A Yuba County supervisor was served with recall papers and other board members were threatened with the same after reapproving a new marijuana cultivation ordinance banning outdoor plants.
Supervisors voted 4-0, with Mary Jane Griego absent, to first repeal the new ordinance approved March 10 and then reapprove it with the same urgency designation. In between was a 11⁄2-hour heated public hearing followed by opponents shouting and pointing at individual board members after the vote.
Earlier, during the hearing, Brook Hilton, a Yuba Patients Coalition director, presented recall papers to Supervisor Andy Vasquez, who represents Linda. Hilton's action was met with loud applause.
"You sit there and ignore what people have to say," Hilton said. "Maybe you should take your paycheck and go serve your community. You are an embarrassment."
Vasquez, who last year received 61 percent of the vote in winning re-election in the 1st District race, did not comment while being served. But after the meeting he acknowledged the right of citizens to seek a recall.
"I'm not worried about it," he said. "It's their right as citizens. I spent seven years in the Marine Corps and five years as a road deputy in the sheriff's department defending their right."
To force a recall election, opponents would have 60 days to obtain signatures of 25 percent of registered voters within the 1st District. That would amount to 1,069 signatures of 4,274 district voters, an election official said after the meeting.
About 100 people attended the Tuesday afternoon session for the board to consider a "cure and correct" action as a safeguard against the urgency designation not being included on the March 10 agenda. A group called Citizens for Solvency maintained in a letter to the county that the omission was a violation of the Brown Act open meeting law.
Supervisor Roger Abe, acting as chairman in Griego's absence, admonished the crowd at the start, noting that earlier hearings had "been loud and kind of unruly."
"That's not going to happen today," said Abe, noting the presence of two sheriff's deputies. "If you do that, you will be asked to leave."
Nobody was forced to leave, but emotions climbed as the meeting proceeded. As in previous hearings, opponents outnumbered ordinance supporters.
Zachary Cross told the board its actions constitute "an abuse of power."
"Not only are you taking away our property rights, you are taking away our rights for a referendum," he said.
Charles Boutt credited medical marijuana with curing a tumor in his neck.
"I still need to take cannabis on a daily basis to keep me healthy," he said. "It's not the medical patients you should be fingering. It's the drug cartels."
Other opponents questioned a finding that the ongoing drought was used to justify the urgency designation amid recent reports of Yuba County Water Agency water sales.
However, Gary Simpson, who identified himself as the brother of a Marysville man whose death is being investigated as a homicide, said his brother was killed because of marijuana use and sales.
"He was murdered for the marijuana," he said. "It's got to stop. I don't care what anybody says, it leads to other stuff. It leads to crime."
Colleen Weckman noted property values in the Butte County foothills have increased since a marijuana cultivation referendum in that county failed.
"The damage and devastation is going away," she said. "I thank you for trying to save Yuba County. I thank you for doing what you can to keep the trafficking out of Yuba County."
Court action continues
A Sacramento-based appellate court has for the second time rejected a legal move by opponents to Yuba County's marijuana cultivation ordinance to force a referendum election.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal on Monday denied the action seeking a court order forcing county election officials to accept petitions for a voter referendum. Also denied was an action seeking to halt enforcement of the law.
The ruling came after Yuba Patients Coalition and six individuals filed an appeal with the state Supreme Court on an earlier similar ruling by the appellate court. The Supreme Court last week referred the matter back to the appellate court without comment.
The initial appellate court filing challenged Yuba County Superior Court rulings by Judge Benjamin Wirtschafter denying a preliminary injunction to delay enforcement of the ordinance.
Wirtschafter also denied a temporary restraining order that left intact an urgency designation with the ordinance. That designation eliminated a 30-day waiting period for the new ordinance to take effect and the signature-gathering period to force a referendum.
Opponents said they gathered more than 3,000 signatures — they would have needed 1,242 of registered voters — in the event they were successful in their appeals.
Still pending in Yuba County Superior Court is the initial suit seeking a ruling that the new ordinance is unconstitutional, along with a permanent injunction. Yuba County has filed a response to that suit and a June 1 court date has been scheduled.
— Eric Vodden
