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Posted by: thepinetree on 07/21/2017 03:08 PM Updated by: thepinetree on 07/21/2017 04:21 PM
Expires: 01/01/2022 12:00 AM
:

Letter to the BOS – Let the People Vote ~ Letter to the Editor By David Tunno

Valley Springs, CA...If the Board of Supervisors desires, ultimately, not to make the final decision on whether marijuana activities should be allowed in Calaveras County, or at what level, but instead to let the voters decide, then they should consider the following: Having made my living as a trial consultant for nearly 30 years, which includes the science of public opinion research via long-established polling methods, it is important for the results of the polling to be unambiguous. To achieve that result, the question must be unambiguous and it’s best if they require bi-polar responses, responses that are opposite one another, a “yes/no” response, for example. Better yet is if there are two questions, each requiring a bi-polar response and each being polar opposites of each other.




As that axiom relates to this issue, we currently have one data point, the failure of Measure D. I think it is undisputed that Measure D was an attempt at a very liberal ordinance allowing a fairly widespread marijuana cultivation, sales, processing, etc. For example, and by comparison, it was even more favorable to the marijuana interests than the current Urgency Ordinance.

By offering an unambiguous choice to voters, the failure of Measure D provides valuable data. It shows the voters did not want such a liberal ordinance. It did not, however, prove what the voters DO want. It did not, for example, prove that the voters want a total ban. That is the key.

Measure B was to be that other data point, a measure that was, for all practical purposes, the polar opposite of Measure D. If the citizens were allowed to vote on Measure B, that could have answered the above question. I say “could,” because the question would only have been answered definitively with a “yes” vote. A “yes” would have ended the debate.

A “no” vote on B, on the other hand, would have provided direction, but not a definitive answer. A “no” vote would have told us that, while the voters did not want a liberal Measure D type ordinance, they also did not want a total ban. The direction provided would have been that the voters wanted something in between.

Comes now the Boards’ ban ordinance - the one that purports to be a total ban - the one the majority of the BOS asked for on January 31 – the one that Planning said would be done March 15. It represents the missing data point that would have been provided by Measure B, which is why it is important to get it before the voters in November if possible. Information at a recent Board meeting indicated that was possible. If not, then as soon as possible.
Passage by the Board of that same ban ordinance in the meantime would solve the upcoming problem with the termination of the Urgency Ordinance coinciding with the implementation of Prop 64.

If the vote by the people in November is “yes,” the story ends there. The voters will have answered the unambiguous question and approved a total ban.

A “no” vote, on the other hand, would give the Board both direction and the flexibility it would want to comply with that direction. A “no” vote in November would deny the measure as a citizens’ ordinance, but it would still survive as a Board ordinance to be modified as the Board sees fit, and even offered to the voters again at a future date. In the meantime, it would fill the void left by the terminated Urgency Ordinance and prevent us from having the state alone control the issue.

As there will be a November election regardless, the addition of the measure would represent only a nominal extra cost. I submit it makes no sense not to adopt the total ban as soon as possible, as a placeholder, and to place it on the November ballot. The issue will then either be decided completely, or the Board will have very good direction going forward.

The Boards’ decision should also take into account the Measure B campaign, and not just the 5,200+ signatures that were gathered. It should also consider what happened in court, specifically the suit that resulted in the measure being stricken from the ballot. There has been considerable misinformation about that. The citizens of the County deserve to know what happened, especially the people who signed the petition and all who were looking forward to voting on this issue.

Bill McManus and I were sued by Jeremy Carlson, owner of the marijuana dispensary in Arnold. The issue was incorrect language in the Measure B ordinance that referenced it as an ordinance from the Board of Supervisors, not the citizens. Indeed, the language was incorrect, more about that later.

The incorrect language itself was not the central issue. It was a technicality. The issue, as stated by the judge in court was whether that incorrect language caused confusion among the voters as to the origins of the ordinance.
The proceedings were very brief and no witnesses were called. There was, however, a very good witness on this issue sitting in the courtroom, Rebecca Turner, County Clerk and Registrar of Voters (our elections official), who is an elected official, not County staff. Since she and her office were also named as defendants in the suit, she was represented by county attorney David Sirius, a person of interest in this matter.

The full language of the ordinance was submitted to the Elections Department as a part of the submission process for starting a citizens’ initiative. Elections submitted the ordinance to County Counsel’s office for the writing of the “Title” and “Summary” language that goes on every signature page of the petition, by state law. The Summary section, written by County Counsel, begins as follows:

SUMMARY
This voter initiated initiative measure seeks to prohibit the cultivation, manufacturing, processing, and delivery of marijuana for all purposes within all unincorporated parts of Calaveras County, …
Note the first words, “This voter initiative measure,” clearly identifying it as a citizens’ initiative, not a Board of Supervisors initiative. It was written by county attorney David Sirias under the direction of County Counsel Megan Stedtfeld.

From there, the signature-gathering campaign commenced, and was very successful. Remember, the issue at trial was whether there was voter confusion created by the incorrect language. The phrase above, written by County Counsel, was on every signature page. It should also be noted that, in addition to the numerous newspaper accounts identifying it as a citizens, grassroots effort, a citizens’ initiative requires a signature gathering campaign. A Board initiated ordinance does not! The mere fact of the existence of the campaign answers the question.
Following the campaign and the certification of the signatures, the issue was brought before the Board of Supervisors. By law, the Board could have adopted the ordinance as law, which would also have had the stature of a citizens’ ordinance. The Board did not pass that Resolution, but instead ordered that it be on a ballot for a special election. The Resolution that so ordered the election reads, in relevant part, as follows:

Resolution
No. 20170124r014 RESOLUTION CERTIFYING THE SUFFICIENCY OF COUNTY CITIZENS’ INITIATIVE MEASURE…

Again, Measure B was clearly identified in an official document, written by County Counsel, as a citizens’ initiative.

Shortly before the citizens would have been able to vote on it, we were sued by Jeremy Carlson. At the time, we had no attorney, so I prepared documents for the Court, assuming I would have to represent Bill and me. Then attorney Dave Radford of Angels Camp stepped in on our behalf on a pro bono basis. He incorporated my material into his brief to the Court. David Sirias, on the other hand, wrote no brief to the Court explaining what had happened, nor did he offer any explanation during the hearing.

The language in the actual ordinance, identifying the initiative as coming from the Board of Supervisors had been copied and pasted into our ordinance, along with virtually all of the other language, from various ordinances passed by Boards of Supervisors from other California counties. That’s how the ordinance was compiled and that’s how it happened to be the wrong language. Ours would have been the first citizens’ ordinance to ban marijuana in the state, and possibly even the U.S. The correct language is available on the state website, and it was a mistake not to do that research, but it was also an error several attorneys did not catch.

We had solicited the help of two outside attorneys to review the ordinance, one of them a retired Calaveras County Counsel. Neither caught the error and either both Megan Stedtfeld and David Sirias (composer and recorder of the song “Cannabis for You”) didn’t catch it either, or they saw it, but said nothing. If the latter, then why did they describe it as a citizens’ initiative in the Summary shown above? Why did they also describe it as a citizens’ initiative in the official Resolution voted on by the Board? Further, the kind of error the incorrect language represented could have been corrected by the Board either after it was adopted by the Board, or passed by the citizens. It was not a fatal flaw.

The bottom line is, were the citizens of Calaveras County confused as to the origins of the Measure B ordinance? No!
Bill and I have been asked why we did not appeal the Court’s decision. To do so would have put both Bill and I at risk for paying Jeremy Carlson’s legal fees if we had lost, and neither of us has that kind of money. In that sense, the marijuana industry in this county makes a point. The big money here is in pot. Bill and I are not in that industry.

You have now read what happened with Measure B. I write this because I have been called a liar, including in public by former Supervisor Cliff Edson at a Board of Supervisors meeting. I have not lied. Bill McManus has not lied. We both spent many hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of our money trying to give the voters in Calaveras County a voice in this matter.

The current Board can right a terrible wrong that the County itself had a hand in by sending a comprehensive ban ordinance to the voters. They deserve to have their say.

David Tunno
The Committee to Ban Commercial Cultivation




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