To get a sense of how out of touch the Supervisors are, even with their own statements and decisions, one need look no further than a seemingly innocuous request by Supervisor Ted Williams at last Tuesday’s board meeting for “a breakdown of Measure AJ funding.”
Measure AJ, as a few readers may recall, was the advisory measure which accompanied the pot legalization and taxation of the local marijuana industry measure which would later collapse of its own weight. The AJ advisory called for half the pot tax proceeds to go into the County’s general fund and the other half specially allocated to increased emergency services, enhanced mental health treatment, roads, and enforcement.
“I haven’t seen any go to fire or EMS,” said Williams. “The language said not to supplant existing funding. The public has asked me several times.”
Deputy CEO (and former IT manager) Tony Rakes said he could “pull some definitive numbers at an upcoming meeting.”
A typically vague promise that will probably be ignored.
We doubt “the public” has asked Williams even one time. If they had all Williams would have to do is look back a couple of years to, June 6, 2022, when the County calculated that over $16 million of pot program taxes had been amassed.
At that time Supervisor John Haschak said: “The Cannabis tax is supposed to go to designated specific areas. It seems like now would be the time to direct the Auditor-Controller to set up that account so that people can see what's happening. Now that the cannabis income is way down it seems appropriate to do.”
Supervisor Williams agreed: “I would support that as well. It will create some problems for the budget because if we follow that advisory, which we should have all along, we will have some budget units short of funds. Right now it's going into the general fund.”
Supervisor Dan Gjerde had a novel if completely distorted idea of how to handle the problem: “I think we are going to be fulfilling the advisory because the advisory said that the majority of the funds should be spent on enforcement.”
No. Incorrect. The text of Measure AJ specifically asked: “Should the County use the majority of that revenue for funding enforcement of marijuana regulations, enhanced mental health services, repair of county roads, and increased fire and emergency medical services?”
The voters approved Measure AJ with over 60% in favor. Legalized pot was going to be a gold mine! And a significant portion of the proceeds would be allocated to very specific popular services.
Notice also that the language included the words “enhanced” mental health services, and “increased” fire and emergency medical services. Not business as usual, not to supplant existing funding, but to increase it.
No matter. Gjerde didn’t care. He was making up his own version of Measure AJ on the fly.
Gjerde continued: “I think [sic] that one category alone probably we are spending the majority of the revenue on law enforcement. Mental health, county roads, and fire emergency services… If you look at our general fund allocations to fire and emergency services which are outside of Proposition 172 and which are outside the Campground Transient Occupancy Tax, between fire and emergency and enforcement we are probably spending all of our cannabis tax in the coming year could be shown as going to those services.”
Gjerde’s bogus use of the words “thinks,” and “probably,” which went without objection from his colleagues, was without any supporting data about how the then-$16 million-plus in cannabis taxes collected so far had been spent.
Haschak and Williams quickly glommed onto Gjerde’s bogus idea and it was accepted by his colleagues. Not one nickel of those $16 million-plus cannabis taxes had ever been earmarked for the purposes the voters overwhelmingly advised them to allocate it to.
Since then the total pot tax revenues have increased to over $22 million. Gjerde’s self-aggrandizing “we’re keeping it” claim that some general fund money may already have been going to fire and emergency services — remember the language specifically said “increased” fire and emergency services — showed how little this Board thinks of their own promises, much less the voters' (i.e., the “public” that Williams likes to invoke) intent, even when the funding target includes what they all agree is for “public safety” and that they all agree needs “increased” revenue.
In March of 2023 the County’s pot program administrator provided the Board with this chart of Pot Business Tax Revenues:
So around $22 million in pot business taxes had been accumulated by June of 2023. It’s now about two years later and, assuming the downward trend continues, it’s probably up to around $23 million.
A reasonable interpretation of the language of Measure AJ would be that about $11.5 million should go to the General Fund and the other $11.5 million should go in equal shares to enhanced mental health services, roads, increased emergency services and pot program enforcement, or about $2.7 million to each.
When we first pointed out that Measure AJ was being ignored and that at least $2 million was owed to local emergency services (among the others), even the emergency services people were reluctant to pressure the board for their share of the highly needed funds because by that time Measure P, the sales tax increment that mostly replaced Measure B, was being promoted and they didn’t want to rattle that cage. They were very wrong, of course, but that’s what happened. Now, with Measure P finally producing some revenue, nobody’s bringing up Measure AJ.
Until Williams brought it up on Tuesday, as if his acceptance of Gjerde’s ridiculous proposal had never happened.
Mr. Rakes is pretty good with numbers, but even he will be unable to come up with anything about how the pot business tax revenues have been spent because Williams and his colleagues have all said they don’t care. The voters’ wishes are irrelevant.
So it’s highly unlikely that the Mr. Rakes will bring back the awful truth that no pot tax revenues have been allocated according to Measure AJ because that would expose the Board as being the forked-tongue politicians that they are. And as long as the public and the short-changed recipients are silent, that’s not going to change.
IGNORING THE VOTERS. AGAIN.
At last Tuesday’s Supervisors meeting in Ukiah. Third District Supervisor John Haschak made a couple of noteworthy but easily overlooked remarks in his “Supervisors Report.”
First, Haschak said, “At the last Measure B Committee meeting we talked about updating the RFP for substance misuse and treatment and so I look forward to using Measure B funds in those realms of… Because that was part of the initial goals of Measure B was to deal with substance abuse, misuse.”
It was not a “goal,” it was a requirement of the voter-approved measure that at least 25% of the revenues (now well over $51 million since it was passed in 2017).
The language of the voter-approved measure said:
“Section 5.180.040. Specific Purpose. … D. For a period of five (5) years a maximum of 75% of the revenue deposited into the Mental Health Treatment Fund may be used for facilities, with not less than 25% dedicated to services and treatment; thereafter 100% of all revenue deposited into the Mental Health Treatment Fund shall be used for ongoing operations, services and [substance abuse] treatment.”
In over eight years, not one nickel has been spent on “dealing with substance abuse, misuse,” unless you count the few hundred thou spent on the crisis van (which we do not).
Our last analysis of Measure B spending was last December: https://theava.com/archives/257367
Yet, here’s Haschak, whimsically acknowledging that substance abuse/misuse treatment “was part of the initial goals” and he’s “looking forward” to using Measure B funds “in those realms,” after having “talked about” updating an RFP that has been talked about for several years now to no effect. As was obvious at the last Measure B Committee on February 26, it’s been eight years and nobody involved, including Mendo’s PhD Mental Health Director, seems to have the slightest idea what “substance misuse” treatment is. The “talk” about the RFP wasn’t about the RFP, but about who should be on an ad hoc committee to talk about the RFP and bring back some ideas, someday. Nobody in the room had any ideas other than “filling gaps.” Nobody had any idea what those “gaps” were either.
Referring to mental health treatment for the non-insured and substance abuse treatment, Behavioral Health Director Dr. Jenine Miller even admitted at that last Measure B meeting that “We’ve made promises over and over and we have not done that.”
None of Haschak’s colleagues commented on his remarks on Tuesday or mentioned the specific requirement of the voter-approved measure.
Haschak also casually mentioned that “When we met [State] Senator McGuire [date unspecified, but recently], he was talking about $14 billion in Medicaid cuts through the state which would certainly impact the County and $6 to $7 billion in education cuts. I know that he was talking about in Mississippi like 55% of the people are Medic-Aid eligible and those cuts would certainly hurt places like that. But here in Mendocino County with 47% [on some kind of aid], we’re up there too. Those cuts will be very hard for residents in Mendocino County.”
Again, despite the cuts being “very hard for residents of Mendocino County,” nobody else in the room commented on this or asked for more particulars, like how much the cuts would be, when they’d occur, who’d be most affected, what might be done if the cuts occurred, or what was being done to resist them. Like his fellow Democrats, the depth of their fatalistic off-handedness is startling.
Because Measure AI called for a general tax, requirements to spend it on specific programs are purely aspirational. Based on the history of general taxes approved by the voters in Mendocino County, they should not count on those aspirations being realized when voting for general taxes. I am not saying it is OK for politicians to renege on their promises, just don’t bet the ranch on it.
On the other hand, Measure B is a special purpose tax. The advocates of Measure B did a great job in securing the required two-thirds vote required for approval, but they lacked viable plans for its implementation. The sales pitch was they would build a mental health facility that would serve Mendocino County, and would also be subsidized by other counties using the facility. But that was about as deep as the plans went.
The voters have been generous in their support of additional taxes, but maybe there should be more scrutiny as to the goals of new taxes, the viability of the programs proposed, and the possibility that the taxing entity will not fulfill its stated intentions.