Mathew Plate's Register Letter

[Rich Jager]

I.m sure Mathew is well liked in the community but his letter requires a detailed response.The Opponents of Measure I have not misunderstood or misrepresented anything.We know what is really in play with this measure even though the proponents have worked hard to keep the voters from the truth.The special legislation mentioned is Public Resource Code 5500.Mathew never cites the Code because he hopes you won.t look it up.It has the standards for all calif. POS districts. the one sect. he doesn.t want you to read is 5539.4 which exempts Napa County and only Napa County from the requirement that a POS district must have a funding measure on the ballot that requires a 2/3 majority to pass. Wonder who slipped that into the state code? Sierra Club maybe.Guess Napa voters don't deserve the same tax protections other counties get.Staffing..I am a County official and I ask you Mathew to direct me to the county department that has an approved staffing plan for the proposed district so I can get a copy. Neglecting Parks? The Sierra Club has under 1400 members with only 103 voting in their last election of officers.We have Boothe and Stevensen Parks which very few use for hiking. So how can so few people create such a ruckus over trails and parks? Because they get large amounts of out of county money from other activist groups to hire election consultants to convince us that they represent the interests of all Napa County voters. There has been no movement on POS for many years because only a small minority of people cared, the rest wanted roads, ball fields and county sevices. They put a POS on the 2000 ballot and it lost. Now they claim they have been neglected for 30 years?Why do They REALLY want an independent Board? The two largest contributors to this measure are the Napa Land Trust($10,000) and the Nature Conservancy($7,4000).What will they get for that amount of money?The Nature Conservancy is a nationwide land trust that makes 10s of millions of dollars a year selling purchased and donated land to government agencies for a large profit.This organization mentors and helped start the Napa Land Trust. The Napa Land Trust needs the new POS with its taxing power to sell donated and purchsed land for a profit. The Napa board of Supervisors won't spend the million necessary to buy their property because they have too many other needs to serve. Follow the money trail, it never lies. This measure is about power and money. By the way Mathew just joined the Land Trust.How will AmCan ever get The bay side trail and Newell open? If this passes it will be many years getting taxes passed and the TOT tax from the county will only supply office and staff. AmCan will take a back seat to the Land Trust and Up Valley interests so 10-20 years would seem a reasonable estimate before anything happens. If it fails we could see money directly from Dodd, Moskowite and Luce by 2007. YOU CHOOSE