Assembly burns mayor's marijuana veto

PALMER — A temporary ban on marijuana businesses will remain in place for retail operations and commercial grows until after the October elections.

At Tuesday’s regularly scheduled meeting, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted 6-0 to override mayor Vern Halter’s first-ever veto, shortly after the body re-approved an amended version of the ban which eliminated language allowing cultivation beginning in August. The ban will remain in place until Oct. 19, the date of certification of the Oct. 4 election, which will include a local ballot measure banning all marijuana businesses except for industrial hemp.

Halter said he’d anticipated the measure — which originally passed by a 7-0 vote — would probably be overridden. But he thinks the borough’s role in the marijuana industry should essentially be to collect tax revenue, while the state should be the lead agency on enforcement, Halter said.

“I’ve always thought that the state should regulate it and the borough, along with other cities, should tax it,” he said.

Halter intended the veto to in part to inject a sense of urgency into discussions about marijuana land use regulations. Assembly members referred those regulations back to the planning commission and marijuana advisory board when they last voted on the issue, for potentially as long as 120 days. Land use measures should be in place before voters decide the issue, Halter said.

Halter also doesn’t oppose marijuana use on ethical or moral grounds, though he said he respected the opinions of those who do.

“There is more abuse with alcohol than there could be with marijuana,” he said.

Marijuana sales are likely to continue whether the drug is legal or not, Halter said.

“If we keep it illegal, you’re going to have the same problems,” he said. “We might gain some value this way.”

Halter’s stance drew a sympathetic response from assemblyman Steve Colligan.

“I agree with most of that,” he said. “Except that we don’t have zoning and other stuff, like Anchorage does, where it’s easy to keep it out of neighborhoods and residential areas.”

Without land use regulations, Colligan said he couldn’t vote against the moratorium.

“The bottom line is, I support the moratorium at the moment,” he said. “I want to make sure we get our definitions in place that have to do with land use issues, and that that is in place firmly before the election so that people know exactly what they’re voting on and aren’t making up all sorts of propaganda about what it might look like and what it might be.”

The moratorium is the creation of assemblyman Randall Kowalke, who echoed concerns about land use. Most prospective entrepreneurs were responsible, but Kowalke said he’s already received complaints from Willow residents about grow operations in the neighborhood.

“I feel like people in subdivisions have a right not to have grow operations next to them,” he said.

Assemblyman Jim Sykes said the borough push for regulations began over concerns that state officials would delay or insufficiently regulate marijuana. State regulations eventually proved to be thoughtful and comprehensive, and borough regulations will be made to work with them, Sykes said.

“In the grand scheme of things, I believe we have thoughtful regulations at the end,” he said. “The ban on the election in October will pass or not pass, but I think we’ll have well-thought-out regulations.”

In an interview after the meeting, Halter compared marijuana regulation to trapping or wildlife management, two other areas of regulation where state agencies take the lead.

“I guess we can add little restrictions, but we can’t really change state law,” he said.

Halter also anticipated some political reaction against his veto.

“I knew it was probably going to get a little wrath from certain voters,” he said.

Reaction in the public comments section was mixed. About seven people spoke asking for minor changes to land use laws, or in support of marijuana businesses. Former borough mayor Larry DeVilbiss said a local ban would reflect the will of the voters.

“I’m glad the process has worked the way it has,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that the reasoning behind it doesn’t include the major important fact that the majority of residents, and the majority of voters in the Mat-Su Borough did not support Ballot Measure 2.”

Talkeetna resident Krystal Dietrich said the majority of signatures collected for the October ballot measure were from the core area, and that core voters shouldn’t be able to dictate the political fate of the borough’s outlying areas.

“I’d like to start tonight by thanking Vern Halter for the veto, but not everybody else for overriding it,” she said.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.