LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to place a proposed marijuana cultivation initiative on the ballot this June rather than adopt it as a county ordinance, as board members pointed out that the document needed changes that they would have no latitude to make.

During Tuesday’s discussion, it was explained that because the Lake County Medical Marijuana Cultivation Act of 2012 has followed the initiative process, the board – and even the initiative’s proponents – cannot make changes to the document now, but would need to go out to the voters every time modifications were necessary.

Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley told the board it costs $12,000 just to consolidate such votes into other elections.

County department heads also pointed out in their reports and at the meeting that the initiative conflicts with county laws, and contains a clause that would allow it to override existing county regulations.

The proposed initiative allows qualified patients, primary caregivers, collectives and dispensaries to grow up to 12 plants on parcels of a half-acre or less or 24 plants on a half acre or more in residential districts, and up to 84 plants on parcels seven acres or more.

Supervisor Denise Rushing suggested that the county should use the proposed initiative as the basis for a new ordinance, make the necessary changes and attempt to have it finished by the summer.

One of the main points of concern related to the initiative invocation of the Lake County Right to Farm Ordinance, which is meant to protect commercial farming.

Senior Deputy County Counsel Bob Bridges had stated in his report to the board that the conflicts between the Right to Farm Ordinance’s intent and the initiative could result in federal scrutiny and possible action against the county.

Don Merrill, spokesman for the Lake County Green Farmers and Lake County Citizens for Responsible Regulation – the initiative’s proponents – told the board that home invasions don’t just occur because of marijuana, pointing out that his home was hit in 2008 for a coin collection.

He argued that it wasn’t accurate, as stated in department head reports, that marijuana has never been an agricultural crop.

Merrill also asked the board to adopt the initiative as an ordinance ahead of growing season, as now there are no limits and both sides are asking for regulations.

“We’re locked into something with a lot of flaws in it,” said Rushing, explaining that the county needed more flexibility to make a better ordinance.

Merrill said the initiative’s proponents stand ready to support changes after it’s passed. But board members pointed out it would need to go to a countywide vote of the citizens, which would be a lengthy process.

“That’s the problem with it,” said Board Chair Rob Brown.

Craig Shannon, Lake County Farm Bureau president, told the supervisors that the Farm Bureau board was taking a position against the initiative.

He said federal law continues to classify marijuana as an illegal substance, and it therefore has not been recognized or regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Shannon said the Lake County Farm Bureau was not in favor of any crop being added to local agriculture until it’s recognized by those agencies and subjected to the same taxation rules as other crops.

Community Development Director Rick Coel said that the initiative would be “worse than the status quo,” as it would conflict with county zoning laws, including allowing for cultivation on vacant parcels and grows with no buffers.

“There are abilities now to at least slow down the illegal operations that are occurring,” he said.

Coel added, “This ordinance could create additional land use conflicts that we do have some limited control over at this time.”

Rushing asked Coel if county law would prevail if it conflicted with the initiative. Coel said no, that it contains a provision that makes it prevail over county law.

“I think we’re going to have an increase in land use conflicts throughout the county,” Coel said.

Lower Lake resident Victoria Brandon, who was a member of the committee that wrote the Lake County General Plan Land Use Element, called the situation “a lost opportunity,” and said the proposed initiative has a lot of flaws.

She suggested the Lake County Green Farmers should have based the initiative on the county’s agriculture planning element, not the Right to Farm Ordinance, which would have minimized the conflict.

Brandon believed that both the county ordinance and the Lake County Green Farmers’ initiative were written when “only one side of the issue was at the table at that time.”

She called the proposed initiative a “nuclear option.”

A better process would have been to follow the one used in creating the county’s grading ordinance several years ago, Brandon said. That included many people from different perspectives who sat down together and worked it out.

Brandon said regulation is needed of the “very high value crop,” and if the ordinance is voted down, she said the county could produce something workable. She suggested the board put it to a vote of the people.

County Agriculture Commissioner Steve Hajik also asked the board not to approve the ordinance, but to let it go to a vote. He said it would be crossways with federal, state and county law, and also pointed out conflicts with the Right to Farm Ordinance.

Lower Lake attorney Ron Green, who was reportedly involved with crafting the initiative, argued that there were minor problems – “if any” – with it and urged the board to accept it in time for growing season.

“It’s certainly better than nothing,” he said. “There might be a couple of holes in it, but those can be fixed.”

He said the ordinance would give the county tools to deal with huge grows in residential areas, and even on the largest acreage would limit grow size to 84 plants.

Green said it’s a land use ordinance. “If there are bugs in this ordinance that will become apparent in this growing season,” he said, and amendments could be placed on the November or June 2013 ballots.

He said he felt that all of the department heads had watched “Reefer Madness” before sitting down to write their reports, and called concerns such as those raised by Sheriff Frank Rivero about lack of criminal penalties “nonsense.”

Farrington said he felt the board was overthinking the matter, and that it should put it on the ballot.

“We can’t predict what the voters are going to do,” but Farrington didn’t feel that the $12,000 cost per ballot amendment was expensive, pointing out the county spends more on other things.

Supervisor Jeff Smith moved to put the issue on the June 5 ballot, which the board voted to approve 5-0.

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