With cannabis ordinance author and industry lap dog Das Williams ousted from the Board of Supervisors, another big step in the fast-moving push to rein in growers' domination of county government
Linda, love your dogged Cannabis reporting but the CPC was anything but "bold" (as Commissioner Parke claimed) and, indeed, did little more than rubberstamp P&D's extremely pro-Cannabis proposals. This is not the place for a legal brief but--as an example--we will still rely on a completely failed employee-intensive Complaint System where, after 4 years and 3,800 complaints, not a single complaint has been "verified". They could have been "bold" and done what many folks "in the know" wanted which was to test a 24/7 tech-based system that used superior gas chromatography (vs. the Nasal Ranger which is not suggested for use "in the field"). As Commissioner Parke himself admitted, the Complaint system fails if complaints are made at "3AM" when most County FTE's are tucked in bed. But, hey, I guess we can increase consultant Geosyntec's already seven figure contract to fill the gap (or hire many more FTE's in a program that already costs the County $4M more to administer than it generates in taxes). The bottom-line is that the Chapter 50 licensing changes that the Board was ALREADY going to make re: Carbon "Scrubbers" (many types) did not require CPC input. The land use/Chapter 35 changes were the ones that we needed the CPC to boldly weigh-in against P&D's very pro-Cannabis proposals because these are the changes that will ultimately define/determine if the Scrubbers are "working" (e.g. Odor Thresholds, Complaints/Property Line testing). Instead, they spent more time speaking about giving Growers "extensions" and applauding P&D's "nibble around the edges" proposals that risk making the Chapter 50 Scrubber requirement little more than "window dressing." Because the CPC is technically part of P&D, I guess it was naive of me to believe they would bring intellectual legislative leadership to the P&D status quo. Now, unfortunately, it will be up the the Board of Supervisors to be more immersed in the details and to try and direct real legislative change something that, unfortunately, will not be easy. As it relates to Supervisor Lee, who I absolutely supported, he needs to dig into the details to truly "fix" Cannabis because the CPC/P&D did not.
Jeff, I'm disappointed even our friend Mike Cooney begrudgingly allowed extensions for installations. It sounds like in some cases this could go on another two years!
Linda, love your dogged Cannabis reporting but the CPC was anything but "bold" (as Commissioner Parke claimed) and, indeed, did little more than rubberstamp P&D's extremely pro-Cannabis proposals. This is not the place for a legal brief but--as an example--we will still rely on a completely failed employee-intensive Complaint System where, after 4 years and 3,800 complaints, not a single complaint has been "verified". They could have been "bold" and done what many folks "in the know" wanted which was to test a 24/7 tech-based system that used superior gas chromatography (vs. the Nasal Ranger which is not suggested for use "in the field"). As Commissioner Parke himself admitted, the Complaint system fails if complaints are made at "3AM" when most County FTE's are tucked in bed. But, hey, I guess we can increase consultant Geosyntec's already seven figure contract to fill the gap (or hire many more FTE's in a program that already costs the County $4M more to administer than it generates in taxes). The bottom-line is that the Chapter 50 licensing changes that the Board was ALREADY going to make re: Carbon "Scrubbers" (many types) did not require CPC input. The land use/Chapter 35 changes were the ones that we needed the CPC to boldly weigh-in against P&D's very pro-Cannabis proposals because these are the changes that will ultimately define/determine if the Scrubbers are "working" (e.g. Odor Thresholds, Complaints/Property Line testing). Instead, they spent more time speaking about giving Growers "extensions" and applauding P&D's "nibble around the edges" proposals that risk making the Chapter 50 Scrubber requirement little more than "window dressing." Because the CPC is technically part of P&D, I guess it was naive of me to believe they would bring intellectual legislative leadership to the P&D status quo. Now, unfortunately, it will be up the the Board of Supervisors to be more immersed in the details and to try and direct real legislative change something that, unfortunately, will not be easy. As it relates to Supervisor Lee, who I absolutely supported, he needs to dig into the details to truly "fix" Cannabis because the CPC/P&D did not.
Jeff, I'm disappointed even our friend Mike Cooney begrudgingly allowed extensions for installations. It sounds like in some cases this could go on another two years!
Melinda, thanks again for your fine coverage!