Two of us spoke to the Sonoma City Council two nights ago. As was pointed out to me earlier, only council member Ron Wellander was involved in the 1st dispensary and then as a Planning Commissioner, not a council member, while we, collectively, followed and participated in all of the past meetings for the 1st dispensary. We thought we should remind this new council that the 200 members of the Sonoma Valley Cannabis Group have been here since Day 1. Perhaps reminding them of this may garner more respect for our comments going forward. My comment:

“We’d like to thank you for putting the RFP for the second dispensary on the April 19 agenda. We look forward to the discussion.

We’ll only add that our group has spent nearly six years, now, working toward reasonable access for everyone who lives in Sonoma and the Valley. We have a couple of hundred members and they include medical patients, adult consumers, attorneys and local industry professionals. We can be considered subject matter experts. We know you have an excellent staff on which you can rely for important information, but we’d also like to let you know that we are always available if you have any questions on the topic, so please feel free to reach out to us any time.”

We need your help. We can see a finish line, but if we stumble, we won’t cross it. Please write an email, long or short, to the city council in support of releasing the RFP for the second dispensary: citycouncil@sonomacity.org.