California voters rejected, 51% to 49%, a measure that would have protected nearly 800 acres of oak trees from being demolished without a permit, established buffer areas along streams and wetlands in an agricultural watershed and reduced by one-third the number of trees taken down.
Measure C had been touted as a grassroots campaign to save Napa County hills and slow or halt the ravages of climate change. The measure’s leaders included Jim Wilson, a retired Anheuser-Busch manager.
It would have limited vineyard development on hillsides above Napa Valley.