch and eat! rz: that(cid:495)s extraordinary. now, i know that you, of course, worked with lee stewart, but who were the first people you met socially in the valley outside of your work? ww: if you don(cid:495)t mind, could we take up this topic the next time? rz: of course. we(cid:495)re going to have a second interview, so this is the end of interview number one. thank you. 314

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[end of tape (cid:886) of the first interview] [interviewer’s note: the second interview with warren winiarski took place on february 19, 2009] [tape (cid:887)] rz: this is rue ziegler, and i am interviewing warren winiarski as part of the oral history series sponsored by the jack l. davies agricultural land preservation fund. today is february (cid:883)(cid:891)th, (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891). warren, we're going to start in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) because that's where we left off in the last interview. this is the second interview of warren winiarski in the oral history series. i know that in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), there was a symposium that was sponsored by the u.c. davis extension service at the napa county fairgrounds. william bronson addressed that forum. he was with the sierra club, and i wonder if you remember him? ww: i don't remember it. rz:. what william bronson proposed was the idea of nationalizing the vineyards. this seems to be one of the first proposals that led to the idea of an ag preserve. ww: have you seen that proposal? is it – the document, his speech? rz: i haven't found it yet, but apparently it appeared in a magazine issued by the sierra club called (cid:498)cry california.(cid:499) ww: right now it's not ringing a bell, but i would be interested to see that. the original document, if you find it. rz: william bronson's papers are archived at u.c. berkeley. ww: so the speech would be there, and it would be interesting to see it. it's not ringing a bell now. there was some previous discussion, but i don't associate it with that name. there was some previous discussion about creating a legal framework for land preservation at the county level, but that's as far as i can go. i can't identify any particulars associated with that idea. rz: lowell eddington, who had helped form the upper napa valley associates (cid:523)unva(cid:524), was also a speaker at that forum. ww: you're telling me something i didn't know. i didn't know lowell was one of the founders of unva. leadup to the ag preserve rz: that's what i've read in the first of james conaway's two books on napa.(cid:886)(cid:885)(cid:884) the first one dealt more with ag preserve. lowell eddington was a former member of the board of supervisors. he wasn't the founder of the upper napa valley associates. he was one of the leaders, and i just wondered if you, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), were involved with unva at that point or leading to it? ww: no, i knew of it and i knew what its intent was, but i wasn't involved with it. lowell eddington was a very effective speaker and advocate for the ag preserve in napa county among those public forums. rz: the public hearings? ww: hearings where it was debated. i actually got him to come up to angwin and make the presentation there, and on the other side was john daniel. i got them both to come up there to angwin to make a 315

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presentation to its community council. it was like a chamber of commerce made up of community members of angwin, [but] not officially. they had a college representative there, but it wasn't an official body of the college. it was loosely attached to the college. rz: you're talking about pacific union college? ww: yes. so, i knew of lowell eddington. i worked with him to get the angwin community [involved], but i didn't know about or i've forgotten about his role in unva at that time. rz: now, there were other members of unva, and i just wanted to see if you knew any of them. one, i think, was vera peterson. does that name mean anything to you? there was a retired state parks official, i didn't get a name, and a disney cartoonist. they were members of unva. they met at the el real restaurant in rutherford. you weren't part of those? ww: i wasn't part of that. rz: that comes from conaway's earlier book, but he is not more specific. ww: he didn't get the names of people? rz: no. ww: there was dorothy erskine, i think. rz: yes, dorothy erskine. she, of course, was very, very active in conservation movements in the bay area, in san francisco primarily, but then she had her home in calistoga or just north of calistoga. she was an inspiration for the creation of ag preserve. in our first interview, you said you knew of her, but you didn't actually know her personally. ww: yes, know her personally. but she, i believe, was a member of unva also. rz: yes, and apparently at this forum in may of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), two other people who gave talks were j.h. snyder, an agricultural economist at u.c. davis, and karl belser, planning director of santa clara county. did you know either of those two individuals? ww: no. rz: i don't hear anything more about them afterward. i'm just trying to throw out as many names as i can to see if you might have any anecdotes about them. ww: if i knew them at the time, my memory of them has lapsed, and maybe if i hear those names more, some recollection might come back, but they're not familiar to me now. rz: well, forty years is a long time. so now, between the years of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888) and (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) there were the efforts to draft an ordinance. i wanted to mention four individuals who were very active in that, and just see if you have any anecdotes to give us about those individuals: george abate, who was the napa county tax assessor. ww: i knew george. rz: i'm interviewing him next week. napans involved in land use issues ww: good. the most salient figure in that was the county manager at the time. what are the other names 316

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that you have here? rz: al haberger, who was the county administrator. ww: he was probably the most active. it was his administrative and legal skills, i think, that actually put the formalities in place that could be voted on; the areas to be covered and the areas to be left out, the size of the lots. the whole legal mechanism, i think, actually came from al haberger's office. he was the key figure, but george abate was certainly a big helper. as far as i know, it really came from the head of al haberger, and his offices helped to structure the legal requirements to put it in a form that it could be voted on. rz: and then mervin lernhart was a young attorney almost straight out of law school, and he apparently helped craft the language as well. ww: yes, the formalities required. rz: james lider was the county farm advisor. did he have a role in crafting the language? ww: i don't think so. i mean, i don't remember him being directly an advocate for it. i remember him being sympathetic, but not actually someone who was pushing the idea. rz: not a leader. ww: right. rz: are there any other recollections that you have about any of these individuals, in terms of their personalities? you had said that al haberger was very modest and straightforward. ww: the napa valley vintners association actually presented him with a recognition scroll when i was on the board [of directors]. it was my suggestion that the vintners recognize him shortly before his death because he had worked in a shipyard, and was affected by asbestos during world war ii. his family still owns property at the end of big ranch road. so, we recognized him. there was a resolution that i put through the board recognizing al haberger's contributions to getting the ag preserve through the county. his widow or his family, if his widow is not alive, would have a copy of that resolution. i went down with chuck carpy to his house to present it to him. he was already weakened from his asbestosis, which is the lung affliction that comes from prolonged exposure to asbestos. he worked in the kaiser shipyard building ships, and they used a lot of asbestos for, i don't know what purpose, maybe wrapping pipes and doing that kind of thing – the liberty ships. kaiser was originally a wartime endeavor where napa pipe is. that was originally for building liberty ships. parts of the ships were then floated down to the bay on the napa river during the war. al was part of that wartime industrial effort in the (cid:495)(cid:886)(cid:882)s. then that came back afterwards as the asbestosis affliction, which killed him. rz: terrible. anything you remember about mervin lernhart? ww: yes, he was an advocate. he would also speak at meetings, and he would deal with the legal issues that were raised from the floor at the meetings. he crafted some of the language. he must have been a help to al also. rz: he must have been. he was only in his twenties, very young. ww: that's alright. young people can do some good things. 317

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rz: so now, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889), the sequence of hearings begins. there were first some hearings before the napa county planning commission. then later, the commission had its own hearings. ww: that was the planning staff. as county administrator, there would have been planning staff employed to get it into ordinance form, so you have something that's going to be voted on… vanderschoot may have been on the planning commission at that time? rz: yes, felix vanderschoot was the chair. the other members were andrew pelissa, kent engalls, don mcfarland, george blaufuss, fred berry, and j.w. bentley. ww: i wonder why there were seven, because right now we only have five districts. each supervisor appoints one, and maybe there was a different way to organize it. the supervisors possibly didn't appoint planning commissioners. it's possible that it was structured a little bit different. i don't think there were seven supervisorial districts at that time. there are only five now. it's possible that it's an error, but i remember all those people. andy pelissa, his son is now running the ranches that they have – the vineyard. vanderschoot i remember, and mcfarland became a county supervisor. rz: i've interviewed don mcfarland in this series. ww: blaufuss ran the cider mill – apple cider. rz: in napa city? ww: yes. he was a very down‐to‐earth man. he helped barbara when we were growing was not insignificant, but certainly not major, and he ran this mill for apples that came out of napa county. we sold him the fruit. rz: i see. too bad they don't have anything like that now. ww: it's uneconomical. he might have bought apples also from sonoma and other counties, and the cider making, i think, ended... maybe in the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s or so, (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s. his family belongs to our church, st. mary's episcopal church, so there might still be around somebody from that era, if you wanted to talk to them. rz: do you remember any of the others – kent engalls, for example? ww: i don't remember him. rz: fred berry? ww: berry's name is familiar, but i don't have any recollection of any particulars. rz: then, i wanted to talk to you about the hearings on the ag preserve. ww: the planning commission would have had public hearings, and then they would have voted…the board of supervisors would not have gotten it [the proposed ordinance] unless there was a meeting of the planning commissioners, a series of meetings as there are now, public meetings, [with] public input and statements and so on. [after] the planning commission…voted, then it would have gone to the board of supervisors which held another set of hearings. the prism that the professional or semi‐professional planning commission has – it's professional but it's also political, because they listen to the [public] comments. they're obliged to make a decision at the planning level with their particular mandates, which have to do with technical material. then, after that, they vote one way or the other, as they did now for lake luciana. the planning 318

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commission voted yesterday (cid:885)‐(cid:884) to be negative about lake luciana, but now it's going to be appealed to the board of supervisors, and the board of supervisors will look at it from another prism, namely the whole political process, the forces that regulate the counties as a whole; not from a planning level, but from a political level. rz: and lake luciana is a proposed resort project next door to the aetna springs resort. ww: yes, it's at the north end of pope valley. rz: and that's a project that includes housing. how many units? ww: housing, clubs, (cid:883)(cid:890)‐hole golf course, et cetera. their argument is that agriculture is not really economical in pope valley – too much frost, too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter, too cold in the spring, too wet. it is more like bordeaux, france in some respects. there is also some heavy soil. we bought grapes from land that lake luciana is planning to have a golf course on, and they were excellent before phylloxera took them. they died; the vines were dying. the crop was highly irregular after a while, but for the entire time that we bought the grapes they were super for sauvignon blanc. rz: did you provide testimony? ww: i did. i wrote to the county planning commissioner and the board of supervisors the fact that we bought the grapes and they were very good. rz: to get back, then, there would have been a series of individuals who gave testimony for the planning commission to then consider how they were going to vote. ww: right. rz: do you know anything about those hearings? ww: i'm not sure i went to any of those meetings. i can't be sure now because they largely went over the same material. people had the same opinions…the planning commission is only advisory. it doesn't have the political capacity to cause regulations to be born. they only advise from a technical point of view, but they hear the same kind of testimony. they take into account the testimony of various interested parties and they make a determination, but it's [only] from a planning point of view. the state mandates certain things to occur, and the planning commission hears those kinds of things. i think they're also advised by a county counsel on technical issues, and they're advised by the planning staff. rz: and there must have been transcripts prepared of these meetings? ww: i'm not sure at that time there were transcriptions, but it's entirely possible that there were. everything now is transcribed orally and they even put it on film. rz: microfilm? ww: no, visuals. they have a camera in the chambers. when they do it at the lincoln theater they record it, but there is no camera. the recent big meeting that they had about angwin was held at the lincoln theater, but there was recording – all of the testimony and the statements, the verbal statements by the [board of] supervisors as to why they were voting the way they were voting. it was two to two, but all of that could have been reviewed by the missing supervisor, mark luce, who was in the hospital with gallbladder problems. therefore, they couldn't get three votes to do it one way or the other. so they had two votes – dodd and wagenknecht were on one side, and dillon and caldwell were on the other side. rz: so dillon was against it. 319

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ww: no, the vote was to accept the planning department's recommendation, or not. she was for some kind of institutional designation for angwin for the college. it was two to two, and i forget what the exact motion was. it was either to accept the planning commission's recommendations or not. in any case, it was a tied vote; there were not three votes. rz: i just wanted to mention some other county officials who were involved in the planning commission hearings on the ag preserve. one was vernon cotter, the planning director. i wonder if you remember anything about him? ww: nothing stands out, but i remember the name. rz: eric borgwardt and jack fisk? ww: i remember the names. rz: and aldo delfino, who was the county agricultural commissioner. jack fisk, who was the california state liaison to the county as a farm advisor. at any rate, now i want to find out, at what point did you get involved in organizing the angwin community meetings? was that related to the planning commission stage, or was that at the board of supervisors level? early supporters of ag preserve ww: i'm just thinking now that i did go to planning commission meetings, and i also went to board meetings or hearings. there was a little committee of people kind of steering the efforts…to establish an agricultural preserve. this was a public support (cid:498)steering committee(cid:499) for the ag preserve. louis martini was on that, i was on that, jack davies, of course, was on that. who else was on that? chuck carpy, i believe. these are people who made various public statements in support of the endeavor. this was (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889). rz: was there an official name for that committee? ww: no. people were gathering support, speaking in support [of a preserve]. we all had [different] assignments. my assignment was angwin, louis martini's was something else, and jack was chairing the group. there were other people on that group. there were three or four other people on the group who were assigned to work with various communities to get petitions signed in support of the ag preserve. chuck carpy was on that. we had private meetings at various places, and we strategized on how to get enough public support, how to neutralize the opposition, and how to get public support for getting the ordinance passed – talking to supervisors, talking to planners. george abate came in to some of those meetings. al haberger came in to some of those meetings. borgwardt came to some of those meetings, and was it marvin lernhart? rz: but borgwardt and abate and haberger weren't actually members of the steering committee? ww: no, they weren't. rallying community support rz: and so each one of you would then be responsible for localizing support in your community. yours was angwin. what would chuck carpy's have been? ww: you could talk to anne carpy, if she remembers. that was before they were married. maybe she won't remember. we all had to get signatures; we all had to get citizens in support …we got quite a few 320

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thousand. those were submitted to the county. rz: now, was this your first role in community activism in the napa valley? ww: yes. rz: were you surprised at yourself getting involved, or did you always think you would do something like that? ww: no, i never thought of myself as a community organizer, but the cause created its own calling. rz: you obviously felt very strongly about it. ww: i wonder if keith bowers was part of that? i don't think keith was a permanent part of the steering committee.(cid:886)(cid:886) rz: but he was involved at some level, maybe? ww: yes, we brought him in because of his agricultural background. rz: what about tom may? was he on that steering committee? ww: no, he wasn't on the steering committee that i recall. rz: how did you even come up with the idea of having a steering committee? were you all sort of social friends, and as you got together, this came up? ww: i knew chuck from…when i went to mondavi [winery] in (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888). i was there when they were still building the winery. mike [mondavi] was in the service, he was doing national guard duties, so i was the winemaker that first year and put together the operations at that new winery…before mike got back in, i think the winter of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:888) or the spring of (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:889). rz: and this was about the time that the steering committee was organized? ww: we had some wines from mondavi over at freemark abbey. that's where i got very familiar with chuck, and since we talked about the issue of establishing the preserve, we just … i don't think the organization existed at this time – that steering committee. there were certain advocates, and i can't recite to you how it was that we actually all got ourselves together into saying, (cid:498)yes, we should have meetings, and we should be doing this, and we should be doing that, to help the cause.(cid:499) i can't remember. i have no recollection of what moment we said, (cid:498)yes, we have to have this organization. we have to be getting this group and that group. we have to be getting petitions signed.(cid:499) the big thing was to get pacific union college in angwin – to get the college involved, to get their support. that was the big thing. rz: did you know rittenhouse, the college president? ww: no, i didn't know him. i knew someone who had worked for the college in a position of some authority, but who had been ousted because of his tendency to want to avoid waste. for example, i think he was in charge of all the maintenance of the physical plant. when paint got to be a certain age you had to throw it away, but he knew it was still good stuff, so he refused to throw it away. he hoarded it elsewhere, and when this was discovered, they forced him out. the rules are, you have to do what they say. it was not moral turpitude or anything of the kind; it was kind of this virtue of saving. anyway, they forced him out. he was still a member of good standing in the community. he still was in this community council‐ like chamber of commerce, and so he had connections. he helped me organize. i was good friends with him because i needed his knowledge. i was learning about all kinds of things i didn't have any knowledge 321

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of, how things worked, how electricity worked, how switches worked, how parts worked, how machinery worked. this was all very new stuff, and jack [christensen] was very, very helpful. and he loved being a teacher, so it was a good relationship for both of us. he was…a member of the [angwin] community. we made arrangements for [ag preserve advocate] lowell eddington to come up there [to angwin], with john daniel [arguing] on the other side. we also had a lot of different community meetings, these smaller meetings where the two sides could speak and say what was good and what was not good about this attempt. rz: was it dick steltzner who had said, (cid:498)look, we need to have both the pro and the con(cid:499)? ww: yes, that was at the first meeting the board of supervisors had, and that was in st. helena. rz: so this was a little later. was dick steltzner a member of the steering committee at all? ww: i don't think so. rz: do you remember the first meeting that you had? ww: yes, it was the first meeting in st. helena at the high school. there were more meetings there later, but this was the first. rz: and this was for angwin? ww: no, this was for the county. the angwin community had some people there, but this was the first public meeting that the board of supervisors held. i think there were a half dozen or eight of these meetings at different places; the one in napa was at the county fairgrounds. property rights issues ww: these were just meetings so the board could get a sense of where the community was, to balance out the various points of view. the property rights people said, (cid:498)we have to do whatever we need to do. we should be able to do whatever we want with our property. we have vested interests. you're devaluing [our land]. if this measure goes through you're devaluing our property.(cid:499) you could create any lot size as small as one acre, so people thought they could cut off this one acre here at the corner of their land and give it to their children. when you bought the land you had this in mind, that you wanted your family to live on this land as it grew, and it bifurcated. you wanted to be able to give as a wedding present an acre of land to your daughter, who is now going to live there, build a house there and have access to the road and all the other things. so these kinds of arguments were made at hearings. charlie volpe would stand up and say, (cid:498)this is devaluing our property. if we go to a minimum lot of forty acres, i can't give them [children] a piece of this land that i've worked for the last twenty years because of this preserve you want to make? it's not preserving anything for me!(cid:499) rz: charlie volpe was in the wine industry? ww: he was a [grape] grower, and a very smart grower. i learned a lot from charlie volpe. rz: where was he a grower, what part of the valley? ww: just south of st. helena near the land …south of st. helena, near sattui winery. it's around there. rz: that must have been a very emotional issue. ww: it was very emotional, very emotional. i mean, you hear some stories of people who were on 322

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different sides, and they never talked to each other again after this. rz: for example, the galleron brothers. do you remember who was on what side? there was paul and virgil. ww: yes, i can't remember which it was, but we had them talk to the steering committee. we brought them in. we needed people. the land tenure is very important; how it supports family life and how it supports individuality. the idea of equality and the use of land is very closely knit to the ways that land can be held and used. rz: and very different in america compared to europe. i mean, the whole american system of actually allocating land was very much based on individual rights to that land, as a reaction to what had occurred in europe. ww: [yes, compared to] what was the standard in europe, i mean getting rid of that hierarchy. it's government for the people, by the people, of the people, and people's tenure of land very much supported that idea of … individual liberty and so on. so there were a lot of hard things to crack through, and expectations that were upset in people's minds. they didn't always articulate these things, but the home‐ grown part of it was this: charlie volpe wants to divide an acre to give to his grandchildren, or his children, and he can't do it anymore. rz: did you waver? did you go back and forth in your position, or were you always pretty clear? this was very difficult. the vision for napa valley ww: i thought some things had to be given up for the greater good. i don't think i wavered. it was just an almost visceral response to the need to do this, to keep the land in agriculture. the vision has to be primary. if the primary thing was, you can divide land so finely, over time it will be utilized for non‐ agricultural purposes. with one‐acre divisions, and houses on every one of them, agriculture at a certain point becomes not feasible. so…san francisco's destiny was to be a big city. if you wanted to preserve land closer to san francisco, it didn't make sense, because it's industrial, it's the water, it's commercial, it's mercantile, it needs all these things and san francisco is one thing. it has a different vision. if our vision is grapes, and our specialty is grapes, that's why the supervisors… believed that it was [napa(cid:495)s] destiny to become a great wine growing area, when they voted for this. they acted from a vision that was partly based on hope. the paris tasting [of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:888)] changed all of that. people after that didn't have to have the hope anymore – we had sort of demonstrated that this land is capable of great things. rz: but it was long before that that you felt so strongly. ww: yes. so, i say, the supervisors, when they voted for this, they were blessed because they believed without seeing, to paraphrase the biblical thing. they were blessed because they didn't have to see in order to believe. rz: do you feel that there is any connection between how you grew up in a community and your feelings about the common good, in terms of the ag preserve in napa county? ww: it's possible. i didn't make any of those connections. it's possible. i was also operating under hope and vision, and no one knew that this was to become a national treasure, this land. my advocacy may have been driven by something in the sense of community that i talked about in that [earlier] interview. i didn't make that connection, but it's possible. 323

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rz: you grew up in a community that was very committed to the common good. ww: yes, there was a good which was beyond any individual, so the individuality had to accommodate itself to a greater good. so you could say that. rz: i'm thinking you were a young man, you hadn't lived in napa county that long, and you felt very, very strongly and clearly about this issue, and that came from somewhere. it takes a lot of confidence, being young, totally new to the wine industry and a new resident of napa county, to take that position and take it so strongly. ww: i knew some of the wines, and i had a sense that some of the best wines were still to be made. i really had a sense that they could be better. rz: so that was another big factor for you – that you felt so confident about the wine industry as potentially being very successful? ww: i guess i didn't think about in terms of success, but about virtues that were unrealized; the excellence that was still unrealized – even andré tchelistcheff(cid:495)s wines at beaulieu vineyard [bv]. he thought he was handicapped by not having access to the materials that he needed to fully realize quality. i mean, the potential of some of those bv private reserves was still to be fulfilled. i tasted some of the inglenook wines later from collectors that i found to be high quality… i guess john daniel had a little more freedom because it was his own winery. andré had to be beholden to the [owners]… it wasn't his winery, so he couldn't do what he wanted, what he thought might be better. george deuer [inglenook(cid:495)s winemaker] must have gotten more support from john daniel in those early days. rz: well, bv was in a terrible budget constraint at that point. it seems to me from what i read that tchelistcheff was always having to struggle against that. ww: yes. rz: i wonder what else you can tell us now, about this early phase where you were part of the steering committee and you were starting to mobilize support in the angwin community. you persuaded [puc president] rittenhouse. ww: after. first we tried to get a sense of the community – we tried to persuade them of the importance of the ag preserve. we got a lot of people to sign. we then let his office know that we had quite a few members of the community who agreed. i took around the petitions there – house to house, door to door. we wanted the president(cid:495)s advisers and staff to know that this effort was not just supported in the valley but also within the angwin community, by both residents who were part of the [seventh‐day adventist] religious fold, as well as those who were not. it was democracy at work. rz: you just went door to door all over angwin? what kind of reactions did you get? ww: well, some people were … it didn't cost them anything. angwin was not included [in the ag preserve]. the (cid:498)specific zone,(cid:499) i think it was called, was down on the valley [floor]. rz: so angwin, being located in the foothill area, wasn't actually going to be affected. ww: well, i don't know if i told you this, but actually when rittenhouse decided to support the endeavor, and when they [the angwin community council] first cited his support, they couldn't get it unanimous. there were a few people not persuaded. it got a majority vote, and jack [christensen] said, (cid:498)well, why don't we make it everyone? why don't we make it unanimous?(cid:499) but there were a couple of diehards in there who said, (cid:498)no, no. let's just leave it at the vote,(cid:499) so it was a majority vote. we had that majority vote behind us before we went to rittenhouse. 324

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rz: now, a majority vote of … ww: the [angwin] community council. carl benson was a member of the community, and he had some interest [in the ag preserve]. i got his brother [to sign]. he lived down on the valley floor and he was a contractor. then i got carl, who was a big gravel and ready‐mix contractor, and he was a big member in the angwin community, in the [adventist] church community. rz: so, this was a voluntary council for angwin? ww: right. there are no elected officials. it's kind of a leadership group in the community. so we got their support; we got lots of people. i think i asked colonel kirby to help me with getting some signatures of people he knew, because he was an old‐timer in the community. rz: colonel kirby? he was ex‐military? ww: yes, he ran for office at one time for county supervisor, and that's when dowell martz, who was a professor of geography at the college, i believe, was put on the board. he [martz] was good. the decision of rittenhouse was based, as i understood it, on not wanting their students and faculty and parents of students to come through (cid:498)san jose(cid:499) to get to angwin. if the valley floor was chopped up into one‐acre lots, and there was no agriculture anymore, he thought that would be a bad influence on people who had to drive through (cid:498)san jose(cid:499) to get to angwin, to this pristine rural paradise in angwin. that was good [for us]; it was very good. it was a different point of view. rz: did you have any people who just slammed the door in your face when you went door to door? ww: no, they said, (cid:498)we can't be bothered.(cid:499) they wouldn't slam the door. they just said, (cid:498)we can't be bothered. it's not for us.(cid:499) or if they were really strong members of the community, they would say, (cid:498)it's wine, and we don't get involved in wine.(cid:499) gathering signatures rz: but you got (cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) signatures? ww: i don't know how many we got. there were all together … there weren't (cid:883),(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882) from up there. all together we accumulated  from rutherford, from here, from there  we collected in the thousands. there may have been (cid:885)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:886)(cid:882)(cid:882) up in angwin. rz: that's still large. ww: yes. there may be a [recorded] count [somewhere] because we turned those [signatures] in to the county. rz: you turned them in to the board of supervisors? ww: right, and somebody checked all the names. they wanted to see whether they were citizens, are they registered voters, and things like this. there were very few bad ones that were not registered to vote; they had to be voters. rz: this was a lot of work on your part, going door to door, and then you had to keep meticulous records. ww: well, it was a petition. it was a bona fide petition. you had to get these forms from the county to circulate a petition. then you have to tell people: would you like to read this petition? here, there are so many pages. or: i can tell you what it's about, and you can sign that you understood what it's about. we did the same thing for measure j. 325

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rz: i want to get to that. at this point, you're in your thirties. you have very young children at home; i think another one may be waiting to be born. julia was already born. ww: no, julia was the last, and she was born on december (cid:889)th, (cid:495)(cid:888)(cid:887). rz: she's the youngest, so you had three very young children home, and you were trying very hard to become successful in the wine industry yourself, so this was a huge expenditure of time – which shows how committed you were. ww: it was. there were a lot of other things i could have been doing. rz: so, when you got the signatures together, they went to the board of supervisors. ww: yes, but jack had a plan for these. he didn't want to just give them out, and i almost made a mistake in turning in the signatures that i collected. jack got them back. he didn't want the board to get them until they were all together [to provide], the least amount of time for challenging signatures. so he had a plan, which he didn't share with me, but he got them back. it was at one of the hearing meetings where i was going to turn mine in, and [actually] had already. he intervened and got my sheets back. rz: this was jack christensen? ww: no, it was jack davies. rz: i'm glad we clarified that. so why did jack davies not want to release these signatures? ww: to give them a lot of time to challenge signatures is not a good strategy. you want to wait until the last possible moment to turn them in. rz: now, when you're saying (cid:498)them,(cid:499) you mean the board of supervisors. ww: whoever does it, because they become public information, and your opponents can go through and say, (cid:498)this one, he doesn't live there anymore,(cid:499) and so on. it was just tactics. rz: but that was pretty smart. ww: better tactics, yes. rz: did you spend a lot of time with jack davies, talking about this, or were you just so busy? ww: we had our periodic meetings and progress reports, just like the people at (cid:498)save rural angwin(cid:499) now have weekly meetings, strategizing – what have you heard? what's going on? and so on. so they're all talking from the same book, so to speak. so we had those kinds of meetings. rz: you were comparing notes. ww: yes, progress reports, who's going to do this, and who's going to do that, and assigning tasks, and that sort of thing; who is going to talk to louis martini, who is going to talk to … i can't remember all the people i talked to. cam baker, do you know him? rz: cameron? ww: cameron baker. rz: i have that name and i was going to ask you about him. he was part of the united vintners? 326

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ww: no, that's his father‐in‐law. cam is the son‐in‐law; his wife is larry (cid:523)bruno(cid:524) solari(cid:495)s daughter. rz: didn(cid:495)t his father‐in‐law side with john daniel against the ag preserve? ww: yes, his father‐in‐law, bruno, was [against it]. bruno(cid:495)s daughter married cam baker. rz: at some point now, maybe after the napa county planning commission hearings, the united vintners start organizing their opposition. was it at this time? [editor’s note: united vintners was the marketing arm of central valley grape coop allied vintners, and had a presence in napa valley dating to 1957. john daniel jr. sold inglenook to united vintners in 1964.] ww: i think he [larry (cid:523)bruno(cid:524) solari] was retired, if i'm not mistaken, from united vintners at this time. he may have been still part of it. he testified strongly against it. they had land and they still have. cam has inherited that land through his wife, and they grow grapes. what is the land that hanns kornell winery was on at one time when it was hanns kornell winery? rz: oh, i don't remember. ww: it's considerably north of st. helena. i'll think of it. rz: so now, at what point did you participate in the napa county planning commission hearings? ww: i'm not sure. i think there were some planning commission meetings before they voted, and then there were supervisors' meetings. i know i went to almost all, and there were little meetings also, community meetings, besides that, which i attended that were special groups. they weren't before the board of supervisors; they were groups sort of debating the issue, some members being for, some members being against. growers(cid:495) groups, for example. rz: i don't want to leave your wife barbara out of this, because i know she was very supportive. were you talking about this a lot when you came home, because i'm sure she was taking care of the children? ww: yes, i was probably talking a lot, telling her about the meetings, coming back from the meetings and talking about what was happening, who made different points and so on. she was keeping up with it. she didn't attend any of the meetings as far as i remember, but i kept her informed, giving her a play by play [account]. rz: you were very close to another couple who was like‐minded about this. do you remember who your closest friends were then who felt very strongly about this? ww: yes, the luthers. they were also new to the valley. rz: and were they in the wine industry? ww: he was. he worked for martini. rz: what was his first name, do you remember? ww: bill, and his wife's name i don't remember now. barbara might remember. they divorced, and he still lives in the santa rosa area, if i'm not mistaken. he was a very gifted designer and contriver of children's toys. he designed something called a "twing" which was halfway between a thing and a swing. it was suspended by a number of cords that passed through a wooden circle, and the twing was underneath that. you could put a young child in there, and they would never fall out. they would go as fast as they wanted to, but they would never fall out. i don't know whether he ever tried to sell them commercially. he made some for our children. 327

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rz: so now how did you proceed? jack davies withdrew the signatures that you collected, wanting to submit them at the last minute. ww: got them back, right. they were for the board of supervisors. in napa county the board is the last resort; it is the source of governance. rz: the public hearings that the board held started in march of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). ww: and while that was going on there were these little smaller sort of satellite meetings, for groups of farmers, for example, or groups of merchants or groups of this or groups of that. there were smaller meetings where people got an opportunity to express their opinions and formulate what the group was going to do. so, let's say, a farm organization, the grange or whatever it was, would get their members together to talk about it and to debate it, and i would go to those meetings as well. rz: when you held your meetings in angwin, for example, you had to decide what the protocol was going to be for those meetings. did you chair those meetings? ww: no, i was a guest. lowell eddington came up and john daniel came up to represent those two points of view, and the members had a chance to hear both advocates for and advocates against. then they left, and the group talked about what they had heard, and we tried to bring it to a decision. jack helped with that because he was a member of long standing in that group, and we tried to sway it in the direction of getting approval, which we finally did. that's when we got the majority to vote in favor of the ag preserve. rz: you're talking about the community of angwin. ww: right. rz: why was jack davies involved in the angwin community? ww: jack wasn't. it was jack christiansen who was a member. opponents, proponents air views rz: what happened when lowell eddington and john daniel spoke? were they equally good speakers? ww: lowell eddington was more persuasive because he was less emotional. john daniel just saw all his land rights being extracted from his control over the ownership. he really was offended by the fact that some bureaucrat, some planning department, was now going to tell him what to do with his land. it was a very powerful element, and he spoke about the legal aspects – he had legal help, i'm sure – but he spoke about those as a person who was an interested party. so the conflict between the benefits of private ownership – the liberty to not be compelled by regulations – [versus being told to] to abstain from certain kinds of activities on that land, became quite emotional for him to talk about. lowell put it more in terms of the common benefit for the vision of the valley. ultimately i think he was more persuasive, at least in that particular meeting, because they [the attendees] expressed their approval of what lowell had to say to a larger extent than they did for john daniel. they were also, as a group, perhaps more inclined to be used to consideration of the common good as opposed to the private good, so that was the thing we stressed. rz: where were these angwin meetings? ww: i forget where they were exactly, but they were in angwin. they had a little room that they used – i think it was right on [the puc] campus – which they used for these meetings. rz: these meetings would have been held leading up to the board of supervisors' hearings in march of (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890). 328

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ordinance passes, 4 to 0 ww: yes. it would have been published then as a meeting of the angwin chamber, or community council. it would have been reported in the napa valley register that they were supporting the ag preserve. rz: there weren't recordings of these meetings, and nobody was taking official notes as a secretary? ww: no. it was important to get public notice, because we were trying to build momentum by getting various people in the community, various organizations, to speak one way or the other on the issue – well, to speak favorably on the issue. we were trying to get more and more people to express their particular community support. rz: and presumably john daniel and lowell eddington went and addressed the other communities. ww: john daniel made more than one appearance, not always with lowell eddington, because he was really a strong advocate and a very articulate man and very persuasive in his way. he spoke from the heart, and he spoke feelingly about these issues. rz: well now, the board of supervisors started their public hearings in march. on april (cid:891)th they finally held their vote, four to zero, in favor of the ordinance. were you there? ww: no, i wasn't, but there are others who were there. pierce carson [reporter for the napa valley register and an interviewee in this oral history series] could tell you about that, because i think he covered it. people tried to block the [private] driveways of some of the supervisors that they knew were going to vote for it. rz: i read that somebody tried to block julius caiocca's driveway. ww: that(cid:495)s right. pierce knows about that personally. i know it only thirdhand from things that i remember being told – about someone poking him in the chest and saying, (cid:498)you can't do this, you can't do that.(cid:499) he was a very nervous kind of man. i remember one meeting where someone made a point from the audience, and he's shuffling papers to try to disguise the fact that some point was made that seemed to be a rebuttal to what he had just said. he got very agitated, so i can imagine that he was, when confronted in this way, he wouldn(cid:495)t react very favorably. he would have found it as reinforcement for what he wanted to do, how he would vote. rz: now, is this julius caiocca you're talking about? ww: yes. i think pierce would know. he made some statement then that (cid:498)nobody pokes me and tells me what to do.(cid:499) rz: he had been sort of on the fence, i think, until someone confronted him, and he felt very strongly that he wanted to vote in favor of it. that's what pierce had told me. ww: yes, so that's fine. three would have become four. rz: yes, he told me julius was really mobilized when people became confrontational with him. then he just decided nobody is going to tell him what to do. now, i wanted to ask you, after the ordinance was passed, then a legal suit was filed by the napa valley united vintners against the ag preserve. do you remember that battle, anything about that legal suit, which i think took about three years to get resolved? ww: who paid the attorney  the united vintners? who was in charge of the united vintners at that time? it was bruno (cid:523)(cid:498)larry(cid:499)(cid:524) solari. rz: what about paul alexander; he was with bank of america? 329

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ag preserve supporters in the ’70s ww: bank of america, right. lots of people thought their property values would decline because of the regulations. on the contrary, [as] we argued that one, they wouldn't decline. property values would be enhanced, and maybe that's why bank of america got involved. paul alexander, yes. rz: and louis stralla? he was part of the united vintners who filed the suit. ww: yes. rz: then, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:883), napa county superior court upheld ordinance (cid:884)(cid:889)(cid:886). now i want to bring us up to today. so, sweeping through the (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:882)s and the (cid:495)(cid:890)(cid:882)s… i wanted to ask you about an organization that vic fershko started called citizens against urban sprawl (cid:523)caus(cid:524). were you involved in that one, or did you know anything about it? ww: no. rz: and in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:885) there were new members on the board of supervisors who were against development and supportive of the ag preserve: john tuteur, ginny simms and henry wigger. did you work with them at all? ww: no. rz: and then, i'm just sort of running through a quick timeline, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886) dowell martz and sam chapman became new members of the board of supervisors. dowell martz was supportive of the preserve. ww: he was the angwin professor. rz: and sam chapman? ww: you know, the person who knows about this period probably better, because he came in then, would be volker eisele [also interviewed in this oral history series]. rz: okay. and the california state legislature in (cid:495)(cid:889)(cid:886) passed a law prohibiting that large highway that was going to divide the valley. i know jack davies was involved in that. were you involved in that? ww: yes. rz: so you were going back and forth to sacramento? ww: no, there were meetings here that i went to. i didn't go to sacramento. there were meetings here, gathering support against caltrans' plans for the highway, for one thing, and secondly, for another little interchange that they wanted to bring with the flyover to the south end of the valley. there was another highway thing, but that's separate from the main superhighway that caltrans wanted to bring, as napa valley would become a conduit for people going up to lake county. rz: didn't they find that that was contradictory to preserving agriculture, having a highway to cut through the valley? ww: right. it's hard to believe. rz: so now, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:882) there was a growth limit that restricted the unincorporated area to one percent population increase per year. were you involved in that? ww: i don't think i had an active part in that. 330

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involvement in measure j rz: but the next thing you did become very involved with was in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882), with measure j. that measure required the vote of napa county residents to change any ap zoning. ww: that was very important. rz: how did you get involved in it? were you organizing community meetings here? ww: i was organizing community meetings and getting signatures. rz: again! by now you're a pro. ww: right. there was a kmart and i got some (cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:882) or (cid:888)(cid:882)(cid:882) signatures by standing out at kmart with petitions, and putting out those petitions with other people. what was that other group, harold kelly's group? it was harold kelly. rz: could we back up one minute? you had told me something very interesting that i just wanted to be able to get back to for the record. dick steltzner had proposed that whenever you had these meetings, both opposing positions should be presented? ww: yes, that a certain amount of the governance of these meetings should be set up in such a way that you didn't have a long string of people who had only one point of view; that they would alternate. rz: because none of you were professional community activists, so you had to sort of figure this out. ww: right, exactly. that happened, i think, at the first meeting that was held in st. helena [at the high school], when the opponents just made a power play to have all of the objections [to the ag preserve] sort of arrayed in the front. dick got up and suggested to the chair that this was not right, that there should be some balance, some alternation, in the points of view, and it wouldn't be all one point of view. that was an excellent suggestion, which was carried out by the chair. rz: so then, what you did is alternate speakers who advocated the different positions? ww: well, we tried to then, because they had lined up all the people who objected, and there was a microphone, and the next person would be against it and the next person and they had all these people lined up [to speak]. i forgot how they did this. i think it was by having two lines, one on either side of the meeting hall [each] representing the different side of the argument. they said, (cid:498)if you're all talking the same point of view, we want some alternation of the speakers,(cid:499) …and they did that, and i think they pretty much did that throughout [subsequent meetings] then. rz: otherwise, one group could just monopolize the entire meeting. ww: exactly. rz: now dick steltzner was in the wine industry? ww: he was a grape grower. rz: where was he a grape grower? ww: actually, he wasn't a grape grower at that time. he got into grape growing later. at that time, he was a potter. he had a studio on pratt avenue north of st. helena…[in] an old stone building. it used to be a winery; i think there was an operating vinegar factory in the back. he lived in that house, and he made pots. he was very clever; he made cooking pots in the form of animals, in the form of a duck or a chicken… 331

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you could roast the things that you were doing in a very handsome clay pot which enhanced the flavors, kept the flavor, kept the moisture in. we bought many of these pots and he had a [good] business making and selling pots. rz: and he sold on the premises where he had his studio. ww: yes, right. rz: and then later he got involved in the wine industry as a grower. where were his vineyards? ww: they were here in the stag(cid:495)s leap district. i think that's where he bought his land. rz: what kind of fellow was he? ww: very intelligent, very thoughtful, a little pugnacious, and articulate. his heart was very much in the right place for the ag preserve. now, rue, i have to stop. i've got some things i(cid:495)ve got to do for the rest of the afternoon. it(cid:495)s been fun talking to you. rz: well, i'm sorry it's taken so long. you played an important role in the creation of the ag preserve. thank you. [conclusion of interview.] 332

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endnotes (cid:883) see: walker, richard a. (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:889)(cid:524) (cid:498)the country in the city(cid:499) university of washington press, seattle, wa; putnam, robert d. (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)bowling alone(cid:499) simon & schuster, new york; conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:889)(cid:524) (cid:498)vanishing america(cid:499) shoemaker hoard, new york, ny (cid:884) shigley, paul (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890)(cid:524) (cid:498)the unexpected legacy of napa county(cid:495)s measure j(cid:499), california planning and development report, (cid:884)(cid:891) october. (cid:523)see www.cp‐dr.com(cid:524) (cid:885) shigley, paul (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890)(cid:524) (cid:498)the unexpected legacy of napa county(cid:495)s measure j(cid:499), california planning and development report, (cid:884)(cid:891) october. (cid:523)see www.cp‐dr.com(cid:524) (cid:886) walker, richard a. (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:889)(cid:524) (cid:498)the country in the city(cid:499) university of washington press, seattle, wa; p. (cid:884)(cid:887)(cid:882) (cid:887) the post of city assessor was eliminated as part of the reform of local assessment practices in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888). according to government code (cid:887)(cid:883)(cid:887)(cid:882)(cid:883): (cid:498)by ordinance, a city legislative body may transfer the duties of the city treasurer to the treasurer of the county in which the city is situated, and shall, by january (cid:883), (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:891), transfer the assessment and tax collection duties performed by the city assessor and tax collector to the assessor and tax collector of the county in which the city is situated, and no city shall establish the offices of city assessor and tax collector after that date.(cid:499) (cid:888) see ellis‐lamkins, phaedra et al (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:888)(cid:524) (cid:498)an historical analysis of tax and fiscal propositions in california, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890)‐(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:886)(cid:499) available at www.wpusa.org/focus‐areas/gov_tfp%(cid:884)(cid:882)report%(cid:884)(cid:882)guts.pdf for the following explanation: (cid:498)prior to the passage of proposition (cid:883)(cid:885) in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890), property taxes were the main source of funding for local government jurisdictions: cities, counties, school districts and regional (cid:498)special districts(cid:499) providing specific services such as firefighting or parks. as a result, local government enjoyed a degree of autonomy from state government, with local budgets determined by local action. the practical operations of this system depended on the relationship between tax rates determined through political processes and assessed valuations, generated by economic dynamics… cities and districts would typically (cid:498)back in(cid:499) to their tax rate – first projecting needed expenditures, subtracting any projected state and federal funding, and then calculating what local tax rate would produce the desired income, given the size of their total base of assessed property value. (cid:523)tax rate(cid:524) x (cid:523)total assessed value of district property(cid:524)= district revenue. local property tax rates were determined by a simple majority of the governing board of the taxing district – and in the case of special districts, this could be a very small group of individuals, not directly accountable to voters. in the (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882)s and (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882)s the rapidly growing (cid:498)first ring(cid:499) suburbs around major urban centers enjoyed a competitive advantage; they could afford to keep tax rates low because the total assessed value of property within the city would grow rapidly as vacant or farm land was converted to housing or industrial use. the city of san leandro, for example, had a tax rate of (cid:883).(cid:884)(cid:889)% in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:882), compared to nearby oakland(cid:495)s (cid:884).(cid:891)(cid:883)%... the assessed value of property was determined by the county tax assessor, an elected officer. prior to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:889) local assessors enjoyed a great deal of autonomy – and engaged in a great deal of fraud. the state board of equalization had a theoretical oversight role, with no enforcement tools. a scandal in san francisco in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887) revealed what may have been taking place in many counties. san francisco assessor russell wolden had been elected and re‐elected many times having taken over the post from his father. his goal was to keep home assessments very low (cid:523)approximately (cid:891)% of market value(cid:524) especially in neighborhoods with lots of voters. he assessed business property very aggressively (cid:523)average (cid:887)(cid:882)% of market value(cid:524) – and then offered individual businesses the opportunity to reduce their assessment in exchange for cash.(cid:499) 333

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(cid:889) see website for shute, mihaly &weinberger, llp, the napa, california law firm that helped to draft both ballot measures j and p: (cid:498)extension of measure j passes in napa county nearly (cid:884)(cid:882) years ago, the voters of napa county adopted measure j, an initiative proposed by the napa county farm bureau to preserve agricultural lands in the unincorporated areas of the county. under measure j, the county could not redesignate agricultural or watershed lands, or subdivide those lands below a specified minimum parcel size, without first obtaining a vote of the people. considered radical at the time, the measure sparked intensive litigation that raged for over five years. ultimately, the california supreme court upheld the validity of measure j in every respect. in a sweeping decision, the court clarified that voters may exercise their right of initiative to amend a local general plan, or land use (cid:498)constitution.(cid:499) since the court(cid:495)s decision, measure j has served as a model for many other land use initiatives, such as alameda county(cid:495)s measure d and ventura county(cid:495)s (cid:498)soar(cid:499) measure. with measure j set to expire in a decade, the proponents of the initiative determined that it was time to extend the measure—until (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:887)(cid:890). these folks didn(cid:495)t fool around: not only did they easily gather the signatures to qualify their (cid:498)save measure j(cid:499) initiative for the november (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) ballot, but they also succeeded in obtaining the current board of supervisors(cid:495) endorsement of the measure. this endorsement was not surprising inasmuch as the county(cid:495)s official election report concluded that measure j had greatly benefited napa county. the firm assisted the napa group by drafting both the original measure j and its extension, (cid:498)measure p.(cid:499) together, these measures will prevent urban and suburban sprawl throughout napa county, ensuring that valuable farmland is not prematurely converted in this area. although measure j has not interfered with the county(cid:495)s ability to provide necessary affordable housing, the updated measure p specifically provides that the initiative will create no obstacles to such housing in the future. in the november (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) election, the voters of napa county passed measure p by a vote of (cid:888)(cid:884)% yes to (cid:885)(cid:890)% no(cid:499). http://www.smwlaw.com/news (cid:890) see the following excerpt about dewey andersen [sic] in conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden(cid:499) mariner books, new york, p. (cid:890)(cid:887)‐(cid:890)(cid:888): the plan for the ag preserve could not have gone forward without the support of politicians like dewey andersen [sic]. one of the five members of the napa county board of supervisors, dewey lived within a few dewey andersen [sic] thought of himself as a funny bird: a republican, a believer in individual rights, and a hundred feet of where he grew up, just outside the city limits of napa. his wife, joyce, had urged him to run for the board of supervisors and when he did, and won, he had to sell his auto repair shop to handle the county’s work. skeptic when it came to big government. he was dead set against accepting federal grants, and with them federal dictates, but when it came to development in the valley, his politics changed. he believed in protecting the home turf from outside shysters. the idea of an agricultural preserve had been around for a while. to dewey, it still sounded radical. the former director of the planning commission had proposed it to the board before dewey’s time and the board had laughed at him. they weren’t laughing anymore. the williamson act had given the idea legitimacy and some influential backers, including felix vanderschoot, …[then] chairman of the planning commission. felix was in the car business too, and was no more likely to go for radical notions than dewey. his role in drafting the county’s first general plan and the zoning and subdivision regulations had taught felix something about the politics of development. 334

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if he voted for the preserve…the proponents pushed, the opponents threatened, and juli – so far undeclared – sat nervously on the edge as the vote approached. at the hearings his hands shook, and he read from the material set before him with a quavering voice…the ag preserve needed three votes, a majority of the five 335 the planning commission, andy pelissa, liked the ag preserve concept and was willing to say so. along with dewey and felix vanderschoot, andy thought there ought to be limits to what a person could do to his and a planning commission willing to take the heat and possibly vote for something that raised such colossal hackles. not in his lifetime, and maybe never. when the supervisors convened for the vote in the napa city hall, [john] daniel, [louis] stralla, and some didn’t have to hear the conversation to know that juli was in trouble. the meeting convened and dewey felt a tightness in his own stomach as he cast his vote for the ag preserve. he listened as others did the same. when it came time for caiocca’s decision he was trembling and pasty faced. he said, “nobody’s gonna shake a finger at me,” and voted yea. (cid:891) julius caiocca represented the st. helena district. he had an insurance business and his father owned a grocery store in st. helena. see the following excerpt on his important swing vote for the ag preserve in conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden(cid:499) mariner books, new york, p. (cid:891)(cid:883)‐(cid:891)(cid:884): the supervisor who took the most heat was julius caiocca... “juli”…could expect to see his business evaporate supers on the board…dewey andersen [sic] knew that the valley would not again have a board of supervisors other men circled juli caiocca outside, and stralla wagged a finger in caiocca’s face. dewey andersen [sic] (cid:883)(cid:882) named after the red shoulder patch that symbolizes the legacy and tradition binding all generations who have served in the first infantry division from world war i to the present. (cid:883)(cid:883) mcfarland has been interviewed for this series. see excerpt on pelissa in conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden(cid:499), houghton mifflin, new york, p. (cid:890)(cid:888): (cid:498)a big landowner and grape grower on surroundings." today pelissa(cid:495)s grandson, andrew hoxsey, manages the farming operation – the largest organic winegrowing business in the county – that was founded by his family in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:886). (cid:883)(cid:884) louie stralla was a close friend of john daniel. see conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden(cid:499), houghton mifflin, new york, pp. (cid:886)(cid:886)‐(cid:886)(cid:889) for a description of stralla. he vehemently opposed creation of the ag preserve (cid:523)ibid, p. (cid:891)(cid:883)‐(cid:891)(cid:883)(cid:524). (cid:883)(cid:885) passed by the california state legislature in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:885), the brown act guarantees the right of the public to participate in all meetings held by members of local legislative agencies. it was enacted in response to a public outcry over (cid:498)back room(cid:499) informal meetings held by elected officials. (cid:883)(cid:886) joseph g. peatman, now retired, was a land use attorney with the napa law firm of dickenson, peatman, and fogarty which he founded in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:886). (cid:883)(cid:887) bruno c. solari (cid:523)(cid:498)larry(cid:499)(cid:524) was then president of united vintners, a large wine industry cooperative that was later sold to the liquor conglomerate heublein inc. (cid:883)(cid:888) david cameron baker, civil litigation attorney, married to the former katherine solari. (cid:883)(cid:889) anne gringrass‐paik arrived in the napa valley in early (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:891). she became chef for napa valley restaurant, brix after a (cid:884)(cid:887) year career that included being a chef at spago in los angeles and postrio in san francisco. (cid:883)(cid:890) art and dorothy tockey founded an electrical services firm, napa electric, in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:885)(cid:891). the firm continues to operate today at its building on brown street in napa.

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(cid:883)(cid:891) in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:883) nathan fay and his wife, nellie, planted a (cid:889)(cid:882)‐acre vineyard in the stags leap area of the napa valley. by (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890) they had produced a cabernet sauvignon that impressed warren winiarski (cid:523)interviewed in this series(cid:524), who founded stag(cid:495)s leap wine cellars and later bought fay(cid:495)s vineyard. nathan fay died in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:883). (cid:884)(cid:882) a founding board member of the land trust of napa county. (cid:884)(cid:883) family patriarch anton nichelini established vineyards and a winery in chiles valley in (cid:883)(cid:890)(cid:891)(cid:882). (cid:884)(cid:884) see the official napa county website, http://www.countyofnapa.org/workarea/linkit.aspx?linkidentifier=id&itemid=(cid:886)(cid:884)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:890)(cid:883)(cid:884)(cid:890), for the following explanation of the tot: (cid:498)the transient occupancy tax (cid:523)tot(cid:524) (cid:523)hotel, motel or (cid:498)bed(cid:499) tax(cid:524) is authorized under state revenue and taxation code section (cid:889)(cid:884)(cid:890)(cid:882), as an additional source of non‐property tax revenue to local government. this tax is levied for the privilege of occupying a room or rooms or other living space in a hotel, motel, inn, tourist home or house, or other lodging for a period of (cid:885)(cid:882) days or less. the imposed tax rate for accommodations at lodging facilities in the unincorporated area of napa county is (cid:883)(cid:884)%. the county ordinance requires operators to register their facility with the tax administrator annually and to have the "certificate of authority" to collect transient occupancy tax posted in a conspicuous place on the premises at all times. a use permit must be obtained by the conservation, development and planning department before the tax administrator can grant the "certificate of authority" to collect transient occupancy tax.(cid:499) (cid:884)(cid:885) randolf f. snowden, director, napa county health and human services, is also a grape grower and vintner. (cid:884)(cid:886) george and mary ann mcguire gamble (cid:884)(cid:887) jeffrey earl warren is the owner of james warren & son realtors in st. helena (cid:884)(cid:888) peter h. behr, an ardent conservationist, was elected to the california state senate in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882), and represented the (cid:886)th district comprising marin, napa, and solano counties. (cid:884)(cid:889) children of san francisco real estate developer martin stelling, who owned a large estate in the napa valley and died in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:887)(cid:882). (cid:884)(cid:890) see volker eisele(cid:495)s oral history in this series. (cid:884)(cid:891) see james hickey(cid:495)s oral history in this series. (cid:885)(cid:882) former real estate and tax attorney bill jaeger was a partner in rutherford hill winery and established jaeger vineyards in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884). (cid:885)(cid:883) basalt corporation operated a rock quarry south of napa. (cid:885)(cid:884) dorothy erskine was one of the founders of (cid:498)the citizens for regional parks and open space, the first open‐space advocacy group in the area, which evolved into people for open space, and into today(cid:495)s greenbelt alliance.(cid:499) she and others (cid:498)played a large role in steering the regional agency that did emerge, the association of bay area governments, into a defender of greenbelts. likewise, under prodding from erskine, [mel] scott published in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885) his study, (cid:498)the future of san francisco bay,(cid:499) which described in horrifying terms for the bay area public the potential diminishing of the bay through landfill and shoreline development. the book provided the foundation for civic activism that the save the bay trio of catherine kerr, esther gulick and sylvia mclaughlin used to pass the legislation creating the bay area 336

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conservation and development commission (cid:523)bcdc(cid:524), the agency that has protected the bay ever since.(cid:499) source: http://www.spur.org/publications/library/article/progress_intentionally_planned_telesis_and_modernist _agenda (cid:885)(cid:885) john f. dunlap was elected to the california state assembly in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:888), representing napa and solano counties. in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:886) dunlap was elected to the california state senate. 34 for russell wolden see: ellis‐lamkins, phaedra et al (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:888)(cid:524), (cid:498)an historical analysis of tax and fiscal propositions in california, (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:890)‐(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:886)(cid:499) available at www.wpusa.org/focus‐ areas/gov_tfp%(cid:884)(cid:882)report%(cid:884)(cid:882)guts.pdf (cid:498)a scandal in san francisco in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:887) revealed what may have been taking place in many counties. san francisco assessor russell wolden had been elected and re‐elected many times having taken over the post from his father. his goal was to keep home assessments very low (cid:523)approximately (cid:891)% of market value(cid:524) especially in neighborhoods with lots of voters. he assessed business property very aggressively (cid:523)average (cid:887)(cid:882)% of market value(cid:524) – and then offered individual businesses the opportunity to reduce their assessment in exchange for cash.(cid:499) (cid:885)(cid:887) james h. hickey was director of the napa county conservation, development and planning department from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891). see his oral history in this series. (cid:885)(cid:888) see conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524) (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden(cid:499) houghton mifflin company, new york. (cid:885)(cid:889) james h. hickey was director of the napa county conservation, development and planning dept. from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:882)‐(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:891) (cid:885)(cid:890) john mikolajcik is known as the (cid:498)father(cid:499) of american canyon for his efforts to incorporate that city. he served eight years as napa county supervisor. he died in (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890). (cid:885)(cid:891) created by the california state legislature in (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:888)(cid:885) to deter urban sprawl and to support the orderly development of local government agencies. each county in california has a lafco with seven members, including two that are chosen by the board of supervisors. (cid:886)(cid:882) the california environmental quality act is a statute that requires state and local agencies to identify significant environmental impacts of proposed actions and to mitigate their effects. (cid:886)(cid:883) see http://www.abag.ca.gov/housing‐top.html : (cid:498)regional housing needs allocation (cid:523)rhna(cid:524) is a state mandated process for determining how many housing units, including affordable units, each community must plan to accommodate. the california department of housing and community development (cid:523)hcd(cid:524) determines the total housing need for a region, and it is abag's responsibility to distribute this need to local governments. working with local governments, abag developed an allocation methodology for assigning units, by income category, to each city and county in the nine‐county bay area. this allocation of need shows local governments the total number of housing units, by affordability, for which they must plan in their housing elements(cid:499) in a given period. (cid:886)(cid:884) warren winiarski has provided an extensive oral history elsewhere. see (cid:498)creating classic wines in the napa valley(cid:499) (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:524), interviews by ruth teiser, the regional oral history office, bancroft library, university of california, berkeley, ca 337

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(cid:886)(cid:885) conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:891)(cid:882)(cid:524), (cid:498)napa: the story of an american eden,(cid:499) houghton mifflin, new york; and conaway, james (cid:523)(cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:884)(cid:524) (cid:498)the far side of eden: new money, old land and the battle for napa valley,(cid:499) houghton mifflin, new york (cid:886)(cid:886) keith bowers was manager of the university of california, davis, extension research station in the napa valley from (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:886)(cid:891) to (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:889)(cid:884) , when he became napa county farm advisor. he served in that position until (cid:883)(cid:891)(cid:890)(cid:889). [see http://napavalleyregister.com/news/locałarticle_(cid:887)(cid:889)(cid:891)b(cid:886)f(cid:884)f‐(cid:884)(cid:885)(cid:883)(cid:887)‐(cid:887)(cid:884)...] by l. pierce carson register staff writer | posted: sunday, april (cid:884)(cid:882), (cid:884)(cid:882)(cid:882)(cid:890) (cid:883)(cid:884):(cid:882)(cid:882) am how napa's ag preserve beat the odds, and saved the valley appendix: napa valley register, napa, ca, 2008 news article on the history of the ag preserve by l. pierce carson county fathers knew in 1967 they had to do something. they’d seen farmland in other parts of california paved over for a burgeoning population, including once productive fertile orchards in santa clara valley. when earnest county staff came forward with plans for a greenbelt, the county supervisors were all ears. the effort to preserve fertile valley ag land would take advantage of new state programs and legislation, and it would entail a massive public relations effort to sell local landowners on the idea, all hands admitted. they would enlist the help of upper napa valley associates, an organization of residents concerned about the politics of land use. one member was vintner jack davies, who, in addition to launching a new wine brand, schramsberg, was worried about slowly disappearing farmland throughout the golden state. the first of its kind in the nation, napa county’s agricultural preserve might not have happened if it weren’t for the watchdog efforts of thennapa county assessor george abate. not one to toot his own horn, abate nevertheless alerted other county and state officials here not only to the farflung threats to agriculture but to new state programs designed to help farmers and keep ag land in production. to see how this came together requires examining issues that set it all in motion. abate, a straightshooting assessor first elected to his post in the early 1960s, recently recalled how assessment scandals in several areas of california prompted new legislation regulating the practice of land valuation. that legislation sent shock waves through ag counties around the state. assembly bill 80 dictated that county assessors must value land based on comparable nearby property sales. it was on these assessments that taxes were then collected. abate recognized the possibility that a few acres of idle farm land, sold at a high price for home sites, might have to be used as the standard for assessing all similar tracts in the neighborhood. one or two land sales in any given area, then, might trigger higher assessments in a particular region, effectively forcing a working farmer to sell his property, too, in order to pay a much higher tax bill. but the impact of ab 80 didn’t escape notice of sacramento legislators, either. led by assemblyman john williamson, the california legislature in the mid’60s enacted a new law designed to preserve agricultural and open space land in danger of premature conversion to urban uses. the california land conservation act of 1965 — commonly referred to as the williamson act — enabled local governments to enter into contracts with private landowners for the purpose of restricting specific parcels of land to agricultural or related open 338

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space use. in return, landowners received property tax assessments which were much lower than normal because they were based upon farming and open space uses as opposed to full market value. county takes the lead armed with the knowledge that the state would do its part, county officials knew there was work to do here in the valley. abate presented his concerns to county administrator albert haberger, a nononsense public official who brought both new blood and direction to county government in the mid’60s. haberger sensed the urgency to stem the tide of urban sprawl, to substantially slow the march of population to napa county where, state officials predicted, some 200,000 people would live by the year 2000. haberger built a team that could explain the need to pass legislation protecting county ag land (which included some 12,000acres of vines, just one fourth of what is planted here today). he enlisted the help of mervin lernhart, then deputy county counsel, in drafting the legislation that would create the first ag preserve in america. planning director vern cotter and his assistant, eric borgwardt, would be called upon to lead the public hearings before the napa county planning commission. jack fisk, the state’s liaison to county agriculture, and the county’s agricultural commissioner, aldo delfini, joined the team. plans were drawn up to protect some 26,000 acres of farmland, mostly on the valley floor. (today, agricultural preserve zoning covers close to 40,000 acres.) an educational campaign was launched in the fall of 1967, one that focused on the promise of lower taxes for land kept in agriculture. county staff presented a realistic portrait of farmlands saved from the bulldozer, of the tremendous potential for napa valley to become a shining star in the world of winegrowing. all this long before the first mention of an idyllic napa valley lifestyle. contentious hearings haberger marshaled the county’s team to present talks on the proposed ag preserve and its impact at gatherings around the county. chaired by felix vanderschoot, the napa county planning commission launched a series of public hearings on the legislation in december of 1967, just prior to the christmas holidays. while proponents insisted the measure would save napa valley farms — and, in particular, viticulture — the opposition claimed ap zoning would destroy land values and would prevent them from dividing up lands as inheritances for the next generation. what was not debated was the future of winegrowing in napa valley. a few respected vintners maintained napa valley had the potential to become one of the best wineproducing regions in the world. ag preserve opponents, in large measure, were unsure that napa county’s future would be in grapes. even some who were farming the land at the time wanted to retain the option of being able to sell off a chunk of property for home sites if the going got rough. some listened and some didn’t when abate predicted the napa county land would, in future years, be much more valuable as farmland than as potential subdivision sites. once lost to concrete and residential development, ag land cannot be reclaimed, one advocate declared as planners opened public hearings. at first reluctant to be drawn into rancorous debates, respected st. helena winemaker louis m. martini asked rhetorically: “do the citizens of the napa valley really believe the future of our land is best served by destroying landmarks and vineyards and replacing them with subdivisions, bleak shopping centers and highway strip developments?” martini told county officials he believed the napa valley wine industry was “headed to a degree of quality not achieved in the past or elsewhere in the world. you let this go and you will have a real catastrophe.” 339

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supporters of the ag preserve included new winery owner robert mondavi, his brother at charles krug; peter mondavi, beringer’s roy raymond and schramsberg’s jack davies. davies said planners and county fathers were on the right track and suggested they and vintners work together. “this county does not deserve to be treated like a used car lot,” he declared at one public hearing. but opponents were not swayed. branding the proposal “unamerican and socialistic,” onetime inglenook winery owner john daniel said the proposed ap zone was “unfair to the landowners and the objectives of such zoning are vague and imprecise.” daniel believed the broad powers of both planners and supervisors “should be tempered. there was no economic study made by the planning staff to show what the effects of such a preserve would be.” grower b.c. solari, who was president of united vintners, maintained the effort was a threat to the investment climate in napa county. cameron baker, attorney for the committee for fair agricultural preserves, a vocal opposition group, felt the legislation had been hastily drawn and needed instead to be reviewed and studied by land use experts. agreeing with the opposition that the proposed 40acre minimum lot size in the new agricultural preserve zone was too large, the county’s planning commission cut the minimum in half when it approved the legislation in midjanuary 1968, sending it on to the board of supervisors. county supervisors henry wigger, jack l. ferguson, julius caiocca and dewey andersen opened the first of the board’s public hearings in early march of that year. because supervisor n. d. (pete) clark was ill and did not attend the first hearing, he was not permitted to cast a vote on the matter. on april 9, 1968, the board of supervisors, on a 40 vote, approved the first agricultural preserve in the united states. an appeal of their action to the napa county superior court was unsuccessful, as a visiting judge ruled in the county’s favor. 340