With Humboldt County’s cannabis cultivation industry on edge after an initiative to overhaul local cannabis regulations qualified for next year’s ballot, an ad hoc committee is attempting to negotiate with the initiative’s proponents to see if they’ll withdraw it.

But questions have abounded about whether it’s appropriate for one of the Humboldt County supervisors who volunteered to be on the committee to take part in its discussions and vote on the issue.

The Fair Political Practices Commission opined in a non-binding advice letter last year that Second District Michelle Bushnell was right to recuse herself from a vote on tax relief for the cannabis industry early in 2022 because — as the owner of a cannabis farm — she had a conflict of interest on the issue and the vote’s outcome could “have a reasonably foreseeable, material financial impact on [her] real property interest.”

But Bushnell, who holds a permit to cultivate 25,560 square feet of outdoor cannabis and 20,000 square feet of light deprivation cannabis on a property she owns in Southern Humboldt under her Boot Leg Farms LLC, did not raise the potential conflict when voting on the initiative earlier this year or volunteering to serve on the ad hoc committee aimed at keeping it from the ballot. (Bushnell’s son also holds a permit to cultivate 17,900 feet of outdoor cannabis on a property Bushnell owns.)

Dubbed the Cannabis Reform Initiative, the ballot measure slated to come before voters would overhaul cultivation regulations locally, most notably by capping the size of new farms at 10,000 square feet, which would immediately render more than 400 permitted farms — seemingly including Bushnell’s — “non-conforming.” Among the litany of other changes the initiative would bring is a provision that permits would expire annually, as well as others limiting generator use and strengthening road quality requirements. For non-conforming farms, the initiative would allow them to stay in operation as long as they don’t expand their uses — there’s widespread confusion about exactly how this would be interpreted — or apply for another permit.

At more than an acre in size, the initiative, if passed, would absolutely have an impact on Bushnell’s farm, even if just by imposing limitations on its ability to expand, which the initiative defines to mean any “increase in cultivation area, water usage, energy usage or the number or size of any structures used in connection with cultivation.”

Bushnell did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this story. Similarly, Interim County Counsel Scott Miles did not respond to a message asking whether Bushnell had sought advice on whether she has a conflict in the matter. Jay Wierenga, a spokesperson for the Fair Political Practices Commission, meanwhile, said the commission has no record of Bushnell seeking advice or a legally binding opinion on whether it is appropriate for her to participate in discussions and votes on the initiative.

In determining whether Bushnell would have a conflict of interest in last year’s vote to reduce or repeal a cannabis excise tax of $1 to $3 square feet of cultivation area, the FPPC indicated Bushnell would have a conflict if the vote could render a benefit given to less than 25 percent of the population. In that case, the FPPC found that the size of Bushnell’s farm alone presented the potential for a “unique benefit” because its cultivation area is roughly four-times larger than the average permitted cultivation site of one-quarter of an acre.

A county staff report on the reform initiative notes there are 1,027 active permitted farms in Humboldt County, only 19 of which hold permits to cultivate more than 1 acre of cannabis. Bushnell’s is one of those 19, while the majority of permits in the county are to cultivate less than 10,000 square feet.

The ad-hoc committee, which comprises Bushnell, Fourth District Supervisor Natalie Arroyo and Planning Director John Ford, met with the initiative’s proponents last month and planned to again next week. Because the initiative can’t be modified, the ad-hoc committee’s aim seems to be getting proponents to agree to pull the initiative from the ballot in exchange for pledges from the county to change aspects of its cannabis regulations — changes that would almost certainly have to come before the board of supervisors for approval.