March 26, 2020 — The Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an urgency ordinance to restrict evictions on residential and commercial properties until the end of May, though that date can change, like so much else in the midst of the pandemic.
Effective immediately, landlords in unincorporated areas of the county will no longer be allowed to evict their tenants if the basis of the eviction is non-payment of rent or a foreclosure caused by loss of income or medical expenses as a result of the virus or any governmental response to it. Landlords still have the right to collect rent, and the money will still be owed to them. But the ordinance relies heavily on an executive order by Governor Gavin Newsom, allowing local jurisdictions more authority. The recitals include concerns about how evictions at this time could “contribute to an increase in the homeless population in Mendocino County, and make it more difficult for the county to enforce the shelter in place order.”
Brown Act requirements have been relaxed, and this item was off agenda, which Supervisor Carre Brown pointed out made it difficult for members of the public to express their opinions on the matter. Last week, the North Bay Association of Realtors sent a letter to local government bodies across the region, requesting consideration for property owners. The letter asserts in part that “Absent a corresponding moratorium on mortgages and foreclosures, compelling owners to go without rent could prove catastrophic...Evictions are an option of last resort to protect owners and their property not only due to unpaid rent, but for nuisances and criminal behavior.”
County Counsel Christian Curtis said the ordinance didn’t go “quite as far on foreclosures as we have gone with respect to evictions, and that’s in part due to the limitations that were put in place by the governor’s order.”
In another item, the board also agreed unanimously to table the discussion of an ordinance to create a pilot program for industrial hemp. The current moratorium, which has already been extended, expires in February of 2021, but it’s unlikely that a pilot program will get off the ground in time for this year’s growing season.
Devon Jones, the Executive Director of the Farm Bureau, sent a letter reminding the board that there is interest in growing hemp to diversify agricultural commodities in the county, making suggestions about zoning, and assuring the board that hemp cultivators would take every precaution to avoid contaminating cannabis operations. But the Mendocino Cannabis Alliance requested that the item be postponed in the midst of the pandemic, adding that no safe distance is practicable. The latter was a reference to the travel capabilities of pollen.
Lieutenant Shannon Barney, with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, gave an update on his department’s efforts to ensure that businesses are complying with the shelter in place order from the public health officer. The county is divided into four sectors, he told the board, and recently a team of sheriff’s personnel visited fifteen tasting rooms in Anderson Valley. All the businesses were closed, in compliance with the order, he reported.