Angels Camp, CA…In January 2017 I took the oath of office to serve as a Supervisor of Calaveras County. One of the most important elements of my job is to protect the citizens of my community from those that endanger the safety and quality of life. Another critical part of my job is to listen to my constituents and spend time studying critical issues. Based upon this listening and learning, I try to make the best decisions I can on critical issues.
In 2014, the previous Calaveras County Board of Supervisors made a huge mistake by allowing the temporary commercial cultivation of marijuana. I want to emphasize this was a temporary permit with no guarantees to those who decided to grow a plant producing a substance listed as an illegal dangerous drug by the United States Government. I compliment Supervisor Mike Oliveira for not casting a vote for this tragic experiment that year.
In 2016 Calaveras voters voted against the state wide legalization of pot and also voted overwhelmingly to enact heavy fees to pay for the enforcement of law while the experiment was allowed to take place.
The result of this experiment was disastrous for our county. More than 1,200 marijuana groves sprung up around the county with only 200 as receiving permits. More than a 1,000 illegal groves often hid in plain site intermingled with the permitted groves. We experienced more criminal activity as gangs and other unsavory elements came into our community. Guns shots were even fired at local residents and gun toting growers threatened them. There was violence committed even between growers.
The former County Supervisors failed on many counts. Probably one of their biggest failings was dealing with the terrible impact of pot cultivation on the environment. Legal and illegal growers are guilty of a failure to deal with the environment impact of their own enterprises. Today they deny any responsibility for a potential cleanup cost potentially more than $250 million per grow. Pot grows emit very offensive odors upon which other states like Washington have place stiff regulations. Then there is the water pollution which was documented in the study Cultivating Disaster which was verified by other studies done such institutions as the University of California Environmental Studies Department.
Just last week the California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the United States Attorney McGregor Scott for the northern section of California warned of precisely these dangers.
In January of this year I cast one of three votes to end commercial marijuana cultivation in Calaveras County. We joined other Sierra Foothill Counties in banning the cultivation. I took this action not based upon my opinion but after careful consideration of the facts. I took this action because I want my constituents and, indeed, all of the people of our county to feel safe. I took this action because I think we all agree we want this county to be known for its legendary country side and towering mountains and redwood trees, for our great wine and the wholesome year round recreation we offer. My constituents were clear: “We do not want to be known as the Pot Growing County!”
The well financed pot growers here and around the state saw our stand against pot cultivation as a threat to their personal wealth. Therefore, Big Pot, like Big Tobacco, elected to try to either recall or defeat a Supervisor who refused to obey their bidding. For the last 90 days paid operatives financed by big pot invaded our county from afar away as Alaska seeking signatures for recall efforts against Supervisor Gary Tofanelli and me. Because of our strong records in our districts they recognized they couldn’t gather signatures because of our strong opposition to commercial pot cultivation so they embarked on a campaign of lies and distortions.
Their literature, website, and signature solicitors totally distorted the facts associating us with Governor Brown and other big spending politicians who support initiatives such as gas tax. They alleged our county was financially broke when that was untrue. These were blatant lies but apparently too many voters fell for them.
The public was totally deceived by Big Pot who lied about our records on the Board of Supervisors. County election officials will now verify the signatures and see if they have the required number to require a run off.
I want my constituents to know that I will continue to honor the pledge I made about 18 months ago to stand for your health, safety and well being. Our county in under attack by outside forces. The best example of their lies is when Big Pot advocate Bob Bowerman declared the effort to recall me as your Supervisor was done by the people. He declared “This was only possible with the community coming together to stop the lies from Mills. We love this county and the people in it.” No! Nearly every solicitor of signatures were paid agents of Big Pot and most do not even live in this county let alone the state or my district.
I ask for the support of my constituents in standing tall against those who seek to change the quality of life here into a pot growing center which will impact us forever. It is your choice.
Statement by Supervisor Dennis Mills after Potential Recall Moves Forward added by admin on
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From what I understand as per law, solicitors are supposed to be registered voters in Calaveras County
As a member of the Committee to Recall Dennis Mills I would like to request an opportunity to answer Mr. Mills assertions just made in your publication. Please advise as to whether you will grant us that opportunity. Thank you. David Kevin Sweet
Anonymous, you understand incorrectly. Anyone 18 years of age and older can gather signatures. It’s has something to do with the First Amendment.
There are so many lies in Mr. Mills statement it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s try the “Big Pot” accusation.
If you were on the ground seeing the day-to-day evolution of this successful recall, “Big Pot” is laugh-out-loud funny. Paid signature gatherers were indeed hired by long time Calaveras resident, retired teacher and recent cannabis farmer Jeremy Maddux.
Jeremy received ZERO help from any “cannabis organization” much less one with vast financial holdings or growing operations. In fact, he complained often about that lack of help. Financially, he put himself at considerable risk paying for this and other recall endeavors out of his own pocket. In fact. I’m going to start a GoFundMe campaign to reimburse some of the money Jeremy spent.
In the three months of gathering signatures, professional gatherers were brought in in the last few days to provide a buffer over the minimum amount of signatures required to recall this deeply dishonest politician. So the total amount of man hours contributed by them was probably well under 5% of the total.
So much for lie number one.
Mr. Mills….it is no secret where your funding and support comes from….Exxon Oil, by way of your buddy Jack Cox. And, let’s not forget Don Parsons…who was supposedly representing the cannabis “community” but yet is one of Mr. Cox close comrades….how cozy that they are as interested in young boys as they are in cannabis and both sit on the Great Yosemite Boy Scouts board. Follow the money and the corruption….there is where you will find the real silent poison….laying down together.
Mr. Mills engages in a unique form of dishonestly I call “wishful thinking lying.” His assertion that his lie-based ban on regulated cannabis farming represents the majority view in this county just got blown out of the water in the June 5th primary. How did Mills friend and proudly anti-regulated farming District 3 candidate Ed Langen fare? Last place, demolished by avowedly pro-regulation Merita Callaway. Second place went to pro-regulation incumbent Michael Oliveira.
How did District 5 anti-cannabis jihadi Clyde Clapp do? He “won” by 13 votes over Ben Stopper with the remaining two candidates votes likely to go to Stopper. Oh, and his vote % was down from 2016. Unless being a puppet for now-being-recalled Dennis Mills gains him support, Mr. Clapp will be defeated.
How about that race for Sheriff? Proud marijuana hater Gary Stevens placed 2nd so will face incumbent Rick DiBasilio in November. Rick missed 50% + 1 by 31 votes. Will hating and lying about state regulated cannabis farmers gain Stevens support from the apparent majority of non-haters?
In summary, all the Dennis Mills-like anti-cannabis fanatics lost, or look certain to lose in November.
So it appears the “majority of the community” Mills refers to either doesn’t vote or votes in an alternative universe only Mr. Mills seems to be familiar with.
When the Mills, Clapp, Tofanelli coalition brings forward proposals to allow FRACKING in our county, please understand that ridding the county of the evils of the cannabis industry was just the first necessary and coordinated step in a much grander scheme….splitting the county into fractured divisive hate camps means we cannot organize to protect our individual property rights…divide and conquer. When the puppets controlling the entire charade put forth a candidate with a long rap sheet including felonies for violent crimes, and we the citizens eat that up and fall for the deception, they are mocking us as a county of idiots….wake up folks while you still have time to save this place.
It’s ironic a politician who connived with two other depraved Supervisors to override the votes of over 15,000 Calaveras County voters (65%) who approved Measure C’s taxation of cannabis farming has the temerity to malign his opponents’ use of paid signature collectors as some kind of underhanded, corrupt trick. It’s standard operating procedure I’m glad we employed. The real problem MR. Mills has with that tactic is it succeeded.
Calling legal and regulated cannabis cultivation (which has stringent environmental controls, and stringent herbicide/pesticide restrictions AND reporting requirements) SILENT POISON is both a set up and a THE BIG DISTRACTION….What better way than to point the finger away from yourself and your nefarious friends in the oil business when the fracking begins and YOU open the gateway for our groundwater to be contaminated and eventually rendered unsuitable for human or animal consumption attempting to retroactively blame cannabis registered farmers. These are the tried and true tactics of your handlers, Mr. Mills. Hope selling out the county was worth it.
Hey Supervisor Mills, why did you delete my comments on your “Support” Facebook page? Too afraid for your 46 followers to read real facts? Your constituency has spoken and they want you OUT in 2019. Happy recall you coward. And now this to chew on too! http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-marijuana-20180608-story,amp.html?__twitter_impression=true
Drain the swamp……recall is a small start
Who is Dennis Mills’ political handler? His silent weapon?
Jack Cox.
Who is Jack Cox and his Communications Institute (author of Silent Poison)?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1981/07/12/the-mystery-angel-of-the-new-right/9d07d1f8-3a21-4d30-9eb2-8d59603a8988/?utm_term=.07f8348def69
Follow the money.
Don’t let this distract you from the fact that if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you may be entitled to financial compensation
No you are ALL WRONG! You are all out for vengeance since the ban put a big dent in your lifestyles-money wise! I’m sure there are also PROPER OUTSIDE or out of county people also watching this county very closely and you are all full of false propaganda! Well let’s see who is going to be running the show state-wise next year. Also you all seem pretty sure of yourselves and when this gets out about all of the hidden agenda and lying behind this recall thing, the good people of this county may just vote the other way and you had wasted all that time and money on the recall petitioning process. A lot of people were basically duped! Have you ever heard of the song “burn baby burn?” There are always 45’s and mine shafts around here too.
Interesting how one of the only people speaking in support of Mr. Mills is also leveling physical threats against those who disagree with him. Threatening violence and sounding hysterical, is this the kind of supporter this supervisor counts on?
250 million to clean up a small organic farm that passed inspection and is adhering to strict Dept. Of Ag guidelines? Following waterboard standard practices? This guy lies so much he should be ignored out of hand, complete nonsense. His supporters have to be on the level of flat earthers at this point.
Please notice Anonymous “you are all WRONG” makes that assertion and, like the liar he supports, offers not one single fact to refute it. Ending with a threat of violence while hiding behind “Anonymous” is all the reasonable people in this community need to see to assess the character of Mills and his divisive followers. They got away with lying and hurting people for awhile but when their lies and nasty characters were revealed, the tables turned.
Seeing his photo on the Dennis Mills Facebook page reminds me of the “all hat and no cattle” put down. His “Devout Christian Cowboy” persona is an insult to the body of Christ and his immoral behavior is an example of his repudiation of “thou shalt not lie.” In all the copies of the Bible I’ve seen, not one of them states “except when you’re lying about marijuana farmers.”
Unemployment in Calaveras jumped from 5 – 25% in one day. 20% of the economy killed. Congratulations Mills, Clapp, Cox, Mc Manus, Tuneo et all. All claim to be Libertarians yet have dedicated lives to limiting others property rights. Regulation can handle the issues that commercial cannabis has caused in residential neighborhoods. From my perspective, they are culpable in giving Agenda 21 power in our rural community, the same way leftists pursue gun bans due to school shootings to take away our 2A rights.
You’d think Mills would know better by now than to lie about us and then expect us not to respond. Being a non-grower in the Recall Dennis Mills campaign put me in the majority. Out of 52 proponents, only seven are growers. And those seven are all the kind of people any fair minded person would be proud to call “friend.”
Mr mills is the dumbest human being I’ve ever seen in my life.
If you go back and look at the footage from the Board of Supervisors meetings on the subject of cannabis cultivation towards the end of 2017, Mills had no problem with the cultivation of up to 1 acre of cannabis in Calaveras County. He just wanted cultivation only allowed on Commercial Agriculture parcels of 100 acres or more, just to grow a half acre to an acre MAX on that 100+ acres… Now who owns most of those limited 100+ acre parcels in Calaveras County??? Ooooo ya his good ol’ pal Jack Cox and his company of cowboys who bought up that land years ago for the purpose of FRACKING… Now California is not going to be allowing FRACKING anytime soon, because it pollutes the ground water and is proven to be terrible for the Environment, they thought how do we push all the “POT FARMERS” to their unused land? Well, by promoting propaganda about “Environmental Damage from Cannabis Cultivation” aka silentpoison.com written by JACK COX and team. SO… its very blatant when you follow the money why Mills is the way he is! He was paid with “gifts” for his role in the corrupt politics of Cannabis Cultivation in Calaveras County one of the poorest counties in the State. So when the local mom and pop cannabis cultivations where permitted between 2016-17, and the local rules were written in such a way to ONLY allow cultivators that had been growing in the county for years prior to be allowed in the Legal marketplace, then these good ol’ boys had to change that policy in order to make some of the money themselves. LETS Be VERY CLEAR….They DO NOT want brown, black, and white men and women all eating together in harmony raising families in “their” county, partly because they are the most racist group of white men thats ever been, and partly because they weren’t going to profit from it as much as they had hoped for! I mean why would these racist idiots want people with funny haircuts who look and act different then the good ol’ boys they’re used to in Calaveras to be prosperous and live a decent life from cultivating sacred plant medicine that actually helps people get off of Big Pharma, Big WINE, Big AG products that they have no problems with giving to men, women and children in “their” county??? That is exactly who Mills is talking about when he says “BIG POT” its his own group of idiots that are paid for by the politics of this game to control the money and mindset instead of let a few new families into their circle of racist cowboys of Calaveras County! Look it up for yourself if you don’t believe its that deep folks! My prayers go out to all the honest hard working people of Calaveras that played by the rules only to get screwed my fools like Dennis MILLS and his cowboy bandits. God Bless! Just know that Karma is Real you can’t escape that MR MILLS!!!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
In response to Mr. Goffinet: Seems like a lot of these unemployed people are probably gonna be drifters and have been in the past so a lot of them may be gone too. I imagine most of them are not from this county and will probably go back to the place they came from-in state out of state, whatever. Let them “drift on!” Be rid of them! This UO should have never happened in the first place!
should have started a growers union i wanted to start a temp service to acomadate growers while putting the locals to work so much good could have come from this industry
anyone against this dosent care about the people of this county and to all you meth haters heres a reallity check for you there is a massive heroin eppademic here right now in this county and all you idiots are worried about stopping something that could bring this county out of poverty judges public defenders district attornys they all eat lunch at the same table and discuss how court cases will be desided people need to educate themselves as to what their rights are and end the curruption in this county im sure its just a matter of time til we have to have a restroom permit to wipe our asses
drifters of course thats a lame statement if i ever heard one this county failed in all matters and proved that they could care less about the peoples votes stooges were allowed to ban something that could of helped all the people and mills wants to glorify wine drinking what a moron