Tough financial times – with local residents and agencies trying to do more with less – plus high unemployment, controversial trials, disputed social issues and myriad other matters crowded into 2009's headlines.

To commemorate 2009, Lake County News is offering its own top 10 stories list for the year – which will be published in two parts on Thursday and Friday.

Top 10 lists tend to be subjective, so there's no guarantee that everyone will agree with the list, or even think it's close to encapsulating all of the main stories. There are sure to be items with which not everyone will agree.

The selections are based on many factors – readership, reaction, feedback and an attempt to look at them in the context of the county and its history.

The list recaps the top stories and, in some cases, offers important new updates.

It's important to note a few honorable mentions that weren't at the top of this year's list but likely will rank in 2010's top stories.

For one, numerous important campaigns for local county offices already are getting started, notably those for sheriff and district attorney.

There also is the growing concern about how to legislate medical marijuana in ways that are humane for users and sensible for local governments. The county of Lake and the city of Clearlake both are working to finalize zoning ordinances for medical marijuana dispensaries, which should be a prominent social issue for 2010.

AltaRock Energy began a geothermal drilling project in The Geysers this spring, using engineered geothermal systems, which sought to fracture deep bedrock to create more geothermal energy opportunities. But concerns about the project and its technology – believed responsible for thousands of earthquakes in Switzerland – led to greater scrutiny, and the project was later suspended and then abandoned, according to the Bureau of Land Management.

Measure C passed in Lakeport in November, restoring the rights of residents to use safe and sane fireworks after the Lakeport City Council banned them this spring. A committee has been formed to work on carrying out the measure, the results of which will be seen this coming July, when fireworks sales take place around the city once more.

Lakeport also is set to get a new courthouse in the next few years. A site selection process currently is under way to find the right location in Lakeport to locate the nearly $72 million project.

The Miss Lake County Scholarship Program faced a critical test this year, after a change in leadership and questions about the organization's scholarship resources came to light. The program didn't have a 2009 pageant, but plans are on for one to take place early in 2010.

Development projects should be notable in the coming year as well. Both Cristallago, proposed to be located near Lakeport, and Valley Oaks, near Middletown, received the Lake County Planning Commission's approval of their environmental impact reports this year, and are continuing forward in the approval process. Another development, Provinsalia, to be located in the city of Clearlake, is among the top 10 stories for 2009 and will be profiled on Friday.

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Channels in the Clear Lake Keys are clogged with the thick algae, which is causing serious concerns for residents. Photo by Mike Anisman.

LAKE COUNTY – Amidst already tough economic times, local resorts and tourism-based businesses found themselves facing another challenge in 2009: Algae.

While algae is a part of life on Clear Lake, the algae bloom that hit in the summer of 2009 was so large that it was only matched two other times in 40 years, Deputy Water Resources Director Pam Francis told the Board of Supervisors in October.

“It did take us by surprise,” Francis said at the time.

The particular culprit in this outbreak was the blue-green algae lyngbya, which Water Resources Engineer Tom Smythe said had started showing up in Clear Lake in recent years.

In early summer, county health officials issued warnings not to ingest water or swim in areas where the lyngbya left its thick mats. Contact with skin can result in dermatitis.

The algae's mats, when they weren't broken up, coated the lake's surface and nearby shores, and as it decayed the stench was so severe that local agencies and water districts received numerous calls reporting sewage in the lake.

Numerous tests found that it wasn't sewage, but the algae, according to health officials.

Clearlake was hit hard, as was the Clear Lake Keys, where channels surrounding the community were choked solid with the bright green algae, which dried hard like cement.

Resort owners found themselves with empty businesses, and were struggling to hang on.

“It was devastating,” Clearlake City Council member Joyce Overton said this week, summing up the situation.

She said the city's transient occupancy taxes – or bed tax from accommodations – “are zilch” because of the outbreak.

“In my mind it just wasn't necessary,” Overton said, noting many resorts were just holding on as a result.

The Board of Supervisors discussed short- and long-term solutions – from purchasing equipment to restoring the lake's tules, which are like the lake's lungs – and town halls were held in Clearlake to find ways of working on the problem.

Local residents also got busy, using their boats to break up the mats. A huge volunteer effort took place in the Clear Lake Keys, where thousands of volunteer hours were estimated to have assisted in dealing with the emergency.

Yuba College biology and ecology professor Dr. Harry Lyons, an expert on the lake, explained to community members at a July town hall meeting that Clear Lake is an ancient and complex environment, a warm, shallow green lake with abundant life.

“You cannot manage it to be Lake Tahoe. You have an emerald, not a sapphire,” and as such Lyons said it required a specific, long-term approach to management.

Francis told the Board of Supervisors in a November discussion that a volunteer algae network had been resurrected, and the county had successfully applied for $100,000 in grant funding for equipment purchases.

The county purchased a fire boat from Kelseyville Fire as well as pontoon boats to help with breaking up the algae, and had assistance from Vector Control in working on the problem, Francis said.

Supervisor Denise Rushing said in November that further discussion on the matter was needed, and she called for a future workshop. More recently, the board sent letters to state and federal officials asking that legislation regarding an environmental restoration for Lake Tahoe be rewritten to include funding fro Clear Lake.

Ed Calkins, a member of the Clear Lake Advisory Subcommittee, put a call out to the community, asking for support of the proposal. His Web site at www.konoctibay.com/ offers more details on how to get involved.

Just what led to the lake's 2009 algae bloom still isn't known.

Francis said in November that local water experts weren't sure why it happened the way it did, although there were some notable clues: The lake was about 3 feet lower than average and the highest water clarity on record – 25 feet – was measured in the lake's upper arm on May 18 by the state Department of Water Resources.

Satellite photos taken of the lake and shown to supervisors illustrate the massive mats coating the lake.

“The scope of it was mind-blowing,” Francis said.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .

A diagram of the Lowe's shopping center project, proposed for the Pearce Airport property on Highway 53 in Clearlake.

CLEARLAKE – After nearly three years of confidential negotiations, in December the city of Clearlake began to reveal the plans for a regional shopping center on the site of the now-closed Pearce Airport property, a project which is drawing both support and opposition from around the lake.

Close to 15 acres of the 26-acre Pearce Airport site, located on Highway 53, will be used for 154,179 square feet of commercial space, including a Lowe's home improvement center, with more than 111,00 square feet of indoor space and nearly 26,000 square feet of outdoor gardening space, as Lake County News has reported.

KK Raphel Properties of Danville is proposing the development. It principals also are part of Katz Kirkpatrick Properties of Roseville, a shopping center development, leasing and management company that has been in negotiations with the city since early 2007.

The Clearlake City Council and Clearlake Redevelopment Agency will hold a Jan. 7 public hearing at Clearlake City Hall on the plan.

Among the council and agency's considerations will be whether or not to certify a mitigated negative declaration, which would remove the need for a full environmental impact report (EIR).

The latest documents the city has released on the project explain that the Clearlake Redevelopment Agency would sell the site to KK Raphel Properties for $4 a square foot, or approximately $2,683,599, less $1,210,000 needed to grade the site, for a net of $1,473,599. However, the agency would pay $500,000 toward site work if hazardous materials were found, reducing total proceeds from the sale to $973,599.

“In conclusion, this project would help fill the demand for goods and services in the retail categories where there is significant leakage to the surrounding counties and the city would benefit by an increase in retail sales tax revenues,” a city report stated.

Mike Raphel of KK Raphel Properties told Lake County News this week that they have a commitment from Lowe's, which agreed to come in as the project's anchor tenant. They so far have no tenants committed for four other commercial pads at the site.

Previously, the developer worked with Home Depot as the prospective anchor tenant. But a year ago last October, “The world started to collapse,” and Home Depot decided not to move forward, Raphel said. “We were one of 23 towns that they dropped.”

The plan calls for the project to break ground by February 2011, but Raphel said they hope to do so earlier if possible.

He said Clearlake's existing population “is way underserved” in retail opportunities, and that growth in the community isn't needed to support the store. Raphel said it's a great opportunity for the city to get a project like this one.

The project is facing both support from city leaders and opposition from others.

Sierra Club Lake Group Chair Victoria Brandon has raised issues with it, saying that not doing an EIR on such a massive project wouldn't be the right approach. But some local residents and business people like Dave Hughes support it. (For commentaries on the project from two distinct angles, see Brandon: Questions about shopping center plan and Hughes: Answers to questions about shopping center project ).

City Administrator Dale Neiman has asserted that the city badly needs the sales tax revenue the city estimates the project could generate.

A newly released city report on the shopping center projects $40 million in sales annually, a figure based on comparisons with store locations in similar market areas. New sales tax revenues for the city are estimated to range between $280,000 and $320,000 annually. Approximately 320 jobs are projected to be created.

At full buildout, the project is estimated to generate tax increment revenues of $154,867 annually for the redevelopment agency.

With only a month of public comment time on the project's environmental document – the comment period ends Thursday, Dec. 31 – some local officials submitted letters of concern on the project this week.

On Tuesday, Supervisor Rob Brown sent a letter to Neiman in which he stated, “I am surprised and disappointed, to say the least, that the city would even propose approving such a significant and far-reaching project without benefit of an full environmental impact report.”

Brown, who said he was expressing his views as an individual supervisor and not representing the board as a whole, also raised the issue of big box stores and their impacts on local businesses, and argued that profits won't remain in Lake County.

Supervisor Denise Rushing sent her own letter on Wednesday, saying she it was with “great dismay” that she learned about the plan – not from the city of Clearlake, but from the media, namely this publication.

Like Brown, Rushing argued that an EIR is needed because of the project's widespread impacts.

“If a Lowe's-like project is of such significance to the Clearlake redevelopment efforts, I believe the city of Clearlake is following an obsolete, unsustainable and flawed model for redevelopment,” Rushing wrote.

Negative impacts for the city and county, Rushing said, would include closed businesses and empty storefronts, traffic problems, use of all of the city's redevelopment funds and a host of other issues.

Raphel said he thinks an EIR isn't necessary, as the project's impacts can be mitigated.

The Clearlake Redevelopment Agency is proposing to use $6 million in bond proceeds to make needed infrastructure upgrades to the site. Total onsite improvements are estimated to cost $23,607,819, according to city documents.

Raphel said the project is “very complicated,” and there are enormous problems with the site, including big slopes, terrible soils and lots of fill that needs to be replaced by removing four to feet of soil. There also are nearby sewer system issues and the need to extend utilities to the site, as well as needing to extend Airport Road to the site and create multiple access points.

“Those are the major issues and they're all resolvable, it just takes time, effort and money,” said Raphel, who noted they've already spent considerable money on site studies, including $100,000 to look at traffic.

After KK Raphel Properties purchases the property, Lowe's will review the conditions imposed on it and then will buy the land from the company, Raphel said.

Raphel recently met with Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce members to answer their questions. He said their questions were important, and they discussed competing jobs.

He said there definitely is an impact when large stores like Lowe's enter an area, but smaller stores can offer better services and different niches. “They're all surviving.”

Raphel said he'll be at the Jan. 7 meeting, and noted it's important that the community have good facts about the project.

With commercial development “really dead,” – retail development follows housing, he noted – “It would be quite an achievement to move forward on a commercial project,” said Raphel.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .

The inaugural “We Love Tules 4 Minute Film Festival” is issuing a call to the community for submissions.

Everyone in Lake County is encouraged to participate and enter a short film starring the lake itself.

“This is an opportunity for people to be creative and interact with the lake,” said Cheri Holden, creator of the festival and owner of Watershed Books in Lakeport.

It all began at a town meeting in Lucerne last fall, she explained.

Holden and Supervisor Denise Rushing, chair of the Lake County's Board of Supervisors, created a short film to show at the meeting. It was about how individuals can contribute their part in keeping Clear Lake clean, along with other big projects in the works.

The film was such a success that Holden wanted others to have the same opportunity, and so the festival was born.

She hopes to see themes about Clear Lake's beauty, health and history, but notes it's also open to other creative ideas.

“I hope it works,” said Holden. “We'll see what we've invented, I think it can grow.”

All ages, genres and ideas are welcome along with pros and amateurs alike.

The film should be appropriate for all ages, be between two and four minutes in length, and be submitted on two DVDs to Holden at Watershed Books by Jan. 27 by 5:30 p.m.

If using a DVD disc is an issue, please see Holden for alternatives. She wouldn't like to know people refrained from participating because they couldn't afford a disc or didn't know how to use it.

Winners will depend on how many entries are made and what categories they may be placed, said Holden.

For example, there is an under age 12 category but if no one under age 12 submits anything, then the judges might just create a new category based on submissions.

There are four judges, one of which is Holden. The other three are secret judges, she said.

They will award cash prizes to winning filmmakers and gift bags for all entries accepted. Holden said films may be submitted by both individuals and groups.

She encouraged students to get involved and requested that Mendocino College and Yuba College offer credit to students who participate in the festival. The schools have not yet announced that they will offer credit or not, she said.

Holden is very excited that her idea has spread and over 100 entry forms have already been handed out.

There are flyers advertising the festival all around the county thanks to several contributors, which Holden thanked, including the Lakeport Main Street Association, which helped fund the event along with the Sierra Club Lake Group.

Debra Sally of Clearlake Veterinary Clinic also personally contributed, and Holden offered special thanks to the Lake County Arts Council's Main Street Gallery in Lakeport for planning to house the reception ceremony for the winners. The date of the ceremony is yet to be announced.

The winning films will be shown on Channel 8 and in town meetings around Lake County. There is also the possibility that the films may be featured on several Web sites.

Entry forms can be picked up at several locations throughout Lake County. In Lakeport there's Watershed Books on 305 N. Main St., and Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.

Other places to pick up the forms are Gracious Ladies at 9460 Main St. in Upper Lake and Wild About Books at 14290 Olympic Drive in Clearlake.

Holden hopes that the “We Love Tules 4 Minute Film Festival” will reach people across Lake County and inspire them to help keep Clear Lake healthy and beautiful.

The winners will be announced on or around Jan. 30.

For news and updates regarding the festival, visit www.watershedbookco.com , http://redwood.sierraclub.org/lake , www.lakeportmainstreet.com and www.cityoflakeport.com .

E-mail Tera deVroede at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .

The county's Health Leadership Network used grant funding from the California Endowment to contract with the Lake County Marketing and Economic Development Program to administer the assessment.

Surveys were sent out earlier this fall, seeking information about local food producers and the availability of locally grown food, as Lake County News has reported.

Susan Jen, director of the Lake County Health Leadership Network, told the Board of Supervisors at its Dec. 15 meeting that the network was working on the project under the auspices of an obesity prevention grant, which had two main pillars – increasing access to recreation and to nutritious foods.

Jen said the cost to the county for health care and lost productivity due to obesity is more than $78 million. She did not specify if that was on an annual basis.

She said the food assessment is meant to identify what kinds of food production are available locally and how to expand markets, with a view toward increasing consumption.

The team that worked on the assessment included JoAnn Saccato, Hileri Shand, David Goolsbee and consultant Andrew McLeod.

Saccato said a community food assessment is an evolving tool to help define gaps and opportunities with regard to local food systems, sustainability, food security, emergency preparedness and local economies.

Lake County's emphasis is on food production. with plans to create a local food guide and a coordinated online ordering and distribution system, said Saccato.

She said they looked mainly at “farm to fork” producers.

Assessment findings showed a slight drop in vegetable crop production, from 50 acres in 2007 to 35 acres in 2008, for a dollar value reduction of $16,000.

Saccato said 70 percent of local vegetable production is organic by method. Despite the decrease in acreage, there was a 22.5 percent increase in local farmer's market growers since 2008, and a 56-percent increase in farmer's market growers since 2002.

A survey of local growers showed a variety of crops are being grown locally. Saccato said 80 percent of local growers indicated they were willing to market locally, 66 percent would be willing to commit more acreage to production if the market was secured, and 95 percent were interested in participating in online ordering and distribution.

The Lake County Hunger Task Force produced more than 6,000 pounds of food in 2009 and oversaw six gardens, Saccato said. Countywide, there are eight school gardens.

The county is home to a small number of value-added producers who offer such products as cheese, oils, preserves, breads, pickles, salsas and honey. The assessment found “great opportunity” for expansion of such value-added products, said Saccato.

She said there is no commercially coordinated food distribution system for small local producers, and no coordinated distribution system to get small producers' products to regional and outside markets. The Lake County Community Co-op is the one coordinated distribution system for local producers and consumers.

Supervisor Rob Brown asked about pears and walnuts and their distribution. Saccato said the assessment focused on diverse food production. Shand noted that those distribution systems weren't open to smaller growers.

Brown asked if they had spoken to walnut and pear producers. Saccato said no, but that was a proposal of the assessment.

Saccato said there are alternative local distribution systems, include numerous farm stands, five farmer's markets, farm to institution programs and the community supported agriculture program the community co-op has, which sources from 10 local producers.

The assessment targeted numerous institutions to get a picture of interest in local food distribution, including 35 retail food stores, 100 restaurants, five farmers markets, 20 school sites belonging to five school districts, the two hospitals, five senior centers with nutrition programs, two correctional facilities, and 12 beds and breakfasts and bakeries.

They had 24 respondents for a 14-percent return rate, said Saccato. Survey respondents shows high interest in local produce, with 93 percent indicating a willingness to purchase more locally produced foods.

Expense wasn't the biggest concern when measuring interest in local products, Saccato said. Delivery registered a 47.5 percent rate for concern, with concern about what's available coming in at No. 2 with 40 percent. Expense came in at No. 6 with 12.5 percent.

“This was pleasant news for us,” she said.

An online ordering system, she noted, would help address delivery and availability issues.

They also found, in a small sampling of products, that locally grown produce appeared to be more affordable than produce brought from out of the area. Saccato suggested that was an area that she wanted to research more carefully and, if it's proved true, an education campaign about the value of local crops should be considered.

Saccato also discussed sustainable food systems and food security issues. In 2008, 14.6 percent of Americans were food insecure, meaning they don't have enough food to meet their basic needs. This year, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is at an all-time high, and in 2007 Lake County registered a 16.4 percent poverty rate.

The Lake County Community Action Agency, which offers several food distribution programs, has seen a 30-percent increase in its client load, while Catholic Charities has reported a 130-percent increase in clients in Middletown and 238-percent increase in Kelseyville, Saccato said.

Food security is of increasing concern in Lake County due to current economic concerns, she said.

Brown was concerned about what he considered was an implication in the assessment that Lake County is running out of food, which he said isn't true.

“We're combining the issue of priorities,” he said, noting that some people need to give up things like smoking and gambling in order to feed their families.

Supervisor Jim Comstock, who said he worked in the grocery business for 18 years, noted that after the California Lottery was approved by voters in 1984, staple grocery sales immediately dropped by 5 percent, “and it did not return,” with those funds shifting to lottery tickets.

“Obviously it was directly attributed to the lottery because it was the only change. And it happened. I watched it,” he said.

Board Chair Denise Rushing called the 5-percent shift a “stunning statistic.”

Rushing noted during the meeting that while some people aren't making wise choices, in other situations that isn't the case and they're struggling anyway. “So it's a little bit of both.”

Brown said it was important to acknowledge reality if they were going to go through the exercise of funding a study.

“It should all be accurate. It should paint both sides of the picture,” he said.

Brown said the study was designed to support an agenda, and that it had assumptions and information that weren't totally accurate.

Saccato said she didn't think it was fair to say the study had inaccurate information, and questioned if he disagreed with the assumptions.

In response, Brown pointed to a page in the report that stated that Lake County doesn't have a coordinated local food distribution system in the context of emergency preparedness. He suggested that the Office of Emergency Services has such a system, and added that he didn't think the county's food supply was very susceptible to disruption.

The study team said they hadn't talked to OES when Brown asked them if they had. Rushing asked Brown if OES has such a plan; he suggested they should check.

The assessment encourages a number of actions, including diverse, year-round crop production, study of long-term water supply, study of a coordinated online distribution and ordering system, further analysis of cold storage facilities as well as existing distribution routes and partnering opportunities, study of commercial kitchen availability, encouragement of more value-added production, analysis of current consumption patterns and connecting local food programs. They also suggested more study of food security and emergency preparedness.

“We think that Lake County could be seen as a model for other communities,” said Saccato.

She said the report was a collaborative community effort.

Rushing said that one of the best forms of health insurance is to eat your veggies.

But not zucchini, interjected Comstock. “I can't stand the stuff.”

In addition to zucchini, Comstock took issue with a statement in the assessment about conventional farming practices being unsustainable. He said local conventional farmers have worked hard to protect the environment from pollution, and he felt that statement unfairly targeted them.

Saccato said that referred to the larger industrial agriculture model. Rushing said that she's not sure they have that model here, although grape production is close.

Jen thanked the board for taking the time to listen to the presentation and provide some scrutiny.

“It helps us to think through our process and our priorities,” she said, adding, “There are many implications to food.”

For more information on local food issues, visit the Lake County Food Policy Council's Web site, http://lakecountyfood.groupsite.com .

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf .

The Clearlake Planning Commission held a lengthy public hearing at its Dec. 15 meeting to discuss the proposed medical marijuana ordinance, which has been in the works since earlier this year.

Two days later, on Dec. 17, the Clearlake City Council would vote during a special morning meeting to

extend for another 10 months and 15 days a temporary moratorium on the opening of new dispensaries in the city limits, while the ordinance governing them is worked out.

City officials noted in previous meetings that the temporary moratorium allows the three dispensaries or collectives currently operating in the city – Lakeside Herbal Solutions, Triple C Collective and D&M Compassion Center – to continue operating.

The Clearlake Planning Commission has so far held three hearings on the proposed ordinance – including a Nov. 5 joint meeting with the Clearlake City Council as well as at its Dec. 1 regular meeting.

Planning Commission Chair Al Bernal explained that there likely would be another public hearing, and urged people not to be frustrated – as he sensed was the case at the Dec. 1 meeting – about how they're working through the process.

A 6 p.m. Jan. 19 commission meeting will be held to further consider the ordinance, officials noted.

Ron Green, a local attorney who has worked with retired District 1 Supervisor Ed Robey to offer proposed changes to the 21-page proposed ordinance, delivered to the commission the six and half page “Green-Robey Ordinance,” which they suggested the commission use rather than the city's draft document.

At the Dec. 1 meeting Green and Robey had strongly urged the commission to toss out the ordinance that Police Chief Allan McClain drafted.

“There is so much wrong with that ordinance,” Green said Dec. 15. “It's oppressive, it's onerous, it's cumbersome, it's overly burdensome, and it's legally insufficient in many ways, some of which I pointed out.”

Green said he and Robey wanted to give the commission a document that would be a starting point. “It's not the end all, we don't believe it's perfect,” but Green said it can be more easily changed than the present proposed ordinance.

Commissioner Bill Perkins said he noticed that in looking at ordinances from some more “liberal” areas of the state that Green and Robey had left out some rules that those ordinances also included, such as not allowing people to ingest medical marijuana on the dispensaries' premises, and not restricting the distance required from certain areas, like churches, day cares and schools; the city's proposed ordinance requires dispensaries not be within 1,500 feet of such establishments. Green said that was because they didn't feel those limits were appropriate.

“It's kind of interesting, because all these liberal ones all have that,” said Perkins. “You went so far liberal, you're at one end and the chief's at the other end.”

Green replied that at one end there is no regulation, and on the other there is onerous regulation. “We tried to come up with what we thought was an ideal balance.”

Commissioner Cal Webb took issue with what he said was Green's negative tone in referring to McClain's draft document.

While marijuana is going through a transition period, Webb explained, “There's a dark side to the marijuana issue, also.”

He said there are criminal cartels involved with growing the drug, as well as murders and burglaries that have resulted.

Webb said McClain “is looking at this from a law enforcement position, as he rightfully should,” in trying to put together regulations that will allow dispensaries to operate “without the dark side of the marijuana issue become a problem in the city of Clearlake.”

Commending McClain, Webb – who also comes from a law enforcement background – said he might have drafted something similar.

Green said he believed, if the proposed ordinance passed, that it would be too onerous for dispensaries to operate.

“He does have the responsibility of protecting the citizens of Clearlake,” not just the medical marijuana users, said Webb.

City Administrator Dale Neiman interjected, saying it wasn't McClain's ordinance. He said they've had four meetings with the council, and Neiman asked McClain to draft it. City officials also met with a committee formed by Clearlake City Council member Joyce Overton and took that group's suggestions.

“The direction was, we wanted it to be tight, the proposal,” said Neiman, noting that both he and the city's attorney, Malathy Subramanian, went over the draft and proposed changes.

Neiman said Robey and Green has approached the county earlier this year and offered help drafting the ordinance. “My response was, that's the staff's job, we do that.” He said he also turned down Green's offer of free legal advice, comparing the idea of taking it to allowing the developer of the proposed Provinsalia subdivision to help do the staff report and provide legal assistance.

“It makes no sense and that's not how the process should work,” he said.

Green said he didn't know why, if Subramanian reviewed the ordinance, it had so many legal insufficiencies.

He argued with the idea that there's a “dark side” to medical marijuana in Clearlake. He said the real problems are in the national forest, where he suggested problems would be reduced if marijuana was totally legalized.

Bernal said he didn't want to throw out the city's current draft proposal. “I wouldn't want to start over,” he said, noting that could push the process back six to eight weeks.

McClain said he wanted to address the “dark side” issue.

“When I came here, the city council told me to leave them alone,” McClain said of the dispensaries.

He said the city has had three homicides over people growing medical marijuana. Even if it the drug is completely legalized, he said he didn't see the problems totally disappearing. McClain said it's not illegal to own a television, but people will still steal them, just like they steal alcohol.

“To try to build a bubble and say if we do this the right way all these things will disappear is not true,” said McClain, noting people will still want things they're not supposed to have.

Medical marijuana patient Valerie Adase, who uses the drug to treat glaucoma, said allowing the dispensaries to operate is more a matter of giving a business license, and they shouldn't be placed under “draconian” regulations.

She called the ordinance “a real waste of time.”

Liz Byrd, owner of Lakeside Herbal Solutions, would spend about an hour at the podium, going over the ordinance's points and answering commissioners' questions.

One of Byrd's main concerns was the proposed ordinance's limits on the number of members a dispensary can have – 200. She said she has almost 700 members in her collective.

“How do I decide which 200 are the most important to take care of?” she asked, suggesting they will have to send the others to the streets, where the marijuana's quality isn't carefully monitored.

Byrd, noting that she hasn't had any problems and cares for “respectable patients that use it for the right reasons,” also questioned locating the dispensaries in the light industry C-4 zoning areas, where there are chemicals that can harm patients.

McClain said the number of dispensary members is based on the limits set for dispensaries in cities of comparable size to Clearlake.

Byrd's collective currently is located 700 feet from a church – not the 1,500 feet that the proposed ordinance would require. She said that, out of respect, her collective is closed on Sundays. “We don't want to be a burden on anybody.”

She also has security measures, and won't sell to nonmembers or allow them in her establishment.

Byrd said she agreed with requiring dispensaries and collectives to have use permits and licenses to operate, and that she preferred the C-2 retail zoning areas. She said prices for product varies according to availability.

In addition, Byrd – who also uses medical marijuana for fibromyalgia – didn't agree with the proposed ordinance's rules to prevent everyone, including employees, from using medical marijuana on the premises, and is against the provision preventing some cultivation on site.

Green also went point by point through the ordinance with the commission. He said he felt the attempt to limit the number of dispensary members was unconstitutional.

He suggested that only responding to complaints and background checks were the business of the police, and that the rest of the issues relating to governing dispensaries were planning functions.

Green also asked how dispensaries could control whether or not members used medical marijuana within 1,000 feet of their establishments, as the draft ordinanc e would require.

The commission's work on the ordinance will continue at its next meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 19.

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