I wanted to alert you to some important communication services which the County of Napa provides in the event of an emergency. Napa County has an extraordinary Emergency Operations Center and our staff is constantly working to be prepared for a potential natural disaster. While government is not designed to handle everything in the event of a catastrophe, communication during such an occurrence has proven to be a key to life safety. It has been shown that obtaining quick and accurate information may mean the difference between life and death for some citizens. That’s why the Napa County website has a wealth of information on its “Emergencies Services” page, which can be viewed at: http://www.countyofnapa.org/Emergencies/.

There are several news alert programs available to citizens. Napa County’s WARN (Wide Area Response Notification) system automatically sends a voice message to your home phone (hard-wired phone). If you would like emergency voice messages sent to your mobile phone, you must sign up on the County’s WARN page found at the County’s emergencies web address above. Napa County can also send emergency text messages to your mobile phone on a wide range of emergencies from flooding and fires to accident reports and road closures. You can sign up for this free service by going to www.nixle.com.

If you have any questions or comments on these services or any other County issue, don’t hesitate to contact me at bill.dodd@countyofnapa.org or 253-4386.  

Sincerely,

The Napa County Planning Commission voted this month to extend the

public comment period to May 2 on the proposed 2,580-home/mixed-use development project in order to give stakeholders time to digest more than 1,400 pages of new data included in the project’s supplemental draft environmental impact report (EIR). The Commission agreed that more time was needed for the public to examine some of the new fiscal statements in the report.

In addition, the Napa Valley Unified School District voiced concerns about a number of safety, health, and environmental issues concerning the 10-acre parcel within the project that Napa Pipe’s developers have set aside for a school. The next step once the comment period is closed is for the County to gather the public comments and include them in the final EIR, which is anticipated to be released in late summer or early fall 2011.

The Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency (NCTPA) is exploring whether to place an extension of Measure A on the November 2012 ballot. Passed in 1998, Measure A was the half cent sales tax increase for our Flood Control Project.  

If passed by voters, the tax would take effect when the current half-cent sales tax for the Napa Flood District expires in 2018. The tax could raise about $13 million annually, which would be used for local road and street maintenance. NCTPA could issue bonds and begin projects before the 2018 expiration of the flood district tax, since the agency would be guaranteed the stream of future income of the half-cent sales tax increase.  

Napa and Solano counties are the only California counties that have not passed a sales tax increase for local road maintenance and transportation projects. NCTPA members noted that Napa County is losing out on state and federal transportation grants because those funds are often awarded as matching grants to counties that have shown the initiative to improve their local roads by raising money locally through the sales tax to tackle these projects. 

As new Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature try to solve the remaining $12-13 billion state budget deficit (after agreeing to $13 billion of cuts this month), an important issue has arisen that could greatly impact Napa County public services. The issue is “realignment,” in which the state government is seeking to move some state public safety functions and services onto local governments. The goal is to alleviate state budget pressure while giving local governments maximum flexibility and control over the design, administration, and delivery of those services.

There is a proposed amendment that legislators are trying to place before voters that provides a “framework” of the realignment proposal. If passed, the law would then require the Legislature to specify exactly which functions will be realigned and detail how the funding will be distributed to local governments. The public safety departments and functions that could be affected include: law enforcement (sheriff’s office, jail facility, district attorney, and court security staff), recovery and substance abuse programs, fire protection, child abuse prevention, adoption services for children, transitional housing, adult protective services, and mental health services. So while realignment will likely happen, there is much uncertainty until a ballot measure actually passes muster with voters statewide.