The Takeover continued from page 10 The town board was also the local licensing authority for the grow operations, and there were many ways that members could per- sonally benefi t from the industry they were supposed to regulate. Skoglund’s road work was just one example; another boardmember worked as a consultant, helping growers with their licensing applications, while others were in the process of obtaining cultivation licenses themselves. Barely a month after Reigel stepped down, the new mayor, Cassandra Foxx, signed off on an emergency ordinance shift- ing Moffat’s marijuana licensing duties from the town board to the town clerk. The change meant that licensed marijuana growers could park” is one of the cheapest points of entry into commercial cultivation. The individual growers may be hard to categorize, but their collective presence is felt by their neighbors in Moffat in many ways, from the increased traffi c and loud music occasionally emanating from the compound to more subtle cultural infl u- ences. When Area 420 boosters discovered that Moffat’s date of incorporation was April 20, 1911, they took it as a stroke of kismet — and license to promote the stoner- sacred numbers at every turn. Earlier this year, the mayor and the town board agreed to set their compensation at a monthly rate of $420 each. The town hall wi-fi password is, yep, Townhall420. A posting by the mayor on a community Facebook page, seeking applicants for the po- She says that she’s received threats for her ac- tivism and that others have been intimidated into silence: “There are people who won’t even come out of their house. They don’t want to speak about it for fear of retaliation.” Several longtime residents spoke to West- word about the controversy but requested anonymity. They raised concerns about the potential costs of changing the town’s name, from altering signage and legal documents to rerouting Social Security checks; the impacts it will have on the 650 people who live in the Moffat zip code but don’t live in the town limits; the challenge of trying to attract non- cannabis businesses to a town called Kush; and even the image problem it presents for high school athletics. “I really don’t want to be rooting for the Kush Cowboys,” says one. Biggio describes the local opposition as Everybody knows everybody’s name.” Biggio’s proposal prompted Veno to take a closer look at how things worked in town. He says he’s been unable to get straight answers about the town’s fi nances, its shifting regula- tions regarding Area 420, the environmental impacts of such a large grow facility, and how the town board can continue to govern while enmeshed in so many confl icts of interest. “You’ve got a small group of people, and I honestly don’t believe they did the research that needed to be done before allowing this annexation,” he says. “If they’re going to be the cannabis capital of the world and shove people out of this town who have been here for generations, then the town has lost its allure. I’ve had calls from two dispensaries in town, telling me they’re not going to be strong-armed by this guy. There are growers Roads through the complex are named to honor the green rush; employees of one of the Area 420 growers inspect their crop. now serve on the town board without break- ing a state law that bans licensees from being members of a licensing authority. “There are members of the commu- nity who would like to serve on the Board of Trustees but are currently prohibited from serving under State Law as they are ‘badged,’” the ordinance noted. And just like that, the growers were in the driver’s seat. 12 According to Biggio, Area 420’s growers are diffi cult to pigeonhole. They include experi- enced cultivators who’ve gone independent after laboring in the factories of “corporate cannabis,” as well as newcomers to the fi eld who are fl eeing the urban chaos of the pan- demic. They are former restaurant workers, laid-off techies, back-to-the-land neo-hip- pies and hard-nosed businesspeople who, like Biggio, used to operate in the shadows. Most of them come from outside Colorado. Some come from other countries. A few have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in elaborate technology, while others have scraped together just enough for a bare-bones outside grow, with the hope of moving the operation indoors after a good harvest or two. Area 420 sells them land at a price of $250,000 an acre — 20 percent down, in-house fi nanc- ing available, and a half-price discount for those who qualify as “social equity clients.” Buildout and licensing costs are the client’s worry, but Biggio maintains that his “cannabis sition of town clerk, featured a giant bundle of weed occupying an offi ce chair. “I wanted to make sure that we got cannabis-friendly applicants,” Mayor Foxx says. “We deal with a lot of cannabis regulation, and we need somebody who’s going to be comfortable with that.” A paralegal who works in Monte Vista, Foxx is an unabashed booster of the name change. A few weeks ago, she posted a giddy video of herself announcing that she “just got off the phone with CNN” — which was criti- cized in some quarters for lacking mayoral decorum. She also recently appeared in an Area 420 promotional video that features a fair amount of keg-draining and spliff-fi ring, albeit not by her. “I like growth,” Foxx says. “I like change. I understand it’s a hard thing for a lot of people. But nothing good in life happened because everybody was comfortable.” Some changes are harder to accept than others. The open consumption of marijuana around town hasn’t been much of an issue, except when it occurs during breaks in board meetings. “Last night I had to ask one of the boardmembers to open a window because we were getting hotboxed in there,” says Dawn Lee Mayo. “I don’t think the smell of pot is as bad as cigarettes, but I think it’s inappropriate at a public meeting.” A teacher and sister of boardmember Skoglund, Mayo is probably the town’s most outspoken opponent of Biggio’s proposal. “grumpy old men” who “don’t want you to move a rock across the road.” He predicts that “Welcome to Kush” T-shirt sales alone will outpace any economic development project the town could devise. At the same time, he admits that the community needs more than cannabis to thrive. He says he has a letter of intent from “a billionaire inves- tor who has twenty-something RV parks around the country. He wants to do one here — but only if we change the name to Kush, Colorado. I have another gentleman who’s interested in building a hotel, same thing.” His opponents argue that the canna- bis industry still carries a stigma that can discourage other businesses from moving to town. Skoglund says the name change could drive away buyers from a new hous- ing development he’s planning. “Marijuana is a very large industry, but there are other things happening here as well,” he observes. Tony Veno also sees the name change as bad for business. He came to the Moffat area in search of his retirement dream, he says, only to see it imperiled by Biggio’s big idea. “Me and my wife are investing our life’s income into a bed-and-breakfast,” he reports, “and I’ll be go to hell if it’s going to be in the town of Kush.” A former Texan, drawn to the San Luis Valley by its “all-around beauty,” Veno has owned property in Saguache County since 2017. Moffat, he says, had everything he was looking for: “Small town. Great people. who don’t want to be part of this.” Skoglund, too, has had conversations with growers who are skeptical of the name change. Because of his construction work, he’s had more interaction with Area 420’s clients than most townspeople. In his view, some are good neighbors, others aren’t. “Some just come in and trash out the place,” he says. “Their fences are shit, they have garbage blowing around, they have stuff stacked out in the roads. I maintain the roads, and it’s hard to run a road grader down there when they have campers, con- tainers and vehicles in the damn road.” A few months ago, the town hired a can- nabis compliance offi cer, fi lling a position that had been vacant for more than a year. The new hire, Colin Mudd, runs a Denver- based cannabis consulting fi rm that works with industry clients and had Biggio’s strong backing. Biggio points out that Moffat is one of only a few municipalities to have such a post. Primary responsibility for compliance issues rests with the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Marijuana Enforcement Divi- sion. A MED spokesperson acknowledges that the division has an “open and ongo- ing investigation” into Area 420 licensees but declines to provide further details. Not every investigation produces evidence of violations, and the division’s reports of ad- ministrative actions taken from 2019 through the fi rst six months of continued on page 14 AUGUST 11-17, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com ALAN PRENDERGAST COLORADOAREA420.COM
