Santa Barbara County Supervisors Reject Civil Grand Jury Report Criticizing Cannabis Response

The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors has firmly rejected a civil grand jury report that criticized the county's handling of cannabis policies and regulations.

Board chairman Gregg Hart said he was not on the board when the regulations were created, but he has served through the many amendments and changes.

"I was disappointed in the grand jury report not telling that part of the story," Hart said at the Sept. 22 board meeting. "It didn't describe the significant amendments the board has made to regulate the cannabis industry."

The grand jury report made several recommendations, including to create cannabis-related environmental impact reports for each region of the county, make ad hoc subcommittees open to the public and subject to open meeting laws, develop standards to disclose access to lobbying individuals, require conditional use permits for all cannabis project, and change the taxation method.

The county rejected all but one of the volunteer grand jury's 11 recommendations. Recommendation No. 9 called for all future ordinances that involve taxation to require that the Santa Barbara County treasurer-tax collector be involved in the creation of the ordinance. The county said it would do so as future situations arise.

No specific staff members or actions were referenced in the report, but both supervisors on the ad hoc subcommittee — First District Supervisor Das Williams and Fifth District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino — have come under attack politically for their role in developing the ordinances.

Cannabis became a major issue in Williams' re-election bid, which he won against challenger Laura Capps in March. Williams also accepted $62,500 from the cannabis industry while serving on the county board that wrote the rules for regulating the industry.

Williams, who represents Carpinteria, the area that has been ground zero for complaints about a cannabis-related skunky smell, said the report was a "rational response," adding that "most of this debate is cloaked in emotions" almost all of the time.

"Where the grand jury missed the mark is this idea that things would be better if we went slower," Williams said. "For residents of the Carpinteria Valley, that odor has been in existence for years. Nothing gets better when things are slower."

Williams said that ultimately, technology will improve the situation, but the grand jury's idea of stopping every attempt to reopen the policy discussion is wrong.

Redoing an EIR just perpetuates people's suffering," Williams said. "Redoing any of this just perpetuates the status quo, which to me is not acceptable."

Williams acknowledged that there is more to do to reduce the impact, but that the situation with odor has improved.

Lavagnino took exception to criticism that he was somehow unduly influenced behind the scenes by the cannabis lobby.

"I can promise you that the ulterior motive that I have is constantly that there is insatiable appetite for additional funding to do the job this county needs to do," Lavagnino said.

He also said that people should not be so quick to jump to conspiracy theories.

"There have been many times in my time on the Board of Supervisors that I have sat, listened to testimony from everybody and it went a certain way and I lost," Lavagnino said. "The board majority voted me down and I never thought, 'Oh, the board majority, those other three people are corrupt.' I felt they had a difference of opinion on a policy matter."

Board member Joan Hartmann agreed.

I think every member who serves on this Board of Supervisors takes ethics very seriously, and I don't think there was anything that was shady that was done," Hartmann said. "It was new, people didn't fully understand how it would impact them and that certainly was the case. We have adapted and made some key changes."

The supervisors have amended the county's land use and business license cannabis ordinances several times already, and most recently decided to ban cultivation within existing developed rural neighborhoods, and require processing and drying to be done indoors with odor control.

Noozhawk
By Joshua Molina
October 8, 2020