The Siskiyou County sheriff is standing by controversial comments he made at a recent Dunsmuir City Council meeting. Dunsmuir Mayor Nick Mitchell asked Sheriff Jon Lopey at the Friday meeting for his opinion on the role of the Sheriff’s Office if the council adopted a medical marijuana cultivation ordinance up for discussion that night. Lopey spoke for more than 20 minutes on his experiences as a law enforcement officer dealing with medical marijuana, but his comments about the stabbing of a deputy earlier that day grabbed the attention of residents, Sean Longoria reports in the [...]
A Mendocino County man awaiting trial there for murder has been arrested for the 2005 kidnapping and murder of a Fort Jones woman, it was announced today by the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. Phillip William Frase, 62, of Layton is accused of murdering Patricia Katherine Joseph, 56, whose body was found in July 2005 floating in the Klamath River. An autopsy determined that she died of blunt force trauma and asphyxia, the Redding Record Searchlight reports. Sheriff’s detectives said today that numerous people were originally questioned about the case, but there was not enough evidence [...]
A former Mount Shasta city councilwoman will have to serve 210 days in the Siskiyou County jail on charges she sold pot to an undercover deputy posing as a high school student. At a hearing last week, Siskiyou County Superior Court Judge Karen Dixon sentenced Katrina Howard to a five-year, eight-month suspended prison sentence, said Martha Aker, a Siskiyou County deputy district attorney. Howard had earlier pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a crime and possession of marijuana for sale, the Redding Record-Searchlight reports, with the special allegation of being armed with a firearm. Howard [...]
Dunsmuir’s planning commission Wednesday night unanimously rejected a proposal by the city’s mayor to build three marijuana greenhouses in the downtown historic district. Dunsmuir Mayor Peter Arth wanted to build marijuana greenhouses in a vacant lot on Cedar Street, across the street from a Siskiyou County sheriff’s substation. But planning commissioners objected to the location and said it would detract from the historic nature of the area, the Redding Record-Searchlight reports. Commissioner Rick Galassi said the 6-foot chain link fence that Arth planned to build around the lot would have made it look like a [...]
Siskiyou County sheriff’s officials are investigating whether a popular outdoor writer from Weed was part of a larger drug operation, an official said Thursday. Tom Stienstra, 55, was arrested March 25 on suspicion of having marijuana for sale. The case was forwarded to the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s Office, but the case was sent back to the Sheriff’s Department for further investigation, District Attorney Kirk Andrus said in an interview last month. Andrus could not be reached at his office Thursday, the Redding Record-Searchlight reports. But six weeks after that raid, Stienstra still has not [...]
About 45 people packed the Dunsmuir City Council chambers for a public hearing Thursday night on whether the Siskiyou County town should adopt medical marijuana cultivation regulations. The hearing was sparked in part by Mayor Peter Arth’s proposal to build three greenhouses to grow medical cannabis across from the Siskiyou County sheriff’s substation in downtown Dunsmuir. Arth plans to lease three plots he owns to Leslie Wilde, who runs a medical cannabis dispensary a few blocks away. Wilde says the greenhouse operation would provide a safe supply of organic marijuana for her members, who number [...]

Dunsmuir’s mayor and a medicinal marijuana collective owner want to plant a marijuana garden smack-dab in the middle of the city’s historical business district. “We’re trying to bring the growing of medical cannabis out of the darkness of an underground market and into the legal light,” said Mayor Peter Arth. Arth, himself a medical marijuana patient, wants to lease three commercial lots he owns at Dunsmuir Avenue and Cedar Street to Green-Collar Compassionate Collective owner Leslie Wilde. The property is across the street from the Siskiyou County sheriff’s substation. The Dunsmuir City Council will hear [...]
Popular outdoor writer and author Tom Stienstra has been arrested on suspicion of possessing marijuana for sale, according to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office. “Weed Wars” update: Siskiyou County DA declines to file charges, returns case to sheriff for further investigation. San Francisco Chronicle coverage, reaction Stienstra, 55, was arrested March 25 after sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant at his home in Weed and found a “sophisticated cultivation operation” in his barn, sheriff’s office spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp said in an e-mail reported by the Redding Record-Searchlight. Deputies allegedly found 31 immature marijuana plants, 29 [...]
The city of Dunsmuir now has an ordinance that regulates Proposition 215 medical marijuana collectives and cooperatives, the Siskiyou Daily News reports. Leslie Wilde, owner of the Green Collar Compassionate Collective, is questioning aspects of the ordinance as well as the limitations she will now face in bringing safe medical marijuana access to her members. At its March 18 meeting, the Dunsmuir City Council passed the ordinance, which has been in the works since November, when the council created a special committee to help devise a list of appropriate regulations. When the ordinance goes into [...]
The Record-Searchlight continues to impress with this in-depth look at medical marijuana ordinances in Shasta, Siskiyou and Tehama counties in Northern California. Carla Thompson, Shasta Lake’s top planner, recalled that she felt a sense of urgency last summer when interest in opening medical marijuana dispensaries started growing in her city. The nonprofit clinics had already taken root in neighboring Redding, writes veteran R-S reporter David Benda. “We knew how many collectives were in the city of Redding at the time, and we had some concern we might see that same thing happen here,” said Thompson, [...]







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