Santa Cruz County Veto Referendum on Commercial Marijuana Cultivation Ban (June 2016)
| Santa Cruz County Marijuana Cultivation Ban Referendum |
|---|
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| The basics |
| Election date: |
| June 7, 2016 |
| Status: |
 Not on the ballot
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| Topic: |
| Local marijuana |
| Related articles |
| Local marijuana on the ballot June 7, 2016 ballot measures in California Santa Cruz County, California ballot measures |
| See also |
| Santa Cruz County, California |
A veto referendum targeting a county ordinance that banned all commercial marijuana cultivation was not put on the ballot for voters in Santa Cruz County, California, ballot for the election on June 7, 2016. The county board of supervisors voted to rescind the ordinance targeted by this referendum rather than putting it before voters.[1]
| A "yes" vote on the referendum question would have rescinded the targeted ordinance banning marijuana cultivation. |
| A "no" vote on the referendum question would have upheld the ordinance banning marijuana cultivation. |
A group called Responsible Cultivation Santa Cruz (RCSC) circulated a petition to put this referendum before voters after a county ordinance prohibiting the commercial cultivation of marijuana within county boundaries was approved by the county board of supervisors on April 14, 2015. The referendum was designed to offer voters a chance to overturn the ordinance.[2]
The referendum petition was certified as sufficient by the county clerk. This gave county supervisors the option of rescinding the ordinance themselves or putting it before voters. The board of supervisors ultimately voted on August 4, 2015, to rescind the commercial marijuana ban targeted by this referendum petition rather than putting it before voters.[1][3]
Background
This was the first veto referendum to successfully qualify for the county ballot in 13 years.[2]
Support
The group behind this referendum was called Responsible Cultivation Santa Cruz (RCSC).[4]
Path to the ballot
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Members of RCSC had 30 days from April 14, 2015, to collected the 7,248 valid signatures required to put the county's prohibition on commercial marijuana cultivation before voters. Within 21 days, the group submitted 11,210 signatures, suspending the county's ordinance until the signatures could be officially verified. The next step for county elections officials was to test a random sampling of 500 signatures. For the random sampling method to be sufficient, it needed to indicate valid signatures equal to 110 percent of the signature requirement. For this case, the random test needed to show 7,971 of the submitted signatures as valid for the ordinance to go on the county's June 2016 ballot. That amounted to a validity rate of 71.1 percent. Each signature would have needed to be tested individually if fewer than 71.1 percent of tested signatures had proved valid.[1]
On May 15, 2015, the county clerk announced that 266 signatures had been tested and had resulted in a validity rate of 73.6 percent. By the end of the verification process, the county clerk announced that the random sampling showed more than enough valid signatures to qualify the veto referendum for the ballot. This gave the county supervisors the option of rescinding their marijuana ordinance themselves or putting it before voters on June 7, 2016. The board of supervisors scheduled a meeting for August 4, 2015, to vote on the referendum petition issue. At that meeting, the board of supervisors voted to rescind the targeted ordinance.[1][2][3]
Related measures
- City of Riverside Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Initiative, Measure A (June 2015)
- Town of Yucca Valley Medical Marijuana Dispensary Authorization and Regulation Act, Measure X (June 2015)
- Mendocino County “Mendocino Cannabis Commission” Initiative (November 2015)
- City of Vallejo Veto Referendum Targeting City Council Medical Marijuana Ordinance (2015)
Recent news
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See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Effort to repeal Santa Cruz County’s marijuana cultivation ban qualifies for ballot," June 18, 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Daily Chronic, "CA: Referendum Suspends Santa Cruz County Ban on Medical Cannabis Cultivation," May 17, 2015
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Responsible Cultivation Santa Cruz, "Home," accessed April 28, 2016
- ↑ Responsible Cultivation Santa Cruz, "Home," accessed May 22, 2015
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