American Canyon residents and city officials gathered this week for a forum with City Council candidates to discuss environmental conservation amid the city’s major construction projects.
On Monday afternoon, about 20 community members attended the forum, hosted by a local Sierra Club chapter. The panel brought together five of the six American Canyon City Council candidates on the Nov. 3 ballot: David Oro, an incumbent seeking a third term on the City Council; Sindy Biederman, a Napa County Office of Education trustee and former county probation officer; Jason Kishineff, a Napa Valley College trustee and three-time congressional candidate; and Robert Cole, board president of a manufactured home community in American Canyon. Candidate Jim Giron, an information technology consultant, was not present.
American Canyon’s ample open space is a double-edged sword. The city is a destination for nature lovers who frequent the area’s famous wetlands, a refuge for native plants and animals. But the city is also a draw for developers, who see potential in undeveloped land and its location along Highway 29, a major connector for Solano and Napa counties.
The two seats up for election are held by Oro and Mark Joseph, who is calling it quits after decades of serving the city. On Nov. 3, the two candidates who net the most votes will fill the seats. American Canyon is not split into districts.
Oro, a communications consultant, is a proponent of business and housing development, while Joseph, a retired finance professional, tends to vote in favor of environmental and fiscally cautious policies. Both are experienced politicos known for their lively debates at City Council meetings.
Napa-Solano Audubon Society member Yvonne Baginski, who organized Monday’s forum along with Scott Thomason of the Napa Sierra Club Group, said the discussion was a long time coming.
“Nobody’s ever done an American Canyon environmental and land use forum before,” she said.
A Napa resident, Baginski has spent a lot of time advocating for environmental protections alongside Thomason, who lives in American Canyon. For her, the biodiversity of the wetlands deserves countywide attention.
What prompted the forum, Baginski said, was concern over several major projects underway in the city: roughly 1,000 housing units at Watson Ranch and Oat Hill Apartments awaiting construction; a 163-acre business hub off state Route 9 dubbed the Green Island Logistics Center; and a former vineyard at 1661 Green Island Road, a property poised for industrial development that borders the city’s wetlands.
Development vs. conservation
The wetlands are part of the Bay Area’s disappearing marshland and are a buffer against sea level rise and a refuge for native species. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. has lost more than 50% of its wetlands since the late 1700s, an impact largely driven by human activity.
No developers showed up to the forum Monday.
“They always talk about balance. Well, give me an example of when there was balance,” Baginski said at the forum, referring to frequent City Council discussions about navigating housing goals and open space.
Though sites like the Green Island Logistics Center include 45 acres of adjacent open space for wetlands, it’s still not enough protection, Baginski said.
“They keep saying open space and recreation areas,” she said. “Open space can always be rezoned. That’s not conservation.”
Down the road from the logistics center is a 157-acre stretch of fallow farmland at 1661 Green Island Road on American Canyon’s north side, where owners seek to rezone the area for a more marketable use after plans for a vineyard fell through. Several voter measures for rezoning have been brought forth and failed after pushback from local conservation groups, which argue that any industrial development on the site would devastate the neighboring wetlands habitat.
On Monday, candidates differed on the conservation issues that have sparked the most debate among residents.
“You could conserve it with a conservation easement,” Cole said. “Preserve it, and we’d ease the burden on the landowner. It was already decided by the people.”
For Oro, the property is a chance to compromise.
“It’s not on the wetlands,” he said. “It looks like there should be some sort of development there because it literally is right next to a warehouse.”
Oro helped co-found the city’s Open Space Advisory Committee and is a founding member of the American Canyon Community and Parks Foundation, which recently opened the Napa River Ecology Center right on the wetlands. He also has ties to real estate mogul Terrence McGrath, who has sued the city over issues facing his 1,250-unit Watson Ranch housing development.
On Monday, Oro said splitting 1661 Green Island Road between a conservation easement and business activity makes the most sense. But compromises are few and far between when it comes to conservationists and developers, he said.
“The problem, I think, on both sides, is that they’re absolutists,” Oro said.
Kishineff, who has made several runs for Congress on a progressive platform, said he was unwilling to compromise.
“It’s up to the stewards of the environment,” he said.
For Kishineff, investment in the local community is key to the city’s success on all fronts.
“We have so much housing,” he said. “We should be putting a moratorium on constructing new housing. We should be focusing on local businesses so that people can work here.”
Building up small businesses and creating jobs in American Canyon would have the twofold benefit of reducing traffic and emissions and boosting the local economy, Kishineff said.
Planning for sea level rise
For Biederman, the massive open space at 1661 Green Island Road acts as a crucial buffer — a “drain” — against sea level rise. According to the Sierra Club, American Canyon, which sits about level with the Napa River, is especially vulnerable to flooding from an impending 6- to 7-foot sea level rise projected for coastal California.
Biederman, a retired probation officer for Napa County, also said the city “is lacking a collaboration partner” in addressing environmental concerns. The Sierra Club would fill the role nicely, she said.
As for emissions from traffic, Biederman said an overpass across Highway 29 was the answer. The structure would keep people on bikes and on foot in the city instead of driving back and forth across the notoriously congested, collision-prone corridor that divides the city’s east and west sides.
“I cross that highway six times a day,” Biederman said, adding that Highway 29 sees traffic from 45,000 cars each day. “It’s dangerous.”
Biederman said she’s been pushing Napa County transportation officials to include an overpass in plans for the highway.
Oro has long called on the city and county to act on proposed multimodal improvements to Highway 29 to encourage walking, bicycling and bus ridership.
In his responses, Cole agreed with improving pedestrian access along the highway.
“Most of the traffic isn’t American Canyon traffic,” Kishineff said. “We need to prioritize local businesses and local jobs. When we all work where we live, there will be a lot less traffic on the road.”