During Tuesday’s Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting, the Department of Planning and Building Services reported that an April 22 Cannabis Cultivation Report showed the county has received 1,339 cannabis applications and issued or approved 246; 886 applications are still active, while 93 have been withdrawn, 36 denied and 44 on hold.
Brent Schultz from Planning and Building Services said that the Cannabis Cultivation Program recently had a vacant position rate of around 70 percent of vacant positions, leading to a slowdown in the processing and approving of applications. The county is currently working to hire new people for the program and providing training on ordinances to make sure they understand all of the nuances. He is hopeful that any ordinance changes can be done by the summer so they can be added into the staff training program.
“These are folks who may or may not know our cannabis ordinances, they’re complex, and they’ve been changing, and it takes us some time to get people up to speed on them, so we’re going to work as fast as we can,” Schultz said.
Schultz said the department is also trying to get the state to expedite its role in the application and figure out ways to make it easier for applicants. According to county staff reports at the meeting, state issues are stalling around 75 percent of applications, while the other 25 percent need approval at the county level.
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