Napa Valley Museum

The Napa Valley Museum Board of Trustees, administrators for the Yountville Veterans Home and I met on Friday April 10 to discuss the lease issue. The Vets Home representatives, Marcella McCormack and Stan Oppegard, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Homes, read a list of points familiar to us all. They claimed the msueum had not complied with the terms of the lease and that the property reverts back to the State according to the language of the lease. They asserted that our building now belongs to the State, and that the State is allowing us to stay until October 25. They said the Veterans Home wishes to install an imaging center in the Museum's building.

Other points covered were: 1) that the museum is purportly on a month-to-month lease that began in October 2008, 2) that the Veterans Home has received payment-in-full for all back rent.

The Vets Home reps also stated that they were powerless to change anything as they were merely delivering information and the position of the State. They suggested that if we wanted a dialogue, we should contact our landlord, the Department of General Services, Real Estate Division.

I contacted Tony Psihopaidas, the managing DGS Real Estate agent, and requested a meeting. He said that he was the wrong person to talk to, that he just takes orders from the Department of Veterans Affairs. I contacted Tom Johnson, the Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, who told me that this was not his area, that I should talk to the Chief Administrator of the Veterans Home in Yountville, Marcella McCormack, as she was in charge of the Yountville home.

Having completed the circle, I contacted Marcella McCormack, and recounted my dizzying route through the system. I asked for clarity, especially because the Napa Valley Register, Saturday April 11 edition, had run an article in which Yountville Vets Home officials were quoted saying they were working closely with me to keep the museum on the Vets Home campus, that they preferred for the museum to stay.  She seemed flustered, and that she would get back to me after she spoke with Legal.

After a week, I have not heard back from her. I sent her a letter recounting the above actions by me, and sent copies to all the mentioned parties. In the letter I asked for  a meeting with someone in State who will assume authority, and that our first choice is an amicable agreement, but that we are willing to go to a court of law.

That's where we are now.

---Rick Deragon