CCVH's Luke Bruner, Manhard Cinsulting's Terra Carver, Uri Driscoll, local environmental attorney Paul Hagen, Karen Brooks were among the diverse crowd in the Board of Supervisors chamber thus afternoon.
Ian Herndon of Humboldt Boutique Garden in public comment reminded Supervisors that marijuana is federally classified as a drug that does not allow access to funding in banks currently and to keep that in mind because compliance requirements are expensive and time is needed to get financing.
A few public commenters encouraged regulations for indoor growing saying this would allow them to get out of garages.
Another commenter saud that they need to consider input from people not at the meeting. He pointed out that most of the input to the Planning Commidsion by "an advocacy group" putting forward their interests.
One common theme I saw today was the desire to keep grows small. That is why I thought it appropriate to recommend a 1000 square foot limit on all grows except perhaps indoor grows on a limited number of industrial sites. By agreeing to keep a grow to a limit (assuming it was in appropriate zoning) it would allow a significant number of growers to sign up and develop " good standing" which so far is undefined. From there we could gather data over the next say 3 years to determine how and where we expand those permits to allow larger canopies or grow areas. (if needed)
ReplyDeleteThis would allow the county to avoid likely litigation over the neg dec which was threatened by EPIC, NEC and others and give us a chance to better evaluate market forces, environmental effects, and burden on county enforcement.
It would also give us time to develop a systematic approach to appropriate regulation and determine the number of permits likely to be requested. In my opinion it would also help preserve any "brand " we may have.