On Tuesday, the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will receive an update on the status of cannabis tax collection, land use permitting, business licensing, state licensing and enforcement.
Staff will also recommend the board direct the County Executive Office in concert with the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s Office to work with KPMG to review the cannabis tax revenue cycle and evaluate appropriate staffing.
Staff found the following emerging issues: continuing to work to better align the land use permitting process and the business license process; working on a methodology to standardize plan approval and acceptance; reviewing operator’s compliance with county regulations to determine whether they should retain their county letter of authorization given in support of the state provisional license; and encouraging operators to submit business license applications through the Accela public facing portal.
The objectives for the upcoming quarters include: completing the retail storefront license selection process; implementing the KPMG recommendations relating to their assessment of the county’s cannabis permitting and business licensing processes; phasing out the 12 cultivation operations that are located within EDRNs per the recently adopted LUDC ordinance amendment; continuing the Business Licensing process improvement project to identify bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and redundancies in an effort to streamline the licensing process; and commencing the tax audit process utilizing consultant HdL.
The board will also receive a COVID-19 update and the counties’ response and operations.
In other business, the board will consider recommendations regarding the execution of a grant agreement with the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara for acquisition of the property located at 536 West Pedregosa St. in Santa Barbara.
Board members will be asked to approve and authorize the chair to execute the grant agreement in the amount of $1.1 million between the Housing Authority and Santa Barbara to acquire the property for homeless family housing.
In addition, the board will be asked to adopt a resolution of commendation honoring Peter Adam upon his retirement after eight years of public service as Fourth District County Supervisor.
“Now therefore be it hereby resolved and ordered, that the Board of Supervisors thanks Peter Adam, an authentic maverick the likes of which are seldom seen, for his eight years of dedicated service to the residents of County of Santa Barbara, and wishes the best to him, Amy and their children as he returns to private life, his extensive family business, and riding his horses whenever he damn well pleases,” the staff report reads.
The meeting will begin Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., an can be viewed on local cable channel 20, online at http://www.countyofsb.org/ceo/csbtv/livestream.sbc or at https://www.youtube.com/user/CSBTV20.
email: gmccormick@newspress.com
