The St. Helena City Council agreed Tuesday not to support Councilmember Eric Sklar’s recommendation that the city boycott functions at Meritage Resort at Napa in response to the hotel’s refusal to allow the abortion rights group NARAL to hold a convention there.

Sklar’s fellow councilmembers agreed the city shouldn’t get embroiled in a controversial non-local issue.

“I firmly believe that from Main Street to the White House, governments should be concentrating on fixing Main Street and what’s happening at home rather than looking at everybody else’s problems,” said Councilmember Joe Potter. “Let’s get our own fixed first and then go somewhere else.”

NARAL held a convention at Meritage in January, but the hotel denied a request by the group to hold another meeting there in January 2008. In response, Sklar requested Nov. 13 that the council adopt a policy of not paying for city officials to attend events at Meritage, and to lobby other local governments to take similar actions.

“We shouldn’t use city dollars to support a business that violates one of the most important tenets of our democracy, and that is the right to free speech,” Sklar said.

The council delayed taking action at its last meeting after a Meritage attorney threatened legal action of the council went forward. Attorney Charles LeMandri said Tuesday that Sklar’s recommended action would violate the hotel owner’s constitutional rights and result in an “expensive, drawn-out battle” in court.

LeMandri said Meritage made the decision based on complaints from costumers following the last event and the personal beliefs of Meritage owner Tim Busch.

City attorneys disagreed, telling the council in a staff report that Sklar’s proposal would not violate Meritage’s rights, and would hold up in court.

But most of the council sided with Mayor Del Britton, who said the city “can’t afford to have resources at risk to support a philosophical position that’s not illegal in any way, shape or form.”

Councilmember Bonnie Schoch agreed it would be inappropriate to devote city resources to a battle against Meritage, but praised Sklar for bringing the issue to the public’s attention, adding she wouldn’t personally patronize the resort.

St. Helena’s Sue Wollack, who co-chaired this year’s NARAL summit, told the Star last week that she sent out e-mails encouraging people from St. Helena and surrounding areas to show up in force in support of Sklar’s proposal.

Wollack conceded that Meritage was within its rights to not allow NARAL to return. “We can’t control what private businesses do, but we can control where our tax dollars go,” she said.

Several members of the public spoke in favor of Sklar’s proposal, including St. Helena’s Stacey Bressler.

“It’s just as bad as if I’d walked into Tra Vigne where I had dinner tonight and they’d told me I couldn’t eat there because I’m Jewish or because I’m a woman or because of the way I voted,” said Bressler. “It’s wrong, and we shouldn’t support any organization that discriminates.”

However, the opinions of most councilmembers seemed to be closer to those of St. Helena’s Jeff Warren, who said the city council should stick to local issues.

“It’s not for St. Helena to take sides against this one individual who owns this business,” he said.

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