Board of Supervisors — 2019-07-09

So

we're

going to be standing right over here for the public testimony. Here's the deal, if you are called upon to speak today and you would like to leave your contact information Because if we go back and we find out at some point that we could not record it and put it where we can access it, we can contact you and have you come back on the 16th. And you'd be able to give your testimony again on the 16th, so- Go ahead, you have two minutes.

98%, I mentioned that over $11 million is coming into this community. 98% is coming from other places in the state of California, If you don't approve progress, I promise CBD hemp will come in. These jobs will be eliminated since CBD growers use columbites to harvest instead of people and do it outdoors. With unemployment at its lowest where will they work? Who will make their car payments, their house payments, pay their outrageous rents?

Will families have to go back to having two jobs and not being available for their children, creating the temptation to join a gang to have a sense of family? I would

know. Okay

we're back on.

Okay.

With unemployment at its lowest where will they work? Who will make the car payments? Their house payments? Pay the outrageous rents? I think I already said that so let's go. And that's exactly what happens when One of the things that I wanted to share is a story from one of my people that I used to mentor. His name for this is Serge. I helped him with resumes and he didn't last at his job, they weren't gratifying. He washed dishes, he scrubbed floors, he washed toilets, he went to work with his mom cleaning houses when he couldn't find anything else. He has a family, a little child. He's proud now and he's no longer involved in gang activity. When you say that there was going to be a gang injunction all these kids showed up and swore not to join gangs to find real jobs.

We were able to not pass that gang injunction and to get these kids back where they belonged in society. They did this because they want to get ahead. We're setting ourselves back. This is an incredible injustice to all of these people that could work in this industry Everything, you're welcome. I'm done. Yay! All

right. No clapping. We're just happy we got

through.

And I'll waive this in the last 15 seconds. How about that?

Our next speaker is Gene Souza to be followed by Amy Steinfeld. Good evening

honorable supervisors. I'm Amy Steinfeld, a local land-use attorney here in town and I'm here on behalf of North County Farmers Guild. We've been working diligently with our farmers and your staff to obtain local permits and licenses We welcome anyone here to come meet with the Guild and to learn more about the regulations that govern this industry. The County's efforts, we appreciate all the County's efforts today to make the process more efficient. In fact as noted in our letter, we support all of the proposals in the CEO's presentation but today I want to focus on the proposed cap.

First, the Guild supports a carefully crafted cap but we need more information and analysis because we want to make sure it actually addresses the concerns which are primarily coming from the South County and a handful of wineries. We also must ensure that the farmers that are so heavily invested in this process are protected, so we offer the following. One, we believe we should be given time to work with the county on a cap that is responsive to the concerns.

That all farmers that have submitted a land use application and paid the hefty fees be protected and their investments not be wiped out. Three, that the cap measurement be based on the definition of canopy in the CDFA regulations. And lastly, that any cap expire 24 months after implementation. This will allow the county to adequately analyze the impacts of legal cannabis after all the permits have been granted.

It's also important to note that any cap on acreage based on the existing acreage in the queue-to-date permitting queue or EIR would be a de facto moratorium on new cannabis activities Such a moratorium would be illegal, as noted in the board letter. In addition, a hastily drafted cap would result in a resurgence of the black market which your enforcement team has successfully wiped out.

The bottom line, we need more time to work with our neighbors and the local wineries. Let's take our time and develop a cap that makes sense for our community. We're optimistic that wine and cannabis can coexist and create synergies together. Thank you

Our next speaker is Alejandro Rodriguez, to be followed by Alfredo Santos. Our next speaker is Vince. Is Vince

here? Our

next speaker, Kendall Fabian. Mark Byers. Brent Capanier. To be followed by Stephen Jane.

Good afternoon, good evening. I'm Brett Vapnick from Lowell Farms, the leading cannabis brand farm here in Santa Barbara County. One of our co-founders is from San Dinez and attended the Dunn School. I've been a cultivator since 2008 and have been in Santa Barbara County since 2015 and was involved in the drafting of the ordinance that we continue to work on to this day.

My company made a multi-million dollar land purchase in San Dinez Valley specifically based on regulations They're currently in place taking into account parcel size, zoning and distance from sedative receptors for a new cultivation project. We are implementing an extensive landscape plan including a 20 acre setback from Marine Road which will be non-cannabis crops including organic food for our cannabis consumption lounge opening in West Hollywood. We have an approved LEP and unfortunately are currently under appeal I'm strongly against changes to the Act 2 beyond the process that's currently in place.

All these appeals will end up before you regardless of whether it's an LUP or a CUP, so I don't think that making everybody go through CUP makes a lot of sense because they're all going to end up in front of you regardless. You should be able to go through the business license process while awaiting our appeal and then one further thing The large size of the operations that you're allowing in this county, once permitted, will bring a tremendous amount of revenue. Unlike other counties which are limiting the size, the current 4% gross receipts tax that you have, which is more than any of the other crops in this county pay, will end up providing a tremendous amount of revenue to the county. That's it.

Our next speaker is Steven James, to be followed by Jesse Zaragoza.

Dear Board of Supervisors, my name is Stephen James and I'm here as president of the Santa Barbara Vintners. As a resident of the Sandy Nose Valley and as a wine industry professional who has dedicated his career to this region for over 23 years. I think it's really funny to hear how regulated the marijuana industry is becoming You guys obviously have no idea how regulated the wine industry is at the county, state and federal level. And the level of obstacles put in our path to develop our tremendous wine quality coming to the region to buy our wines and discovering while here the sheer beauty of its landscapes and it's charming reminders of the rusticity of old California.

These consumers are bringing their money by staying in our hotels, dining in our restaurants and supporting the local economy They're then going back home from wherever they came to share their stories about what a special place this is. And then this virtuous circle repeats itself again and again, so much so that we are now part of an almost $1.8 billion annual economy here in Santa Barbara County.

The wine industry is not anti-marijuana here in Santa Barbara County. I'll say it again, the wine industry is not anti marijuana. As a state, we voted to legalize it but there have been obviously unintended consequences as we've all admitted. We must find a better balance between protecting established industries and the needs of an asset industry. The unchecked growth of marijuana with its toxic odors emanating from marijuana grows is threatening the entire wine tourism and ecotourism business in Santa Barbara County.

If more stringent regulations do not happen that controls the odor of marijuana from leaving the property on Ag-2 lands, you will erode... I wish I could say that word You will forever damage the wine industry and therefore destroy the tourism industry, and all those revenues and taxes associated with it. Supervisor Lagunino, you spoke of revenue shortfalls earlier. Please do not ruin this industry that already generates a significant amount of revenues, taxes and jobs and one that is only growing and becoming more successful.

Good

evening Chairman, Supervisors. My name is Paul Kowalski I'm the chairman of the Cannabis Business Council of Santa Barbara County. I spoke before you in 2016 when you passed the resolution and at that time Supervisor Adam made a comment about how Big Ag was going to come and just squash us or something along those lines. And for a number of years it's kind of haunted me, not because Big Ag was going to come squash us but because I really wasn't sure what Big Ag looked like.

In last month's issue of MG Magazine, that's an industry magazine, they have a foldout that talks about the CBD market Exponentially outpacing the cannabis industry by 22 million... 22 billion by 2022. Anyway, I have a foldout that I thought would interest you. 50 acres of hemp extraction a day. So this was to me something that started to look like Big Ag. I don't think Big Ag is here. I imagine it's on its way and the cannabis industry is Looking for your support. We need regulations and guidelines we can abide by. We are entering a global competition here, where we need the Supervisors of Santa Barbara County to position us to compete not only nationally but internationally. I think we live in a period of time where there's a lot of change happening and cannabis can provide a number of benefits And from medical, nutritional, botanical, fiber, building materials, power sources, soil remediation and carbon sequestration.

So as you go forward we are asking that you enable us to compete and provide us with a regulation that we comply by and succeed in it. Thank you.

Good afternoon, or early evening supervisors and thank you for your time in continuing to do this because we've all been here all day. Sorry I had a slideshow prepared so unfortunately I don't get to show you that so I'll do my best To kind of summarize what I was going to say, so I'm Liz Rogan. I'm the founder of the Cannabis Business Council in Santa Barbara County We originally took the lead and working with you all of you to help craft this ordinance that we're talking about today As you've said, we've spoken for probably over two almost two years if not more in trying to figure this out. We've had over five public comment periods with ad hoc committee and so this isn't new when we talked about this. So we do appreciate your commitment and I wanted to first thank you and the previous Board of Supervisors because I know there's different people too for all the time you spent on this and my careful consideration I just wanted to first off say that agriculture is a huge part of our community as we know and we've been talking about a lot today.

I also wanted to take a moment to remember a member of ours, John Stushenko who you all knew I think and unfortunately he was killed in a car accident on the way home from a Santa Maria meeting. We just want to say thanks for all this time, and we remember you today John with us. So I wanted to address a couple things you said Supervisor Adams. We used to think that cigarettes were okay. Unfortunately now we have more knowledge of these health risks from agriculture.

Chemicals have effects just by being there sometimes you don't smell them and these levels do build up over time as we are seeing in current data So despite challenges that we have, like with shit happening and other stuff. Like other crops need to adapt better because this is the way we keep moving forward. These are public health hazards that scientists are now looking at and showing that this is what it is. It may not have been something that you thought was bad before but now it is look at crops like in the Midwest they have dicamba with soybeans. This pesticide drift is causing other negative effects on a lot of people thank you

Thank you Supervisors, Bruce Watkins. Problems can't

be fixed unless they've been correctly identified Two fundamental problems aren't the ordinances, they are the misinformation and misimplementation. On the misinformation recent media on the industry here is disturbingly inaccurate even inaccurately reporting on many of you supervisors and if it feels bad being accurately described professionals in the cannabis industry know how you feel.

Following a year of rigorous public examinations You didn't give the cannabis industry everything we were asking for, and you didn't give opponents everything that they're looking for. You came to a compromise solution. A year-and-a-half later however that framework that you voted to create still doesn't exist and the public doesn't understand that. They thought you voted on something They see a quagmire, incorrectly conclude that it represents what you intended.

And that leads I believe to a lot of calls to have ordinances changed. The county needs a proactive and sustained information campaign because misinformation is running rampant. Misimplementation amplifies misinformation. The procedural bottlenecks to application processing need an overhaul and a sense of urgency. Despite over 100 licensed applicants, almost nobody in the county has a license yet. A year later this should be seen as a symptom of misinformation or misimplementation. And as an example I was the first to file a CUP application in this county that was one year ago this month I still have zero idea of how and when I might get to the first public hearing on my applications. Now, every county staff I've worked with is professional, friendly, helpful but nobody here seems to be able to define what I need to do next to get my application through and when that next step would take place.

Okay? Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Our next speaker is Gary Teixeira.

My name is Gary Teixeira, I'm a fifth generation farmer in the Santa Maria Valley. My grandfathers came from Portugal in the late 1800's and started farming sheep and dry beans here. The next generations we moved to dairies sugar beets vegetables vineyards and wineries today my two sons and my daughter We run an organic blueberry and blackberry operation. If there's one thing for sure in agriculture, it's that there is change.

As more and more of our food supply is coming from Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Argentina, our costs here in California go up every year. And we have to compete with other commodities and farming practices to survive. I'm Time to come and as the markets predict, as growers we may need to survive. I do not want to see more government policy than we already have and I do not want to see any caps on what we farm in our commodities in Santa Maria.

I think once you start regulating commodities it never ends well so thank you guys very much.

I'm here to announce the North County Farmers Guild is organizing a new annual event called the Santa Barbara County Sun Grown Festival. This event is an effort to foster community relations, education and promotion of the legal cannabis industry in our community The event will showcase and celebrate farmers and produce from both the cannabis and non-cannabis industries.

We hope to further connect our community with common fundamental values, such as love for the land, love for the miracle of growing, a dedication to making the community a model for responsible and cooperative farming. Plans are underway to host this day long festival in North County of Santa Barbara in the fall of 2020 A kickoff event is in development for this fall, where initial plans will be unveiled and founding participants and sponsors will be announced.

The Santa Barbara County Sun Grown Festival is collaborating with a team of experienced and professional partners to produce this event. These professionals have a track record of success cultivating collaborative partnerships with the communities in which they work. The Santa Barbara County Sun Grown Festival will feature some of the finest locally grown legal cannabis, along many of the region's most celebrated organic produce and more. Please consider all yourselves

invited. Our next speaker is Jezera Ring. Sergio Gallo.

First

off, I was not planning

to

come up here

and speak.

ready. But the wheat industry, I support the wheat industry as affecting my life positively in many ways. I feel like it's a blessing. I feel very fortunate to have ended up where I ended up. I work with a lot of very professional people, good environment, could go all day about all the good things. I'm a little nervous excuse me. Don't worry about it. One of the things that I wanted to talk about is the fact that not only does this job help me, but it also helps my son. It has opened up a lot of doors, a lot of opportunities that I did not have before and anytime a new door opens, my son walks in with me. So this industry is not just helping growers and employees but it's also helping thousands of families. And I just want to thank every cannabis industry for making a positive impact to thousands of lives.

Our

next speaker is Angelo Bella, to be followed by Carmela Beck.

Good day, thanks again for having me up here. I know you guys your eyes and ears aren't bleeding yet so I think we're all good, we're almost there. My name is Angelo Bella. I'm the Director of Compliance and Attractive Traceability for Farms in Santa Ynez. One of the things that I didn't get to talk about last time but I really want to touch base with you is one of the goals for recreational cannabis and even medical cannabis markets in these states that are implementing them is to eliminate the black market. That was one of the major pros to legalizing, was to capture tax revenue and to funnel that out of organized crime and into the coffers of local municipalities. The licensing process by nature is complicated and costly.

By nature, any business or organization who is able to obtain a license should be considered one of the good actors in our industry. And those good actors need to be supported by their local governments and given the opportunity to establish normal and best business practices while navigating the already complicated regulations and rules. As I said earlier, the frequent changes to the rules and regs inhibit a company's ability to establish these best practices and in turn become sustainable and ultimately profitable. We need companies to be sustainable and profitable in order to ultimately eliminate said black market. Lastly, I want to just talk about Seems that everybody who is here and talking are the people who are considered good actors.

The people who aren't here talking, are the ones who are the bad actors. So even though we have people on both sides of the issue here really I think we're all in the same team. The people who are here talking and giving their opinions are the ones who are trying to do their best and do their due diligence as responsible growers for the people who are expressing their concerns and issues. I just want to kind of highlight that, just to make sure that we're all on the same team. And ultimately, we all have the same goal and same agenda. So thank you.

Our next speaker is Carmela Beth to be followed by Steven Wiley.

All right, so good afternoon. I'd like to thank the board for taking the time to carefully consider today's public comment. My name is Carmela Beck. I work for a family cannabis farm in Buellton California as the compliance officer. I recently relocated from Watsonville California to Lompoc where I worked for 10 years at Driscoll's as their organic program manager overseeing all organic strawberry raspberry blackberry and blueberry organic compliance certification inspection issues throughout the U.S., Mexico and Chile I'm here today because I love agriculture, because I'm proud to work on a local family cannabis farm and I want to see Santa Barbara County's highly regulated legal cannabis farmers thrive. I have three points to make. One, I'm just going to say do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Do not adopt new amendments at this time, don't implement any bans, let the vetted and voted on regulation play itself out. Don't strangle our nascent highly regulated cannabis industry further With costly restrictions to treat cannabis like any other agricultural commodity. There's room for all agriculture in the county, there's room through the berries, the row crops, the vineyards, cannabis and avocados among others. Cannabis farmers are not threatening. We're not the enemy we're good farmers and we are great neighbors.

Quite honestly the knot in my backyard undertone of anti-cannabis supporters is elitist and it's offensive. Three, do not cripple the cannabis job boom. Hello? Cannabis jobs are really good jobs. It's hella expensive to live in California and it's Santa Barbara County's cost of living is egregious. Allow us women minorities and others to access quality well-paid jobs with the opportunity for growth senior management positions and the ability to make honest living. In closing I'd ask that the Board of Supervisors reflect on their mission statement and the deliberations today which reads Provide quality public service to the people of Santa Barbara County in response to their need for a healthy, safe and prosperous environment. And to establish and maintain a workforce which reflects the diversity of the community.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Steven Wiley to be followed by Tina Finucci-Rotato

Good evening. Thanks for a long day of public service. I'm Steven Wiley, I've been a land use and public lawyer in Santa Barbara for 36 years. Right now I have several HOA clients in Galena I'm going to Recommendations provided to you by the cities of Carpentry and Goleta. Your staff presentation summarized this in other places as well, but unfortunately they missed possibly the most important one and that was the City of Goleta, the City of Carpentry, and in fact your own Planning Commission All on 50 books recommended that you have the same regulations in the coastal zone as you do in inland. But one of the speakers earlier said it's appropriate to have distinctions between the coastal zone and inland. I don't think she meant or focused I hate to mention the LA Times, but you may have seen the article in last Sunday's paper about the vanishing coastline.

We all know this is a very real issue. These photos show how real this is. You've got a situation now in the eastern Toledo Valley where you've got 25 Ag-1 parcels that can get I'm going to to have a difference within the coastal zone and the inland zone. Is it appropriate? And finally, I mean, I know there's a concern that well we don't want to open up everything again with the Coastal Commission. They looked at your ordinance May of 2018. There is no good reason to think they want to take a long look again and there's no good reason to think this wouldn't be a minor amendment like the minor amendment you're already sending to them in your decision earlier today. Is that my time?

Is Tina Finucci from TATO here? Chrissy Salas. Kathy Joseph. Thank you, to be followed by Aaron Weber who is our final speaker.

Well Board of Supervisors, thank you very much for your attention and time. My name is Kathy Joseph. I started my winery over 30 years here in Santa Barbara County. I bought land in what's now called the Santa Rita Hills and helped bring fame to the district for the great pinot noirs that we're making today. I have a mature vineyard. I provide jobs. We provide health benefits. We pay our taxes also My vineyard is sustainably certified under the SIFT program.

And just even to start the vineyard, we're lucky if we get a mature vineyard in seven years. We get a single crop every year and we spend the entire year nurturing what we harvest at the end of that year. I live on the property. I'm very much a part of the vineyard and the winery We're very cautious about our operations. Our spray program is, we're incredibly diligent about it. We follow all the rules and regulations and as you mentioned earlier even when you spray in five mile per hour winds there is minor but occasional drift This past March, after 20 plus years of farming I had a very large grow move in as my next door neighbor. Probably a 70 acre grow.

It emerged very quickly. Of course I had persistent aromas on my home property and I am extremely concerned about any drift that might come in my direction on what is now my livelihood that I have built over 30 years. There are no setback requirements and where I'm concerned about what might come from my neighbor, my neighbor is also concerned about what I might contribute to their property.

Therefore, I've been... Is that the end? Sorry? Oh! I've been spied on, trespassed upon and aggressively approached by my neighbors and I'm not feeling the neighborly love so please please please help me have good neighbors thank you

Our final

speaker is Erin

Weber. Good

evening Supervisors, thank you for your time. I'm here to address the issue of more restrictive policies on add one in the coastal zone and I'm here to tell you that we have that so for example And we have one permit that we've been processing. Hold on a second,

Erin. Ma'am? Sorry. It's really small in here. OK. Go ahead.

So for example, one permit application that we submitted back in December of last year, we still do not anticipate a permit approval until September of this year. That is nine months down the road and that does not include a possible appeal to the Planning Commission which could be a three month additional delay an appeal to your board, the Board of Supervisors which could be an additional three-month delay and possibly even a Coastal Commission appeal which would be another four to six months after that. You have an extraordinary robust process for cannabis operators as you know this includes compliance with archaeological surveys biological surveys traffic studies air quality studies water quality studies noise studies etc., etc. And additionally, ag wine farms in the Carpinteria area have something that the inland farms do not have and that is the CARP Ag overlay and this is so restrictive for the cannabis farms that are trying to go through this process that something so small as a water tank could trigger you into a development plan which requires you to have your first permit approval at the Planning Commission which takes me to my next point which is that your planning commission is already extraordinarily overburdened with the amount of cannabis projects that are about to come through.

So we would just really encourage you to think carefully about any changes to the existing regulatory framework The permits that are required now, which in the inland area it's a CDP and I'm sorry in the inland area it's an LUP. And in coastal zone it's CDP. The public already has ample opportunities to participate. All those permits are appealable. Please think carefully about any changes to the existing framework. Thank you.

That

was our final

speaker. Okay, so y'all made it! So instead of us doing deliberations now what we're going to go ahead and do is we will continue this meeting until July 16th in Santa Barbara. I don't know what our agenda looks like at that point but we'll figure it out and try I don't know how people will be posted. Well, it'll be on the agenda so just not sure where exactly it'll be in the agenda.

Thank you for coming today and we have to have a vote to adjourn all right? We are adjourning this meeting. So moved. Seconded. If you would like to give your niece a check.