'… exercising free speech to question government officials who threaten free speech is a threat to free speech.' from the wisdom of Eric Schneiderman, New York AG.

George Rebane

The Nevada County Board of Supervisors is to be congratulated for changing course and letting the community witness its work with interested parties and stake holders to develop a new ordinance for MMJ grows pursuant to the defeat of Measure W.  Yesterday members of the board led by Supervisor Nate Beason met with MMJ growers and users whose interests have been tirelessly promoted (also in these pages) by Ms Patricia Smith, president of the Nevada County chapter of Americans for Safe Access.  RR has long advocated that the interested parties establish a process to fashion clear and responsive ordinances to address as many concerns as possible as the state and country undergo seminal changes in how society views the consumption of marijuana.   It looks like an open and productive way forward in this direction has been established in our community.

The course last week was for the supes and MMJ promoters to meet in closed sessions to hammer out the hard points of a new ordinance – not even the media would be allowed to witness the goings on.  This IMHO would result in a work product that would be liable to all kinds of recriminations from people who didn’t get their way – in short, in the end closed sessions would generate more heat than lighting the way forward.  I expressed this in a letter (below) to The Union over the weekend which was published the next day in its Monday 13jun16 edition (here).  We elected our supervisors to use THEIR best judgement in crafting ordinances for us after THEY gather all the input THEY need.  We did not elect them to toss hard decisions for resolution back into the froth and fray of popular and populist opinion, that is not how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

Let me get this straight.  Our county’s duck-and-cover leadership agreed to foist two ballot initiatives on the ‘peepuhl’ to vote on how growing of medical marijuana in the county would impact our quality of life and economy.  The people voted to reject both (opposing) Measures S and W for reasons they knew best – everyone then knew what was happening.  Now the Supes suddenly decide that all this stuff involving people is getting a bit old and awkward.  Therefore future decisions on fashioning a new MMJ ordinance will be made pursuant to “frank discussions” with only pro-MMJ parties which are “inappropriate” for the people or their press to witness.  This used to be known as smoked-filled-room politics.  Welcome back to yesteryear.