01/12/2016
An open letter to Butte County Supervisor for District 1, Bill Connelly...
Good Afternoon Supervisor Connelly,
This email started as a question regarding application for the newly created special event permit that you and the rest of the board voted into effect in 2015, but during its composition, I found the application guidelines and checklist, and that discovery has turned this correspondence into a simple expression of my profound disappointment in what this has become.
I am a disabled veteran of the US Navy, and my wife (then girlfriend) and I moved back to Butte County in 2011. I was raised in Durham and spent 8 years serving onboard a ballistic missile submarine after graduating from Durham High School. I brought my family back here because this was the place I wanted to raise children.
I got a job at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, and in addition to working 40 hours a week, I started attending college full-time. My wife and I couldn't afford to rent a fancy venue for our wedding, so we elected to have the ceremony on our ranch. We poured every spare cent we had into readying our property for our special day. After dozens of compliments on the location and beauty of the scenery, we decided to help other couples who simply could not afford a traditional venue, and we offered our home to them for their special day.
We applied for a DBA and by word of mouth alone, hosted a few weddings. Since the ranch is also our home, we made special precautions to prevent damage or fire to the property. We had water trailers brought in for fire safety and mowed clearings around the event areas. We took every precaution to protect our home, but we also mitigated our risk with a one million dollar insurance policy protecting our business and home. The beauty of our property is in the natural state of it all. Open fields and old barns, no tacky structures that would detract from the ambience. That means no bathrooms, no potable water, no electricity.
Our couples loved it. They brought in porta-potties and electric generators, and had a blank slate to turn our property into the venue of their dreams. We charged them the minimum required to maintain the property, and keep it from bankrupting us. Our low costs allowed them to afford renting all of the other amenities they would need for their wedding.
We were up and running for less than a year when your special event venue ordinance was announced, and it has spelled the end of our newly minted small business.
We simply do not have the capital to throw at major renovation and improvements, and therefore we have suspended the hosting of any weddings. My wife is pretty distraught about the legislation putting us out of business, but I'm determined to find a way to reopen our venue at some point in the future.
Yet as I look out my window at the giant Valley Oaks that seem to watch over the hillside, and the dirt roads that meander between their trunks, I'm conflicted. I'm not so sure I want to bring in giant excavators to scratch at the earth and tear away at the natural beauty of the meadows, just so my country dirt road meets your standards. I don't know that I'd like big trenchers carving gouges in my fields just so I can erect awkward structures to house bathrooms, which would surely end up as an eyesore to our guests. The grading of giant parking lots would change the venue into something of which I'd no longer be as proud to be the proprietor.
We're not wealthy people. Hell, sometimes we live paycheck to paycheck. Without the revenue generated from hosting weddings, there is simply no way I can see that we will be able to afford the $7912.90 you are requesting for all of the fees and studies associated with your Minor Use Permit.
Throughout all these emotions and thoughts, the biggest disappointment I have with how this turned out is that our two year old daughter, Josie Mae, will no longer get to grow up witnessing the miracles of a wedding over and over. It warmed my heart that she might watch two people destined for each other affirm their feelings for eternity. To see the smile on the face of the groom when he first sees his bride coming down the aisle of wildflowers, and the look on her face when she sees his. She's going to lose that now, and that makes me choke up a bit, because that would be a precious, precious gift.
John William Ryan Turner
Owner and Proprietor, Savage Flower Ranch
