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It was all about mediation at today’s Board of Supervisors as the county’s elected stewards sought to navigate middle ground between opposing views, including some from among their own colleagues on the county payroll.

COVID and cannabis also featured prominently, and as I’m writing this, at just past 5 p.m., the meeting is not yet over! Eight hours in and there are still several agenda items left to discuss, so consider this a partial report on a meeting that’s still in process. 

Early on, the board proclaimed November 2020 “Native American Heritage Month” in Humboldt County. Second District Supervisor Estelle Fennell, who brought the item to the board, read the proclamation into the record. It highlights Native Americans’s contributions to “the freedom, prosperity and greatness of America” and says, “the time has come to stop suppressing the memories of crimes committed against Native Americans by the seizing and occupying of their land.”

Third District Supervisor Mike Wilson said he appreciates the proclamation but felt uncomfortable with a line that reads, “historic atrocities committed against the tribes living in Humboldt County are recently coming to light.”

“For some people this is coming to light recently,” Wilson said, “but for many, many others the knowledge of this has been around since, quite frankly, when it happened.” He noted that many of the local atrocities were documented in Jack Norton’s 1979 book Genocide in Northwestern California.

“Point well taken,” Fennell responded. 

Cheryl Seidner, former chair of the Wiyot Tribe, thanked the board for the proclamation and invited the supervisors and their families “when we can” to “come and break bread with us.”

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Later in the morning, the board embarked on a discussion about reopening county offices for standardized hours, during which an employee with decision-making authority should be available.

By all accounts this was intended to be a simple bit of COVID-era business — the latest adaptation to allow for conducting county business during a pandemic. (The item was pulled from the consent calendar, where it was slated to be adopted without discussion.) Instead, the matter quickly became into the latest skirmish in the ongoing power struggle between Auditor-Controller Karen Paz Dominguez and County Administrative Officer Amy Nilsen, among others.

First District Supervisor Rex Bohn advocated for making county offices more accessible to the public and having more employees come back to work onsite. “If anything, we’re over-safe here,” Bohn said, noting that he couldn’t go anywhere without tripping over hand sanitizer. He said he’s gotten countless calls from constituents who are frustrated with county offices being closed.

But Fifth District Supervisor Steve Madrone said he hasn’t gotten a single email or call asking when offices will reopen. 

“I support department heads making these decisions because they know best what’s going on in their department,” Madrone said. He also said the agenda item seemed geared toward the Auditor-Controller’s Office in particular and argued, “There really isn’t that much interface with the public” in that office.

Bohn said he hadn’t thought about this being aimed at one particular office until he got “a four-page email” over the weekend — presumably from Paz Dominguez. 

Fennell said working in the office, as opposed to remotely, is a matter of “leading by example” while Wilson expressed empathy for employees who, like him, have children at home, making in-office work more of a challenge.

Eventually, Paz Dominguez was called upon to speak via Zoom. She stated that her office has been able to provide consistent services remotely, even offering extended hours to internal county departments and invitations to her staff’s internal Zoom office. 

Her comments soon took on a defiant tone. She said that not a single taxpayer has asked to meet with her staff in person, and she said the decision about whether or not to reopen the office doors will be left to her staff and their representatives, not Nilsen or the board.

“If I don’t have their support,” she said of her staff, “then I’m not going to force them to needlessly expose themselves [to the virus]. … We do have autonomy, whether it’s agreed to by the board or not.”

Other county department heads weighed in, with some describing the challenges that have arisen due to COVID-induced changes to business-as-usual. 

Bohn pushed back at Paz Dominguez, making a remark about having never heard a political candidate who vowed, “When I’m elected I’m not going to answer to anybody or work with anyone.” 

During the public comment period, several employees from the Auditor-Controller’s Office called in to voice support for Paz Dominguez. 

Fourth District Supervisor Virginia Bass asked Nilsen whether the resolution under consideration could be enforced on an elected department head like Paz Dominguez.

“It would be difficult to force an elected department head to open their office,” Nilsen stated, later adding that if Paz Dominguez is not interested in implementing the resolution, it would be “up to her to determine alternate service-delivery methods.”

“I really did not view this through the lens of a single department,” Wilson said. “It seems like it’s really gone into that space in a big way.”

The board ultimately passed the resolution by a vote of 4-1 with Madrone dissenting.

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Next, the board sought to address some complications that have arisen with the county’s cannabis regulations. Specifically, Planning and Building Director John Ford asked them to take a fresh look at what sometimes called “triple-R” — full title, the “Cannabis Retirement, Remediation and Relocation  Program.”

As Ford explained, the idea behind this program was to allow people who had existing (which is to say, illegal) cannabis grows “in the hills” — on steep slopes with no water rights, for example — to relocate onto more suitable ground, preferably on land zoned for agriculture. 

The problem that county staff has run into, Ford explained, is that instead of growers relocating their own operations, they’ve been acquiring “RRR” permits and selling them as commodities. This has allowed other growers to “stack” permits, resulting in some fairly large-scale grow operations that are not subject to staff discretion. In other words, there’s no mechanism for permit review or rejection.

Of the 57 RRR applications currently being processed, 39 are slated to be “stacked” onto just four grow sites — one along State Route 36, two along Avenue of the Giants and a fourth just outside Rio Dell. At least two of those planned operations have been the subject of controversy and neighbor complaints. 

Ford was asking the board for direction: Should staff continue to let applicants stack these RRR permits? Or should the county modify its weed regulations so that anyone who wants to stack more than two RRR permits would need to apply for a discretionary Conditional Use Permit, subject to approval by the Planning Commission? A third alternative would be to completely disallow stacking of more than two RRR permits. 

Fennell said the current practice of stacking permits is not what supervisors envisioned when they crafted county regulations. Rather than inducing growers to come out of the hills, the triple-R program is attracting others, including people from outside the county, to buy up the permits as commodities. “We need to look at what exactly we are trying to accomplish with these RRRs,” Fennell said.

Wilson, on the other hand, said he assumed that this is exactly what would happen — permits would be sold as commodities, thereby allowing sellers to afford the necessary cleanups of their illegal operations. 

During the public comment period, quite a few concerned growers called up to complain that the county was looking to change the rules mid-game. 

“I purchased my property in good faith based on the law as it was written,” said cannabis farm owner-operator Joshua Clark.

Others echoed that sentiment. “If you want to talk about having the carpet pulled out from under you, this is it,” said Brian Robinson, who signed up for the the RRR program with his wife and has had trouble finding local properties that meet the necessary relocation criteria. 

Natalynne DeLapp, executive director of the Humboldt County Growers Alliance, said disdain for “outside actors” is inappropriate, since out-of-area investors are often required in the success of commodity industries. And she urged the board to focus on land use rather than business concerns. 

A few people called in to voice support for more restrictions. SoHum grower Thomas Mulder said he doesn’t support the RRR program, which he believes has fueled an ego-driven contest to see who can develop the biggest grow operations. He and fellow Southern Humboldt resident Bonnie Blackberry recommended that the board adopt a process requiring discretionary permits to approve RRR permit stacking.

After the public comment period, Ford sought to allay some concerns by saying staff had no intentions of making any changes that would affect people with already-approved permits. This was merely a request for direction from the board, he said. Ultimately, staff was attempting to balance the rights of farmers to develop sites they’ve been working on for years, often at great personal expense, with the rights of neighbors who might find themselves next to a five-acre cultivation site with no ability to comment on it.

“We’re getting caught in the middle of humans having pretty fundamental disagreements,” Wilson said.

Bohn weighed in, saying, “I don’t know what we can change without getting ourselves in a bunch of hot water and creating a bigger situation than what we’re in right now.”

Madrone said he generally doesn’t support the stacking of RRR permits and he voiced support for the second of the three options — requiring a discretionary permit for operations that stack more than two such permits.

The supervisors and Ford agreed that the best outcome would be for growers to communicate more with their neighbors and try to get buy-in for their operations. 

Madrone wound up making a motion to adopt the second option while allowing Ford some discretion in terms of exactly what type of discretionary permit system he recommends. Wilson seconded the motion, which passed unanimously, though Bohn said he was making his “yes” vote “as reluctantly as I can.” 

Ford’s suggestions will come back to the board at a future meeting, date to be determined.

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As the Outpost was set to publish this post. the Board of Supervisors was still engaged in a lengthy discussion about a proposed cannabis grow near Maple Creek. The applicant, Adesa Organics, LLC, had their proposal narrowly approved by the Planning Commission on Sept. 3, and the nonprofit Friends of the Mad River appealed the decision. 

We hope to find time to report on the outcome of the hearing, and the remainder of today’s meeting, later this week.