GM. Welcome back to the Napa Lowdown - more specifically, the Monday Town Notes.

This is the one where we get down to brass tacks and try to let you know what you actually need to know as a local heading into the week.

It is the first week of May, and not gonna lie, it was a little quieter on my end scraping around for stuff - but I still pulled together the most useful intel I could find to give you a bit of a head start on the week.

But before all that, let’s start with our Napa trivia of the day:

What percentage of the City of Napa’s General Fund revenue comes from hotel tax?

I’ll give you a few options for this one:

A. 12%
B. 18%
C. 27%
D. 39%

This is something I think a lot of us have been thinking about for a while.

If you do not follow local government super closely, Napa has been saying for a while that it wants to be more than just wine and tourism.

And to be fair, I think most of us can also feel the counterpoint to that. The most obvious example sitting right in our face is the old Don Pericos space, where a public-feeling part of town is giving way to a big new hotel. So yes - this is a divisive topic.

But if you want the quick rundown on what the city is actually doing on the “diversify beyond wine” front, here is the timeline.

The city says the Food Startup Studio was created to support Napa’s artisan food sector and further diversify the local economy beyond wine production and experiences.

The city says the Napa Food Startup Studio officially kicked off in February as a free, six-week accelerator under the Napa Makes initiative, built with the Solano-Napa Small Business Development Center.

It brought together 16 local food entrepreneurs who were ready to formalize and grow their operations, framed as a entrepreneurial-capacity push, not just a one-off nice idea.

This is the part I think matters most. It is one thing to announce a program. It is another to come back and show movement.

In the city’s March 30 wrap-up, Napa said the first cohort drew nearly 40 applicants. Then in early April, the city kept pushing the showcase and wrap-up as part of a broader growth-and-innovation story around Napa’s artisan food scene.

That does not mean Napa has cracked economic diversification. But it does mean this is a little more than vague “support small business” language. There is at least a visible sequence here: stated intent, launch, cohort, showcase, follow-up.

I’m going to be honest with you guys - it is really difficult for me to comment on how well these businesses are doing.

Obviously, I do not have access to their financials, and I cannot really see everything they have done since.

But from what I can tell on the surface, there do seem to be some legit businesses in here that really look like they could use that help - solo operators and smaller local brands that would actually get a lot out of this kind of support. Little Hollywood Baking Co. and Cho’s Bakeshop stood out to me in that way.

And they did receive a pretty solid batch of actually useful help, stuff like:

So time will tell. But on the surface, it does seem like a really worthwhile initiative, and I hope for our town’s sake that these kinds of smaller, more local joints are the ones that get to thrive.

Ok, I know most of us have a car - this is definitely the type of town where it really helps to have one.

But friendly reminder: don’t sleep on the Vine!

We actually do have pretty decent public transit, at least within town, and it just got a whole lot more appealing.

First of all, Vine says all bus trips will be free during BottleRock weekend, May 22-24 - not just festival rides. That includes extended late-night service, and the closest stop to the festival is the Soscol Gateway Transit Center at 625 Burnell Street, which is about a short walk from the Expo.

Second, the Summer Youth Pass is back, which gives anyone 18 and under unlimited rides all summer for $20. That is a pretty great little practical one for families, teens, and anyone trying to make summer movement a little easier.

We all know what we are talking about here.

A lot of government stuff still looks and feels like it is stuck in the early 2000s - slow, clunky, weird to navigate, and just generally harder than it needs to be.

So in an age where people can basically AI-generate a whole modern website in five seconds, I will say this: the Napa Library actually did a nice job.

The new site is way prettier, but more importantly, it is way easier to actually see and understand all the services the library offers. Stuff like Library of Things, Link+, Suggest a Purchase, Ask a Librarian, tech help, tax help, live homework help, study-room booking, books by mail, and the Memory Lab all feel a lot more visible now.

And I just want to reiterate this at the end: the library is one of the best public resources we have, and we are super lucky to have it.

So shout out their tech team who realized a lot of that with a much needed website revamp! If you have some free minutes one evening I would definitely explore and check out some neat services you might have missed previously!

That’s what we’ve got for you - thanks for tuning in.

And the answer to the trivia: B. 18%
Hotel tax makes up about 18% of the City of Napa’s General Fund revenue.

Before I go, I wanted to let you all know I have started posting brief recaps of these newsletters on our facebook, threads, and twitter. If you prefer to get your news in those feed - hit us with a follow on their (link in footer below)

Finally - like a good radio station, I do take listener requests for the most part - and honestly, I really appreciate crowdsourcing the intel from us locals :)

I’ll see you all Friday with our weekend gameplan.

Callie