SCPG to Write Supervisors Asking Them to Adopt the SD County Board of Planning Commissioners' Recommendations at Tuesday's Meeting
- Susan Heavilin
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
The Sweetwater Community Planning Group's next meeting will be this Tuesday, September 1, 2026 beginning at 7PM. The meeting will take place at its usual location, the Bonita-Sunnyside Fire Station located at 4900 Bonita Road.
The public is welcome to attend and will have the opportunity of public comment during Item 4. These are comments about non-agenda items and requests to add subjects to future agendas.
The agenda may be found below.
September 1, 2026 Sweetwater Community Planning Group agenda | Click on images to enlarge
Item 7 (see in image above) discusses the Socially Equitable Cannabis Program and might be a little confusing as to which proposal the Letter of Support endorses. The Board of Supervisors and the County Planning Commission hold different views on how the Cannabis Program should be run.
On 01.14.26, the Board of Supervisors approved the state-aligned options which are the least restrictive and do not give response to the unincorporated concerns.
On 4/10/26, SD County Planning Commissioners, in a 4-1 decision, made recommendations substantially aligned with those land use recommendations requested by CPSGs which submitted comments at this time and in the past. The PC recommendations included "prohibition of outdoor cultivation, increasing the required buffer distance from 600 to 1,000 feet from 6 sensitive areas (schools, places of worship, daycares, youth centers, parks, trails), and to allow educational events on-site (with no product sampling.)"
I believe the following description of Item 7 is a bit more clear as to what is desired.
7. Letter of Support in consensus with other Community Planning Groups and Sponsor Planning Groups concerning the adoption of the Socially Equitable Cannabis Program. The Letter of Support is requesting the Board of Supervisors adopt the SD County Board of Planning Commissioners' recommendations.
The item will be presented by SCPG member Harriet Taylor. The video referenced may be watched below.
Lynne Malinowski—of the Rainbow CPG—wrote the following email on June 1, 2026 to all those attending the Association of Planning Groups & Association of Sponsors Groups (APG). The APG is sanctioned by the SD County Planning & Development Services:
Hello all,
Great to see those who attended the 5/30/26 APG meeting and heard the SANDAG presentation. I know that in the open session part of the meeting, if time allowed, some of us wanted to bring up the impending vote by the Board of Supervisors on the SECP Cannabis Ordinance.
At the 4/10/26 SD County Planning Commission meeting, in a 4-1 decision, the PC voted to recommend a different set of options for the program than the majority Board of Supervisors approved at their 1/14/26 meeting. The PC recommendations substantially aligned with those land use recommendations requested by CPSGs which submitted comments at this time and in the past. The BOS had voted for the state-aligned options which are the least restrictive, and gave little heed to the unincorporated concerns. The PC recommendations were: prohibition of outdoor cultivation, increasing the required buffer distance from 600 to 1,000 feet from 6 sensitive areas (schools, places of worship, daycares, youth centers, parks, trails), and to allow educational events on-site (with no product sampling.)
The Rainbow CPG requested a copy of the SECP staff presentation to the Planning Commissioners in order to view what information had been given to them to help inform their decision. Also at the meeting, the Fallbrook, Bonsall, and Valley Center CPSGs made presentations that highlighted the importance of the need for the BOS and the PC to listen to the feedback of the communities which would be most affected by the program. Commissioner Pallinger spoke about the importance and relevance of the input he received from his area (District 5). I have attached the documents to this email along with the summary of the program provided for Rainbow.
With the importance of CSPG input actually realized at this meeting, and the potential impact that it can have at the 6/10/26 Board of Supervisors meeting, it is my purpose to engage you all in this program’s final phase of approval. Please take a look at the documents and if possible, contribute your comments to the Board of Supervisors, and hopefully request that they support the Planning Commission’s recommendations to the ordinance. This is a program for which the County has spent $5,000,000 developing. It is important that they execute it with consideration of our unincorporated region, where the communities are going to bear the impact of it.
Our voices deserve to be heard and respected.
Twin Oaks Valley Community Sponsor Group sent the following letter discussing the topic of the Socially Equitable Cannabis Program to the Board of Supervisors:
Further Information from the Planning Commission Meeting
Here is the vote on Agenda Item 1 at the April 2026 San Diego County Planning Commission Meeting. The vote was 4-1 in favor of supporting the requests of the Community Planning Groups (CPGs) and Sponsor Planning Groups (SPGs). Two commissioners were absent and one commissioner voted against the planning groups.
KEY: RA= Ronald Ashman; YC = Yolanda Calvo; ME = Michael Edwards; DP = David Pallinger; MW= Molly Weber; CS=Colton Sudberry; KS= Kevin Sabellico -- Y = Yes Vote; N = No Vote; A = Absent; R = Recused; AB = Abstain | Click on image to enlarge
If you can't locate the vote on the Socially Equitable Cannabis Program, it appears at the bottom of the page.
The one vote cast against the Planning Groups belongs to our own District One Planning Commissioner, Kevin Sabellico. He was appointed by our District One Supervisor Paloma Aguirre.
Why does this not surprise me? When he was introduced at a recent Sweetwater Community Planning Group and spoke in length, he made a curious statement.
Sweetwater CPG member John Taylor had asked Kevin Sabellico if he would listen to what this planning group had to say and support their concerns. That's not the exact question but you get the gist. Commissioner Sabellico's response was something like as follows.
"No, I don't listen to Planning Groups."—District One Planning Commissioner Kevin Sabellico
Obviously not.
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