Letter to County Staff on its misrepresentation of a cultivation site to the Planning Commissioners

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From: NeighborhoodCoalition <sonomaneighborhoodcoalition@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, August 8, 2025 11:27 AM
To: Scott Orr <Scott.Orr@sonoma-county.org>; Crystal Acker <Crystal.Acker@sonoma-county.org>;Cannabis <Cannabis@sonoma-county.org>;PlanningAgency@sonoma-county.org;Tim.Freeman@sonomacounty.gov;larry.reed@sonomacounty.gov;Tom.Bahning@sonoma-county.org;Webster.Marquez@sonomacounty.gov;Shaun.McCaffery@sonoma-county.org
Subject: Potemkin Village Photo of a Cannabis Cultivation Site

 ^{August 8, 2025}

Permit Sonoma should present facts objectively, and keep its thumb off the scale.

A Potemkin village is a facade designed to hide an undesirable reality.

The PowerPoint at the August 7 Planning Commission hearing included the photo below which supposedly proves that cannabis “looks just like a vineyard.” 

The photo seems to have been selected to disguise that the plants are in geo pots, which is unknown in vineyards:

The now abandoned cultivation site on Grange Road, Santa Rosa, in the image below does not in anyway resemble a vineyard or other normal agricultural operation.

The aerial image below of a cultivation site near Petaluma, to put it mildly, contrasts sharply with the surrounding vineyard.

The aerial image below of a cultivation site on Wellspring Road, Santa Rosa, shows plastic sheeting covering the ground. It does not resemble in any way a vineyard or other normal agricultural operation.  

The aerial imagebelow is of a bitcoin mine in Texas, which resembles the industrial-looking Wellspring Road cultivation site.

Neighborhood Coalition

Nancy and Brantly Richardson, Communications Directors

SonomaNeighborhoodCoalition@gmail.com

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