By Marty Mayfield
KRTN Multi-Media
Raton City Commissioners met Tuesday evening August 10, 2021 and spent an hour discussing and hearing comments on the proposed changes to the zoning ordinance to accommodate changes in state law that allows the sale of cannabis in the state.
Commissioners started the meeting with a short slide presentation going over what took place at the state legislature to bring the cannabis question to law. It took a special 2-day session to get House Bill two passed and to the governor’s desk for her signature. The state Cannabis Control Division will now regulate all aspects of cannabis in the state including medical which was controlled by the Department of Health.
The timeline will begin with the CCD accepting license applications on September 1, 2021 and will start issuing the licenses after January 1, 2022 with sales to begin after April 1, 2022. The state is controlling the entire program. The zoning ordinance is about the only way that municipalities can have any control over the program. By adopting the ordinance commissioners can control where retail sales, manufacturing of products and growing operations may take place. The ordinance says that no cannabis business can be located closer than 300 feet from a school or day care center.
Growing operations or the manufacture of cannabis oils and other extracted products will take place in heavy or light industrial zones. Growing operations will be restricted to heavy industrial zones. Retail sales will be allowed in commercial zones which was noted to be mostly in south Raton with areas big enough to meet the restrictions of the 300 feet from schools and between businesses.
The Zoning Commission met and after a public hearing voted 4-1 to approve the ordinance. Randy Madison noted that many people thought this would be the golden pot but with the tax structure presented the city will only receive 4% of the 12% excise tax. That excise tax will grow to 18% by 2030. A concern for many people is that they don’t want Raton to be like Trinidad who has 37 active licenses and had to hire six additional police officers and staff to handle the work load according to City commissioner Ron Chavez who spoke with Trinidad’s Police Chief.
After hearing comments commissioners voted to postpone the vote on the ordinance changes to change language concerning things like baking edibles which would fall under manufacturing would have to be done in an industrial zone. (Link to Cannabis Ordinance changes)
Commissioners once again heard about the ICIP and are still taking public input on the priorities for the city. Commissioners also approved the event form for the Gate City Music Festival to be held over the Labor Day weekend. They also approved the public celebration permits for Left Turn Distilling LLC and Palmer Brewing and Cider House for the Gate City Music Festival.
Commissioners approved the MOA between the City of Raton and Grow Raton, Raton Mainstreet and The Center for Community Innovation. Each organization will receive $50,000 which comes from the $1.4 million the city will receive in American Rescue Act funding. The $1.4 million was split up into what is called trenches which the city received the first trench last month. The amount was just over $700,000.
Commissioners approved Mayor Pro-Tem Lindé Schuster as the city’s voting delegate at the New Mexico Municipal League meeting in Albuquerque. Commissioner Lori Chatterley will be the alternate.
Commissioners approved the bid award for the pavement rehab project on runways 2-20 and 7-25. The bid award went to American Airport Maintenance for $356,600. The bid is contingent on receiving the grant agreement from the FAA. Commissioners then approved the acceptance of the grant offer from the FAA. City Manager Scott Berry will notify the FAA of the bid award and the costs involved and should hear back in September. Commissioners also approved the State Aviation grant amendment which will cover professional services in the amount of $83,541. The FAA normally covers 90% of the project with the state covering 5% and the city matching with 5%. With these funding agreements this project will be fully funded by the FAA and the state with no money coming from the city.
Commissioners also approved the NMDOT Coop agreement which came in at only $66,667. The city had asked for enough to cover work on Kearney and West Colfax but will only be able to do West Colfax with this amount of funding. Berry noted that once the bid comes in it could well be over the $66,667. The city’s match will come from the gas tax.
Berry noted in his report that the CBDG project is now underway on Third Street and will cause some traffic problems in the downtown area around the post office.
Commissioners will meet again on August 24, 2021 at 6:00 p.m. for the next regular meeting.
