Mendocino County Grand Jury
• 2024-2025
• Agency Response
Response to:
Measure B Re-Examined
The Mendocino County Cannabis Equity Grant Program - "Building the*
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 5 findings
F1
There was no process developed for the distribution of grant funds to individuals prior to applications being received. This has resulted in extended delays at every step from eligibility to application to communication to contract generation. This continues to prevent timely funds distribution to approved LEEP applicants. The respondent agrees with the finding.
Related Recommendations (1)
R1
\boxtimes The following Recommendation(s) have not yet been implemented, but will be implemented in the future; attached, as required, is a time frame for implementation:
F2
The county did not ask the state for requirements on record keeping for LEEP grant recipients until May 2022 and apparently did so only to establish the county's risk of having to repay funds if they were not spent for approved purposes. Applications ready for final approval are being held up by County Counsel. The requirements do not appear to be onerous as they are quite similar to those previously communicated requirements. However, records which must be provided to the state may still cause even more information requests before final Cobblestone approval and should have been sought much earlier in the process. The respondent agrees with the finding.
No recommendations for this finding
F3
I have reviewed the report and submit my responses to the RECOMMENDATIONS portion of the report as follows: \boxtimes The following Recommendation(s) have been implemented and attached, as required, is a summary describing the implemented actions:
No recommendations for this finding
F4
The contractor chosen to implement the grants, Elevate Impact, has worked primarily in urban areas and lacks the capital project expertise needed to support and escalate the speed of LEEP grant distributions. The respondent agrees with the finding.
Related Recommendations (1)
R4
The following Recommendations will NOT be implemented because they are not warranted and/or are not deemed reasonable; attached, as required, is an explanation therefore: I have completed the above responses, and have attached, as required the following number of pages to this response form: Number of Pages attached: 3 I understand that responses to Grand Jury Reports are public records. They will be posted on the Grand Jury website: www.mendocinocounty.org/government/grand-jury. The clerk of the responding agency is required to maintain a copy of the response. I understand that I must submit this signed response form and any attachments as follows: First Step: E-mail in pdf file format to: The Grand Jury Foreperson at: grandjury@mendocinocounty.org • The Presiding Judge: grandjury@mendocino.courts.ca.gov • Second Step: Mail all originals to: MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS' RESPONSE TO GRAND JURY REPORT TITLED: THE MENDOCINO COUNTY CANNABIS EQUITY GRANT PROGRAM "Building the Airplane While It's Flying"
F5
The LEEP applications are delayed until a qualified planner can review the application. Qualified planners hesitate to work in the cannabis industry. The respondent agrees with the finding. Response to Recommendations:
No recommendations for this finding
* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.