Neighborhood Impact

Mono County voted nearly 2 to 1 in favor of Prop 64 legalizing cannabis sales and production. Local residents voted to approve this land use multiple times. Mono County staff and citizen planners spent months developing sensible regulations. The rules are strict and the bar to meet qualifications is high. This is probably why there has been no explosion of cannabis cultivation in the County. Mono County did it correctly and we have worked diligently for several years and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet or exceed all the regulations. We’ve played by the rules and that’s how we intend to run our business.

If Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors members go strictly by the metric of meeting the qualifications, then there's little question that we'll be granted our CUP, but there's more to it than that.

The majority of comments about our project are from our nearest neighbors in Nevada. Their concerns matter to us, too, and they've done a good job of organizing against us. They are to be commended for their hard work.

We are keenly aware that this project’s potential benefit is to those in California, but we also contend that there are benefits for our Nevada neighbors. For instance, we are moving three 5 thousand gallon water tanks relatively close to Eastside lane and providing Fire Department connections. We hope they’ll never be needed, but they will be filled daily and readily available.

The roads that our Nevada neighbors use to travel to and from their homes are mostly in California and are maintained by California tax dollars which this project will generate. We also welcome and expect our project to bring increased Mono County Sherriff’s Department presence, the centerpiece of good community policing.

The Numbers

A total of 7 households were represented in the 130 comments received. Of those households, 6 are in Nevada, leaving only 1 in California. Of those 6 households in Nevada, only 4 actually have a house. The other 2 own an undeveloped lot and are over 2 miles from our project site. Of the 4 remaining Nevada households that actually have a house on their property, only 3 use it as a full-time residence. The closest house is 1,700 feet from our project, 5 times the distance required by Mono County Code.

The 7th commenting household is on Highway 395 in California, over a 3 mile drive from our project site.

How did so few households produce so many comments? Multiple people from the same household contributed comments, some of them did so multiple times. There is nothing wrong with this practice, but someone just hearing about the number of comments could easily be mislead, especially if they don't take distance and even state residency into account.

Back to that 130 comment total. They didn't all come from citizens. Other parties interested in the CEQA Report include Fish and Wildlife, various water control agencies, and the Department of Cannabis Control. The bulk of those comments were a series of clarifying questions asked by the agencies. In many cases they just needed more information, and in the case of the DCC, they offered helpful suggestions for clarifying the wording in RCI's CEQA document.

We feel this side of the story mostly remains untold. To those who would like to see this project succeed for the benefit of Mono County California residents, particularly those in the Antelope Valley, we urge you to contact your Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission representatives. We don't need a small number of Nevada residents to be successful in stopping an appropriate and beneficial project.

Here are the names and email addresses of your local representatives:

—- Supervisors

Jennifer Kreitz District 1 Supervisor 760-924-1806 jkreitz@mono.ca.gov

Rhonda Duggan District 2 Supervisor 760-965-6613 rduggan@mono.ca.gov

Bob Gardner District 3 Supervisor 909-325-0999 bgardner@mono.ca.gov

John Peters District 4 Supervisor 760-932-5532 jpeters@mono.ca.gov

Stacy Corless District 5 Supervisor 760-920-0190 scorless@mono.ca.gov

—- Commissioners

Patricia Robertson District 1 Commissioner patricia@mammothlakeshousing.org

Roberta Lagomarsini District 2 Commissioner rlagomarsini@mono.ca.gov

Jora Fogg District 3 Commissioner jfogg@mono.ca.gov

Scott Bush District 4 Commissioner jsbush@mono.ca.gov

Chris I. Lizza District 5 Commissioner clizza@mono.ca.gov