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b'August 2, 2022 \\u2014 In the wake of a Mendocino County Grand Jury report that found layers of delay in distributing a grant, a policy manual has been updated, an affidavit is being drafted, and legal review will start up again next week.\\n\\nIn 2020, the County received $2.2 million from the state, to administer individual grants to applicants who are eligible to run a cannabis business in the unincorporated areas of Mendocino County; and who can demonstrate that they have been harmed by the war on drugs. But most of that money is held up in legal review. Out of 52 applications, five grants have been awarded. The other 47 approved grant applications are waiting for County Counsel to determine that they won\\u2019t run afoul of the state\\u2019s policy about misuse of funds.\\n\\nThe Local Equity Entrepreneur Program, or LEEP, is supposed to allocate direct assistance awards to individuals, which puts the county in the position of vouching for the recipients. If the county were to award a grant that doesn\\u2019t meet the state\\u2019s strict requirements, the county would have to collect the misused funds as it would any other debt, possibly becoming ineligible to receive further grants.\\nBut if the money is not awarded by the end of August, the state could take it back. \\n\\nMichael Katz, the Executive Director of the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance, an industry advocacy group, noted that the Grand Jury report aligns closely with complaints and policy proposals that the MCA has been making for a while. \\n\\nThe report\\u2019s first finding is that \\u201cThere was no process developed for the distribution of grant funds to individuals prior to applications being received. This has resulted in extended delays at every step from eligibility to application to communication to contract negotiation,\\u201d which prevents the timely distribution of funds.\\n\\u201cThe results of that, unfortunately, have been that some operators have been in this application process since February of last year, counting on these funds to help them move forward in this incredibly challenging business at this incredibly challenging time,\\u201d Katz said last week.\\n\\nKristin Nevedal, the Mendocino County Cannabis Program Manager, uses similar language for what she\\u2019s faced in her role. Asked about the same finding at July\\u2019s LEEP meeting, she said, \\u201cI think that\\u2019s absolutely correct. I think the program has been incredibly challenged by changes and lack of leadership, frankly, in the cannabis program as a whole.\\u201d \\nShortly after the county received the first round of funding in February 2021, Megan Dukett, the cannabis program manager at the time, left her position. The county had hired a company called Elevate Impact to administer the grant for no more than 10% of the award, but Nevedal said, \\u201cIt is completely unfair to expect a contract administrator to develop a program for any local jurisdiction solely on their own.\\u201d\\n\\nNevedal said she learned about the program\\u2019s complexities at the end of 2021, when she had one part time helper and had been on the job herself for just a little over a year.\\n\\n\\u201cSo I had no clue how underdeveloped the program was until we started getting into the review of applications and then how we would essentially issue checks,\\u201d she acknowledged. \\u201cMost local jurisdictions do not include capital improvements in what\\u2019s allowed as far as expenses that can be paid for using direct grant funds. And I think from the county\\u2019s perspective, you don\\u2019t know what you don\\u2019t know. So I don\\u2019t believe the county really knew ahead of time the complex nature of the applications we\\u2019d be receiving to have the foresight to understand that we also needed planner time to also conduct these reviews.\\u201d \\n\\nThe Grand Jury also found that \\u201cthe county did not ask the state for requirements on record keeping until May 2022,\\u201d and that this should have been done much earlier in the process. \\nThat finding dovetails with the fear of misusing the funds, which Katz thinks has led to unnecessary restrictions.\\n\\n\\u201cThere are still barriers that are being put in place on certain requests by the department that are not demanded by the state. So for example, there are many folks who are working to create solar usage opportunities on their cultivation sites in various ways. And solar is something that\\u2019s desirable, obviously. We\\u2019re trying to phase out generators. We\\u2019re trying to phase out fossil fuel use\\u2026but the cannabis department has been objecting to specific types of solar, being concerned with how much power the solar would provide, and really just putting what seem like unnecessary restrictions that are not demanded by the state on the uses that would benefit the operator. So if they actually revised the manual to allow anything that is not explicitly disallowed, there wouldn\\u2019t be the need to dig into every item and go back and forth on the minutiae that we\\u2019ve seen happening for applicants.\\u201d\\n\\nOn Friday, the cannabis program issued V5, the latest edition of the Local Equity Program Manual. In an email, Nevedal wrote that, \\u201cThe program is still working on a form/affidavit for awardees to sign stating that they\\u2019ve read and understand the grant agreement,\\u201d as well as the much-edited manual. Nevedal added that \\u201cCounty Counsel plans to resume the review of approved grant applications next week.\\u201d However, the changes to the manual consist of several sets and subsets of requirements for documentation, and do not address what the money can and cannot be used for.\\n\\nCounty Counsel did not immediately return a call requesting more information, but Katz said yesterday that he thinks that\\u2019s what County Counsel needs in order to complete its review.\\n\\n\\u201cWe hope it turns into money in people\\u2019s hands soon,\\u201d he said. He expects the next round of edits will include language expanding the allowable uses of the grant funds. \\n\\nHe hopes to see version V6 of the manual sometime next week.'