Page 4 - Sonoma County gazette September 2018

LETTERS cont’d from page 3
Our county regional parks and city parks are important community assets that we should all be willing to support. This is a good plan to
see that the parks are cared for for now and into the future. If we all pay a small amount, together we can maintain and further develop our park system.
Cannabis in Our
Community
Unless you were a small farmer with 2-3 million in the bank, you had to find a private investor to finance the necessary requirements.
Cell Towers
Voting for Our Parks
On May 15th Sprint Telecommunications company applied for and now has been approved for
a permit to increase the radiation by adding antennas to the cell tower in downtown Sebastopol.
I hope everyone will vote YES! Virginia Greenwald
My mother is going thru chemotherapy treatments at the moment and medical cannabis is a huge relief. I would like her to be able to source her medicine from a local complaint farm at a fair market value.
The local compliant cannabis industry is failing from over- regulation, which is fueling the black market. If we want to see the black market lose momentum, we need to create sensible cannabis policy that farmers can actually keep up with.
This greatly concerns me, first of
all, because many people including myself are negatively impacted by the effects of the radio frequency in the downtown area as well as other areas within proximity to cell towers. Some with more extreme negative health effects can no longer live in their homes. They sleep in their cars and others must flee the city altogether to reside in the wilderness. Increasing the levels of radiation of the tower would only make Sebastopol more unsafe and unlivable than it already is for a growing number of people in our community. I’m also concerned that a decision was made to approve Sprint’s plans to move forward to increase levels of RF in Sebastopol without public notification or without a public hearing for a topic of this importance.
Per California State law, under
the Bureau of Cannabis Control compliant cannabis businesses are required to be registered as limited liability companies. I am one of
the operators in the Bennett Valley community, I grew up in Glen Ellen and identify as a third generation Glen Ellen resident. My colleague has been in the Santa Rosa community for 18 years.
Sonoma County is an agricultural community and the Bennett Valley area plan states that “Agriculture
is a vital component of the rural character and shall be encouraged and protected.”
We’ve contributed to the Bennett Valley Fire Station this past fall, the local rape crisis center in Santa Rosa and our staff volunteer to support the Sonoma County Regional Parks.
Cannabis is a crop, farming it is agriculture. Cannabis farming aligns with the stated goals and policies
of the Bennett Valley Area Plan. Our company has contributed over $50,000 in taxes in Q1-Q4. All of our employees earn more than $16 per hour and full-time employees receive health and dental benefits.
Peer-reviewed published science shows that cell tower radiation (as well as other wireless radiation emitting devices) is harmful to the environment and can cause: sleep problems, heart arrhythmias, anxiety, irritability, headaches, ringing in the ears and cancer just to name a few.
We are cultivating on less than
1 acre of land on a 50-acre parcel. Sonoma County ordinance prohibits us from growing more than 1
acre of medical cannabis. So of
the six cannabis farmers that this opinion piece cites, (OPINION - Is Commercial Marijuana Good for Bennett Valley Residents? ) in total, those operators are cultivating less than 10 acres of crop in the middle of 150 acres of grapes.
We’ve invested a lot in this community and deserve to have a stable ordinance we can rely on to make good faith investments and capital improvements. Properties that are permit-eligible for cannabis cultivation have seen an increase
in value since 2016, based on our experience being in the market for a permit-eligible property around that time.
We, the people are up against a wireless industry motivated by money who want us to believe we need better cell phone coverage. Local(Sebastopol) cell coverage studies have shown the contrary. The industry wants us to think we need to be able to stream videos where ever we are. And this
is done at the expense of our health, safety and constitutional rights.
This crop is not dangerous, it’s
the public policies surrounding this crop that have created marginalized communities and unsafe business practices.
When farmers no longer operate
in the “black market” they are free
to support community projects, be transparent with their neighbors and staff, engage in conventional business practices and seek the support of government agencies.
Unregulated industries are dangerous, period. Which is why voters want to see this crop legalized and taken out of the hands of criminals. Sensible, workable policy is key to this recipe for regulation.
I can only hope people will pause to take this issue seriously and come to recognize a growing public health crisis in our midst.
If neighbors are vigilant they will be unconsciously working to fuel the black market and dismiss the good faith efforts complaint operators have been making.
Respectfully, Margy Stewart
We are your community members too and most of us grew up alongside ya’ll. We have the same goals; keeping our communities safe, our natural resources preserved and our neighbors happy.
Danger of Glyphosate
The ordinance has made it so difficult for mom and pop growers to get on their feet because it is currently overly prohibitive, with a less than 5% enrollment rate of estimated growers.
Forcing this crop to be grown indoors increases our reliance on greenhouses gases and is a mark of the past, when the crop was pushed underground and out of view. Greenhouse and outdoor growing are more sustainable and cost-effective ways of growing this plant.
The guilty verdict in the Monsanto case is a heads up for Sonoma County where thirty-seven tons of glyphosate were used on Sonoma County farms in 2016. (www.cdpr.ca.gov/docs/pur/ pur16rep/16sum.htm)
The majority of small farmers were estimated to be growing in rural agricultural areas. When they were out-zoned in the 2016 BOS decision they were required to secure parcels in zones that met all the water, setback, road access, electrical and building requirements necessary.
The prosecution revealed that Monsanto’s internal company docu- ments proved “ that Monsanto has known for decades that glyphosate and specifically Roundup could cause cancer.”
Shivawn Brady
The same week, federal appeals court ordered the ban of widely used farm pesticide chlorpyrifos, citing
4 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 9/18
LETTERS cont’d on page 5