Napa County voters in November may be asked to approve a half-cent sales tax that would raise about $23 million annually for wildfire prevention, watershed protection and open space preservation projects countywide.

Known as the Napa County Wildfire Preparedness, Watershed Protection and Open Space Preservation Act of 2026, the measure would increase the sales tax throughout Napa County by a half-cent per dollar spent.

That money would be split evenly between the Napa County Board of Supervisors — which would award grants for wildfire safety — and the Napa County Regional Park and Open Space District for use on applicable projects, according to a proposal submitted Feb. 5.

But measure sponsors, the Napa Communities Firewise Foundation and the Napa County Land Trust, first need to collect at least 5,011 signatures to qualify the initiative for the November ballot. Then, If approved by a majority of voters on Nov. 3, the measure would become effective April 1, 2027, and end March 31, 2045.

Joe Nordlinger, CEO of Napa Firewise, said the measure would create a needed sustainable funding source for fire resilience, open space and watershed protection.

Napa Firewise has long partnered with Napa County to implement wildfire resilience projects, he said, such as creating fuel breaks around vulnerable communities and reducing fire fuel sources. Those efforts work to prevent or mitigate damage from large, catastrophic wildfires such as those the North Bay saw in 2017 and 2020.

But funding for the mitigation work so far has come from grants and county contributions of tens of millions of dollars annually. In the current 2025-26 fiscal year, the county budgeted about $5.7 million for fire mitigation efforts and $34.9 million for fire protection efforts, according to county public information officer Janet Upton.

Nordlinger said grants tend to be for implementing new projects and not maintenance, and the county’s general fund can’t reliably continue to withstand the costs of fuel reduction and related work.

“For us to maintain these projects and continue to make forward progress, we’ve really got to control our own destiny here at the county level, and do what many of our neighbors have done,” Nordlinger said.

Melanie Parker, CEO of the Land Trust, said that Napa County is one of the only Bay Area counties to not have dedicated funding for parks and open space, and residents have long wanted that.

The measure, if passed, would create funding to add more parks and preserves in the county, including open space parks near where people live in Napa County’s cities.

There’s also considerable overlap with voters who want open space preservation alongside fire resilience efforts, Parker said, and it’s important to think about how the efforts support each other.

“They’re both quality-of-life issues, and they both protect the character of the place, Napa County,” Parker said.

Napa County CEO Ryan Alsop said in a statement the county is not a sponsor of the measure, and public officials are prohibited from advocating for or against such measures. But he noted that the county over the past several years has relied on its general fund and one-time state and federal grants to invest tens of millions of dollars into wildfire resilience projects — such as safe evacuation routes, over 3,609 acres of fuel breaks around population centers, and 160 miles of strategic dozer containment lines — and will need to invest about $10 million annually to maintain those efforts.

“To ensure these critical protections remain effective over time, and for the new additional investment needed, we estimate the need at tens of millions of dollars annually, which is particularly critical due to the growing frequency, size and scope of wildfire events in our region,” Alsop said. “We currently estimate, I would say conservatively, that $9 (million to) $10 million alone in annual funding is required just to maintain the tens of millions of dollars in investment already made.”

Two previous county-sponsored attempts to pass quarter-cent tax measures to create sustainable funding sources for open space fell short of a two-thirds majority needed to pass at the ballot box, as did one previous attempt for fire maintenance work.

Those include the 2022 Measure L for fire resilience, which received 56% of votes in favor, along with the 2020 Measure K that received 63% of the vote and the 2017 Measure Z that received 65% of the vote.

Each of those measures were placed on the ballot by the Napa County Board of Supervisors, which triggered the two-thirds vote requirement. But the proposed citizens’ requires only a simple majority vote to pass.

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.