Shoreline City Council meeting January 3, 2012 - medical marijuana gardens and economic development on Aurora

By Devon Vose Rickabaugh

At the Shoreline city council meeting on January 3, 2012, council members unanimously reelected Keith McGlashan as mayor for 2 years and Chris Eggen as deputy mayor.

Much of the meeting was taken up with how to regulate medicinal marijuana collective gardens in Shoreline. The moratorium on the gardens expires on January 18th. The council agreed to extend the moratorium until the state legislature decides how to handle such questions as 'should the gardens be 1000 feet from each other,' 'should a person have to wait 15 days before joining the collective either as a patient or a marijuana provider' and 'can a city opt out of the collective gardens altogether.'

Before the moratorium extension the council wanted more information on how to license the gardens and what their hours of operation should be. Mayor McGlashan said he had driven by one of the collective gardens at midnight and it was still open. “Do they need to be doing business so late?” Councilmember Jesse Solomon wondered if limiting membership in the gardens to ten people would be enough to provide for medical need. Also limiting gardens' proximity to schools brought up questions about “mothballed” schools like Sunset. Are they still considered schools?

Dan Eernissee, the Economic Development Manager, talked about a vision for the city such as making the Aurora Corridor a cohesive neighborhood, reinventing Aurora Square and unlocking Fircrest’s surplus property. Councilmember Will Hall said a vision should include how to grow Shoreline's tax base. He said in the last ten years there has been no growth. “Thirty nine cities in King County are doing better than Shoreline in this economy. We need specific ways to measure growth .” City Manager Julie Underwood said that on February 6th there would be an economic development conversation to deal with questions like “Why aren’t we seeing development, why isn’t investment increasing, and what are the problems and challenges we face”.