MEDICAL MARIJUANA GARDEN PROPOSED FOR DUNSMUIR BUSINESS DISTRICT

Dunsmuir Mayor Peter Arth, himself a medical marijuana patient, stands
on his land in the center of town where he is proposing to grow a
medical marijuana garden in greenhouses with Leslie Wilde, owner of
Green-Collar Compassionate Collective in Dunsmuir.

Dunsmuir's mayor and a medicinal marijuana collective owner want to
plant a marijuana garden smack-dab in the middle of the city's
historical business district.

"We're trying to bring the growing of medical cannabis out of the
darkness of an underground market and into the legal light," said
Mayor Peter Arth.

Arth, himself a medical marijuana patient, wants to lease three
commercial lots he owns at Dunsmuir Avenue and Cedar Street to
Green-Collar Compassionate Collective owner Leslie Wilde. The property
is across the street from the Siskiyou County sheriff's substation.

The Dunsmuir City Council will hear public comment on their proposal
Thursday.

Arth said three professionally-engineered greenhouses would provide a
place to grow high-quality medical marijuana for members of the collective.

Arth said it's hard to know where the medicine is grown and how safe
it is. It could be grown in Mexico, a national forest, or it could be
contaminated with pesticides and other chemicals, he said. There is
also a criminal element to the marijuana business that sometimes
overlaps with the medical marijuana sector, he said.

But fellow council member Mario Rubino has raised objections he said
were brought to him by community members, he said.

Rubino sent a memo to the council as part of the agenda packet
outlining the concerns.

Since the city contracts with the Siskiyou County sheriff for only 20
hours of protection per day and has no police force of its own,
security concerns are paramount, he said.

"It'd be like putting $50,000 in an empty lot with a wooden fence
around it," Rubino said of the project. "That's going to draw a lot of
attention."

Though the sheriff's substation is across the street, the expectation
that the deputies patrol and secure a medical marijuana grow operation
is unrealistic, he said.

"Not having a full-time sheriff, it is unreasonable to recommend such
a high-risk potential business, or that the town could provide it a
reasonably secure site," Rubino wrote in the memo.

Arth and Wilde must apply for a historical site alteration permit for
the facility by April 23 to get their proposal onto the planning
commission's May 5 agenda, Acting City Manager Alan Harvey said.

"In terms of the proposal, the kind of criteria the planning
commission will be applying are: Is this a suitable use? Is this a
suitable kind of structure? Does it fit within the context of the
historic district? Is it going to significantly modify the features of
the historic district?" Harvey said.

Arth said right now the lot is empty aside from some
trees.

"So why not move in the direction that we have tried to move in as a
city in terms of economic prosperity, toward sustainable agriculture,
toward renewable sources of energy, to finding ways to create jobs and
more economic stability for our area?" he asked.