LAKE COUNTY — On Tuesday, the Lake County Board of Supervisors will continue an ongoing discussion of its plan to update, over the course of the next years, all eight of the county’s development-guiding area plans.
Tasked with creating a “scope and timeline of potential area plan updates,” county planning department staff will address the board regarding how to conduct plan update meetings as the area plan revision process gets underway.
According to a memo from Community Development Director Michalyn Del Valle, the board has asked her office to assess the feasibility of holding area plan meetings with members of the community present, and with any county staff that might typically be involved in such meetings absent.
Briefly noting the potential costs and benefits of holding such meetings, Del Valle writes that “Community meetings without County Staff may be valuable to a certain extent, as the community could provide research and insight to the plans.” But, she notes, “this process may have a negative impact, causing delays in the updates if the results from the community meetings are not consistent with the General Plan, or is lacking in other ways.”
Del Valle notes a potential $100,000 cost in the long-term for area plan updates in general, noting it as a possible price tag for assembling an Environmental Impact Report ahead of approving future plans. “Historically, Environmental Impact Reports have been prepared for Lake County Area Plans,” she writes.
Also on the table for Tuesday’s meeting is a proposed amendment to the county’s cannabis tax ordinance that would allow permitted cultivators who have been growing for at least two years to “opt out” of growing for a future, specified period of time—and avoid taxation by doing so.
The county’s cannabis taxation practices were corrected earlier this year to delay tax collection until cannabis cultivation actually begins.
The proposed further amendment, as County Counsel Anita Grant summarizes in a memo to the board, would allow an established cannabis grower to “determine to cease all cultivation operations at a particular permitted location for a specified period of time (a ‘complete opt-out’).”
The drafted amendment, as currently written, would require four things of those who opt out: For one, they must cease all cultivation for their self-determined opt-out period. They must also provide notice to the county of their plans before June 1 of a given year, acknowledge that they are prohibited from cultivation while they are avoiding the tax, and allow county staff to inspect their cultivation site “to ensure that all cannabis cultivation operations have ceased.”
Grant notes that she has drafted the proposed amendment “on behalf of Supervisor (Bruno) Sabatier.”
The board of supervisors will also consider on Tuesday a proposed ordinance aimed at eradicating unlicensed cannabis cultivation operations.
“There is significant environmental damage which may result from unlicensed and un-permitted operations,” counsel Grant writes to the board.
Adding to the existing penalties that exist for unlicensed grows, which allow for up to $5,000 in fines each day of violation, the ordinance would establish a “per cannabis plant penalty” that could impose another $300 “per plant per day” if an unlicensed cultivator is growing more than 50 plants.
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The Lake County Board of Supervisors meets on the first, second, third and fourth Tuesdays of each month beginning at 9 a.m. in the board chambers at the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport. Agendas can be found online at countyoflake.legistar.com.
