Posted May. 14, 2015 at 1:28 PM
Updated May 14, 2015 at 5:58 PM
ADELANTO — With too many questions yet to be answered, the City Council tabled a vote late Tuesday night on two draft medical marijuana ordinances.
Instead, the Council opted to bring back ordinances on medical marijuana dispensaries and medical marijuana cultivation for research facilities at its next meeting on May 27. If the Council approves the ordinances, they will be sent to the city's Planning Commission for review.
"We're not ready to send it anywhere until we get our heads around it," Mayor Rich Kerr said. "I don't think we're educated enough. I don't think (the ordinances have) the substance that we need to see and hear to do this city right."
Nearly bleeding into early Wednesday, talks late Tuesday set out to resolve key unanswered questions about proposed dispensaries and research facilities, including the maximum number, locations, conditions of operations and hours.
If dispensaries, the more controversial of the two plans, were to be approved, they would be subject to a six-month trial period, city officials said.
As was the case three weeks ago, when the city first introduced the plans, several investors one-by-one — most from outside the city — pitched their best ideas in front of the dais. Some promised money upfront, while others vowed that their presence in Adelanto would be the impetus for the change the city needs.
While the city works to slowly turn around a $1.7 million deficit with long-term solutions, a hole that could shrink with a $1.2 million recovery of funds its owed from its public utility authority, Councilman Charley Glasper acknowledged that "the city is in trouble."
"We have to try to find out every legal business way to get (the city) out of the rut it's in," he said.
But it remains to be seen whether or not medical marijuana is part of the answer, or if the Council could ultimately be resigned to wait for anticipated statewide decriminalization initiatives next year.
Mayor Pro Tem Jermaine Wright, for instance, has been less supportive of marijuana dispensaries while championing cultivation for research. Councilman Ed Camargo on Tuesday pushed to throw out the pursuit of dispensaries altogether, but his motion was killed. Councilman John "Bug" Woodard, meanwhile, reiterated his stance Tuesday that he saw the plans as a health issue and an economic driver.
Providing the Council with a high-level overview of dispensaries from a law enforcement perspective, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Sgt. Gary Wheeler urged the Council to "steer away from the money issue," suggesting that officials not be motivated solely by generating revenue.
"There are people who do it for the right reasons and people who do it for the wrong reasons, I have found in my investigations," Wheeler said. "I would just suggest that when we talk about regulations and enforcement, there will be a plan."
In a sometimes tense and emotional public comment period, residents who spoke on the issue wondered if the city, which was the first municipality in the High Desert to pass anti-synthetic drug laws, would be moving backward despite narratives by others that painted Adelanto as being on the cusp of progressiveness.
Former Mayor Cari Thomas was one of 19 who submitted a speaker card. She shared the opinion that revoking the citywide ban on dispensaries enacted in 2010 would be counter-productive, and sought to remind Council members that they had campaigned on not allowing medical marijuana here.
Comments
Post a Comment