Port Huron officials reject latest marijuana petition, but it's still headed for Aug. 3 ballot

Another marijuana ballot proposal is set to go before Port Huron voters on Aug. 3 — this time asking them to change a measure the majority already approved last November.

It’s just the latest step in a months-long process to award licenses for recreational and medical marijuana businesses after City Council members rejected a second petition initiative from Progress for Michigan 2020 at a meeting on Monday.

The group’s representatives have alleged the latest proposal to change its original ordinance is to put a bigger emphasis on medical marijuana licensure and prevent future lawsuits against the city.

“If that was your proposal, why is it that you don’t like it now?” Mayor Pro Tem Sherry Archibald said Monday, posing a question for Michael Woodyard, an attorney for Progress for Michigan, about the group’s first measure.

“What happens if you don’t like the results of the next one? How many times can we just keep going back and pay for an election for something we had already solved?”

Progress for Michigan 2020 announced its intent to circulate another petition April 16, collecting required signatures in less than a month. Under the city’s charter, if council decides against adopting a petition ordinance, as it did Monday, it automatically heads to an election ballot.

That means Progress for Michigan meets the deadline Tuesday to get a measure on the August ballot.

“This was not a budgeted item. This outside group has brought this petition and will now cost the taxpayers $20,000 to hold a special election. There was no election scheduled,” said City Manager James Freed. “The last ordinance they brought has brought on significant legal challenges to the city. We are being sued by multiple parties for an ordinance that we did not write. This outside group is not providing for our legal defense fund.”

Group's attorney faces questions from council members

Progress for Michigan’s latest proposal would:

• Prohibit the city from awarding adult-use marijuana licenses under the state’s recreational law until at least three medical licenses are awarded for provisioning centers
• Void all provisional licenses already awarded for retail shops and marijuana consumption establishments 
• Repeal the scoring system for recreational pot businesses
• Leave provisional licenses already issued for medical marijuana facilities unaffected

Woodyard said the group relied on the city’s charter to act on the latest initiative.

Although the city had already adopted an ordinance to award recreational marijuana permits last fall, Progress for Michigan compelled its first proposal on the November ballot through court action. Once approved by voters, it replaced the city’s rules with an in-depth process to accept applications for both medical and recreational marijuana businesses, as well as a system to score, rank and award provisional licenses.

The city clerk’s office finished that process in February.

By this spring, three lawsuits had been filed against the city over the results. Two went before Circuit Judge Cynthia Lane in April, where she pressed a pause on the licensing process.

Woodyard said that they hadn’t anticipated encountering “what you might call sore loser lawsuits” challenging the system the group’s ordinance laid out.

Instead, he said they felt updating their voter-approved ordinance would prevent continued litigation and allow at least “medical to go full steam ahead.” He later clarified that awarding licenses under the state’s recreational marijuana act requires applications to be scored on a competitive basis, but that there is “no such requirement in medical licensing.”

“We think that brings the focus back to where we think it should be,” Woodyard said.

Although a Progress for Michigan spokesman has said previously that they were following the will of Port Huron voters who’ve overwhelmingly supported marijuana-related measures in the past, city officials have said the language of the 2020 ballot question was misleading and confusing. 

On Monday, council members reiterated those concerns, asking Woodyard why this time would be different.

“I don’t know that I would go down the road of whether the voters knew what they were voting for,” Woodyard said. “I think that’s a dangerous road.”

Councilman Jeff Pemberton questioned why Progress for Michigan thought the city should have to pay for the election “rather than waiting on this process” to play out in circuit court.

“What is so important that this has to have a special election in August for your clients? And how’s that better for the city of Port Huron?” he said.

“Frankly, my client doesn’t know what’s going to happen,” Woodyard said, referencing lawsuits against the city. In two of them, Progress for Michigan is named as an intervening party. I don’t think anybody knows.”

When Pemberton pressed him, Woodyard said, “I’m not going to spar with you on that.”

Mayor Pauline Repp questioned who Progress for Michigan represented in the marijuana industry — and whether they were license applicants with something at stake in the process paused by litigation.

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” Woodyard said.

“I think I do, but that’s OK,” the mayor replied. With what felt like “an outside group trying to run our city," she said, it “just seems unfair.”

Contact Jackie Smith at jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.