The St. Helena Sphere

I have been noodling on the recent LAFCO cycles and the broader question of annexation, particularly Meadowood and other areas that we generally think of as St. Helena, even though they technically fall outside the City limits.

I think we can, and must, do better in thinking about these relationships.

Take Meadowood. The City provides infrastructure and services that Meadowood depends upon, including water and emergency services, and there are costs associated with providing those services. But the relationship goes well beyond a simple transaction between a municipality and a private property.

There is a symbiotic relationship between St. Helena and Meadowood, and between Meadowood and St. Helena. Each is better because of the other.

Local residents use Meadowood's restaurants, amenities and services. Meadowood, in turn, depends upon having a community and workforce around it. And the restaurants, shops, lodging and other amenities within St. Helena provide the broader setting and economic ballast that help make Meadowood a successful destination. It is that successful meshing that empowers the generation of TOT.

The same basic relationship exists along the southern edge of what we generally and legitimately call St. Helena, places such as Press, Understudy, The MAC, and the businesses and properties that function as part of our community, enhance our civic pride and vitality, while technically and fiscally sitting outside our municipal boundary.

And there is another resource that makes this relationship particularly clear: St. Helena's identity and marketing.

The public, both locals and visitors, already engages with the St. Helena Sphere without giving the distinction much thought. They do not experience one version of St. Helena inside the City limits and another version outside them. They experience a single environment: restaurants, hotels, wineries, shops, cultural institutions, services, neighborhoods and attractions that collectively create the St. Helena experience.

The marketplace understands this. Our community understands this. The Chamber of Commerce understands this. It does not need to draw a municipal boundary through the middle of the destination in order to market St. Helena.

In many ways, the public has already solved the problem that government continues to wrestle with: St. Helena exists as a single organism.

Historically, however, City government has often cleaved off portions of that organism when considering economic development, marketing, services and revenue. In doing so, we may have sacrificed opportunities to strengthen the very resource from which the City ultimately benefits.

If the success of the broader St. Helena community generates vitality, then investing in that broader destination should not necessarily be viewed as giving something away. It can be an investment in the resource itself.

That requires a different mindset.

Instead of asking, "Is this inside the City?" we should sometimes be asking, "Does this contribute to, or depend upon, the St. Helena Sphere, and how can we make that sphere stronger?"

This raises an important conversation for St. Helena: What is our greater St. Helena sphere, and how should we understand the costs and benefits that flow across its boundaries?

We should talk honestly about both sides of that equation.

How do we contribute to the success of businesses and properties outside the City? What infrastructure and municipal services do we provide? What economic activity do those businesses generate for St. Helena? How do our restaurants, shops, cultural institutions and other amenities contribute to their success? And, conversely, how do those businesses and destinations contribute to the vitality, employment base and economic health of the community as a whole?

The collection of property and Transient Occupancy Tax is an obvious point of friction. But perhaps some of that friction exists because we have framed the question too narrowly, as an all-or-nothing question of who pays and who gets the TOT.

That framing almost inevitably puts the City and neighboring properties on opposite sides of the table.

I think there is another way to think about it.

If we acknowledge that there is a shared St. Helena sphere, then perhaps we can also acknowledge that there are shared burdens and shared resources.

A portion of the economic activity generated by visitors to the broader St. Helena destination could appropriately be recognized as supporting the entire sphere. Rather than asking whether the City or an individual property gets all of the benefit, we could explore mechanisms that allow the benefit to be shared in proportion to the contributions and costs borne by the respective parties.

Portioning TOT may be one natural place to begin that conversation.

This isn't simply about finding a way to collect more revenue. It is about recognizing an economic reality that already exists.

Our municipal boundaries may be precise. Our community is not.

People experience St. Helena as a place, a network of neighborhoods, businesses, restaurants, cultural institutions, hotels, farms and destinations, not as a line on a map.

If we can develop a shared understanding of that greater St. Helena sphere, we may be able to move beyond the recurring arguments over who pays and who benefits and toward a more constructive question:

How do we make the entire St. Helena sphere stronger, and how should the resources generated by that shared economy be fairly reinvested in it?

— Daniel Hale