The California Marijuana Legalization Initiative (Proposition 64) was passed statewide on November 8, 2016. Kern County is currently considering how to manage commercial and personal use of medicinal and recreational cannabis in unincorporated county.
The Kern County Planning and Natural Resources Department has prepared two options to present to the Kern County Board of Supervisors in October:
Kern County has released a Draft EIR that addresses both options. This is the first EIR on cannabis done by a city or county anywhere in California.
Lorelei Oviatt, AICP, Director of the Kern County Planning and Natural Resources Department, will discuss how this project started, how it has progressed, and what each option could mean for Kern County.
Lorelei Oviatt, AICP
Director of the Kern County Planning and Natural Resources Department
Lorelei Oviatt, AICP, has worked in both the public and private sector in land development. As the Director she manages the Kern County General Plan, Metropolitan Bakersfield General Plan and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) compliance. Her years of professional planning experience in the public and private sectors focuses on project management of large scale, multi-agency planning efforts and moving extremely complex projects through the system under accelerated timeframes.
She is the past Director of the Southern Division for the Central Section of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association, a member of the American Society for Public Administration and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).
She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Sociology and Philosophy from Baldwin Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. After earning this degree she chose to pursue a career in planning as she felt that planning was a better fit than sociology as she wanted to actively participate in the real world implementation of policy to create a quality world for everyone, and not just study such policies in an academic setting. Subsequently, Lorelei earned a Masters of Public Administration from California State University, Bakersfield where she is a Lecturer for Urban Planning in the Department of Business and Public Administration.
If you have any questions please contact Ellen Moore at ellen.moore@reedley.ca.gov
or by phone at
559.637.4200 x 222
