The Ugly Truth
13 April 2011
Why Napa Sucks! Part Four: Flood Control and Land Seizures
There it sits, like a little chunk of Faux Florence on the Napa River. Ever since its completion around the fall of 2008, the media have lauded the Riverfront complex as the harbinger of a reborn Downtown Napa. A five-block-long serpentine walkway connects the complex with neighboring buildings along the river, linking business district, park, plaza and hotels. It's really very nice looking, at a distance, and it represents the culmination of 40 years worth of local bureaucratic butchery in the name of Flood Control.
I don't know when the Flood Control agency emerged as the monster it would become, but there were hints when the bureaucrats destroyed the Downtown with Federal Urban Development money. That was in the early '70s, and the plans called for the uncovering of Napa Creek by Pearl and Main streets, along with the requisite "beautification."
Now, all the riverside landscaping completed back then to conform to the new, improved Downtown Napa, is being replaced to conform to the new, new, improved Downtown Napa. And while one might argue that replacement after 40 years hardly amounts to much wasted effort, it's worth noting that these first manifestations of local urban planning were complete failures. All the riverside benches and terraces built in the '70s were fenced off within five or ten years because they'd become scarey places frequented by a bum class that hadn't existed before either.
A dozen businesses once thrived where now we have open creek and all the attendant eyesores of tree snags, abandoned shopping carts and trolls lurking under the bridge.
But we do have the Riverfront, the riverwalk, and two nice, new bridges, all thanks to a wide variety of federal, state and local taxpayer money and a private sector push or two.
Like I said, I don't know all the details behind the Flood Control Agency, or whatever it's called, but They did start putting people out of business to open up the river in the '70s. Then They started condemning properties along the river in order to widen it just south of the Downtown. This would keep the water from backing up in the central business district and overflowing.
The Army Corps of Engineers was involved along with every Federal and State agency that could stake a claim to the river, and They seem to have hatched their plans throughout most of the '80s and '90s. Toward the end of the latter decade, the desired outside money came through--probably with help from Congressman Mike Thompson--and work began in earnest with the new millenium.
Let's look at some of the random results along the way toward that post-modernist fancy called Riverfront, some of the intrigue that brought it to us, some of the businesses that were crippled or destroyed.
Chanterelle Restaurant
Chanterelle sat at the intersection of First and Soscol, just across the river from Downtown. A couple of Arabic immigrants steeped in Middle-Eastern French culture maintained an old-fashioned French restaurant, long a favorite of Napa gastronomes for its classic dishes, its consistency and fine service. It was expensive for the time, but nothing compared to what you face now, and it guaranteed a certain elegance and propriety. Chanterelle was run out of business in the last decade by the flood control agency, which comandeered the space for its own offices, despite the fact that most of Downtown had already been taken over by local government offices. There wasn't enough space for flood control, however, so another business had to die.
Chanterelle's owners had no choice, they were forced to go, and they had to accept what was offered for their real estate alone. They seem to have gotten nothing for their actual business, 15, 20 years of service and the goodwill of countless customers.
Worst of all, nowhere in the Napa Valley can you anymore dine on duck l'orange whenever you want.
The Rough Rider Building and Antique Mall
Back in the days when Napa actually produced useful things, the Rough Rider clothes factory made durable sport, work and dress wear in a building just across the river from Riverfront. The factory died in the '50s or '60s, but re-emerged in the '80s as a large antique mall with a hundred or so vendors and a clientele from around Northern California.
The Flood Control people came after the owners in the '90s, finally evicting them from their property and business. As with Chanterelle, they had to settle for the money offered, and they got nothing for the business; they were told it wasn't worth anything. The owners claimed to have spent half-a-million in legal fees fighting the flood control bosses, and lost.
Ordered to vacate in the Fall, the owners asked to remain open through Christmas. They might have had a chance to recoup some of their losses by selling off inventory over lucrative holidays, a benefit as well to the scores of dealers who would also be deprived of a local outlet.
The request denied, they were forced out that September. The property remained untouched for almost a year afterwards, but the former owners had been suitably punished for daring to resist the Bosses.
They limped along, finally ending up in the moribund Town Center, the contrivance meant to replace the old Downtown after the destruction of redevelopment.
Fed up with the deserted storefronts surrounding them and the general business environment, they finally sold everything off and moved to Ohio.
The Napa River Inn
A decade ago, the local Powers-That-Be were lauding this project as harbinger of the Reborn Downtown. On the far side of Riverfront from the Downtown, the Napa River Inn is dwarfed by its new neighbor, and it never enjoyed the latter's advantages.
Once a large feed and grain outlet serving Valley livestock owners, the business died in the mid-'60s and the City of Napa took it over for some years. It sat abandoned for a couple of decades, when the current owners acquired it with the intention of building the current hotel within and around the original buildings.
So here we have some local developers with a demonstrated record of good construction practices--they had already built half the industrial parks between Napa and Vallejo--and they wanted to build something distinctive and relatively large in the mangled Downtown.
From the very beginning they were stymied by what form Flood Control might one day take, all their plans scrutinized by the various government agencies in charge of the river. This was independent of the local demands by City and County. Every round of the process meant tens of thousands of dollars in legal, engineering and consulting fees.
Finally, as construction was to begin, they were informed that the dirt was toxic, forcing them to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars removing it. The bad dirt resulted from the gas supplies once kept on the property to fuel the delivery truck fleet. The residue of spilled gasoline had by then been subjected to 20 or 30 years of sunlight, evaporation and rain, and its traces, let alone effects, were negligible. All of it would be covered by new construction.
More to the point, the City had owned this property for the best part of a decade, yet no one made the City clean the site when it was even more toxic, presumably, than it would be 15 years later.
The developers pressed on for a decade, harrassed at every turn by various bureaucrats, but they prevailed and actually managed to get the Napa River Inn completed, to much official fanfare, around 2000.
It heralded the Rebirth of Downtown Napa, blah, blah, blah, in a familiar incantation we heard after Redevelopment destroyed the Downtown and replaced it with a clocktower, and again when the Town Center was built 10 years later to make up for the non-existent Downtown. Now the Napa River Inn was the Renaissance.
Within six months or so, the Army Corps of Engineers informed the owners that they had built their project in the wrong place; it needed to be moved 10 feet back from the river or somesuch. The proposition was absurd, of course, and the confusion was eventually cleared up, at yet more cost to the owners. It turned out that someone in the bureaucracy had gotten their maps mixed up, sending the wrong version to the Corps. No apologies or recompense were forthcoming. Then the terrorist attacks of September 2001 put a damper on tourism for a year, further plaguing the Napa River Inn. At least this disaster wasn't a deliberate act.
Those would come as the Queen Bee emerged.
She was a long-time Napa bureaucrat who seems to have worked her way around the local agencies until she got the Flood Control sinecure. She earned a reputation for officious nitpicking, and an ability to magnify minor or non-existent problems into major headaches for any members of the public forced to deal with her. Even worse, she seems to have had a well-honed sense of revenge toward any who defied her.
It was she who comandeered Chanterelle Restaurant and put it out of business, it was she who evicted the antique dealers from their mall before Christmas, it was she who refused to pay owners for the businesses she ruined, though she presumably had money in her budget for such contingencies. And it was probably her office that sent the wrong maps to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Napa River Inn developers had a history with the Queen Bee. Over the years they had proven adept at sidestepping her dictates, if only because they routinely complied with the laws and common sense, and she just as routinely looked for problems to justify her existence and authority. As Flood Control Boss, she was in a unique position to make these guys really miserable.
Meanwhile, remember, the Napa River Inn was the new attraction Downtown, praised universally by the local politicians and bureaucrats, even as Queen Bee tormented the owners.
Ever attempting to get people Downtown, the Inn sponsored community events; a history day, a river day. The owners installed commemorative plaques and works of art. They also got a permit for a dock so a genuine gondolier and gondola from Venice could row people up the river, kayakers could launch their craft, and an old-style boat could run excursions.
Within a year the Queen Bee and colleagues discovered reasons why they could no longer have a dock, at least not until later. Flood Control, you know. That was 10 years ago, and there still is no dock.
By 2002 or 2003, major work on the river began, including the waterside walkway that knits together the Downtown. Queen Bee decided that she wanted the public right-of-way to go right through the Napa River Inn property, slicing off large chunks of their newly completed riverside plaza, and running a gap through one of the buildings.
This made sense to nobody but Queen Bee, but such factors didn't count.
The owners failed in their efforts to bring her around, so they resorted to an admirable subterfuge; I know some of the details only because of a Byzantine degree of research. No one involved, of course, would admit to this. But here's the story, as I pieced it together.
The construction company that got the City contract to build the walkway had the opportunity to make a greater profit if it could come in under cost, somehow, with a superior design. The Inn owners had just such a plan, which, because it did simply follow the river and continue the already established line, cost less than Queen Bee's preferred route through the hotel. The contractors submitted "their" plan--the owner's plan--at the appropriate meeting, ambushing Queen Bee with a design she had rejected. She was stuck; the contractor had a chance to save or make an extra million, and she couldn't make this just go away under public scrutiny in a neutral venue.
The Napa Register ran a story after that meeting, in which Queen Bee said she found the new plan interesting, and she would certainly look into it. She ultimately lost that round, and that's why the riverwalk doesn't abruptly wander through the Napa River Inn at its south end.
But the Queen wasn't done with them yet. After all of that, after 20 years of harrassment by various government agencies, and a good 10 at the hands of the Queen, there was more.
The owners of the Napa River Inn received a letter one day in 2006, from Queen Bee or her minions. They wanted to know why the owners had not been sending in the well-monitoring reports, as required. What the hell? they asked. Figure it out, they were told.
It seems that back in the 1960s, there were some wells on the property, that were supposed to be monitored by someone. When the City owned the property in the '70s, it filled in the wells. All this the hotel owners figured out, indicating to Queen Bee that there were no wells anymore, filled in as they were by the City of Napa.
So what? she more or less responded. Where are the well-monitoring reports?
Eventually, they made that problem go away, too, since it was, after all, a made up problem.
And Queen Bee, the Stupid Bitch, finally decamped.
This is how Napa treats a much-admired group of good, corporate citizens, trying to complete a quality modern development, while doing everything possible to preserve the old buildings and history.
They harrass them to distraction.
This is what they do to people they like.
And, Finally, Riverfront
There's one fundamental difference between Riverfront and the Napa River Inn, and the distinction is critical in understanding how things work in this City and County. If the Napa River Inn was a 10-million-dollar project, Riverfront is more along the lines of a 50-million-dollar project. Size matters around here.
The bigger you are, the more the local bureaucrats want you. It's that simple. If they think you have lots of money to spend, and you might go elsewhere, they will court you. Additionally, in the general scheme of things, the bigger you are, the less you notice the bureaucrats. There are certain set costs in terms of fees and studies demanded equally whether you're doing the 10-million-dollar deal or the 50-million-dollar deal. Since the price will not be five times as high for the latter, the money wasted on red-tape is a smaller fraction of total construction costs.
It all boils down to having more money available to defend yourself against the bureaucrats' antics. You're not only less vulnerable, you might even fight back and win.
So they'll work with you until you show weakness, and then they'll attack.
The Riverfront project seems to have been devoid of the problems that beset the Napa River Inn from beginning to end. Indeed, the bureaucrats did everything possible to move the project along and accommodate the developer, so much so that the separate projects--the City's riverwalk, on the one hand, the developer's Riverfront, on the other--were treated as one.
When a faulty pump on the Riverfront project started to flood the Napa River Inn next door one weekend, maintenance people from the Inn turned it off themselves when no one answered at any emergency phone numbers. By the time the Inn management returned on Monday morning, their voicemails were already full of official rebukes. It took them a week to get out of trouble with the Queen Bee for averting a costly disaster not of their making.
She apparently supported the Riverfront project, after all, so not only did they avoid her wrath, they benefitted from it when anyone seemed to interfere. The same might be said for the riverside Westin Hotel half-a-mile away. The project seemed effortlessly to move forward, no problems for anyone involved. Because it was a huge hotel chain with deep pockets. No problem there at all, apparently.
Ironically, Riverfront might well become another great Napa failure, rivalling the now defunct Copia Center for Wine, Culture and General Pretension. Through no fault of their own, the developers of Riverfront completed the project in the summer of 2008, just as the economy collapsed. Perhaps things have changed, but condominiums weren't selling in droves at the time because banks weren't lending.
Some high-end restaurants have opened there--Downtown Napa certainly needed more pricey eateries--along with a bicycle shop and a cocktail gown vendor. The hulking County Jail is across the street.
So far, it's mostly just another attractive, empty facade, and Napa is full of them.
For 40 years, the people of Napa have been deprived of their town by bureaucrats who destroyed it to save it. But we do have the Riverfront, that little piece of Europe on the Napa River. We owe it all to Napa's Flood Control agency, along with all those empty storefronts. We can only hope that Riverfront doesn't join them any time soon.
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Copyright WineMerchant.com 2011
>Why Napa Sucks! Part Five: The Bums Who Sell You Out
A community's leadership reflects the nature of the place, and Napa demonstrates a rare knack for attracting losers, frauds, bullies and criminals. Whether employed by City, County or State, the local bureaucrats and politicians are uniquely ham-handed, meatheaded and petty to the bone. These are the people who run your life, destroy your business and put you in jail.
When you can't fight city hall, it's time to burn the place down, along with the vermin within. Figuratively speaking, of course.
Let's have a look at some of the rats, and see what they do with your cheese.
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The Napa City Manager receives $237,000 per annum, in addition to the $200,000 one-time housing allowance awarded him when he took the job. According to the Napa Register, this made him the sixteenth most well-paid city manager in California,
though the Napa Sentinel said he left his last job under a cloud. Napa, by the way, hovers around number one-hundred in terms of city size in California.
* * *
The man who ran/runs the State Veterans Home in Yountville developed a reputation for evicting veterans in a summary manner that broke the rules. Because they complained about his management. Old vets had to sue to get reinstated. Meanwhile, the facility meant to serve homeless vets transformed into a high-priced rest home where the management sues for the estates of the residents as soon as they die. The Vets Home did just that to a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner just a year or two ago. Standard operating procedure.
* * *
Consider the man responsible for vineyard worker housing, who in 2008 or thereabouts was found to have squandered his own budget and then embezzled a million dollars or so from the City budget. And no one noticed. The man in question, of course, was not prosecuted--because he meant well.
* * *
How about the woman who ran the jail around the same time who left under mysterious circumstances before or after releasing prisoners for fun?
* * *
Or the woman who ran/runs the Emergency Medical Technician program at Napa College, who was accused in the newspaper of inappropriately close relationships with students, coupled with a harshly militaristic attitude that pervaded her domain?
* * *
Then there was the erstwhile Dean of Something Or Other out there who, involved in the new construction a few years ago, tried to make a wing or a lab disappear in order to punish the faculty member who would use it because the woman had defied her.
* * *
The long-time Napa Police insider who really runs the department whose familiars started the first heroin epidemic in Napa yet never seemed to get busted. Meanwhile, regular kids were being sent to prison for smoking cannabis, and Napa cops were running a crime ring in which they sold the drugs and stolen merchandise they acquired with the help of their underworld confederates. Then they murdered Teddy Dominguez. And a top cop who sets policies here with badges and guns either knows the whole story or is too stupid to keep his job.
* * *
The planning nanny who is determined that the Napa Pipe facility be turned into home for 10,000 new people in a North Vallejo, while she drives poor people from their long-time homes. All this she does in the name of Slow, Planned Growth, quality, low-income housing, and a larger tax base to feed the hungry public servants. She will pass it off as a great success, whatever happens, when she moves to a new community to destroy.
* * *
During his almost two-decade tenure, the District Atttorney has probably exonerated more cops for killing citizens than he's prosecuted criminals for killing citizens. When the latter happens, you have to wonder if a murder was really committed or whether they got the right guy. But that presumes they actually investigated anything and got anyone at all. And then there's that national extortion ring he's running with other California DAs, the bunch of them threatening businesses across the United States with punishing law suits and prosecutions on trumped up charges.
* * *
The election czar who abolished polling places in the Valley, and is dismantling the electoral structure this country has known for 220 years. No longer do citizens control the ballots and their counting, but the bureaucrats do. From now on, they get to tally the votes determining whether we pay higher taxes or suffer new rules. Or if they get more pay.
* * *
The New Technology Highschool honchos who maintained an association with the educator who allegedly gave a hand job to a student on a field trip to Disneyland. Magic Kingdom indeed! The humiliated victim and his family didn't want to press charges and suffer public embarrassment, so the sexual predator got away with it and continues work at New Tech.
* * *
The Napa City Councilman who, after voters resoundingly rejected homosexual marriage in the 2008 election, decided to sponsor a measure repudiating the vote and condemning the ban, which his colleagues rejected. After which Napa incurred the ire of the deviant lobby, that suggested a boycott of the town while local activists proclaimed they were keeping lists of the unenlightened heteros, who would be punished accordingly. His intention, I believe, was to bring us all together in harmony.
* * *
And my all time favorite for now, the former head of the Napa State Hospital for the Criminally Insane who was recently sentenced to an eternity in prison for sodomizing the numerous foster sons who passed though his hands. So to speak. A mere nurse with a Master's Degree in public administration, one wonders how he got the job to begin with, as if there aren't enough pompous psychiatrists around who have had some kind of real education. Meanwhile, for decades no one thought it odd that the funny bachelor with a profound interest in little boys had so many. Remember, he comes from the social services community, rife with all those concerned people ready to seize your children and turn them over to Child Protective Services, who never thought to, you know, look into this little anomaly. He was finally busted when one of his victims came forward as an adult. What a fitting metaphor representing everything they do to us in this Valley.
Savagely buggering the citizens, in plain sight, for their own good.
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Copyright WineMerchant.com 2011