San Francisco, CA — A headline in the local wine country newspaper, The Press Democrat, was upsetting enough a week before devastating flash firestorms ravaged 100,000 acres, costing 2,000 lost homes and perhaps a dozen lives in Sonoma and Napa counties. It read:

It seems Sonoma County supervisors had decided to cut the tourism budget by $1 million, diverting a share of hotel bed tax revenue to offset the impact of booming tourism. It is heartbreaking to know that after Sonoma’s worst natural disaster, this is no longer the problem.

Read more about the Sonoma County tourism budget here and California’s wine tourism economic engine here.