Watch two city councilmember/attorneys trade verbal blows over charges of conflict of interest in a small-town dispensary scheme. This is the taproot of a poisoned process that continues to plague the citizens of the Sonoma Valley. And unlike the plant that can “grow like a weed” with practically no tending, the growth of the seed sown for access in Sonoma is as stunted as the small-mindedness of many of its city council members, past and present. Former Mayor Amy Harrington was right, what exists in Sonoma is a state-sponsored monopoly.