Precisely, $9,100 was given for council and congressional campaigns underway. No one disclosed during the council meeting that they had accepted the money. I think they should have.
So when that tidbit of truth hit the air...someone posted several times on Facebook and on the Press Telegram that I had accepted $600,000. Wowee is that a whopping lie. I spent the large sum of $69,000 on my first council campaign and $20, 596 on my 2010 campaign.
Folks, not only did I not accept a penny from anyone connected with the marijuana business, but since being on city council I have raised only @ $64,000, qualified for candidate matching funds in the amount of @$7,000 and loaned my committee @$17,000. Do the math. That is nowhere near $600k.
Here is the link to my campaign contributors so you can see the truth.
So why the distortion of facts? I can only guess that this supporter of medical marijuana thought she needed to smear me because she and her friends are very angry that the council listened to the advice of our City Attorney and passed a ban on these collectives. I received a handful of angry emails yesterday and today telling me so.
Why are they so mad at me when the vote was 8-1? Because I have been upfront from the beginning that I am not in favor of these collectives but I did vote in support of the city's efforts to try to work within the Compassionate Use Act and allow reasonable access. Then the Court of Appeal said "No" to the City and I voted with 7 other "supporters" of the collectives to ban them in 6 months.
We can argue all day about whether or not marijuana should be legal. It is not legal and only the federal government can change that.
We can also debate -- and the City Council did so extensively -- about whether or not Long Beach should ignore the court ruling in the Pack case which stated that the city could not regulate marijuana collectives because they were illegal. If the city can't regulate we could not stop them from opening in any neighborhood.
And that folks, is the truth.