GUEST COLUMN: Why I became so miffed at a CONO President David Munger
By Sean Paige
“Infuriated” doesn’t accurately describe my reaction to Dave Munger’s claim that the Council of Neighborhood Organizations (CONO) was somehow excluded from the medical marijuana task force, or that the group’s concerns were discounted, as reported in Wednesday’s Gazette (“Group argues against proposal”). But here’s what got me so miffed.
On the day the task force was formed, Munger approached me about CONO being involved. I told him it would be, throwing out, as a possibility (not some carved-in-stone promise), that it could have three slots on the task force. Once Tom Gallagher and I began chalk-boarding a steering committee, it became clear that this would be too many slots for just one group, forcing the exclusion of other stakeholders (of other average citizens not affiliated with CONO). CONO would be represented, but not over-represented, on the steering committee. Munger thinks that was a broken promise.
CONO apparently isn’t happy with just being a party to deliberations, as one among many stakeholders. It prefers to dominate the process and get its way at all costs. It’s that presumptuousness that gets my dander up.
CONO’s steering committee representative is a retired pharmacist. I think his perspective was valuable to the task force’s work, and valued by other participants. His viewpoints were heard and taken into consideration. But he didn’t prevail on every point (just as every other stakeholder group didn’t prevail on every point). It was clear midway through the process that he had some serious reservations about medical marijuana generally, and medical marijuana growing in neighborhoods specifically, and his positions seemed to harden, and his mind to close, against counter arguments.
Personally, I found some of his positions extreme. He proposed at one meeting, for instance, that anyone growing medical marijuana in a home be required to disclose this to neighbors — which would not only stir-up all sorts of unnecessary conflict, and raise security issues, but constitute an unprecedented intrusion into privacy and property rights, in my opinion. That proposal didn’t pass muster with others on the steering committee, understandably (I was there as an observer and facilitator and didn’t vote on proposals). It isn’t in the draft ordinance.
The man had some more reasonable suggestions, and the steering committee, at my urging, did make changes to proposals in deference to neighborhood concerns. We also repeatedly reminded CONO’s representative that this was just the start of the larger public process, and that many of the issues he raised could and would be negotiated going forward.
The situation with small-scale grow operations in private residences requires striking a careful balance (and a willingness to compromise). Steering committee members understood that large-scale grows and selling directly out of one’s home raises potential problems, but that banning these activities altogether would raise constitutional issues, stifle entrepreneurship, drive a legal activity underground and reduce supply considerably. Telling residents how many plants they can grow in their basements or spare bedrooms also raises privacy and property rights issues — all concerns CONO’s representative seemed oblivious to. I think the task force struck the right balance on this issue — and there will be no dispensaries in residential neighborhoods, contrary to what’s suggested by the inflammatory statement about “gun battles” by Munger in the article.
CONO didn’t get its way on every issue the steering committee and task force dealt with, but neighborhood concerns were frequently taken into account. It’s a democratic process. That requires a willingness to compromise. CONO seems more interested in dominating the process and getting its way on every point. I hope it will assume a more reasonable stance moving forward, since what the task force proposes already includes many compromises on the part of every other participant group.
The people who use medicinal marijuana, or who discretely grow small amounts of it for themselves or their patients in their homes, are also someone’s neighbors. If CONO won’t take them into account, I will. These activities have been going on quietly in city neighborhoods for years, with little complaint (and no gun battles) until CONO baselessly declared this a problem. This creates unnecessary anxiety, where it isn’t warranted. CONO would do the city a service by taking off it’s activist hat for just a moment and putting on an educator’s hat, since much of the anxiety about this industry dissipates once people take time to learn something about it.
But maybe CONO is more interested in digging in its heels, closing minds and exercising clout than in collaborating on a compromise everyone can live with. Others on City Council may be comfortable with this, and with kowtowing to CONO, but I’m not.
Paige is a member of the Colorado Spring City Council. Email him at SPaige@springsgov.com.
