Napa Valley Register from Napa, California • A1

1 LOW CLOUDS, FOLLOWED BY SUN 70 51 FORECAST, B4 MONDAY, MAY 14, 2018 napavalleyregister.com $1 CONNECTIONS C1 CAROLYN HAX C3 CROSSWORDS C3 ASK THE DOCTORS C3 EDITORIAL A5 HOROSCOPE C3 A3 SCOREBOARD B3 SPORTS B1 $1 Volume 155, Issue 265 A Lee Enterprises Newspaper Copyright 2018 Follow us online: facebook.com/NapaValleyRegister twitter.com@NapaRegister instagram.com/naparegister Loving Las Vegas, from its glittering Strip to its al- luring desert napavalleyregister.com/travel AT NAPAVALLEYREGISTER.COM DISCOVER DIGITAL DUI allegation on Hwy 29 Woman arrested after crash NEWS, PAGE A2 Signing ceremony Martindale to continue career SPORTS, PAGE B1Visiting Little Rock An urban renaissance in Arkansas CONNECTIONS, PAGE C1 KEVIN COURTNEY What living Napan has his very own mini park in downtown? Only one: 94-year-old Ernie Rota. In front of the Tommy Bahama shop, in the shadow of the new Archer hotel, sits Ernest Rota Commons, a patch of ground just barely big enough to accommo- date a cork oak. How did Rota, the owner of Cla ey and Rota Funeral Home, get his own tiny park? As the plaque at the base of the cork oak states, he served on the City Council from 1966 to 1974. Council members who launched downtown redevelop- ment during that controversial period were rewarded by having their names attached to things. Councilman Paul Gore got a 72-foot-tall clock tower at Mur- ray Plaza named for him.

It later got torn down. Mayor Ralph Trower got a fountain at Murray Plaza. It got turned into a planter box. Rota get anything as fancy as a clock tower or a foun- tain. He got a spot of ground with a cork oak.

Maybe it was too humble an honor to have outworn its welcome. HOWARD YUNE A plan by Verizon Wireless to amplify its cellular data network in Napa with an array of shorter transmitters comes before the City Council on Tuesday. A fraction of the height and range of regular wireless towers, the so-called will be attached to existing util- ity poles in Napa or included in replacement poles up to 52 feet high, taller than normal to ex- tend signal reach. Each unit is designed to fortify wireless ser- vice rather than extending it into unserved areas, producing a sig- nal in a radius instead Shorter cell towers on agenda JENNIFER HUFFMAN jhu a new sound of music in Napa, and not coming from BottleRock, the Uptown or any other local stage. The music is from new low-power FM radio station, KCMU, found at 103.3 FM.

The new music-centric, non- community radio station was created by Napa resident Faith Henschel-Ventrello. Called the Napa Radio Project, KCMU launched on Dec. 31. always loved being in said Henschel-Ventrello, who has lived in Napa since 2000. After experiences working as the music director for a radio sta- tion while attending the Univer- sity of Washington and later in record label marketing, thought be fun to do radio Henschel-Ventrello said she gured a new station was a pipe dream.

But when the Federal Communications Commission made a limited number of Low Power FM Radio licenses avail- able, Henschel-Ventrello jumped on it. According to the FCC, the agency established LPFM licenses Eclectic radio station launches J.L. SOUSA, REGISTER Ernie Rota sits beneath the cork oak at First Street Napa at Ernest Rota Commons and reminisces about all the changes to downtown Napa. He served as a Napa council member from 1966 to 1974. HOWARD YUNE From fresh grass to fancier stages, the trappings of another BottleRock are taking shape at the Napa Valley Expo, less than two weeks before the music ex- travaganza returns to the wine country for its sixth year.

Sunday morning at the Expo was the picture of a fairground in metamorphosis. Along two sides of an expansive lawn by the Sil- verado Trail, double-deck banks of seating had risen, atop which hard-hat workers carried two- by-fours to continue construc- tion. Tentlike white canopies marked the spots where Napa Valley restaurants and wineries would showcase their wares; globe-like silk lanterns had been strung outside the silent-disco headphone station and inside Chardonnay Hall, which would house a spa for weary festival spectators. And at one end of a green was a large square of cleared dirt where work would soon begin on main stage, where Muse, The Killers and Bruno Mars are set to perform before tens of thousands of fans on suc- cessive nights. four stages will be in the same positions as in 2017, but the top two venues have been enlarged, according to Justin Dragoo, a partner in the Latitude 38 Entertainment company that has produced the festival since its second edition in 2014.

More robust construction will allow those stages to bear more weight and thus hold more light- ing and video panels especially at the secondary Midway stage, whose oor area will closely match that of the primary JaM backdrop goes up HOWARD YUNE, REGISTER Work continued on two-level seating at the Napa Valley Expo, facing what will become the primary stage of the BottleRock music festival May 25-27. Producers estimate the event will draw about 120,000 spectators to the fairground on downtown Third Street. The man behind the mini-park MEDIA Napa home is base for a low-power operation run by a new Faith Henschel- Ventrello has been operating a low power FM radio station since Dec. 31. KCMU, located at 103.3 FM, is a 100-watt station that transmits to parts of Napa.

J.L. SOUSA, REGISTER LIVING HISTORY Ernie Rota honored by a small plot inside downtown center GOVERNMENT Verizon wants to amplify cellular data network If you go Napa City Council meeting Tuesday, 3:30 p.m. (afternoon session) and 6:30 p.m. (eve- ning session, including Verizon small-cell discussion) City Hall, 955 School St. Agenda: http://bit.ly/2wELh7i MUSIC Stages are getting set at Napa Valley Expo Please see RADIO, Page A2 Please see VERIZON, Page A2 Please see BOTTLEROCK, Page A6 Please see ROTA, Page A6.