LAKEPORT >> The Lake County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a cannabis work plan for early 2018 and provide direction to stakeholder departments at their meeting today.
The stakeholders taking part are the Agriculture Department, Air Quality, Behavioral Health, Child Support Services, Community Development, County Counsel, Environmental Health, Public Health, the Sheriff Office, Water Resources among others. These will likely have regulatory oversight of marijuana in the county, ranging from permitting, code enforcement, water use and storm management to consumer health and pest management.
Starting in January, the county will create a working group with cannabis stakeholder department heads to develop internal policy and address implementation issues. In addition, the county will also hold a series of two-hour cannabis workshops starting in January on the third Thursday of each month.
Workshop topics can include an overview of recent changes and approaches, cultivation, manufacturing, testing, distribution, retail, standards and policy issues, budgeting and staffing.
Lake County Associate Planner Mireya Turner said a rough timeline for all of this will also be discussed at today’s meeting.
“County Counsel requested the October 12 hearing before the Planning Commission be postponed to allow them time for further review of the draft ordinance regulating commercial cannabis activities,” Turner said. “Our department has not received further direction regarding the rescheduling of that hearing.”
Not only did the county need further time to review the ordinance, discussion was also delayed by the Sulphur Fire. With limited staff, the priority focus shifted to help with the disaster. Also, there have been legislative and regulatory developments during the time this hearing was postponed that could need to be added to the ordinance.
In this process to keep the community updated, Turner said she has been putting new information on the county website and sending out notifications to those who are interested in what has been happening.
“I (will) continue to send out updates to the cannabis policy development public interest email list, and post updates to the webpage,” Turner said.
In November the state’s three cannabis licensing authorities proposed emergency regulations for commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis that will need to be incorporated. These three entities are the Department of Food and Agriculture’s CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing Program, the Department of Consumer Affairs’ Bureau of Cannabis Control and the Department of Public Health’s Manufactured Cannabis Safety Branch.
There has been additional help with a consultant that the county has obtained to provide assistance and help navigate the changes made on various government levels to make sure there is compliance and proper regulations.
The county will continue to meet and create an ordinance for Article 72 that is consistent and compliant with state regulation but will be specific to the community’s needs and desires.
