Memorandum
Date: January 9, 2024
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Michael S. Green, District 4 Supervisor
Subject: Consideration of appointment of county supervisor as non-voting member of Commercial Cannabis Ordinance Task Force
Executive Summary: On June 7, 2022, your board considered formation of a cannabis task force or ad hoc committee to address commercial cannabis permitting activities and enforcement. As stated in the memo, the initial recommendation by then-Community Development Director Mary Darby was to appoint a county supervisor as a member of the task force or ad hoc committee.
However, that same recommendation did not appear on the video presented at the June 7, 2022, meeting; instead, Darby proposed a planning commissioner "or two" be appointed to a nine-member "team" or task force. Darby additionally proposed several county employees to review any task force recommendations, including two (2) county supervisors and several department heads, as well as stakeholders including agriculture, the Chamber of Commerce and CalFire. After extended discussion of the proposed member categories, your board approved the formation of the task force with no supervisors or planning commissioners as sitting members. The primary driver of the board discussion was keeping the task force at a manageable size.
On July 12, 2022, your board considered applications submitted for appointment to the COTF. Seven (7) task force appointments were made in six (6) designated member categories.
On November 1, 2022, despite earlier concerns raised about the size of the task force, your board approved adding an eighth designated "fire district" seat to the COTF. Representatives of multiple fire districts have since participated in several COTF meetings, beginning November 28, 2022. However, the COTF continues to operate without direction to allow or receive supervisor input.
Supervisor Sabatier's efforts as chair of the industrial hem...
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