This spring Friends has had to say good bye to two long-time Board members, Tony Norris and Laurie Puzo. Their decades of service have benefited Napa County, the Napa River and the community in countless ways. We would like to thank Tony Norris this month, saving Laurie for next.
The City and County of Napa, the County of Solano, and the Cities of Richmond and Vallejo are all fortunate that Tony decided to call Napa home in the late 1970’s. While offering his professional services to these adjacent communities to administer parks, inspect landscape improvements, and manage real estate, Tony always set aside time for community efforts in his home town of Napa.
After the floods in Napa during the late 1980’s and 90’s, the Community Coalition formed to try to address flood control and environmental goals jointly. Tony jumped in to help create what became the Living River Plan to address flooding on the River, which evolved into the flood design adopted by the Corps of Engineers. That brought him into contact with the Friends of the Napa River, and at the request of founding President Moira Johnston-Block, Tony joined our Board. He sees the kickstart that Friends and the Community Coalition gave to the Napa River Flood Control Project as his proudest memory in dealing with the Napa River.
As a college student, Tony studied 3 seemingly disparate topics, philosophy, political science, and biology. The result was a well-rounded professional who has made his mark in the North Bay over several decades, asking the difficult questions and probing the details of public projects like the Napa River Bypass, shown in the picture below.
Our Napa River and the Flood District have benefited from Tony’s service on both the Financial Oversight Committee and the Technical Advisory Panel, not to mention his time as a Director of the newly created Napa County Regional Park & Open Space District. His broad-based involvement, on so many levels, has made Tony a uniquely valuable contributor in each arena he’s entered.
When asked what regrets he has about the Napa River and the associated Flood Control Project, he says that he wishes that we had been able to execute the entire Living River Plan and that the Federal Government had funded the whole project as planned, not leaving us to figure out how to fund the last pieces of the project.
So what’s Tony going to do now, after his storied career with all these agencies and committees, not all of which we’ve named? He is looking forward to continuing as a Director of the Parks and Open Space District while finding a lot more time for his family, who are all still local. The Friends of the Napa River wish to thank Tony for his years of unwavering dedication to the River and its betterment.
