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The update this week includes:
1. An
addition to the Commentary Rebuttal, which specifically and realistically
addresses flood fears related to the the Hunter property. See Flood Fears. Related to that, a Freedom
of Information Act request will go to the City Manager this week asking for
the total amount of legal fees and settlements paid out by the City related
to the Hunter property.
2. An
amazing video of an animated graph that is making the rounds on the
Internet during this time of national dysfunction: See Wealth Inequality in America. Social
disparity is a major contributor to the malaise in the US that we are
grappling with now. Extreme views, ultimatums, use of public
resources for personal political battles, self-interest mislabeled as
public interest. These political misdeeds are being felt on all
levels of government and are facilitated by the increasing difficulty of
constituents to feel as though they share common needs and aspirations.
3. Then,
on this very subject and in light of the pending adoption of the Small
Winery Ordinance, there is today's editorial in the Napa Register: Does Napa risk becoming as polarized as the
nation?
4. And
lastly, the FINAL version of the Small Winery Ordinance.
It was sent back 3 times to add teeth and some recourse for potentially
unhappy neighbors. The blue type denotes the sections that were added
for neighborhood protection. It is not great but better. There
still needs to be protection from harmful chemicals, such as simple and
civil notification. The right to farm does not trump death and
disease, especially for children. If that were true we would still
see fields covered with plastic as dangerous gases were pumped into the
soil.
Lastly, there is a new and very practical study
out from the Univ. of Hawaii which pinpoints exactly where and when climate
change will "turn the corner" and significantly change life and
business for a given location. From the charts of cities, it looks
like Napa Valley will probably "depart", as they call it, in
2049. Check the Univ. Of Hawaii site of the study, the Nature Magazine article and the London Daily Mail (has photos).
Bottom line, it will change for the tropics in 2020 and for most places by
2047; if everything stopped now, it could only be delayed to 2069. It
is time to actively plan local adaptation measures; cities that do not will
suffer more.
Sandy
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