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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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US: Oakland City Council Agrees to Tax Cannabis Kate Mclean Bay Citizen Monday 26 Jul 2010 Council members Desley Brooks, Ignacio De La Fuente, Larry Reid, Jane Brunner and Patricia Kernighan voted in favor of the tax plan, which was drafted by Brooks. Rebecca Kaplan, Jean Quan and Nancy Nadel abstained. Now that the cannabis taxes have been approved by the council, they will be placed on the November ballot for city voters to consider. If those voters approve the taxes, they could generate millions to help to help close the city's budget gap, which is projected to reach $50 million next year. But many from the city's dispensaries argue the taxes are too high and could threaten Oakland’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry—or worse, send patients to Berkeley, where the tax is lower. In a compromise measure, Jean Quan, who is running for mayor, introduced an amendment to lower the dispensary tax to 2.5 percent—which would be the same as that in neighboring Berkeley. But the proposal failed to generate the five votes needed to pass. In the lead-up to the vote, confusion reigned at the meeting, which began 45 minutes late. City Council President Jane Brunner asked the city attorney's office for a legal opinion on whether the council should allow public comment on all seven revenue-raising measures on the council's agenda. The council had held a long public hearing with numerous speakers on the proposed measures Thursday night, and Brunner didn't want to allow more public comment tonight on most of the measures. But Mark Morodomi, supervising deputy for the city attorney's Open Government Program, said the council should allow comments on all of the measures because it wasn't clear whether Monday’s meeting was merely a continuance of last Thursday's meeting or a completely new meeting. Councilman Ignacio De La Fuente sparred with Vice Mayor Jean Quan over her proposal for taxing medical cannabis businesses. "If we keep adding motions we might not do anything until next year," De La Fuente said. Before the meeting began, De La Fuente, who is the council's longest-serving member, said a cannabis tax is the only measure he would support. "We can't continue to tax people when they are losing their homes," he said. In other matters, the council passed a controversial public safety parcel tax that would impose a tax of up to $360 a year and raise up to $53 million annually—on the condition that Oakland police eventually pay 9 percent into their pension plans. Supporters said the measure would help the city hire more police officers after 80 officers were recently laid off so the city could balance its budget. It, too, would need to be approved by city voters in November—something that many City Council members said was unlikely to happen. Lauren Callahan of Oakland North and the Bay City News Service contributed reporting. http://www.baycitizen.org/marijuana/story/oakland-city-council-agrees-tax-cannabis/
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