Can weed save Ives Park?
By Laura Hagar Rush, Sonoma West Editor, [email protected]
Sep 25, 2019
Carnacchi’s cannabis tax proposal renews interest in renovating Ives Park
At the last Sebastopol City Council meeting on Sept. 17, Councilmember Michael Carnacchi introduced a discussion item about putting a cannabis business tax on the March 2020 ballot, with the goal of raising money to renovate Ives Park.
Carnacchi noted that other local cities, like Cloverdale, Cotati and Santa Rosa, had levied taxes on their cannabis businesses as a way of raising revenue for city projects.
He proposed a 2% special tax on cannabis businesses, which, according to the city staff report, would raise around $100,000.
“Ives Park desperately needs work,” Carnacchi said. “It’s in pretty bad shape. The Ives Park Master Plan was developed in 2013, and we’ve accomplished very little toward getting that done,” noting that the city’s current park budget is around $16,500, but that the Master Plan for Ives Park calls for spending $3.7 million.
In discussing his ideas for the cannabis tax, Carnacchi said that the tax should have a sunset clause — meaning it would end when its goal was accomplished — and that it be repeal-able if it proved too onerous for the businesses in question (though who would determine this wasn’t clarified). He suggested that if customers knew that a portion of their money was going toward the renovation of Ives Park, they might be lured out of the less expensive black market and into local dispensaries. Carnacchi also suggested the idea of a cannabis event in Ives Park, the proceeds of which would go to fund the renovations.
He also suggested that the city could take turns taxing different types of businesses, maybe switching off every two years — first cannabis, then wineries and tasting rooms, then restaurants.
Cannabis fights back
Since the idea of taxing wineries and restaurants wasn’t on the agenda, the only industry that turned out in force that night to object to this plan was the cannabis industry.
“As you know, we are taxed heavily at every step of the supply chain,” said Ashley Nelson of the cannabis manufacturing company The Resourcery. “If we add a tax now, future operators will be discouraged from coming to the city, and existing operators will have a harder time growing and expanding. Right now Sebastopol is a really attractive place to have a cannabis business … Please do not impose further taxes on an already heavily taxed industry.”
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