Welcome back!

To kick things off this Monday, I wanted to thank Mark and Tanya for suggesting a great little game idea for the newsletter!

I’m going to start sprinkling in some Napa trivia in these. The answer will be at the bottom, but hopefully it is a fun little thing we can do for each issue. Here’s the first one:

Napa Lowdown Trivia: What was Napa’s first building?

But before you just skip to the end for the answer, here are a few things you should keep on your radar this week…

Starting with a quick one: April 10 is the property tax deadline.

And remember - after the recent mail-fraud issue, officials are still pushing safer payment methods than mailing checks.

So if you still need to pay, probably a good time to handle that sooner rather than later.

Again, just another quick community note for parents, students, and anyone who likes having the town rhythm in the back of their mind.

A genuinely useful product. A subscriber sent this to us, and I thought it was very cool.

I usually have the general locations of the Napa food trucks in my head, but whenever I actually want to switch it up, I realize how hard they can be to track down. And every time, I end up wondering why a site like this didn’t already exist.

Yes, there are the obvious ones we all drive by and see on Soscol, but there are also a bunch more included here, which I really appreciate.

So, shoutout to the napafoodtrucks team - great work.

Check it out here: https://www.napafoodtrucks.com/

Youth sports can be hard.

I think we have all been there, or at least heard the stories - there can be a lot of pressure and expectation to perform, even when kids are just trying to play.

So I wanted to shout out Magali Ceballos and Enrique Fuentes, who seem to have a unique take and have built an amazing little community through Sorin Street Soccer here in Napa.

The whole idea is pickup-style street soccer for kids and teens without that pressure - more about movement, freedom, community, and actually enjoying the game than obsessing over wins, positions, and all the usual intensity that can come with youth sports.

I saw them featured in the Press Democrat, so they definitely do not need my help, but it was such a good story that I wanted to give them some love here anyway.

It is free to join, seems to be mostly for ages 8-17, and I would check them out through their Instagram here if you are interested

https://www.instagram.com/sorinstreet/

Sorry, bit of a lighter news week but you have made it to the end! Here is your reward!

The answer to this week’s Napa trivia is: a saloon near the corner of Third Street and the river.

But before you go, if I may get on my soap box…

I know you all cannot see this, but we just crossed 350 subscribers last week, which feels like a crazy number. I have been writing this for a few months now, and my favorite part by far has been hearing from so many of you.

It seems like a lot of the other news outlets out there are either not free, or they are kind of just giving you the headline and moving on.

It feels like people want a little more depth - not that I am out here doing intense investigative journalism - but I really do dig through PDFs, city council notes, and meeting materials to try to pull out the stuff that actually feels relevant.

Since you have come aboard, I hope you have learned something, found something useful, or at the very least now have one oddly specific Napa fact to carry into the week.

See you Friday.

Callie