City puts alternative growth and marijuana measures on Costa Mesa ballot

The November ballot in Costa Mesa will get a bit longer after City Council members decided Tuesday night to put city-authored initiatives on medical marijuana and growth up for a public vote this fall.

Council members voted 3-2 to approve the proposed growth initiative, which was pitched as a competing measure against one sponsored by Costa Mesa First, a political action committee.

Mayor Pro Tem Jim Righeimer has characterized the Costa Mesa First initiative as overly strict and said he thinks residents should have the option to vote on an alternative.

“I’ll be fine with the vote, whatever it is in the end,” Righeimer said Tuesday.

Council members Katrina Foley and Sandy Genis voted against the city measure. Genis called it “baloney intended to confuse the public.” Both she and Foley criticized its wording as misleading.

“Everything about this situation just reeks of a lack of trust and respect for the community,” Foley said.

The Costa Mesa First initiative is already on the Nov. 8 ballot and would require approval from voters, as well as the City Council, for some larger development projects in the city.

Specifically, it would put to a vote any project requiring a general plan amendment or zoning change that also would entail construction of 40 or more dwelling units or at least 10,000 square feet of commercial space or generate more than 200 average daily vehicle trips.

The city’s measure would essentially keep the city’s existing zoning and land-use standards, including a recently approved general plan update.

It also would include a fee applying to all new development north of the 405 Freeway and west of Fairview Road.

Fee dollars would be used to increase “active recreation, open space and public park facilities within the city,” according to a city staff report.

The measure calls for creating a seven-member committee to advise the council on spending the fee money.

“To waste the city’s money and the taxpayers’ money on something that 7,000 residents and voters have already asked for is really ridiculous,” resident Mary Spadoni said at Tuesday’s meeting, referring to the petition signatures Costa Mesa First collected to qualify its initiative for the ballot.

“Think of the residents and think of how embarrassed you’re going to be when we kick your ass in November,” she added.

If both the city’s and Costa Mesa First’s measures pass, the one with the most votes would prevail.

Medical marijuana

The council also voted 4-1, with Foley opposed, to put a city-sponsored measure on medical marijuana on November’s ballot.

Under the measure, over-the-counter medical marijuana dispensaries would remain banned, but businesses that manufacture and test some marijuana products – such as oils for pharmaceutical purposes – would be allowed to open in the manufacturing zone north of South Coast Drive and west of Harbor Boulevard. They would be required to obtain permits from the city.

Councilman Gary Monahan said the city’s initiative would fill an important niche.

“There has to be testing; there has to be manufacturing; there has to be wholesale houses so they can deliver tested products to the retail stores,” he said.

Much like the city’s growth initiative, the purpose of the medical marijuana measure is to compete against resident-sponsored items on the same topic.

Two resident-authored measures that will be put to a vote in November would allow a small number of dispensaries – either four or eight – to operate in Costa Mesa.

Robert Taft, who sponsored one of those initiatives, said he supports the city’s measure because he thinks “the most important thing for the patients is having lab-tested, clean facilities for research and development.”

“Having a safe facility to make those medicines ... would be the most important thing to me,” Taft said Tuesday.