• City Council Meeting June 2020: Commercial Cannabis Second Reading

The meeting lasted about three and a half hours, and the key item, the second reading of the newly adopted cannabis ordinance, took up about seventy-five minutes. 

I'm going to break this meeting into two blogs. This one for the cannabis issue, a future one for the rest of the meeting.

This has been a long and sometimes contentious journey in getting to this point and I'm not going to rehash everything again. It's time for the community to heal and I respectfully ask the various community leaders to take a similar approach.

Here is a link to the press release (City of Wildomar Press Release on Commercial Cannabis May 29, 2020) with more details.

For an ordinance to take effect it is first voted on (that happened during the last meeting on May 28th), then it comes back to the agenda the next meeting for "the second reading" (which always goes to the consent calendar unless one of the members of the council wants to change their vote, or if the public would like to discuss it again) It goes into full effect 30 days later.

Spoiler alert... I'm not going to break down this issue here. I'm sure that few, if any, are interested anyway. However, if you'd like to see what's been written on this over the years, please follow the key words at the bottom of the blog.

It's really time to put this behind us, and the best way to do so is to not keep going over old ground. 

In the manner of the famous Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, "Hear me! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will bring up the survey no more forever." Except this one last time...

The rationale that I disagree with can be paraphrased this way. It's based on comments seen in the video titled: Council Discussion.

It was argued that the city had used a survey company several times in the past. First for the parks (Measure Z) and they said it would pass, and it passed.

So far so good.

Then the example of the additional one cent sales tax (Measure AA) was pointed to. The company said it would pass, and though they were off by 17%, it did pass. 

Read this blog if you want more of a breakdown on the breakdown regarding this survey 

It was then said that the same company was used to ask the residents of Wildomar if they wanted cannabis businesses in the city. 

The response from the company was: Do not put it on the ballot, it will not pass.

Let me stop everyone there. Did you spot what I spotted?

First, the company used for the survey, according to this narrative, had only been used ONCE prior (Measure Z). 

The second example (Measure AA) was actually part of the same survey that asked about cannabis businesses. 

Here's the kicker and I'm flummoxed that this seems to constantly be going over so many heads here.

The point of surveying voters is to see how they might vote in the coming election. That makes 100% sense when it comes to things like "voter approved tax increases" (which both Measure Z and Measure AA were tax increases).

What makes ZERO sense is to have a survey company try to predict the outcome of a referendum, then come back with "Do not put it on the ballot, it will not pass."

One more time. 

Who gives a flying (expletive) if it would have passed or not? 

Referendums on such things should be allowed to be hashed out among the voters and whatever campaigns they put together in the run up of election day. Just the same way we do for candidates. They shouldn't be circumnavigated with a survey.

The point of a referendum isn't to try and divine if an issue is likely to pass or not with a survey of 5% of the voters. 

District 3 has more than 3600 registered voters.
Only 180 were part of the survey.
You don't even have to do the math, I did it for you.

The point is to have ALL THE PEOPLE vote no matter what their answer may be.

If the actual concern had been having the voters choose, then that should have been the stated goal from the first moment this came up back in early 2017; not suggested at the eleventh hour when it was finally realized that the cause had been lost long ago.

I'm stopping here.

Gramps is always dependable with some down home common sense.

I've long known all the members of the council, and four of us were all part of the same Rotary Club until I needed to step down at the end of last year. They're all caring and concerned individuals and we're all friends.

We've all worked side by side, volunteering in the community on countless occasions, and though this did test us all a bit, I know that it's already water under the bridge and we'll all be there working in unison to serve and promote Wildomar for years to come. ☺☻

#GoWildomar

There are two videos below. One with the public comments, another with the council discussion and vote. If this is important to you, watch the videos. They run about an hour and fifteen minutes between the two of them.

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It's the little things, the very insignificant details that become our undoing. The microscopic blunders, invisible to the untrained eye, just as easily emerge as glaring discrepancies to the more sophisticated observer.

– EG Marshall (CBSRMT) 

Wildomar Rap has one of the most untrained eyes in the biz.

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