A plan by billionaire wine developer Jess Jackson to build a winery and visitor’s complex in bucolic Knights Valley-barely five miles northwest of Calistoga continues to drive a wedge between neighbors in the Franz Valley/Knights Valley area, although the plan has been scaled back from one originally unveiled more than two years ago.

“The reality is that this project is unstoppable,” said Knights Valley resident Gloria Ball. “Jess Jackson has made a lot of changes to his plan over the last 18 months or so, and his plan is much more viable that it once was. I have no problem with it.”

Jackson has filed a use permit for the construction and operation of the Kellogg Ranch. The plan includes a winery, public tasting room, a facility for the agricultural products, and relocation of Napa’s Gerhard Reisacher’s Delectus Winery to the 112-acre Jackson property on Ida Clayton Road. The permit application also includes planting 42 acres of grapes, building storage caves into the hillside, and building a 200-person event center.

The project was “unveiled” two years ago when Ball discovered that county permits and other materials which were meant to be mailed to Jackson were accidentally sent to an incorrect address. At the time, Ball said, “It’s by sheer and absolute luck that we found out about his plans for the area. These developments were never meant for us to see.”

“The Sonoma County General Plan has designated the whole valley along Highway 128 as a scenic route,” said Craig Enyart, a member of the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association. “The whole Franz Valley/Knights Valley area within the county general plan is even more restrictive, and this project, we feel, will severely and negatively violate the protective aspect of that plan.”

Ball herself has been heavily criticized for having allegedly “done an about-face,” reversing her opinion of the Jackson project, which she denies.

“About 18 months ago, when we held our first public meeting on the subject I was just reporting the facts as I’d understood them based on county records,” Ball said Tuesday.

“I never opposed the project. I believed my perceived opposition may have come from my concerns over another issue I had personally with the project — that water from Yellow Jacket Creek, which flows from the Jackson property to mine — would be diminished by his project there.”

Ball, a grape grower, says that separate issue has been resolved.

“And since the project has been changed in a number of positive ways, I believe it can work,” she said.

The disagreement over the project has caused a tectonic rift on the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association Board of Directors as well. Impeachment proceedings were begun by some members to remove at least two others.

When that effort failed, Ball said board members supporting the impeachment of Enyart and board member Jaimie Zukowski, resigned “en masse,” effective at an unspecified future date when their positions can be filled through elections.

In a letter to the Sonoma County Permit and Resource Management Department dated Feb. 16, members of the Knights Valley/Franz Valley Association Board still had about a half-dozen concerns. Chief among them were a plan to change lot lines to allow additional buildings within the agricultural preserve, the grant of a use permit for a 5,000 case winery to include a public tasting room with a retail sales office and permitting up to four special events for up to 200 people annually at the facility.

The group claimed the visitor-serving land uses would be unprecedented. They also urged that the project be confined to the “overriding policies intent of the county Franz Valley Area Plan for agricultural and resource conservation.

Jackson must also pursue preservation of an adobe and stone barn, and finally, errors in future deed records need correcting and public outreach meetings suggested by Jackson’s application need to be carried out.

Ball said Jackson has effectively met all of the concerns, including reduction of the size of the winery, preservation and retrofitting of the historic stone barn and holding ongoing public meetings.

Jackson has planned a community meeting of some 40 members of the 180-member community on Friday, April  13, at 6 p.m. at the Knights Valley Fire Department on Spencer Lane. Enyart said the meeting should include all members of the community and has sent out notices inviting everyone.

“The 40 invited were handpicked by Ball, in my opinion, because they are most likely to support the project,” Enyart said. “It’s part of the Jackson plan to divide and conquer, so I sent out copies of his invitation to all of the members of the community who were not invited.”

Ball called Enyart’s conspiracy theory “ludicrous,” and his mailing of invitations “rude, and out of line,” akin to receiving a wedding invitation then photocopying it and send it out to everone.

“It’s not logical to think we can fit 180 people in the Knights Valley fire house,” she said. “We were trying to keep the attendance to a manageable size, not exclude anyone. And not all those whom I’ve urged Jackson to invite support the project.”

Jackson’s proposal has rekindled the passion that boiled over in Knights Valley back in 1988, when Peter Michael’s winery was proposed there.

Plans to build that winery, which is next to Jackson’s property, caused so much strife in the community then that people were up in arms, literally. They stormed the project area with shotguns and one man used explosives to blow up a dam on the property meant to stop water from flowing to the project’s neighbors.

“It was awful,” Ball said. “The community was so divided, some neighbors didn’t speak to each other for a decade following that, and I think all that has come back.”

The Peter Michael winery is open to visitors by appointment only, and does not have a public tasting room or retail facility.

“There was serious opposition to that winery at first,” Ball said. “But it’s been a good neighbor and now it’s a highly respected member of our community. We can only hope the same will become of the Jackson property once all of this is over.”

Tomorrow’s meeting will be at 6 p.m. in the Knights Valley Fire Department building on Spencer Lane (the first road to the left after entering Knights Valley).

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