Meeting Time: April 12, 2021 at 9:00am PDT

Agenda Item

2. PUBLIC EXPRESSION

   Oppose     Neutral     Support    
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    linn Crawford over 3 years ago

    My family has lived in Mendocino County for ~ 130 years, and has employed thousands upon thousands of people, paid hundreds of thousands in taxes and had the pleasure to enjoy this beautiful, rural, country life Mendocino County has to offer.
    I personally voted to legalize cannabis in Mendocino County in the hopes that it would be taxed and regulated just like all the other agricultural land and products produced in the county. However, after the last several years experiencing the county’s inability to manage and enforce the regulations already on the books, I regret my decision to vote to legalize cannabis before we were actually ready.

    Our county has already passed two cannabis ordinances that you can’t handle the paperwork or enforcement as it is. Our fish and wildlife populations are already depleted and threatened by drought, water diversions, light pollution, chemical pollution, abandoned cars, etc. I personally live out on rangeland on a ranch property. There are hoop houses all over that don’t follow the rules already in place and there is little to no enforcement addressing this issue whatsoever. I personally can count 15 within my small view shed that light up every night like glow worms. No matter how many calls or letters are written to enforcement to inspect these properties, there is no response at all, only additional glow worms that have been added to the surrounding rangeland and ridgetops.

    We are facing one of the worst droughts in a long time and our rangelands, wildlife, rivers, creeks and springs are already taxed to their max. We have more than three times the amount of wildlife using our watershed as surrounding areas are drying up. I already see far too many water trucks, every single day, hauling water to areas where there isn’t enough naturally to support agriculture. Our rangelands specifically are already under heightened increases (or even denied coverage) due to the severe fire storms of recent years. Hundreds of additional humans, machines, tools, generators and decreased water will only increase the fire dangers.

    The Voters in our county already made it clear on their wishes and voted against Measure AF in 2016. The following organizations and groups have also come out to strongly opposed: Mendocino County Farm Bureau, Sherriff Matt Kendall, retired Sheriff Tom Allman, Mendocino County Fish and Game Commission, Mendocino Cannabis Association, Covelo Municiple Advisory Committee, Laytonville Municipal Advisory Committee, Round Valley County Water District, Laytonville County Water District. There were over 350 letters already written to the BOS voicing their opposition. Why are you turning a deaf ear? We do not want to expand cannabis into our rangelands, yet tier 3 is set to do exactly that. The public, including myself, have lost trust in our county’s ability to manage the cannabis ordinance already passed. Adding a new much broader ordinance as in Tier 3, would be an absolute disaster.
    Linn Crawford