Resident presses city for clarity on medical marijuana permits, city manager outlines status

At the start of public comment Dec. 7, resident George Kale urged the Mount Clemens City Commission to finalize medical marijuana permitting before the city considers opting into adult-use (recreational) marijuana and asked staff to check apparent missing ordinance cross-references.

Kale provided his name and address and said a review committee on Dec. 16, 2019, ‘‘conditionally approved 2 provisioning permits, 1 grower class C permit and a processor permit’’ and that as per the city ordinance applications were due April 1, 2019, and should have been decided within 90 days. He told the commission he could not find the cited ordinance sections (22-96 and 22-97) and asked the city attorney for clarification.

City Manager Johnson responded in the administrative report that the committee had acted on Dec. 16, 2019, and conditionally approved the permits Kale described. Johnson said "to date, no permits have been issued and no renewals applied for" and that extension requests are expected; he also said the ordinance requires the city manager or a designee to serve on the review committee and that he named Jeff as the manager's designee and chair of the committee.

Kale framed his comments as procedural: he said the city should ‘‘button down the hatch’’ and complete the medical permitting process before moving to recreational permitting. Johnson's response provided the administrative record but did not announce any immediate change to permit status during the meeting.

The commission did not take a separate vote on permitting at the Dec. 7 meeting; Johnson said staff would consult the city attorney about ordinance citations and reported on past committee actions.