BROADCASTS.com

b'January 26, 2021 \\u2014 The Board of Supervisors took a significant step in rejiggering the cannabis codes yesterday, voting 4-1 to send a proposal more closely aligned with the state\\u2019s land use laws along to the Planning Commission.\\nThe board also voted unanimously to direct the Department of Transportation to continue working on a pilot program to create a benefit zone in Brooktrails, allowing the neighborhood to figure out how to collect a tax to maintain properties for fire safety.\\nAnd last week, the superintendent of the Fort Bragg Unified School District gave a report to the board of trustees, telling them it is not feasible for schools in Mendocino County to reopen at this time, due to the high rate of positive covid tests. Mendocino has descended from the purple tier to the newly created deep purple tier, for counties with more than 14 positive test results per day per 100,000 residents.\\nThe county Board of Supervisors, which is meeting again today, held a special meeting yesterday afternoon to hash out the proposed cannabis code amendments, a document which will come before the Planning Commission, then return to the supervisors, then undergo a first and second reading before it replaces much of the original ordinance.\\nChief Planner Julia Krog ran through the general idea of the draft proposal, before the public weighed in for approximately two hours. The agenda item also generated more than a hundred written comments by individuals and organizations from across the spectrum of love and loathing for the plant.\\n\\u201cThe goal of this discretionary permit model is to really bring us into conformance with state regulations,\\u201d Krog explained.\\nThe reason it\\u2019s important to be more closely aligned with the state is that most local farmers can\\u2019t meet the state\\u2019s environmental requirements, which means that by the end of the year, they will not have state licenses and will therefore be unable to grow legally. The discretionary permit means that each site will be subject to environmental review, thus sparing the county the trouble and expense of generating an environmental impact report for the entire project of a cannabis ordinance, which is what happened the first time around. \\nOne of the highlights of the new proposal is that growers who applied during Phase I but were never able to make it through, will be allowed to reapply under Phase III, unless they are in sunset or opt-out zones. There are about 1,100 of these applicants, though some of them seem to have dropped off the map, not responding to attempts by county staff to make contact. \\nThe board also gave direction that cannabis farms should not be allowed to use generators or truck in water except in cases of emergency. This was in keeping with the Mendocino County Climate Action Advisory Committee\\u2019s concerns. That body also urged the board to give the nod only to cannabis cultivation in areas that are already developed, including agland, as long as it doesn\\u2019t degrade other forms of agricultural production.The board also included direction about preserving native soil and keeping the size of hoop houses under 10,000 square feet. The lingering question of whether or not grows should be allowed on rangeland came up, but this was shunted to the Planning Commission to sort out in the conditions for the use permits. Krog pointed out that the review process for each permit, which does allow some flexibility, is also supremely detailed, involving an analysis based on consultations with state maps of prime farmland and soils. An appendix attached to the agenda states that parcels in ag or rangeland zoning districts larger than ten acres may cultivate up to ten percent of the parcel area. This was the sticking point for Supervisor John Haschak, who voted against the proposal. The motion, which passed with his lone dissent, includes a request to the Planning Commission to return its report and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors within forty days.\\n\\nAnother thing that is unlikely to see any movement until March is school reopenings, according to Fort Bragg Unified School District superintendent Rebecca Walker. Counties can\\u2019t even consider reopening schools until community-wide positive covid test results drop to 25 a day per 100,000 residents. And then, Walker calculates that the required weekly covid testing would cost the school district $110,000 a week, far more than the grants the state is offering to incentivize reopening.\\nSchools can only reopen to in-person instruction for students in grades 7-12 if positive covid tests drop to seven per day. As of yesterday, the seven-day average was 23.57, for a population of a little under 90,000. Walker is not sure her district would be able to satisfy the covid testing requirements, even if testing capacity were available.\\nThe vaccinations are a bright spot. Three hundred teachers and staff from schools and preschools all along the coast got their first vaccines on the fifteenth of this month, and are scheduled to get their second shots on February 12, well before reopening would be possible. Walker described the vaccine clinic in the high school gymnasium like it was the gala event of the year:\\n\\u201cIt was like, ten months of, I don\\u2019t get to see anybody, and now I get to see the whole town,\\u201d she enthused. \\u201cIt was amazing. It was just so much fun...it truly filled my well. I want to thank everybody who participated and helped.\\u201d'