The article outlines all the reasons the Emerald City should fail.
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May 30, 2011 at 2:18 pm
Erasmus
In case anyone hasn’t read Baum lately, let me remind you that the greenness of Emerald City is an illusion —- the town is no greener than any other. (It’s a piece of “humbug.”) — Draw your own comparison to the supposed environmentalist ethos of SoHum. — A further thought: does anyone really think that “taxing marijuana” will work? To the extent of paying for law enforcement, etc.? If so, I’ll wager that the munchkins who think that way probably have a continuous case of the munchies, and we can all guess why!
May 30, 2011 at 3:28 pm
edsvoice
I do not understanding why they are not talking with sewer and water districts, business owners, the Chamber or utility companies. That should be right off the bat. The price of services will go up, so will all forms of taxes, for everything under the sun and them some not being paid by anyone now.
At the last meeting in Briceland, it would cost $100,000.00, but first after dropping $7500.00, plus take two years to complete the studies, reports and environmental documents.
They still don’t even know or are telling people what the tax base is right now. Do they even know the current numbers for bed tax or property tax, let alone the tax from medical cannabis, dispensaries and their patients?
Oh yeah, then there is the name and City boundary, just that topic alone would take forever to define.
May 30, 2011 at 4:13 pm
ED Denson
Well, I wouldn’t say it outlines all the reasons EC might fail. But it puts its finger on the key, which is, of course, money. If EC is a charter city and can operate independently of the county, then it can welcome marijuana dispensaries and outdoor growing instead of attempting to suppress or limit them as the county is doing. The city will get most of the sales tax on dispensary sales (grower sales to dispensaries are wholesale, not subject to sales tax). This could produce quite a bit of income for EC, but for how long? The marijuana siutation is fluid to say the least and 1) the county might wake up and encourage enterprise making the Eureka/Arcata outskirts much more desireable for sales; 2) the feds might scare EC into backing off, as they are doing with various state governments; 3) mj might be legalized as an upcoming ballot initiative proposes. 4) other things might happen. As Rumsfield said “there are unknowns we do not know about” or something like that.
Odds are EC could get launched on mj taxation but in a few years it would need to find something else to supplement it. Maybe something is in the pipeline, so to speak, that would work. I’m not against EC, just speculating about its financial feasibility.
PS Erasmus – Mendocino county claims an intake to the Sheriff of $300,000 this year from their mj taxes. That’s an entire county, true, but it is also a sign of what can be done.
May 30, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Anonymous
Basing such a huge undertaking as incorporating a town full of recalcitrants on so many ifs seems iffy. If marijuna gets legalized and if the price of weed stays high once it is legalized and if you can get people who haven’t paid much taxes for many years to suddenly cough up a boatload of taxes to develop and maintain infrastructure and if you can get some hundreds of regulations to protect mom and pop from monsanto or big pharma or the dispensanistas… OR maybe it will stay illegal and the town can make a killing sucking up water for grows and closing down local businesses to make way for dispensary-town as a marijuana tourista destination of the rich and famous, along with the delightful draw of illegality and we can afford some way to keep out pharma or the gansters maybe…just seems kinda iffy.
May 30, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Anonymous
I wonder what happens if the bottom drops out of the pot market after incorporating? If it doesn’t make a go of it, will the county take us back or do we have to sell ourselves off to the highest bidder or what? Does anyone know?
May 30, 2011 at 8:37 pm
suzy blah blah
let me remind you that the greenness of Emerald City is an illusion —- the town is no greener than any other. (It’s a piece of “humbug.”)
Now that you mention it, the name Humbug does have a ring to it.
May 30, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Anonymous
“Mendocino county claims an intake to the Sheriff of $300,000 this year from their mj taxes”
Are you sure that the money was from taxes, or was it from permits.
May 31, 2011 at 8:33 am
Ernie's Place
Mendocino Sheriff’s Department has sold $300,000.00 in permits so far. They expect to reach $1,000,000.00
news link
May 31, 2011 at 3:05 pm
edsvoice
Ernie,
What is your take, if you care to comment? As a long time business owner, Fire Disrtict and VFD Big Dog in the area. Has anyone contacted you about all of this?
May 31, 2011 at 11:32 pm
pathetic actually
I don’t think the Standard article has it quite right, Ed. Therein lies the rub. The driving force behind this, according to Jim Lamport (mis-identified in the story as the mover and shaker here) is Dan Glaser, aka Solar Dan. And Dan doesn’t get on with the Old Guard, the Chamber people, or maybe individuals like Ernie. I believe his attempts to communicate with them have exposed his inability to “cross the aisle,” as they say in Congress, and to include folks who probably think radically different about the world than he does. And I think I agree with you that the failure to reach out to the larger community will spell the downfall of this effort. But at least they’re trying.
I think you’re incredibly premature for jumping their case for not having their financial analysis together. As you say in your first post, in the process of incorporation, proponents of this move will have to raise the not insignificant sum needed to analyze the money for Ga-Re-Bo, as LAFCO’s George Williamson cleverly merged the names of Benbow, Garberville and Redway, or New Garberville as I like to call it. I don’t think the proponents know–they’re really just a bunch of “hippies” whose idea of finances is how much can you sell your LB’s for, and can you hold out til you can sell them, not how much does it cost to maintain roads, provide public safety services, and run a guvmint. But I’m a cynic, too, so I have to share your skepticism.
The issues around the tenative boundaries used by LAFCO in it’s proposal for the initial study are significant. The LAFCO guy who spoke at the Briceland event made it pretty clear that the further you spread out to un-populous areas which we all know and love and live in, the higher the relative cost of funding the services that will be needed. You will note that the Benbow–Garberville–Redway to Dean Creek area has the highest concentration of what we hate to call “urban” around here.
What we really need is our own County anyway, IMHO(In My Humboldt Opinion). I think it’d “pencil out” better when you get to the financial analysis. I don’t know if it’s harder to convince the State to create a new County than to struggle with Humboldt County officials and LAFCO, but it just might be a path of less resistance.
June 1, 2011 at 7:31 am
FWIW
Populations by county:
Plumas 20,428
Inyo 18,110
Trinity 13,898
Mono 13,617
Modoc 9,777
Sierra 3,303
Alpine 1,189
Source: CA Department of Finance
Find out how these counties pay for themselves.
June 1, 2011 at 2:05 pm
edsvoice
Since 2000, there have been six (6) new municipal corporations established in California. There are 481 incorporated cities and towns in California, of which 459 are called cities and 22 are called towns.
2000-Rancho Santa Margarita-Pop 47,853
2002-Goleta-Pop 29,888
2003-Rancho Cordova-Pop 64,776
2008-Menifee-Pop 77,519
2008-Wildomar-Pop 32,176
2010-Eastvale-Pop 53,668
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incorporated_cities_and_towns_in_California
June 1, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Anonymous
So if you’re intent on calling it Emerald City, and you want to become a tourist destination, maybe you better open up a big Cannabis Museum, like the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, and you could call yourself The Smithstoneyan.
Or get some better choices for a name.
GarbowWay
Emerald City sucks
June 1, 2011 at 5:58 pm
dawn i
If the EC folks are so ready to take all this on maybe they could start with looking at what it takes (financially etc), to keep the Garberville Sheriff’s Substation open when it closes because the county budget is in the dumps already. Show the masses they are ready to step up to the plate and find a way to fund the law enforcement we have now – the way Tom Allman is attempting to do in Mendocino Cty.
Oh I forgot they want to fund their project on marijuana tax revenues and uuuhhh…the sheriffs might be an entity they are interested in keeping around.
I am not against becoming some kind of entity unto ourselves but I liked the idea of becoming a county a lot more than I do incorporating as a city. Maybe I am naive but it seems more reasonable if we are going to go to so much trouble. And I also do not like the name Emerald City. That in itself makes it seem a dream not a reality. Should we have a wizard in charge too?
June 2, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Ernie's Place
” Has anyone contacted you about all of this?”
Edsvoice,
I’m sorry that I didn’t see your question until now. No, I was not consulted, or I would have certainly advised against the name “Emerald City”. It speaks volumes about the group who made this proposal that they would choose that name. They have made us the laughing stock of every news-service that has picked it up. Even though they have sound valid points, they have already laughed away their credibility. Up in smoke so to speak.
I intend to attend a meeting in the near future.
June 2, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Anonymous
Up in smoke? Emerald City? Sounds like a movie for Cheech and Chong!
June 2, 2011 at 4:54 pm
Anonymous
Then again, with the sweeping ethnic surge from the south,maybe you guys should think Esmeralda, Calif.
June 2, 2011 at 6:31 pm
suzy blah blah
The Smithstoneyan.
I don’t doubt it might be a popular attraction. I have a pair of whiss-clips trimming scissors that have been dated 1974 … etc.
June 2, 2011 at 8:44 pm
tra
I would like to suggest a name:
Stochasti City
June 3, 2011 at 7:57 am
Anonymous
Huh?
June 3, 2011 at 9:56 am
tra
Noun
stochasticity
1.the quality of lacking any predictable order or plan
Synonyms:
haphazardness
noise
randomness
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stochasticity
June 3, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Anonymous
You mean like the Dukes Of Hazard?
June 3, 2011 at 9:01 pm
edsvoice
I just Googled Emerald City,
and out of 7,830,000 results, guess what I got on the first page of results?
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18171068?nclick_check=1
June 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Mrs. Mulray
Fergit about, it’ Chinatown