City councils are apt to worry about different kinds of drug crime than Congress. But the new attention from both ends of the political pecking order comes from a single source: the legal and regulatory uncertainty surrounding the burgeoning marijuana economy.

City power struggles

It’s a phenomenon playing out conspicuously in the county of San Luis Obispo. There, cities have moved to keep out pot dispensaries. Arroyo Grande, which passed its ban in 2008, added a supplementary ban four years later on so-called “mobile dispensaries,” the door-to-door marijuana delivery services that frequently, but not always, operate in compliance with California’s medical marijuana rules.

Mobile dispensaries are undeterred, however, provoking a fresh pot controversy in nearby Paso Robles. The Paso Robles City Council deadlocked, killing a plan to ratchet up from brick-and-mortal prohibitions on dispensaries to a ban like Arroyo Grande’s.

Proponents of the measure invoked a staff report to argue that delivery services posed a “current and immediate threat” to the health and safety of city residents on account of violent crimes seen linked to medical marijuana, according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Angry residents, however, lambasted the City Council for what they characterized as the summary and one-sided nature of the report. At least one resident found it bitterly ironic that the mobile dispensary ban arose from the city’s surprise when a delivery operator sought to apply for a business license.

The ordeal marks the second time the City Council attempted to stamp out pot delivery, with Paso Robles Mayor Duane Picanco citing the federal illegality of marijuana as the reason for his support.

Federal changes also playing out

Yet marijuana law is also plagued by uncertainty, confusion and concern at the federal level. While California localities struggle to agree on mobile dispensaries, an influential California legislator is pushing forward on rules meant to reduce drug crime in a different way.

Earlier this year, the Treasury and Justice Departments issued guidelines meant to calm bank fears of criminal prosecution for working with marijuana-related businesses legalized by state law. But, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the quasi-regulatory guidance left lenders even more uncertain; banks worried the federal government didn’t really guarantee legal safety instead adding “burdensome new requirements that they screen customers for marijuana ties.” As a result, the Journal concluded, “banks have become even more uneasy about accepting marijuana money, pushing state-licensed pot businesses deeper into a financial netherworld.”

Into that bureaucratic morass stepped Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the Huntington Beach Republican with a strong libertarian streak on drugs and other civil liberties issues. Just last month, Rohrabacher led enough Republicans to help pass a House bill that would bar federal pot prosecutions in excess of state law. This month, the congressman advanced a new piece of legislation — an amendment devised to defund any action by Treasury to penalize banks serving state-legal marijuana businesses.

On July 16, Rorhabacher helped muster enough votes to pass that bill, too. He was joined in sponsoring the legislation by Representatives Barbara Lee, an Oakland Demcrat; Denny Heck, D-Wash.; and Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.

Bipartisan push to protect state pot laws

The vote is not just a landmark in federal drug legislation. It also confirms the instrumental role of bipartisan California legislators in successfully driving bipartisan votes on marijuana law.

Despite the dramatic changes, the Senate must still adopt a similar approach to drug reform in order for Rohrabacher and Lee’s agenda to advance. Bipartisan efforts along those lines are afoot, but wrangling behind closed doors has sidelined one proposed bill. Last month, Senators Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced an amendment that would block the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration from investigating Americans complying with their state’s marijuana laws.

Here’s the lead of the story:

“A vandal smashed the window of San Luis Obispo Mayor Jan Marx’s Prius Monday while she attended a luncheon Rotary Club meeting at the Madonna Inn.

“It was the only vehicle damaged in the busy parking lot.

“Although the mayor was quick to say she has no idea who was behind the vandalism, it occurred shortly after the City Council decided to appeal a recent ruling that could require the city to restore binding arbitration to the city’s charter.”

PERB thwarted San Luis Obispo voters; council chose to appeal

Requiring binding arbitration to resolve differences between elected officials and public employee unions often leads to split-the-difference resolutions of pay disputes. It can make it close to impossible for city leaders to, yunno, lead — binding them to a future in which their employees’ pay always goes up, up and away.

San Luis Obispo residents understood this; in 2006, for example, the police officers’ union rejected a 20 percent, four-year raise, knowing it could get more after arbitration. That is why residents voted overwhelmingly to strip the binding arbitration requirement from city law in 2011.  But a PERB administrative judge recently ruled that the public vote must be thrown out because the city charter can’t be changed to ban binding arbitration — without binding arbitration!

Sheesh. Shades of PERB rulings that existing state laws should be subject to collective bargaining.

As former San Luis Obispo Councilman Andrew Carter explains here, this ridiculous PERB ruling is what the City Council voted to appeal.

LOL: No evidence, only one group of suspects

Back to the SLO Tribune story and its coverage of the vandalizing of the PERB-doubting mayor’s car. The piece can only be read as building off a 100 percent assumption a cop or firefighter was to blame:

“The presidents of the city’s firefighters and police unions issued a joint written statement Tuesday expressing dismay over the vandalism to Marx’s car.

“‘We have nothing but the highest respect for our elected officials and the process they are working through. The decision to appeal the recent PERB decision was not a surprise to us,’ they wrote. ‘We understand why the City is appealing the decision, and we respect the process of the appeal. We are upset that it appears someone may have intentionally broke the Mayor’s car window, and we hope that the person responsible is brought to justice.'”

Yeah, sure you do. Then you’d have one less person paying dues.

Karen Velie is the co-founder and publisher of 

Because of the DUI allegation, Social Services then took the grandchildren from her and placed them in a foster home. However, eyewitness testimony from former state Sen. Sam Blakeslee maintains that she was not intoxicated. 

Velie and her daughter, Cristin Powers, the children’s mother, are working with Social Services to get the children back. The children originally had been given to Velie when Social Services reportedly determined that Powers maintained a dirty home.

I called Lee Collins, the director of Social Services in San Luis Obispo County. His office told me that he wouldn’t be able to comment “due to legal issues. Our hands are pretty much tied.”

Police version

As to the DUI, here is the police version of the arrest, from an Aug. 23 memorandum by Police Chief Stephen Gesell to the San Luis Obispo City Council (full memorandum reproduced below):

“On 8/13/13 Karen Velie was arrested by San Luis Obispo Police Officer Joshua Walsh for Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol. Since the arrest Ms. Velie and others have made public statements in speech and print claiming she was targeted due to her position as a reporter for the Cal Coast News. Those statements are false and the Police Department is releasing the following information to provide accurate factual background as to the events leading up to Ms. Velie’s arrest….

“During Officer Walsh’s contact with Ms. Velie, he observed objective indications of alcohol intoxication, including slurred speech, bloodshot and watery eyes and an odor of alcoholic beverage consumption, which led him to believe she was driving impaired…. Based on Ms. Velie’s answers to questions and her poor performance on the field tests, Ofc. Walsh concluded Ms. Velie was driving while impaired.”

Further, a breath test “measured a Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of 0.79 at the scene of the stop.” This was below “a per se threshold of 0.08 at which it is unlawful for any person to operate a motor vehicle” in one section of the law. Later breath tests “registered a 0.07” and “a 0.06.”

In other words, according to the BAC test, she was not drunk.

But in another section of the law, Gesell’s letter relates, violations “are based on an officer’s evaluation of the totality of the circumstances. In this instance, Officer Walsh reasonably believed the evidence he observed supported a conclusion that Ms. Velie was impaired….”

She was arrested and her court trial is scheduled for Jan. 11.

Sen. Blakeslee

I talked to Blakeslee, now an attorney at Blakeslee & Blakeslee, who told me:

“I was present the evening that she was teaching the bridge class. I saw no evidence of any impairment. She visited with me and our table, our bridge table, probably within the last five to 10 minutes of the evening. And she discussed how to bid a particularly complex hand. And I listened very attentively to her description, as I am trying to learn how to play bridge. And I am absolutely sure that if she had been impaired, I would have noticed it, because she would not have been speaking clearly, or would have been confused on such a complex topic. I thought she was completely lucid.”

According to the arrest record, also reprinted below, the incident was videotaped by the police. I requested a copy of the video from the San Luis Obispo Police Department. Captain Chris Staley replied in an email:

“Mr. Seiler, pursuant to Government Code section 6254(f), the video is considered a record of a police agency investigation, and is exempt from public disclosure; therefore we will not be releasing the video. 

“Captain Staley”

CalCoastNews, Velie’s publican, ran a story on the matter, “Grandchildren of CCN publisher spend holidays in county hands.”

The New Times of San Luis Obispo also ran story it, “Just breathe: A police report and city memo counter CalCoastNews founder Karen Velie’s account of her arrest and conspiracy claims.” The New Times story provided the links to the documents that are reproduced below.

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