first edition G4 - Yountville Sun`s

col. mustard 2:first edition G4 10/19/16 10:43 PM Page 2
Presorted
Standard
PERMIT NO. 15
Yountville, CA
94599
Postal Patron Local
ECRWSS
a 21st century newspaper serving the heart of the Napa Valley
Vol. 19, No. 20
October 20, 2016
Staff Won’t Recommend
Stone Bridge, YES Shared
Campus; Meeting Tuesday
Crushing Breast Cancer
Saturday’s start of the Sisters’ Crush Breast Cancer 5K Run/Walk gets off to a vigorous and cheerful start at the intersection of Yount and Washington Streets in Yountville with an estimated 400
partipants and $26,000 in proceeds. Jennifer Jordan, one of the sisters sponsoring this annual
event, said the goal was to raise about $60,000 to support the most vital financial needs during
breast cancer treatment. The afternoon included other fund-raising efforts, including a large silent
auction throughout V Marketplace and anchored at Sisters Boutique. (Photo by Glen Nock.)
Town Forces Evacuation of 3 Apt. Units
The residents of three
apartment units on the northeast corner of Madison and
Washington Streets were
evicted Wednesday morning
by order of the Town of
Yountville when it was determined that conditions exist in
all three units which “endanger the health, safety and welfare of the occupants.”
Yountville Town Manager
Steve Rogers said Units 10, 11
and 12 at 2180 Madison St.,
under the management and
control of Daniel Pautenis,
were served with Notices of
Violation and Notices to
Vacate the premises.
Rogers said he did not
know how many people lived
in
those
three
units.
Inhabitants of all three units
received courtesy notifications in advance of the action
yesterday.
Those residents have 72
hours to remove personal
belongings.
No overnight
occupancy is permitted.
Town
Planning
and
Building Director Sandra
Liston with the assistance of
Napa
County
Sheriff’s
deputies from the Yountville
substation and Town Public
Works staff served the residents with the notices and
posted them on the doors of
the units.
Citing from various State
and Town codes and the 1997
Uniform Housing Code, the
units were declared to be substandard buildings and a nuisance due to alleged inadequate sanitation, hazardous
electrical wiring and nuisance
conditions, said Rogers.
“The buildings have inadequate sanitation, including a
lack of hot and cold running
water to plumbing fixtures,
which endangers the health,
safety and welfare of the occupants. Hazardous electrical
wiring exists in the form of
unpermitted extension cords
not in compliance with applicable codes. Personal property is impropertly stored on the
property in violation of the
Yountville Municipal Code,”
he stated.
The enforcement action has
been building for a long time,
Rogers said, noting that a
series of violations were cited
which he alleges have existed
over time and which were
reported and documented in
detail.
“Town staff is continuing to
work with the property owner
so that repairs and actions can
be taken to allow the property
to be occupied once all health,
life and safety violations have
been resolved and the property is re-inspected by the Town
Building Official. Town staff
is working with the residents
and support agencies such as
Fair Housing Napa Valley to
assist them,” Rogers reported.
“This is challenging for
staff,” said Rogers, adding,
“and it is a significant respsonsibility.”
In a community where
even small bungalows may
sell for over a million dollars,
the safety of living conditions
is rarely recognized as a public issue as it was here yesterday.
The possibility of a campus
sharing arrangement between
Yountville Elementary School
(YES) and Stone Bridge charter
school will not move forward
if the Napa Unified School
District Board of Trustees
accepts the staff recommendation which will be offered at
the Board’s November 3 meeting.
NVUSD staff said this week
it will recommend constructing a new Stone Bridge school,
set back the required distances
from an earthquake fault and a
major PG&E gas pipeline, on
the Carneros site where the
school is currently operating.
The NVUSD staff had been
evaluating the possibility of
merging the two schools on
the YES campus as a potential
resolution to the unsafe existing conditions at Stone Bridge
in Carneros.
As for the future of YES,
which has the lowest enrollment of any school in the
NVUSD, the recommendation
to the Board from staff “will
include an acknowledgement
that NVUSD, YES and the
Yountville community are
interested in building a plan
for the growth and future of
the school. It will offer a timeline for building that plan but
will also emphasize that there
is no plan to close YES and
there will be a new kindergarten class next year,” said
Elizabeth Emmett, director of
Communications
and
Community Engagement for
NVUSD.
At 5 p.m. on Tuesday
(October 25) the NVUSD staff
will make its full recommendation for YES known at a
meeting
at
Yountville
Community Center hosted by
the advisory committee of YES
and Stone Bridge parents and
faculty, community leaders
and NVUSD staff. The public
is welcome to attend to hear
the recommendation and to
raise questions and offer comments.
The possibility of merging
the two schools on the YES
campus had been one of several options under consideration
and study since early in
September when the NVUSD
staff announced it to YES parents and teachers.
Emmett stressed that the
safety of the Stone Bridge students was the top priority of
the NVUSD.
The estimated cost of the
new construction at Stone
Birdge is $14 million. Merging
the two campuses at YES
would also require new construction, and the cost of that
scenario is estimated at $18$20 million.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the
Yountville Town Council,
Jennifer Morse, a representative of the former Yountville
School Foundation (YSF),
urged the Town’s elected leaders to make it clear to the
NVUSD Board that any possible designs on selling the YES
site to help bolster District
finances, which are running
under budget and enormously
less than what is required by
its Facilities Master Plan,
would face major restrictions
under existing Public Facilities
zoning and that there is no will
to change that zoning.
The NVUSD Board is slated
to hear staff recommendations
for Stone Bridge and YES on
November 3 and to determine
action on them on Novmeber
17.
bsundial
High Low
Wednesday 10/12 71
43
Thursday
72
46
Friday
65
54
Saturday
64
52
Sunday
65
53
Monday
68
53
Tuesday
73
46
Precipitation = 1.54
Season Total = 1.61
Last Year
= 0.23
U.S. Veterans Secretary Visits Home
U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, left, and U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald take a
walking tour of the California Veterans Home here Thursday morning before convening a closed
door meeting with Bonnie Graham, San Francisco Veterans Affirs Health Care System Director,
California Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Vito Imbasciani, Home Administrator Don
Veverka and others interested in finding ways to deliver better and more efficient services to veterans. See story on Page 6. (Photo by Glen Nock.)