June 15, 2021 — The Board of Supervisors agreed to move ahead with a multi-department plan to enforce cannabis codes, involving aerial surveillance and more staff. The plan is based on the Humboldt County model, which relies heavily on satellite imagery and fines and liens to achieve compliance. Another big change is that enforcement will be proactive as well as complaint based.
The estimate for the program’s cost for this fiscal year is a little over one and a half million dollars. Code enforcement supervisor John Burkes estimates that the program will take three to five years to implement. The start date is uncertain, since many of the positions called for in the plan do not yet exist on the county’s registers. That means that negotiations with labor unions still have to take place, so the suggested salaries are rough estimates at this point. But supervisors agreed to start by hiring two low-level code enforcement officers, and take steps to request assistance from the state.