Like the normally compliant hen, who sees the rooster approach with a gleam in his beady eyes and bows her beak with a sigh of “it’s my fate,” many residents of Valley Center are resigned to the inevitable about the County’s plans to create a cannabis industry in the backcountry.
We are all, after all, used to the normal County modus operandi of, “You can have anything on the menu you want, as long as it’s chicken.” Please note my continuing “chicken” theme in this editorial. It’s not by accident.
With our current excellent supervisor, Jim Desmond, we have seen much less of that sort of three card monte selection process, where the decision has already been made, but we want to make the effort at appearing to ask the people what they think. Desmond has been great about asking us what we think, and what do we want. And then trying to give it to us.
But it’s not Desmond we have to worry about. We are talking about the county as a whole here, not just the Fifth District. And we are talking about the vast area of the backcountry, all of the undeveloped communities of the county.
I remember years ago when there was a horrendous bird flu going around the country. The authorities decided that a bunch of birds had to be disposed of, and disposed of in a hurry. So chicken ranches were told to kill a lot of birds. Individually chopping up the birds was too slow. So they brought in big wood chippers (those of you who have seen the movie “Fargo” know where this is going) and threw the birds by the hundreds and thousands into the raging jaws of the chippers.
Yuck! Well, ladies and gentlemen, think of yourselves, your livelihoods and your property as the hapless birds. And the county? You got it. It’s the chipper.
Maybe what this community should be saying, and what the rest of the backcountry should be saying, is a big, unequivocable “no,” to this proposal. And if the county goes ahead and adopts it—which it seems very likely that they will do—we should be saying, “we won’t help you implement it. When you propose locations for these operations, we will vote against them to show our strong opposition.”
And, we should say, “If you allow retail operations to open up, we will oppose you at every step. We will protest those operations. We will protest you the Board of Supervisors at every occasion where you, the individual supervisors, give speeches and give presentations. We will be there with signs and bullhorns. We will make your lives miserable because you have chosen to disregard our wishes and feed us . . . chicken.
These are things people can do.
The county plan is called the Socially Equitable Cannabis Ordinance—an Orwellian moniker if ever I heard one. “Equitable” because it redresses alleged wrongs done to a class of people (who we would normally call “career criminals” but who this program considers “victims” of laws that used to put them in prison for drug trafficking) would drop cannabis retail, manufacturing and growing into the midst of communities such as Valley Center—not to mention Ramona, Borrego, Santa Ysabel, i.e. any places other than incorporated cities, which have the agency to either accept or reject the pot industry.
Backcountry communities would not have that option—at least as far as the program has been explained by the bureaucrats who have been making the rounds giving presentations for a couple of years to local planning groups.
The implication when such presentations are made is that this is part of the consultation that will result in the final product, which is likely to be voted on by the Board of Supervisors.
In fact, there will be what appears to be a preliminary vote by the Board of Supervisors on Socially Equitable Cannabis Ordinance on January 14. On that date the supers will get an update on SECP.
According to a county document, the supervisors will be asked to vote on and give direction on three components: 1) Cannabis land use regulations, 2) Whether to allow consumption lounges and temporary events and 3) Community Equity Contribution Program.
A few weeks ago Valley Center Community Planning Group chairwoman Dori Rattray told a group of residents, “I need your voice! If you are silent it will run over us.” The time is now to do that.
The people of this community should take the measure of our adversaries, and, ahem, not be chicken about opposing a policy that will do us no good, but could do us considerable harm. Just say no.
