I would like to take this time to state that I am really discouraged by the prioritization of our cannabis program. All appendix G reviews have been halted for months now, including review of applications that submitted prior to the portal opening or closing. I heard that there are cannabis renewal applications that staff has not been able to review that have been in the queue since the winter. My county renewal packet was submitted on May 3rd and I followed all of the instructions that were provided on the county website. I uploaded all of the necessary attachments, provided the correct subject line title and respectfully requested that I receive an email confirming that Staff was in receipt of my renewal application. It has now been 2 weeks with no reply. This does not seem like best practices. There needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure staff is receiving correspondence and a reply to the applicant would go a long way. I would like to know when my assigned planner will be allowed to review my appendix g materials again too. The MCD update doesn't include details concerning what I feel is a failed administration of the equity grant funding program. I have been approved and received my check only to find out that my business name was included even though I submitted a W9 with just my personal information to LEEP staff who never gave it to the county. Causing further delays. The County will be making the correction once I bring the check in to be reissued but I just want to highlight the countless errors that I've experienced through the duration of this process, mostly with the administration of the progam from the Elevate Impact team. I've also never heard when the technical assistance programs will begin. I was awarded the assistance last year and have been told when enough people sign up for classes they will host them. Well how long is that going to go on for? Those classes would go a long way to help me with marketing, branding, bookkeeping etc for my business. Is there a timeline for when the county will determine if enough people have signed up or not? And if they don't get enough participation for Technical Assistance, then what? Can that $2k go towards something else?
My partner also applied for a direct grant and has had a very challenging time being approved for some of the items included in his budget proposal. There has been discrimination against him using the funds for packaging expenses because I already applied for funding of these items on my budget proposal. That makes no sense, since packaging expenses will be never ending, and since we get 1 full year to spend the money, if any packaging materials are left over from a harvest, it can just be applied to the next harvested crop. My partner is also being questioned for the amount of power needed to utilize a solar trailer he wants to get for our cannabis operation. He provided detailed answers to all of the Director's questions and finally received a response stating that she needs to get educated by a solar expert before proceeding any further with an approval of the fund use. Does the Director apply this same level of scrutiny on budget proposals that request funds to be used for structures? This seems like overreach to me. Our county should be happily approving anyone that wants to use solar technology for power use! We already have a permitted home system so the fear that we will use the power for something more than our cannabis operation is just not based in reality. It would help to provide optimum water spraying to our garden since our current off grid gravity feed system does not produce the pressure needed to allow our spray emitters to work at optimal speed. With the trailer we could pressurize our off grid system. We would also be able to use the power source to pump water to our storage tanks in the winter months during the evening and make much larger batches of compost teas for our pest management and health of our plants. I just highlight some of these issues we are facing so you get a clear picture of what it feels like to be on this side of the fence. I understand that we are just one application in a stack of many but it feels like we are being questioned for a budget item that should be happily allowed by our county. I'd also like to understand more about portal submissions, how many applicants are being assigned to each planner for review, how long they anticipate to get through that process, and if errors with the re-submission process are discovered, how the department intends to manage those specific situations. I support the memo submitted by MCA on this agenda item and hope more will be discussed today during this agenda item.
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors May 17, 2022
501 Low Gap Road
Ukiah, CA 9548
ADDENDUMRe: Item 3t on 05/17 - Approval of the County of Mendocino Cannabis
Department Update
_______________________________________________________
Honorable Supervisors:
On April 20, Director Nevedal received the following email from the DCC:
At this time we are looking at the Corrections list and only issuing provisional licenses if
their status on that list is Issued, Approval, In Good Standing, C Portal, or C Portal VM. If
they are Eligible Portal we are letting them know they need to work with the county
to become in good standing by going through the corrections portal. I think these
applications will remain open until the county finishes their review and they are in good
standing and eligible to receive a provisional license. If they are some other status we tell
them they are not eligible for a provisional license and they need to work with the county –
these people will probably disqualify because I think most of them are people that you are
going to deny, or they have been withdrawn or disqualified at the county level. People don’t
like just being told they aren’t eligible for a license so all we can tell them is to work with the
county even though they might be denied. Hope that helps. Thank you, Eva Olin
This aligns with our previous comments that it is the determination BY MCD of the current
Status of Applicants that the DCC is using to decide whether or not they will issue
provisional licenses to our local operators who have applied.
It is IMPERATIVE that the Board direct MCD to AFFIRMATIVELY provide Local
Authorization to the DCC immediately for every operator currently in the Portal so that
none of our local operators lose their state licensure due to the delays of local processing.
Once affirmative Local Authorization is provided, the DCC will be able to issue any
delayed Provisional Licenses.
Those who currently are having their Provisional Licenses delayed are mostly people who
already have other state licenses and were just changing License type..
Further, for the past 5 years, while applications were pending there was simply local
authorization through the embossed receipt the applicant was initially granted unless and
until it was revoked or the application was actually denied. The continuity of business
operations rely on the continuity of licensing processes. MCD, by creating subcategories of portal related status, confused the state and gave DCC a reason to believe that there
was some problem. The reality is that the problem for many people in the portal or later,
the corrections portal, lays at the feet of MCD and/or its predecessors but the impact is
now unfairly preventing those applicants from getting a provisional license. The county can
ALWAYS withdraw consent and shut down a farm IF it finds that the applicant has violated
any terms of the local authorization that was granted years ago. It is patently unfair that
some applicants are now unable to change state license types simply because the county
never processed their application, creating the need to direct them into the portal, and now
has insufficient staff to further process the application.
Withholding Local Authorization from Applicants in the Portal will lead to irreparable harm
for an untold number of operators, and this correspondence makes it clear that MCD has
the ability to avert this harm. Please provide them with the direction to do so urgently.
Finally, we think it is important to inform you that the above correspondence from the DCC
was obtained through a Public Records Act request. It was referenced at an MCD
meeting when the question of Local Authorization being withheld was raised for fear of
what that would mean for an unknown number of operators who would now be in danger
of losing their state provisional license at a pivotal time. Director Nevedal indicated that
she had received correspondence from the DCC, but that she would not share it with the
community. It is clear upon seeing it now that we clearly have different interpretations of
the meaning of this email.
Our question is ‘Why does MCD refuse to engage with stakeholders in a way that
ultimately is harmful to the entire community, and why does the Board continue to allow
it?’ As experts on the ground, we can provide questions and insight that may enable
further clarification from the State that would benefit operators and the community alike.
And if we find that our questions lead to different questions, we can engage in that effort
together with the goal of achieving the directions of this Board: To ensure that every
operator who is doing their best to achieve compliance and working with the County to do
so should be able to receive an Annual permit. The further loss of licensed operators will
only exacerbate the economic and social decline of Mendocino County. Please hear us,
continued inaction can only lead to further ruin in our already fragile rural community, and
endangers us all.
Sincerely,
We will just tell you where we are at in the process with relation to this MCD report... We are cannabis cultivation permit holders in the middle of our fifth county permit renewal. We are equity eligible. We submitted our full packet with our budget to LEEP. We submitted a separate full packet of County renewal via our consultant, Jacobszoon last month, 30 days in advance of expiration. That same week, after we submitted to the County, it was announced in the MCD weekly meeting, that renewals should now be submitted 60 days in advance. We went in person to the MCD office to check on our renewal before our permit expired & were told it was being processed & we were in good standing. While there we received equity fee waivers for both the County & State. The State renewed us right away. We are still waiting on our (now expired) County permit renewal & a response from LEEP.
We support MCA comments. Thank you for continued efforts to build a new industry here in our county. Laura & Marty Clein, Martyjuana™
In reviewing the Mendocino Cannabis Department (MCD) report, we are struck by the sterile presentation of data summarizing the numbers of applications in various stages of processing accompanied by very important dates after which applicants will no longer qualify for County permits and/or State licenses.
The MCD report repeatedly assures the reader that every portal, grant, renewal or permitting function is “prioritized”. While those assurances seem highly unlikely, in this past Friday's MCD update Director Nevedal stated that staff are currently assigned exclusively to 'portal corrections' with all other reviews placed on hold.
MCA applauds the intent behind holding weekly MCD information meetings. However, too often submitted questions go unanswered with staff selected questions taking up most of the Q&A time and very little time left for live interaction around public questions. There is no opportunity provided for back-and-forth interactions after the Director has answered a question, making the meetings less effective than if the Director would enable participants to follow up on her answers since they often do not address the core issues raised.
A few weeks ago Director Nevedal referred to lack of staff as the reason many MCD functions were slow or delayed, as is the case in many County departments. However, the employee list contained in this report is more robust than previously described. We recall that Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant Program presented by Ms. Nevedal included over $7 Million dollars for new MCD staff, contractors, software, etc. MCA is curious to know if MCD has tapped these grant funds to hire new staff as the intended grant recipients have not yet had an opportunity to apply for money desperately needed. We were grateful to learn that 3 additional staff have been hired to begin next month, but it is our understanding that space was found for at least 5 if not 6 new employees, so we request clarification on why MCD is not planning to fill all of those available spaces with new hires on the same timeline.
Similarly, Equity grant funds are also available for administrative purposes and may have contributed to new staff funding. These funds have been allocated to Elevate Impact, but Director Nevedal has indicated that they are only doing 50% or less of the administrative work on the grant applications, and many of their team are no longer interacting with applicants. Applicants question grant funds use as so few businesses have received their awards.
Additionally, regarding the Equity component of the report, MCD has included the amount of funds that have been ‘authorized’ which seems to indicate that these funds have also been disbursed, but in reality there have only been 5 Direct Grant checks written, a number that has remained unchanged for at least several weeks, if not months. It is interesting to note that there is no mention of the number of checks disbursed in the report. This raises the question of why MCD is not sharing the full scope of information they have with the Board, but instead are presenting information in a way that makes it seem the program is further along than it is.
The relationship between MCD and Elevate, processing Equity grant applications, has bogged down and Equity applicants have great difficulty completing new and ever changing requests from MCD and receiving replies from Elevate. Only five Equity grant payments have been awarded thus far in Mendocino County. Applicants are being asked to revise their budget submissions several times, apparently due to overreaching discretion from the MCD Director, who is questioning uses of Grant Funding that the Board directed to be made available based on her own personal perspective, and not on what is allowed by the state. MCA strongly urges an audit of the Equity grant budgeting process, management and distribution of funds.
At every opportunity, the cannabis community has asked Director Nevedal to create a mission statement for MCD, as exists in most all other departments This request has been ignored for some time, and when it was addressed it was met with resistance by Director Nevedal as not being a priority of the Department. There is a feeling within the community that operating without a mission statement fosters a lack of accountability and monitoring of MCD policies and procedures. MCA requests the Board direct MCD to create a mission statement consistent with the goals and objectives stated in the County's cannabis ordinance and restated repeatedly by Supervisors in County meetings --- to facilitate the annual permitting of Phase 1 legacy cultivators and those heritage operators within the program, working towards compliance, and still wanting to remain part of the legal marketplace despite the significant challenges they continue to face.
The omission of an update on CEQA issues is disappointing as MCD has vacillated between recommending MCD create Appendix G Checklists and Project Descriptions and reverting to applicant/consultant preparation. CEQA approval remains the largest obstacle to annual state licenses, yet MCD continues to postpone the reviews they must conduct as “lead local agency”. Applicants need consistent policy, instructions and access to MCD reviews to first obtain County permits and then to successfully obtain Annual State Licenses. MCA asks the Board to direct MCD to clarify the CEQA process and all applications from a perspective of how an application will be approved rather than how applications will be denied.
Given the above, and the myriad other items that MCA and other local stakeholders have been communicating to the Board for months, we recommend that the Board NOT accept the MCD report being presented today, and request that a more clear picture of the state of the Department be provided.
We further recommend the Board appoint direct oversight beyond the limited scope of the Ad Hoc for the department to dive deeper into policy and procedure decisions autonomously enacted by MCD that are not following Board directives nor stakeholder advice. Despite the best efforts thus far, there have been very few examples of improvements to the process. The Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant is a good example of the lack of clarity on if or how funds are being used by the MCD. Director Nevedal has stated that there were not the full amount of funds needed for hiring additional staff while Grant monies are ostensibly available for this purpose and, at the same time, applicants are not receiving grants. The Board often accepts reports without much scrutiny, but in the case of the MCD, much more information is required to understand the inconsistent and arbitrary regulations, such as the sudden demand for items not included in the Ordinance such as 'vegetation modification' as a potential means for removing people from the program, as well as the arbitrary enforcement of these regulations.
We thank you for your consideration and urge swift action on these critical issues.
Dear Board of Supervisors,
I would like to take this time to state that I am really discouraged by the prioritization of our cannabis program. All appendix G reviews have been halted for months now, including review of applications that submitted prior to the portal opening or closing. I heard that there are cannabis renewal applications that staff has not been able to review that have been in the queue since the winter. My county renewal packet was submitted on May 3rd and I followed all of the instructions that were provided on the county website. I uploaded all of the necessary attachments, provided the correct subject line title and respectfully requested that I receive an email confirming that Staff was in receipt of my renewal application. It has now been 2 weeks with no reply. This does not seem like best practices. There needs to be a mechanism in place to ensure staff is receiving correspondence and a reply to the applicant would go a long way. I would like to know when my assigned planner will be allowed to review my appendix g materials again too. The MCD update doesn't include details concerning what I feel is a failed administration of the equity grant funding program. I have been approved and received my check only to find out that my business name was included even though I submitted a W9 with just my personal information to LEEP staff who never gave it to the county. Causing further delays. The County will be making the correction once I bring the check in to be reissued but I just want to highlight the countless errors that I've experienced through the duration of this process, mostly with the administration of the progam from the Elevate Impact team. I've also never heard when the technical assistance programs will begin. I was awarded the assistance last year and have been told when enough people sign up for classes they will host them. Well how long is that going to go on for? Those classes would go a long way to help me with marketing, branding, bookkeeping etc for my business. Is there a timeline for when the county will determine if enough people have signed up or not? And if they don't get enough participation for Technical Assistance, then what? Can that $2k go towards something else?
My partner also applied for a direct grant and has had a very challenging time being approved for some of the items included in his budget proposal. There has been discrimination against him using the funds for packaging expenses because I already applied for funding of these items on my budget proposal. That makes no sense, since packaging expenses will be never ending, and since we get 1 full year to spend the money, if any packaging materials are left over from a harvest, it can just be applied to the next harvested crop. My partner is also being questioned for the amount of power needed to utilize a solar trailer he wants to get for our cannabis operation. He provided detailed answers to all of the Director's questions and finally received a response stating that she needs to get educated by a solar expert before proceeding any further with an approval of the fund use. Does the Director apply this same level of scrutiny on budget proposals that request funds to be used for structures? This seems like overreach to me. Our county should be happily approving anyone that wants to use solar technology for power use! We already have a permitted home system so the fear that we will use the power for something more than our cannabis operation is just not based in reality. It would help to provide optimum water spraying to our garden since our current off grid gravity feed system does not produce the pressure needed to allow our spray emitters to work at optimal speed. With the trailer we could pressurize our off grid system. We would also be able to use the power source to pump water to our storage tanks in the winter months during the evening and make much larger batches of compost teas for our pest management and health of our plants. I just highlight some of these issues we are facing so you get a clear picture of what it feels like to be on this side of the fence. I understand that we are just one application in a stack of many but it feels like we are being questioned for a budget item that should be happily allowed by our county. I'd also like to understand more about portal submissions, how many applicants are being assigned to each planner for review, how long they anticipate to get through that process, and if errors with the re-submission process are discovered, how the department intends to manage those specific situations. I support the memo submitted by MCA on this agenda item and hope more will be discussed today during this agenda item.
Thank you,
Monique Ramirez
Honorable Supervisors,
My name is Christina Colangelo, cannabis farmer, 3rd District.
I wholeheartedly support what MCA is proposing.
Thank You
Christina Colangelo
Mendocino County Board of Supervisors May 17, 2022
501 Low Gap Road
Ukiah, CA 9548
ADDENDUMRe: Item 3t on 05/17 - Approval of the County of Mendocino Cannabis
Department Update
_______________________________________________________
Honorable Supervisors:
On April 20, Director Nevedal received the following email from the DCC:
At this time we are looking at the Corrections list and only issuing provisional licenses if
their status on that list is Issued, Approval, In Good Standing, C Portal, or C Portal VM. If
they are Eligible Portal we are letting them know they need to work with the county
to become in good standing by going through the corrections portal. I think these
applications will remain open until the county finishes their review and they are in good
standing and eligible to receive a provisional license. If they are some other status we tell
them they are not eligible for a provisional license and they need to work with the county –
these people will probably disqualify because I think most of them are people that you are
going to deny, or they have been withdrawn or disqualified at the county level. People don’t
like just being told they aren’t eligible for a license so all we can tell them is to work with the
county even though they might be denied. Hope that helps. Thank you, Eva Olin
This aligns with our previous comments that it is the determination BY MCD of the current
Status of Applicants that the DCC is using to decide whether or not they will issue
provisional licenses to our local operators who have applied.
It is IMPERATIVE that the Board direct MCD to AFFIRMATIVELY provide Local
Authorization to the DCC immediately for every operator currently in the Portal so that
none of our local operators lose their state licensure due to the delays of local processing.
Once affirmative Local Authorization is provided, the DCC will be able to issue any
delayed Provisional Licenses.
Those who currently are having their Provisional Licenses delayed are mostly people who
already have other state licenses and were just changing License type..
Further, for the past 5 years, while applications were pending there was simply local
authorization through the embossed receipt the applicant was initially granted unless and
until it was revoked or the application was actually denied. The continuity of business
operations rely on the continuity of licensing processes. MCD, by creating subcategories of portal related status, confused the state and gave DCC a reason to believe that there
was some problem. The reality is that the problem for many people in the portal or later,
the corrections portal, lays at the feet of MCD and/or its predecessors but the impact is
now unfairly preventing those applicants from getting a provisional license. The county can
ALWAYS withdraw consent and shut down a farm IF it finds that the applicant has violated
any terms of the local authorization that was granted years ago. It is patently unfair that
some applicants are now unable to change state license types simply because the county
never processed their application, creating the need to direct them into the portal, and now
has insufficient staff to further process the application.
Withholding Local Authorization from Applicants in the Portal will lead to irreparable harm
for an untold number of operators, and this correspondence makes it clear that MCD has
the ability to avert this harm. Please provide them with the direction to do so urgently.
Finally, we think it is important to inform you that the above correspondence from the DCC
was obtained through a Public Records Act request. It was referenced at an MCD
meeting when the question of Local Authorization being withheld was raised for fear of
what that would mean for an unknown number of operators who would now be in danger
of losing their state provisional license at a pivotal time. Director Nevedal indicated that
she had received correspondence from the DCC, but that she would not share it with the
community. It is clear upon seeing it now that we clearly have different interpretations of
the meaning of this email.
Our question is ‘Why does MCD refuse to engage with stakeholders in a way that
ultimately is harmful to the entire community, and why does the Board continue to allow
it?’ As experts on the ground, we can provide questions and insight that may enable
further clarification from the State that would benefit operators and the community alike.
And if we find that our questions lead to different questions, we can engage in that effort
together with the goal of achieving the directions of this Board: To ensure that every
operator who is doing their best to achieve compliance and working with the County to do
so should be able to receive an Annual permit. The further loss of licensed operators will
only exacerbate the economic and social decline of Mendocino County. Please hear us,
continued inaction can only lead to further ruin in our already fragile rural community, and
endangers us all.
Sincerely,
Mendocino Cannabis Alliance
e: info@mendocannabis.com
We will just tell you where we are at in the process with relation to this MCD report... We are cannabis cultivation permit holders in the middle of our fifth county permit renewal. We are equity eligible. We submitted our full packet with our budget to LEEP. We submitted a separate full packet of County renewal via our consultant, Jacobszoon last month, 30 days in advance of expiration. That same week, after we submitted to the County, it was announced in the MCD weekly meeting, that renewals should now be submitted 60 days in advance. We went in person to the MCD office to check on our renewal before our permit expired & were told it was being processed & we were in good standing. While there we received equity fee waivers for both the County & State. The State renewed us right away. We are still waiting on our (now expired) County permit renewal & a response from LEEP.
We support MCA comments. Thank you for continued efforts to build a new industry here in our county. Laura & Marty Clein, Martyjuana™
Honorable Supervisors:
In reviewing the Mendocino Cannabis Department (MCD) report, we are struck by the sterile presentation of data summarizing the numbers of applications in various stages of processing accompanied by very important dates after which applicants will no longer qualify for County permits and/or State licenses.
The MCD report repeatedly assures the reader that every portal, grant, renewal or permitting function is “prioritized”. While those assurances seem highly unlikely, in this past Friday's MCD update Director Nevedal stated that staff are currently assigned exclusively to 'portal corrections' with all other reviews placed on hold.
MCA applauds the intent behind holding weekly MCD information meetings. However, too often submitted questions go unanswered with staff selected questions taking up most of the Q&A time and very little time left for live interaction around public questions. There is no opportunity provided for back-and-forth interactions after the Director has answered a question, making the meetings less effective than if the Director would enable participants to follow up on her answers since they often do not address the core issues raised.
A few weeks ago Director Nevedal referred to lack of staff as the reason many MCD functions were slow or delayed, as is the case in many County departments. However, the employee list contained in this report is more robust than previously described. We recall that Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant Program presented by Ms. Nevedal included over $7 Million dollars for new MCD staff, contractors, software, etc. MCA is curious to know if MCD has tapped these grant funds to hire new staff as the intended grant recipients have not yet had an opportunity to apply for money desperately needed. We were grateful to learn that 3 additional staff have been hired to begin next month, but it is our understanding that space was found for at least 5 if not 6 new employees, so we request clarification on why MCD is not planning to fill all of those available spaces with new hires on the same timeline.
Similarly, Equity grant funds are also available for administrative purposes and may have contributed to new staff funding. These funds have been allocated to Elevate Impact, but Director Nevedal has indicated that they are only doing 50% or less of the administrative work on the grant applications, and many of their team are no longer interacting with applicants. Applicants question grant funds use as so few businesses have received their awards.
Additionally, regarding the Equity component of the report, MCD has included the amount of funds that have been ‘authorized’ which seems to indicate that these funds have also been disbursed, but in reality there have only been 5 Direct Grant checks written, a number that has remained unchanged for at least several weeks, if not months. It is interesting to note that there is no mention of the number of checks disbursed in the report. This raises the question of why MCD is not sharing the full scope of information they have with the Board, but instead are presenting information in a way that makes it seem the program is further along than it is.
The relationship between MCD and Elevate, processing Equity grant applications, has bogged down and Equity applicants have great difficulty completing new and ever changing requests from MCD and receiving replies from Elevate. Only five Equity grant payments have been awarded thus far in Mendocino County. Applicants are being asked to revise their budget submissions several times, apparently due to overreaching discretion from the MCD Director, who is questioning uses of Grant Funding that the Board directed to be made available based on her own personal perspective, and not on what is allowed by the state. MCA strongly urges an audit of the Equity grant budgeting process, management and distribution of funds.
At every opportunity, the cannabis community has asked Director Nevedal to create a mission statement for MCD, as exists in most all other departments This request has been ignored for some time, and when it was addressed it was met with resistance by Director Nevedal as not being a priority of the Department. There is a feeling within the community that operating without a mission statement fosters a lack of accountability and monitoring of MCD policies and procedures. MCA requests the Board direct MCD to create a mission statement consistent with the goals and objectives stated in the County's cannabis ordinance and restated repeatedly by Supervisors in County meetings --- to facilitate the annual permitting of Phase 1 legacy cultivators and those heritage operators within the program, working towards compliance, and still wanting to remain part of the legal marketplace despite the significant challenges they continue to face.
The omission of an update on CEQA issues is disappointing as MCD has vacillated between recommending MCD create Appendix G Checklists and Project Descriptions and reverting to applicant/consultant preparation. CEQA approval remains the largest obstacle to annual state licenses, yet MCD continues to postpone the reviews they must conduct as “lead local agency”. Applicants need consistent policy, instructions and access to MCD reviews to first obtain County permits and then to successfully obtain Annual State Licenses. MCA asks the Board to direct MCD to clarify the CEQA process and all applications from a perspective of how an application will be approved rather than how applications will be denied.
Given the above, and the myriad other items that MCA and other local stakeholders have been communicating to the Board for months, we recommend that the Board NOT accept the MCD report being presented today, and request that a more clear picture of the state of the Department be provided.
We further recommend the Board appoint direct oversight beyond the limited scope of the Ad Hoc for the department to dive deeper into policy and procedure decisions autonomously enacted by MCD that are not following Board directives nor stakeholder advice. Despite the best efforts thus far, there have been very few examples of improvements to the process. The Local Jurisdiction Assistance Grant is a good example of the lack of clarity on if or how funds are being used by the MCD. Director Nevedal has stated that there were not the full amount of funds needed for hiring additional staff while Grant monies are ostensibly available for this purpose and, at the same time, applicants are not receiving grants. The Board often accepts reports without much scrutiny, but in the case of the MCD, much more information is required to understand the inconsistent and arbitrary regulations, such as the sudden demand for items not included in the Ordinance such as 'vegetation modification' as a potential means for removing people from the program, as well as the arbitrary enforcement of these regulations.
We thank you for your consideration and urge swift action on these critical issues.
Sincerely,
Mendocino Cannabis Alliance
e: info@mendocannabis.com