Latinos Unidos de Napa en el Periodico

Latinos Unidos de Napa marches, sues for causes
By CARLOS VILLATORO Register Staff Writer | Posted: Monday, February 1, 2010 12:00 am


It’s a muggy day in early January at Carl’s Jr. on Imola Avenue and members of Latinos Unidos de Napa Valley are planning their next move. Since the group formed in 2000, it has been highly active in nearly every issue impacting the Latino community in the valley, everything from immigration reform to affordable housing.
Latinos Unidos members gathered at the burger spot to plan an immigration-reform march scheduled for May 1. In between sips of coffee, tasks were issued to the seven members who attended. Latinos Unidos president Hector Olvera said the group will march in favor of what he considered immigration reform that would deal fairly with the estimated 11 million or more undocumented residents in the U.S.
“We aren’t a political group, what we want is human rights,” Olvera said. “It was always about giving information to Latinos about community issues, work and education.”
It’s not the first time that the group has organized an immigration march in Napa. In 2006 when a controversial federal bill — H.R. 4437 — was being considered that would have made it a felony to be in country illegally, and would erect a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, Latinos Unidos took to the streets by the thousands to protest against the bill.
Since then, the group has organized several marches in the valley and has come to be well known for it within the valley’s Hispanic community. But aside from the marches, the group has done much more. For example in 2007, Latinos Unidos gathered 5,000 signatures in support of immigration reform and delivered them to the offices of Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena.
In 2008, Olvera and Latinos Unidos sponsored the city’s first-ever Mexican Independence Day celebration in downtown Napa. The event was a success and set the stage for a 2009 Mexican Independence Day celebration held at Veterans Memorial Park.
Olvera said that the group is also in the process of establishing a scholarship fund for local students and is attempting become a nonprofit agency.
Roots of Unidos
Napa resident Marcos Garcia remembers the time before he and his companions adopted the name Latinos Unidos.
“I remember during (Proposition) 187, we began organizing,” Garcia said, recalling events in 1994. “I remember during those times we were in collaboration with people like (American Canyon Mayor) Leon Garcia. That time 500 of us took to the streets of downtown Napa.”
Proposition 187, known as the Save Our State Initiative, was a bill that prohibited illegal immigrants from using social services and health care and denied them public education in California. The bill was eventually ruled unconstitutional in federal court and was not appealed.
The proposition set the stage for future initiatives such as H.R. 4437, and inadvertently spurred massive immigration reform marches.
“The important thing for us about the marches is to call attention to the people, to motivate them,” Garcia said. “The town gives us no other option for us to accomplish what we want for the community. We believe it’s one of our principal ways of demonstrating.”
In 2000, Hector Olvera and Marcos Garcia along with others formed Latinos Unidos as a vehicle for political activism. The group is made up of people from all walks of life with different backgrounds, jobs and income levels.
New Technology High School teacher Alma Cortez-Lara has been a member of the group since 2007.
“I first participated in the 2008 march, and that one we didn’t really have a big turnout,” Cortez-Lara said.
Since then Cortez-Lara, who is the niece of Latinos Unidos President Hector Olvera, has involved herself deeply in the cause. On Saturday, Cortez-Lara served as secretary for the group as they made plans, and was assigned the task of inviting politicos such as Rep. Mike Thompson to join the May 1 march.
“This year it’s a little more pressure on us because everyone in the United States is organizing a May march,” she said. “We kind of wanted to have a united message. We are trying to figure out what the people are doing so it’s important to have that same message.”
Cortez-Lara, a Spanish teacher at New Tech, said she does not talk with her students about the issues she dives into as a member of Latinos Unidos. She said that being a member of the group provides her a way to be involved in the community.
“I don’t consider myself a community activist,” she said. “I consider myself someone that cares about my community and some people see what we do and think of it as a political card. It’s not. It’s part of building a community. I want to make sure that every single person whether they have documents or not has an equal voice. We are trying to advocate for people who have been residents, documented or not, of this community for a long time.”
Housing issues
Through the years the group’s membership numbers have fluctuated, but its scope has steadily increased.
Latinos Unidos is currently suing Napa County, charging the county has not done enough to provide affordable housing for the thousands of people who must commute to work in the valley.
“We have had talks with farmworkers and people who make low wages, they need low-income housing,” Olvera said. “We have noticed that there is a lack of housing in Napa. Many of those persons live in Clearlake.”
Olvera said that many of the workers are Latinos and so the group hired Santa-Rosa-based attorney David Grabill to argue the matter in court.
“We are moving forward, we are also exploring different avenues,” Grabill said. “It’s hard for people who have to drive long distances into the county to work because they can’t afford the housing prices in the county and the county and the cities as well have not done an adequate job of providing housing for low income levels of people in Napa.”
Grabill said that many areas exist between Napa and American Canyon that can support affordable housing units. But at the same time, he said that the issue was complex as far as where the homes would be built and who would build them. He said he hopes to resolve the matter with the county quickly.

Napa Needs Workforce Housing

By Hector Olvera | Napa Valley Register, Sunday, January 3, 2010

Thousands of people who work in Napa County have to drive here each day from other counties. These are the workers who pick the grapes, the dishwashers and waiters in our restaurants, the store clerks, the office workers, construction workers, truck drivers, house cleaners, auto mechanics and many others. They live in Vallejo, Clearlake and other places where housing is more affordable and commute many miles back and forth each day.

The economy of Napa County depends on these workers. Our local governments have approved dozens of expensive new hotels, wineries, restaurants and other businesses in recent years but have done nothing to make housing available for all the people who work in these businesses. Wineries provide some bunkhouses where farmworkers can sleep, but the workers have to leave their families behind. That’s a big hardship for the farmworkers and for their families. It’s also not fair to the other counties that have to provide schools and public services for the families of workers in Napa County. And anyone concerned about the environment should ask why thousands of cars are driving all those miles back and forth to work each day. More than 20,000 cars commute into the county each day to work. That’s a lot of greenhouse gas.

Many of the workers who are driving long distances to work in Napa’s vineyards, hotels and restaurants are Latino. Our group, Latinos Unidos de Napa, has been trying for years to get more affordable housing built in Napa County. The county promised us in 2004 that they would provide sites for affordable housing, but most of the sites they designated were not allowed to have water service, so no housing could be built there except for million-dollar mansions. Not a single unit of affordable housing has been built in the unincorporated areas of the county in many years, and very few affordable units have been built in the cities.

The lack of affordable housing discriminates against Latinos and the thousands of other lower-income families who would like to live in Napa County but can’t afford to do so. Latinos Unidos has filed lawsuits to try to stop this discrimination. Persons working in Napa should be able to live here, also. We harvest the grapes, clean the hotel rooms, prepare the gourmet restaurant meals and contribute in so many other ways to the economy of this county. We shouldn’t be forced to live somewhere else because there’s no affordable housing allowed here. Housing choices should be available to all persons working in the county — whatever their income or their race. We hope the courts and elected officials in the county will agree.

This letter is written on behalf of Luis Vera, Ignacio Garcia, Oscar Caceres and others.

(Olvera lives in Napa.)

Latinos Unidos Sues County Over Housing

Napa Valley Register
By JILLIAN JONES
Saturday, November 21, 2009 12:00 am

Affordable housing advocate David Grabill sued Napa County on Friday over what he says is a failure to provide adequate affordable housing in unincorporated areas of the county.

Grabill, the Santa Rosa lawyer who is also doing legal battle with the city of Napa over its housing plan, claims Napa County is doing too little to promote affordable housing and is out of compliance with state law.

The lawsuit was filed in Napa County Superior Court.

Grabill represents a group of Napa and American Canyon residents called Latinos Unidos de Napa, the same group he represented in a similar lawsuit against the county in 2003 that forced the county into expensive housing deals with the cities of Napa and American Canyon.

His complaint centers on Napa County’s housing plan, adopted by the Napa County Board of Supervisors in June and rejected by the state agency in charge of housing in September. The California Department of Housing and Community Development concluded that Napa County should allocate more affordable housing at the former Napa Pipe site rather than plan for the unlikely event that housing is built in Angwin, Spanish Flat or Moskowite Corners.

Chairman of the board Mark Luce said Tuesday that supervisors will consider leaving the housing plan as is even though it is not certified by the state.

Luce acknowledged the move could put the county at risk for a lawsuit, but he said the board believes the housing plan is legally defensible as it stands.

Jobs and housing balance?

Grabill said Friday that he is suing the county because although the unincorporated areas have seen a large expansion in the last decade in employment, “very little housing affordable to those folks has been built.”

There are 40,000 car trips a day from people commuting into Napa County who can’t afford to live here, he said, resulting in consequences to the environment and the quality of life.

“The county and the city have an obligation to maintain balance between employment and housing, and affordable housing, and that hasn’t happened here,” Grabill said.

He added that since he sued the county in 2003 a settlement was reached in 2004 that involved swapping housing requirements with the cities of Napa and American Canyon — not a single affordable housing unit has been built in the unincorporated areas of the county.

“We’re not happy with how the county has proceeded after the last case, and we’re going to try again,” Grabill said.

Grabill said he wants to see the county designate properties for affordable housing where the homes actually have a chance to be built.

“We shouldn’t have to argue about (the availability of) water and sewer,” he said.

He said that while planning for homes at the former Napa Pipe in south Napa County could be a good solution to the county’s affordable housing problem, the county’s housing plan allows for the development of only about 300 units, far fewer than the 2,580 proposed by developers.

“We don’t think that project will go forward if it’s only allowed to develop (300) units,” Grabill said.

Napa Pipe developer Keith Rogal said that although his lawyers contacted the state earlier this year with similar comments about the feasibility of building only 300 units at Napa Pipe, he does not support suing the county.

Rogal said he hasn’t had a chance to review Grabill’s complaint, but added, “From a general perspective as a taxpayer and a resident, lawsuits aren’t good.”

As for who is paying for the lawsuit against the county, Grabill said only, “I am a public interest lawyer and I sometimes get paid. I sometimes don’t.”