By Kathryn Reed

The recreational marijuana item on Tuesday’s South Lake Tahoe City Council agenda was a bit of a cluster.

It was initially on the agenda as one sentence without any supporting material. Two presentations were added to the city’s website on March 20, however the council and public had no opportunity to review the documents.

One presentation is from the Development Services Department. It includes information from public safety.

The other document that arrived after the meeting started included 95 questions the council members were expected to answer without being given time to review them.

Councilmember Brooke Laine at the start of Tuesday’s meeting questioned how this item ever got on the agenda without supporting material. The agenda item said possible action, aka a vote, could be taken. But legally that could not have happened based on the public not being given enough information to know what was being voted on. Direction would have been possible.

Interim City Attorney Nira Doherty defended how it was agendized, but said it was highly unusual.

At 3:20pm, when it came time for the item to be discussed, acting City Manager Jeff Meston said it could take three hours to hear the item. He enlightened everyone about all the questions that needed to be answered.

Councilmember Jason Collin suggested the questions be sent to the electeds through something like Survey Monkey so they could be answered and collated. However, doing so might be deemed a serial meeting and would therefore be a violation of the Brown Act.

The council decided to move the item to March 27 at 4pm; it is designed to be the only issue that will be on the agenda that day.