CLEARLAKE, Calif. – With a referendum against the city of Clearlake's marijuana growing ordinance qualifying for the ballot, the Clearlake City Council will need to decide what actions to take next.

Clearlake City Clerk Melissa Swanson confirmed that the referendum effort qualified with 635 signatures – just five more than it needed.

The challenge is to Ordinance No. 173-2015, which bans all marijuana cultivation in the city.

The Clearlake City Council approved the ordinance at its final reading on Feb. 26. The vote was 3-1, with Councilman Bruno Sabatier voting no and Councilwoman Joyce Overton absent for the meeting.

The ordinance, drafted by City Attorney Ryan Jones, declares marijuana cultivation to be a public nuisance and prohibits any growing of the plant in the city, with the possibility of misdemeanors, administrative citations and penalties, abatements and collection of city expense for violators.

It was meant to supersede an ordinance the council enacted in January 2014 that prohibited commercial grows and grows on vacant lots, and limited the number of plants to six on parcels smaller than a half acre and as many as 48 plants on properties 40 acres or larger.

That ordinance is civil in nature, which city officials said means that it lacked a mechanism for strong enforcement. As a result, grows popped up all over the city in 2014.

With a 30-day window for gathering signatures, the referendum effort began immediately following the Feb. 26 meeting.

The city of Clearlake contracted with the Lake County Registrar of Voters Office to do the signature verification, a process that Registrar of Voters Diane Fridley said she had until Wednesday to complete.

With the voter records at her office, Fridley said it's easier for her staff to take on the work than for city officials to do it.

“It takes time to verify signatures,” Fridley told Lake County News last week, as her staff was working to complete the work ahead of the deadline.

She said she doesn't think that people realize that her staff actually looks at each signature to check for duplicates and other issues.

Fridley sent the signature certification to the city of Clearlake, explaining earlier this week that the specifics of the matter would be up to the city to release publicly.

Swanson said on Wednesday that a total of 1,209 signatures was submitted to Fridley's office for verification, with 630 needed.

While leaving the main release of details up to the city, Fridley on Wednesday was able to provide some explanation of the process and the final outcome.

In county referendums that have been submitted over the last few years, Fridley and her staff would not necessarily count every one of the thousands of signatures submitted but would stop the count once the necessary number, plus some extras, was reached.

In this case, however, Fridley said they counted all of the signatures submitted, and found that the referendum got just enough – 635 – to qualify for the ballot.

“It was a squeaker,” Fridley said.

She said the washout rate was nearly 52 percent. That's a higher-than-expected number, considering that Fridley has generally urged signature gathering efforts to aim for 25 to 30 percent more than the needed number in order to cushion for invalid signatures.

Fridley said the Clearlake referendum's biggest issue with signatures came down to people signing it but not being registered to vote.

As for any other work for her office on the Clearlake referendum, “Our duty was to verify the signatures, which we did, and it kind of stops there,” said Fridley, adding, “It's up to the city now.”

Swanson said the Clearlake City Council is set to consider its options at its next regularly scheduled meeting on May 14.

She said she and Jones are working on a detailed report on the referendum and possible options for the council to consider.

Generally, options include rescinding the ordinance targeted by the referendum or moving forward to place the ordinance before voters.
                  
The last referendum before this one that targeted a city of Clearlake ordinance was submitted in November 2001, according to Fridley's records. However, neither she nor Swanson had information readily available as to whether that effort moved to the ballot.

Separately, the Clearlake City Council is set to hold a special meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday to discuss the selection of a new city manager – City Manager Joan Phillipe is retiring at the end of June – and a lawsuit filed against the city in March over the marijuana cultivation ordinance.

The lawsuit was filed by Jeri Spittler, the city's former mayor, as well as her husband Anthony Spittler and Robin Farnham, challenging the ordinance from the perspective of medical marijuana patients.

Phillipe told Lake County News on Wednesday that no court date has yet been set on the Spittler case, and whether or not there is one also will likely be determined by the council's action on the referendum.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.