Board Disputes 10 Critical Findings, and Dismisses 17 Recommendations
Rarely
has the Santa Barbara Grand Jury issued so scathing a report as
the one released this summer about the open embrace given to the cannabis industry by elected
officials throughout Santa Barbara county government. In biting
detail, the report castigated the board
of supervisors — two in particular —
for allowing cannabis industry lobbyists
such “unfettered access” that the jury recommended
creating an ethics commission with new ethics rules that would require
— among other things — supervisors receiving
campaign donations from
industry representatives to
recuse themselves from voting
on donors’ projects.
Though less sharp in tone and shorter in length, the supervisors returned the favor this Tuesday, approving
an official response to the Grand Jury that
disagreed either “wholly” or
“partially” with 10 of the Grand Jury’s 12 findings and dismissed 17 of the Grand Jury’s
18 remedial
recommendations as either “not
warranted,” “not reasonable,” or “not needed.”
Translated into more affirmative
lingo, the supervisors report agreed
with just two of the grand jury’s
findings and agreed to implement just one of its recommendations.
Perhaps, it’s just that
cannabis — like water and whiskey — is destined to be forever fought over — at least in Santa Barbara
County, which has emerged as one of the hottest epicenters of legal marijuana production in all California.
Not
helping matters is the legally stilted lingo which by law the supervisors must
deploy when responding to any and all grand
jury reports.
In
a nutshell, the Grand Jury concluded
that the county supervisors — in their haste
to legalize
a brand new industry that promised untold
millions in tax revenues — sold out the county’s normal environmental review process,
short- circuited public access to
the deliberative process, took
industry donations, played footsie with industry lobbyists, and crafted an ordinance
that relied on the honor system for cannabis operators to tell the truth and comply with county regulations. The victims in all this, according to the Grand Jury,
are the olfactory
sensibilities of county residents in
town and country who can’t abide the smell of alarmed skunks emanating from greenhouse and
field.
Speaking
against these charges was county administrator Barney Melekian and
Planning Czar Lisa Plowman. The county was forced to craft a
complicated new regulatory apparatus in short order, according
to Melekian. “All
of us were maneuvering in the fog,”
he said. Plowman noted that the county held no less than 60 open public
hearings on the new ordinance.
Melekian
insisted there was no lax enforcement of a rogue industry, saying that the Sheriff’s Office conducted 72 enforcement
actions against cannabis
growers suspected of growing illegally,
12 against operators who provided
the county false information to
obtain temporary licenses, and 58
who had no licenses at all. Seized in these raids were 89,483
pounds of dried processed cannabis and 1.4 million plants worth $339 million.
County Counsel Mike
Ghizzoni noted that because campaign
donations are protected as free speech, supervisors could not be forced to
recuse themselves from votes
relating to their donors. The county, he
added, already has a code of ethics, and the state’s Political
Reform Act already requires all campaign donations be reported.
Supervisor Steve
Lavagnino said, “Everybody has access. Anybody can come and talk to me.” He added, “I
talk to both sides, and at some point
I have to make a tough
call.” People, he said, should not confuse policy disagreements with corruption.
Williams acknowledged that odor control remains
a problem and suggested the County Counsel’s Office could more
vigorously pursue lawsuits against offenders.
But he stressed all the ways the supervisors have, in fact, increased the regulatory restrictions on the
new industry.
Supervisor
Gregg Hart expressed
disappointment the Grand Jury failed
to
highlight many of the additional zoning
and regulatory safeguards the supervisors have
adopted since the initial ordinance
was adopted.
Supervisor
Peter Adam, normally more loquacious, declined to weigh in, saying he voted against all the measures that aroused the suspicion of the
Grand Jury.
Only
Supervisor Joan Hartmann expressed
concern about problems highlighted by the Grand Jury
report. Many operators, she stated, have expanded
well beyond the size of what they claimed they were growing
in2016. “When somebody does that, you
simply don’t bless it with a permit,” she stated. You say there’s
some kind of consequence.” The county,
she said, has yet to
do that.
Seven
members of the public addressed the
supervisors about the report. Liz Rogan
thanked them for responding “to facts not emotion.”
But Renee O’Neill, an outspoken critic of the industry who lives in
Tepusquet Canyon, said, “There appears to be no acknowledgment of making mistakes and or a demonstration of
willingness to remedy problems that were created by developing
‘cart-before-the-horse, slipshod, loophole’ cannabis regulations.”
Santa Barbara Independent
By Nick Welsh
September 23, 2020
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