Mayor's Neighborhood Advisory Commission
Notes from Puget Neighborhood Representative, Diana McKinney
June 20, 2012 meeting
Agenda:
Medical Marijuana - Update and Discussion
City’s Performance Measures
Neighborhood Updates
The June MNAC
meeting had two presentations:
Medical
Marijuana - Update and Discussion
Shane Brady,
Assistant City Attorney, and Lieutenant Mike Johnston, BPD, gave us a brief
presentation on the city’s position relative to Medical Marijuana. Basically, the Federal Government has
declared that any use of marijuana is a crime; they have no provision for
marijuana use for medical purposes.
But the laws are confusing.
In 1998, the State of Washington enacted an Affirmative Defense under
Initiative Measure 692. In 2011,
the state tried for an amendment and overhaul, but the Governor vetoed most of
the bill because the U.S. Government said that if enacted, individuals involved
in the distribution of medical marijuana would be subject to prosecution. Some provisions of the bill were
passed:
- Individuals who are appropriately credentialed by the state can possess no more than 15 plants, or no more than 24 ounces of marijuana. Possession of the credential exempts these individuals from arrest and prosecution.
· Collective Gardens are permitted. A Collective Garden is a garden created
and maintained by not more than 10 individuals who are credentialed for the use
of medical marijuana for the purpose of cultivating, processing, and sharing
not more than 45 plans or 72 oz. of marijuana. (If fewer than 3 people participate in the Collective
Garden, then the individual limits apply.)
· Dispensaries are approved with
limitations on the number of customers.
Mr. Brady and
Lieutenant Johnston explained that the recent shutdown of a dispensary in
downtown Bellingham was the result of complaints that citizens made against the
dispensary, stating that it was little more than a “drug house.” Upon investigation, it was determined
that the dispensary was operating far beyond legal limits.
There were some
questions about why Seattle has and openly operates more than 80
dispensaries. Mr. Brady and
Lieutenant Johnston said that every community interprets regulations in their
own best interests, and that Bellingham is not ready to accept the level of
risk that Seattle seems to be incurring.
For more
information, you can contact Shane Brady and Lieutenant Johnson.
City’s
Performance Measures
Nicole Oliver,
IT Project & Training Manager, presented information about the City
Performance Measures that are available on the city’s website.
Starting in
2009, the City Council approved long-term “Legacies and Commitments” that the
city works to measure and maintain or improve. For each of the Commitments, the city gathers data related
to performance of those legacies.
The Council set goals for each of the Commitments. The website lets you look at all of
these Legacies, and it lets you drill down to detail information.
For example, you
can look at the scorecard for the Legacy “Clean, Safe Drinking Water.” Under that category, you can see how we
are performing against the goals set by the City Council. A red box indicates we are performing
worse than the set goal. Green
boxes indicate performance at or below the set goal. There are also trend indicators on the page that show
whether we are improving or losing ground on each Commitment.
On the “Clean,
Safe Drinking Water” Legacy, you can see an indicator “Chlorophyll in Lake
Whatcom…”. We are not meeting our set goal on this measure, and the trend
indicates that chlorophyll levels are going down since last period (which is
good, indicated by the green arrow).
To get more information about Chlorophyll levels, you can double-click
on the Indicator. This takes you to
a detail page that graphs and displays the data and includes detailed
information about the definition of the Indicator and how it is measured.
The data for
this information comes from many sources.
They worked hard to make sure that the data they are collecting is
reliable and consistent.
There was a
question about why the City of Bellingham is including information that clearly
relates to the County. Ms.
Oliver explained that the City is a microcosm of larger environments and can’t
really be examined individually.
For example, only a small part of Lake Whatcom is actually within city
limits, but the quality of water in the whole lake is important.
If you are
interested in looking at the metrics, I strongly advise you to start by looking
at the excellent video showing you what you are looking and how to navigate
through the information.
Neighborhood
Updates and General Business
As always, each
of the Neighborhood Representatives reports on interesting activities or
interests in their Neighborhood.
Here is a very brief synopsis of what I heard from some of the
representatives:
Alabama Hill – They are concerned about the proposal
to narrow Alabama street to one lane west of James Street. They also have obtained and maintain a
bulk-mailing permit for any of the neighborhoods to use (assuming they help pay
for it).
Edgemoor,
South Hill, and York
Neighborhoods are using
a program called Nextdoor which provides them each with a private website
people within the neighborhood can:
- · Meet neighbors (e.g., find out the name of the nice lady down the street)
- · Share goods and advice (e.g., babysitter recommendations)
- · Keep the neighborhood safe (e.g. share info about a recent break-in or car prowl)
I am going to
propose to the Puget Neighborhood board that we try it out and see how we like
it. There is no cost. If we do set up a private neighborhood,
you will receive an invitation to join (if we have your e-mail address).
REMINDER –
Bellingham’s Plastic Bag Ban Ordinance goes into effect on August 1. For more information, look at this
website: http://www.cob.org/plasticbags
As always, if
you want more information about the MNAC meetings, contact me anytime at diana1@purdue.edu.
