David Cook isn’t happy that the I-T made slightly less of what he considers to have been a “death threat” from Jon Early. It’s understandable that Cook was rattled by the email, but to accuse Early of threatening his life may be a bit overblown.

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Due to this and other unfortunate events surrounding other council members, Mr. Cook took the opportunity to claim “outrage”, which in turn provided grounds for railing against the Sonoma County Democratic Party for stating that he and the Mayor “should change their vote”.

He very conveniently threw in that buzzword of the times, “bullying” to describe the Party’s action and demanded an apology.

Cook explained that the council’s vote to push the initiative to 2020 was the result of bad timing – the initiative came to the council too late for it to react before the county’s deadline, that it needed a thirty day report before it could come to any decision. He felt that asking for a report “was an important process of our democracy.”

Is it unreasonable to believe, considering the report could have been completed concurrently with preparing competing initiatives for this November’s ballot, that he’s only using the “democratic process” justification as cover for deliberately blocking them?

This, in part, is what the resolution said: “WHEREAS Sonoma’s City Council, on a 3-2 vote, chose to expend community resources on a pretextual 30-day “study,” with the clear objective of denying the validly qualified cannabis dispensary petition a place on the November 2018 ballot, in an effort to delay a vote until November of 2020…”

So, we could probably argue forever and a day if the study was or was not used as a pretext to deliberately deny placing the initiative on this November’s ballot.

Cook went on to invoke the concepts of “local control” and “abiding by the law” and that “a small percentage of this society” didn’t like the vote. “And they’re going to bully.” (There’s that word again.)

Excuse the questions, but *who* is that small percentage and how “small” are they really? As small as 64% of city residents who voted for Prop 64? Or is he referring to a 250 member group that happens be the most vigorous in fighting for the issue and believes in holding the council accountable? Perhaps Mr. Cook should be reminded of the difference between bullying and expressing disagreement on policy.

Mr. Cook’s final words were, “The reason I voted the way I voted is because of the timeline. It came in too late. And that’s it. That’s what social media should be talking about.”

Well, Mr. Cook, that’s exactly what we’re doing…