In 2024, Roy Lee shocked Santa Barbara County by defeating 21-year political veteran Das Williams by a mere 565 votes to win the race for First District supervisor.

Williams was arrogantly dismissive of candidate Lee, a then-Carpinteria city councilman, who raised $90,000 — most of it from “reasonable cannabis” — and animated his hometown voters with a promise to “fix cannabis.”

On Tuesday, March 10, almost two years to the day since Lee was elected, the Board of Supervisors will meet and his most ardent supporters will determine if he can begin delivering on his promise.

County staff are recommending that the Board of Supervisors grant seven Carpinteria cannabis farms more time to install carbon filtration systems designed to reduce odors. Staff has decided an eighth operation waited too long to begin compliance efforts and should be denied an extension.

The First District has reached the cannabis-precipice and Lee must now decide if he will lead his fellow supervisors across the Rubicon or if, instead, he will shrink in the face of the cannabis industrial complex that, according to the Grand Jury, delivered $16 million in losses to our budget-challenged county over the past five years.

It is an industry that finds unprecedented protection from the scores of full-time employees (mostly in the Planning & Development Department) and county-paid consulting groups that rely on it for their livelihood.

From the start, Lee didn’t take his promise all that seriously, leaving much of the pro-cannabis apparatus and complicated cannabis-favoring, lobbyist-written, legal framework intact.

Instead, he relied on Williams devotees — people who actively campaigned for and contributed to Williams’ campaign — to provide him with senior-level advice and counsel.

This allowed for cursory and toothless changes to the county cannabis operations ordinance — driven by Planning & Development — relating to property line testing standards, methods and odor thresholds.

Note: Unbelievably, some in Lee’s chosen inner-circle actually recused themselves from certain cannabis hearings.

The result left the county with just one remedy to perhaps cure the problem: license revocation for the failure to deploy required odor technology.

Per the ordinance, any grower who by March 18, 2026, has not installed “multitechnology carbon filtration” or something better risks losing their license.

Of the systems being considered, only one meets the multitechnology code requirement.  This system, rigorously and independently tested, is — with 10 units per acre — 84% effective.

Yet, because the growers have zero respect for the law or their neighbors, 50% of the Carpinteria Valley cannabis acreage is being grown without the mandated technology.

There is no question that the county’s failure to even discuss “license revocation” following the myriad of possible violations uncovered during the Glass House Farms raids in Carpinteria emboldened the entire industry.

Now their refrain is clear: “We dare you to take action.”

As I wrote in an August commentary, “If nationally televised raids don’t result in a license revocation hearing … nothing ever will.” I hope I’m proven wrong!

These decisions have come home to roost as evidenced by the Planning & Development Department’s advocacy for a lesser/ineffective and, of course, much cheaper system that doesn’t nearly comply with the ordinance.

In fact, the county’s outside consulting group, Geosyntec, didn’t approve the system, which doesn’t use “multitechnology carbon filtration” and was tested at 59% ineffective.

Sad Truth: Many who supported Lee continue to spend millions of dollars in legal fees to solve a public nuisance that, by law, is the county’s problem to solve.

On Tuesday, after eight long years of suffering and fighting by Lee’s constituents, 11 cannabis grower corporations will, with straight faces and pleas of hardship, be asking for extensions of up to one year.

And here is the not so surprising kicker: The Planning & Development Department, cannabis’ best friend, is recommending the extensions in all but one case — one in which the grower in question is a defendant in a citizen-funded class-action lawsuit.

Our elected officials have allowed county staff to become this insidious industry’s de facto partner, coddling growers in ways that are completely baffling and suspect. Who runs our district, Roy Lee or P&D?

Lee is, as billed, “extremely nice.” But for the 17,000 residents in our Carpinteria Valley community this is serious business in which results matter.

Cannabis exists within an intellectually complicated legal framework, and knowing the intricacies was imperative for anyone elected and trusted to solve the problem.

Sometimes it’s tough to be, well, tough, but this is not one of those times.

Lee must demonstrate leadership to the Board of Supervisors and the 13,000 people who voted for him.

What he can’t do is worry all too much about a handful of corporations that don’t deserve more county grace.

Don’t believe the whining and litany of excuses we have all heard for years and begin to “fix cannabis.” Please, honor your promise and our public trust.