Pot and pork barrel

All-time records are being set now in weed plantings everywhere in this county.

This insane response to the Supervisors’ Cannabis Expansion Ordinance is occurring after a finding earlier this year by the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board that Mendocino County was already “inundated” with pot to the degree that watersheds and water sources are being destroyed. There’s no adjective to describe the assault on our resource lands underway now.

For those of you who were here five years ago, you’ll remember I wrote on these pages and said on my KPFN show numerous times that many economic regulatory laws, such as cannabis legalization, usually have an un-stated objective.

If there are many people and entities to be regulated, the bureaucrats administering the frameworks, believe smaller is better, more efficient, and guarantees big bucks.

And that’s exactly what’s transpired in Mendocino County with its Cannabis Ordinance.

We now have four Supervisors who think that bigger is better and it’s time for the small fries to transition into other economic endeavors.

That’s what cultivation expansion is all about. It’s also called greed.

Bureaucrats would much rather deal with a small number of large growers than fuss around with thousands of moms and pops who they consider to be annoyances because, well they’re just too damn small, and they take up too much of your time, and you don’t get much in return from them, i.e., revenue.

The Big Guys, on the other hand, are much easier to regulate because they’re “real businesses,” easy to locate, they don’t bitch about fees and taxes, and they are a steady, dependable stream of enhanced revenues, or so say the bureaucrats.

So there’s a meeting and a meshing of minds between the bureaucrats and the corporate growers because they both share the same interests and objectives: Use the Cannabis Ordinance to eliminate the small farmers, and then get on with business as usual.

By the way, Supervisor Ted Williams, unabashed advocate of the Expansion Ordinance, challenged me this week to an “on-air debate’ on the pot issue. I accepted, of course. We need to agree to a date and time, etc. I’ll let you know when everything is firmed up.

Redwood Valley MAC Objects To PG&E Settlement Pork Barrel

The Redwood Valley Municipal Advisory Council recently sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors strenuously objecting to the Board of Supervisors’ plans to spend the approximate $22 million court settlement paid out by PG&E for causing the 2017 wildfires. In political parlance the Supes’ plan is what’s known as pork barrel.

Can’t say I disagree with the RVMAC’S position.

Here are excepts from the letter:

“We, the members of the Redwood Valley MAC, representing the people of Redwood Valley, hope that we can all agree that the PG&E Settlement Funds only came about because Redwood Valley, and to a lesser extent Potter Valley, burned in October 2017. Hundreds of homes were lost. Nine people died. The trauma lives on in our communities.

“We hope that we can all agree that the purpose of the PG&E Settlement Funds is to address the physical and emotional harm caused to these two communities. The only reason the money was sent to the county is that neither Redwood Valley nor Potter Valley are incorporated. We hope that we can all agree that this money should first and foremost address the impacts of that fire to the communities that suffered. Only after those needs are met should the money go to general emergency preparedness for the county, other county priorities, or funding for agencies and organizations that benefit the county at large.

“We hope we can all agree that completely unrelated budget items, and items for which there are other sources of funding, should not come out of the PG&E Settlement Funds. The most egregious example of an unrelated item is Carbon Reduction $1,500,000 (a new line item since the Board discussed this issue publicly, and therefore possibly a violation of the Brown Act). An example of a budget