DUNSMUIR MAYOR PROPOSES MEDICAL MARIJUANA NURSERY

Dunsmuir, Calif. -- The Dunsmuir City Council will hold a public
hearing during its April 15 meeting to gather community input
regarding a proposal for the establishment of a medical marijuana
nursery in the downtown area.

The proposal was brought to city staff by Mayor Peter Arth, who plans
to finance the project, and Green Collar Compassionate Collective
owner Leslie Wilde, who will lease the nursery in order to harvest
medical marijuana for her collective members.

Arth and Wilde are currently applying for a historic site alteration
permit for the facility and will make a presentation of their plans
to the Dunsmuir Planning Commission next month. Arth was not
available for an interview last week, though he provided the Dunsmuir
News with a draft of the nursery plans.

The draft outlines the proposed location, planned aesthetic features,
benefits of such an operation, and how he and Wilde will mitigate
potential concerns that members of the community may have:

The planned nursery site consists of three commercially zoned lots,
owned by Arth, and located at the northeast corner of Dunsmuir Avenue
and Cedar Street.

His draft notes that this location is ideal due to existing street
lighting, high visibility, and its close proximity to the sheriff's substation.

Arth will purchase three small pre-fabricated greenhouses and he will
pay for their installation on the lots. The lots will be equipped
with a security system, surrounded by fencing, and accessible by way
of locked gates.

The nursery will rely on solar energy, as well as existing electric
service that will be activated to supply energy for lighting, climate
control, and security features.

Arth will lease the property to Wilde, who, along with a board of
directors, will oversee the operations of the nursery.

Only people authorized by the board will be allowed inside the gates,
and nobody under the age of 21 will be allowed inside. The nursery
operation will be sized to handle the legal allotment for the
patients of the Green Collar Compassionate Collective.

Arth notes that the marijuana grown at the nursery will be cultivated
using pure, organic methods. The project coordinators will seek to be
leaders in the environmentally sound propagation and growth of the
safest and highest quality medical cannabis in Siskiyou County.

"Repeated and consistent testimony from law enforcement officials
suggests that cannabis products are necessarily bought or bartered by
dispensaries on the 'underground market' (since there are no known
legal grow operations in southern Siskiyou County).

They are thereby linked to illegal grow operations which endanger the
health and safety of dispensary operators, their patients, and the
general public," the draft reads.

It further states that the nursery "will eliminate the middlemen and
illegal bulk growth and sales of tainted and dangerous marijuana
grown in national and state forests or residential neighborhoods."

Arth's document also addresses the anticipated aesthetic features of
the nursery, as well as the possibility of the odor from the plants
offending community members.

In the event of odor complaints, Arth indicated that a system of fans
and carbon filters could be installed in the greenhouses to mitigate
the problem.

In order to ensure that the nursery fencing is aesthetically
pleasing, Arth plans to work with the Dunsmuir Garden Club to plant a
mixture of colorful flowers and climbing plants around the fence area
and the frontage of the property.

In the future, the nursery would also arrange for trees and other
greenery to be planted around the Belknap Fountain and along the
Dunsmuir Avenue face of the property.

"We actively seek review of this project because it is a new approach
to a growing problem across California's cities -- large and small,"
Arth states.