There is a reason that of 58 California counties only 15 allow outdoor commercial cannabis. Impacts on neighborhoods are just too severe to offset with any mitigations. Sonoma County started out with a use permit process, which is what is required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) but is now attempting to go to…
Read more
Dear Editor: Sonoma County wants to be a mecca for outdoor cannabis cultivation, boasting that people prefer Sonoma County weed because of soil and climate. Yet they bring in external soil, discard spent soil, and shield plants from our natural climate in hoop houses or greenhouses. The proposed new ordinance will attract big players from…
Read more
The North Bay Leadership Council endorsed an extreme cannabis ordinance that invites massive outdoor cultivation in Sonoma County. Friedman’s Home Improvement, Comcast, Redwood Credit Union, Wells Fargo Bank, Kaiser Permanente, St. Joseph Health, and Sutter Health are on its letterhead. The proposal eliminates health, safety, and nuisance protections for anyone subjected to noxious terpene pollution—the…
Read more
EDITOR: The ad on the back page of the front section of the April 4 paper nailed the cannabis explosion in our county. In the 1970s we complained about vineyards taking over pear and walnut orchards to no avail; money speaks. Our water table dropped and some wells were affected, but new dams and reservoirs…
Read more
The new cannabis ordinance is not just planning policy; it’s economic policy. The Press Democrat has stated that 1 acre of cannabis yields $1,000,000 in revenues. If 15,000 acres go into cannabis cultivation, that is $15,000,000,000 in revenues for growers. Cannabis might be a plant but its extraordinarily high market value places it in a distinct category…
Read more
The Community Voice Our supervisors are rapidly marching towards approving a cannabis ordinance that will significantly impact our wells and ground water at the same time that officials are asking for voluntary reductions in water use. According to the Napa County 9111 report, published in 2020, cannabis uses at least six times the amount of…
Read more
EDITOR: Nearly every day I read another article about the severity of California’s drought crisis and how climate change compounds the impacts of drought. Many wells around Sonoma County are already critically low. Yet the public is receiving mixed messages from county leaders. Residents will need to conserve 30%-50% of water usage, Supervisor Linda Hopkins…
Read more
We, the residents of Bloomfield, are extremely concerned about the eminent health and safety violations posed by the major revisions to the Commercial Cannabis Cultivation Ordinance of 2018, to our town, as well as other residential communities in Sonoma County. If any changes are to be made to the ordinance, they must be considered on…
Read more
By Rollie Atkinson, Sonoma West Staff Apr 20, 2021 Narrow planning commissioners vote calls for a more comprehensive environmental impact study Plans of the Sonoma County’s Board of Supervisors to streamline the permitting process for commercial cannabis cultivation may be headed for a detour following a close Sonoma County Planning Commission vote held last week…
Read more
EDITOR: When I think of Sonoma County, I think of a picturesque drive through the countryside, through fields with cattle, orchards and wine grapes, trees and mountains surrounding me. The vistas are so wonderful and are the attraction for a dynamic tourism industry. All of this is in jeopardy if our supervisors vote for the…
Read more
Recent Comments