Grasslands Agency
February 27, 2024
You have to celebrate your wins, and at Grasslands one of our core values is to “share the win” too! This week on The Weedsmith, chief executive officer at MAKR House & chairman of the board and executive director of Supernova Women, Amber Senter, shares her experience helping to develop the equity program during negotiations surrounding Oakland’s Cannabis Ordinance. The Weedsmith runs Wednesdays on Grasslands LinkedIn and Instagram pages.
Transcription:
Ricardo Baca:
You are listening to The Weedsmith, a show about modern cannabis thought leadership. And today I'm thankful to be sitting across from Amber Senter. I want to talk about one of your recent wins in business. And maybe it was a time that could've gone either way, good or bad, but it ultimately ended up in the "win" category.
Amber Senter:
There was a period when Oakland was working through its cannabis ordinance. And we were going to the City Council twice a week. Planning Commission meetings, Regulatory Commission.
We happened to be at the meeting where Desley Brooks, who is the creator, the architect of the equity program, where she announced her idea of the equity program. We had been going to all the meetings before that as well, And so when she did come up with this equity program, we were a really big part of finalizing the details of it, coming up with the parameters on qualifying for it.
That was a really interesting and awesome experience because it taught us how to engage with our civic leaders at a local level. And now we’ve been able to work with other municipalities trying to learn from Oakland but do it better. But being able to be a part of something so big that affects people in different places across the country has been a pretty awesome thing. And helping people so many people in our community that deserve a chance in this industry.
