Hey, you guys! It turns out that a bunch of retirees who have an extra 20 hours a week on their hands to do research and write reports don’t actually like marijuana.
A real shocker, I know.
The most recent report released by the Santa Barbara County grand jury is aptly titled “Cannabis.” It’s about—you guessed it—cannabis! More specifically, it’s about the county’s process for creating the recreational marijuana ordinance it passed in 2018.
It’s a doozy.
Big news guys: The county screwed up the ordinance! Gosh, I didn’t need a 26-page report to tell me that. I assume that’s the reason why the county’s been trying to fix it.
Hey, grand jury, did you know that SLO County screwed up its ordinance, too, and that other counties and the state of California are also tweaking their regulations? I wonder if you guys should investigate those obviously nefarious deeds.
Turns out that it’s hard to regulate an industry that’s never existed before.
The jury didn’t name names or anything, because they aren’t allowed to do that. But I guess they are allowed to level some pretty serious allegations against “unnamed” individuals.
And it’s perfectly obvious who most of these allegations are leveled against: The only two members of the county’s ad hoc committee that was formed to help suss out what the marijuana ordinance should eventually entail—5th District Supervisor Steve Lavagnino and 1st District Supervisor Das Williams.
Reading this grand jury report, you would think they were the devil incarnate!
The grand jury essentially accuses Santa Barbara County supervisors (you know who you are, and so do we) of pay-to-play decision-making before and during board meetings, campaign finance violations, nepotism, favoritism, and what amounts to ethical malfeasance. It takes issue with the way the county decided to tax marijuana, claims that marijuana advocates had more access to supervisors than opponents, and that the ordinance was decided on in private.
The county actually wrote a letter to the public in an attempt to address allegations about the so-called “private” decision-making process in 2019. Deputy County Executive Officer Dennis Bozanich said he had counted more than 60 public meetings in the lead-up to the ordinance passing. Sounds like a pretty public process to me.
You know what else the jury had a problem with? Marijuana advocates sending emails to supervisors the day before a meeting discussing an agenda item that affected them! The timing is super weird, amirite? Not! Hey, grand jury, did you know that happens all the time?
But supervisors received more emails and had more meetings with proponents than opponents. Did the grand jury detail that supervisors refused to meet with ordinance opponents? No.
Turns out that anyone can email the county supervisors and anyone can request a meeting with them, too. Could it be that these so-called marijuana “lobbyists” (who the jury alleges used to work for the county) actually took the time to do their legwork and advocate for what they wanted, while those on the other side didn’t do as much?
Because that’s what usually happens. People who don’t involve themselves in the public process often have a lot to complain about after the fact.
The canary thinks the grand jury had an ax to grind. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 9-16, 2020.