If recommendations from the Rules and Open Government Committee are accepted, the City Council will repeal its medical marijuana ordinance at Tuesday’s meeting. If not, the council will prepare the matter to go before voters on June 5. Other matters include an audit of Team San Jose and a list of the city’s top priorities for the fiscal year.
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Pot Club Compromise on the Way?
A day before New Year’s Eve, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters validated the necessary amount of signatures for a referendum to go forward on the City Council’s medical marijuana ordinance. While some city officials were offering tough talk in the final months of the year, statements by Mayor Chuck Reed on Tuesday seem to suggest a softened stance that would allow for a compromise rather than the referendum going to voters.
Pot Club Petition Puts Pressure on Council
Within of receiving 17 boxes of signed petitions, the San Jose City Clerk’s office determined that enough signatures were collected to temporarily suspend a new medical marijuana ordinance. Citizens Coalition for Patient Care (CCPC) ran the petition drive, and the County Registrar of Voters (ROV) now has between 30 and 60 business days to perform a random signature-verification check.
Union Plays Role in Pot Club Referendum
Faced with what they called a back-door ban of San Jose’s collectives, the barely month-old Citizens Coalition for Patient Care (CCPC) turned in more than 47,000 signatures to the city clerk last week, well over the 29,653 signatures needed for a referendum against regulations the City Council passed in September. James Anthony, CCPC chairman, said the organization also registered nearly 8,000 new voters and raised over $200,000 from supporters. The group may need both on their side, as Mayor Chuck Reed proposed raising the Measure U tax on collectives from 7 to 10 percent to cover potential election costs for the referendum.
CCPC: Pot Club Signatures Gathered
San Jose cannabis activists hoping to repeal the city’s new dispensary regulations say they have almost 50,000 petition signatures before today’s deadline. The Citizens Coalition for Patient Care, a group running the petition drive, calls the City Council’s ordinance “unworkable.” The group says it needs 29,653 valid signatures to qualify for a referendum to overturn San Jose’s ordinance.
Pot Club Program Set to Start in October
Tuesday’s City Council meeting wasn’t the final nail in the coffin for San Jose’s thriving medical marijuana industry. But the council’s decision to implement a land use and regulatory program starting Oct. 27 will be a major step toward a cap of 10 collectives within city limits. Collective supporters are now working to gather signatures to put together a referendum that would repeal the ordinances.
City’s Pot Club Program Almost Finalized
San Jose’s city council established guidelines Tuesday for the city’s medical marijuana regulatory program. As expected, the council stuck to many of its earlier ideas—a cap of 10 collectives, on-site cultivation of cannabis only and strict zoning regulations—and will move toward finalizing its decision at a Sept. 27 session. The city’s program would then go into effect a month later.
City’s Pot Club Program to be Finalized
The hot topic at Tuesday’s City Council meeting will be medical marijuana, and a soon-to-be administered regulatory program that has critics on all sides. While the Planning Commission has recommended a more lax approach to the council’s direction, the city’s administration appears unwilling to budge.
Incubators in Spotlight at Special Meeting
The City Council will hold a special meeting on Wednesday to determine if the city should conduct an audit of the San Jose Redevelopment Agency’s incubator programs. As San Jose Inside first reported, a study buried for two years shows the RDA spent more than $30 million on start-up companies that often provided a poor return on investment.
Pot Club Cap Could Increase to 25
The planning commission is advising the City Council to take a less rigid approach in capping medical marijuana collectives. Included in recommendations voted on in July, the planning commission suggests a cap of 25 instead of the council’s preferred number of 10. As of this spring, there were more than 100 medical marijuana collectives operating in San Jose.
Pay Cuts Set Up Potential Strikes
The gloves have officially come off in labor negotiations between the city and public employee unions, and whispers of potential strikes are being heard in certain City Hall corners. On Tuesday, the City Council imposed 10 percent cuts in total compensation for four unions by an 8-3 vote. The cuts in pay and benefits will affect more than half of the city of San Jose’s employees.
Pot Tax Nets City $290K
In its first month of collecting taxes on medical marijuana being sold inside city limits, San Jose took in almost $290,000. And it appears more money is still on the table. Less than three-quarters (73) of San Jose’s 100-plus collectives paid the business tax in March, according to city figures.
Green Light for Pot Clubs That Do it Right
A protocol put together a few weeks ago by deputy DA Jim Sibley tried to clarify his office’s stance on medical marijuana with a simple explanation: Collectives are legal under California law if they are clearly nonprofit and follow land-use codes. That didn’t stop Police Chief Chris Moore from telling the San Jose City Council that he’d heard directly from the DA’s office that not one of the 100-plus dispensaries in San Jose is legal.
Councilmembers Threaten Medical Pot Ban
If a framework for regulating medical marijuana distribution in San Jose is not put in place by the end of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilmembers Nancy Pyle and Kansen Chu will likely make a move to ban all medical marijuana dispensaries in San Jose. After the council could only agree on a few land use and zoning recommendations last week, Pyle has suggested shutting down all clubs. Chu’s proposal goes even further.
Will Changes in DA’s Office Mean an End to Medical Pot Club Raids?
An investigator from the district attorney’s office who has been spearheading recent raids on local medical marijuana dispensaries says every pot club in Santa Clara County is operating outside the law. Dean Ackemann, who has been responsible for obtaining search warrants for the task force that has been conducting armed raids in recent months, said that in his opinion every dispensary in the county should be shut down. “The search warrants and the investigations are not going to stop,” Ackemann vowed.
But he may be wrong
Mike Potter’s Move to Cisco
This past summer, Cisco Systems, the biggest employer in Silicon Valley, announced plans to build 2.5 million square feet of office space on 140 acres near its Tasman Avenue campus over the next 20 years. To help grease the skids with the city on this and other projects and initiatives, the San Jose–based network giant has hired longtime political aide Mike Potter. The local government affairs position is clearly a step up for Potter, who has pretty much had the same job for 15 years.
