WSLCB - Board Caucus
(April 15, 2025)

Here are some observations from the Tuesday April 15th Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) Board Caucus.

My top 3 takeaways:

• WSLCB had previously organized advisory councils and roundtables for cannabis and alcohol interests, as well as groups representing tribal governments; public health and substance abuse prevention advocates; and researchers.
  • As part of the adoption of ‘board efficiencies’ proposed on March 11th and adopted on March 25th which reduced the number of public meetings hosted by the agency as well as eliminating the verbal comment period, the board took renewed interest in reconvening advisory councils. The board previously used advisory bodies as a public forum to hear from interested parties, and for staff to brief the group on activities or policies relevant to specific substances, governments, and health.
    • Cannabis Advisory Council (WSLCB CAC) - active from May 2018 to April 2021
    • Alcohol Advisory Council (WSLCB AAC) - last convened in December 2021
    • Tribal Advisory Council (WSLCB TAC) - last convened in April 2019
      • Later that April, then-Board Member and WSLCB TAC chair Russ Hauge remarked that the tribal liaison was a “better vehicle” for them to work with sovereign Indian Tribes, rather than WSLCB requesting participation in council meetings. At the time, Board Member Ollie Garret said she felt the council gathering “wasn’t productive.” Hauge again endorsed a less formal consultation system with tribal governments that November.
      • In 2023, the agency hired Marla Conwell as Tribal Liaison.
  • In addition to the public advisory groups, WSLCB also hosted roundtables, invite-only events closed to the public between staff and invited guests from the public health and prevention community, or with researchers, or with representatives of sports entertainment facilities (SEFs). Agency officials had sole discretion over who constituted members of those groups, and what-—if any—-of their discussions to highlight publicly.
    • Public Health Education Liaison Kristen Haley also organized a high-tetrahydocannabinol (THC) focus group in 2024 where meetings were closed to the public and participants were selected by agency staff.

• Board Chair Jim Vollendroff proposed reforming two advisory councils, and formalizing a distinction between WSLCB advisory councils and roundtables.
  • Vollendroff explained that as part of implementing efficiency strategies, he was revisiting a "commitment that we've made to the community…to stand up the advisory councils that we have traditionally had.” He’d also heard from “members of the legislature and internally, [a] couple of different scenarios or formats have been discussed, and I wanted to share with you my proposal of where we head” (audio - 1m, video - TVW, video - WSLCB).
  • Vollendroff outlined proposals related to tribal consultation, plus his revised view on a public health and substance prevention advisory body which elicited a question from Garrett (audio - 2m, video - TVW, video - WSLCB).
    • The first proposal from Vollendroff was to officially disband TAC, citing the hiring of Conwell, and "in recognizing the uniqueness of government-to-government contracting, I'm proposing that we just continue to have the work that…Conwell has done in terms of that relationship.”
    • Vollendroff also backed off a March 25th suggestion of a “public health/prevention…group” (video - WSLCB). He shared that, “since that time, I've actually reconsidered that.” He attributed the change to “feedback that I received in talking with legislators around that proposal, and I was asked whether that was our primary mission.” Vollendroff felt input from public health and prevention aligned with the WSLCB mission, yet “it feels like we have an existing structure in place, and that is the public health prevention roundtable format that seems to be working.” He concluded that the agency should “move forward with just the two advisory councils, one for cannabis, one for alcohol.”
    • Garrett agreed with discontinuing the tribal council but then addressed Vollendroff's references to meetings with legislators. "When we created the advisory council, it was internal among the board members, nothing to do with any direction from legislators,” she told her colleagues. She wanted to clarify whether the councils were serving a legislatively directed role, or an internal role for the board (audio - 1m, video - TVW, video - WSLCB).
      • Vollendroff responded that while the initial creation of the councils was internal, he had been questioned by legislators when he met with them “just to talk about why we've made [board efficiency] changes and what we're hoping to achieve, and how we plan to continue to have community voice in our work.”
  • Vollendroff delved into more particulars about how the councils and roundtables would work going forward (audio - 4m, video - TVW, video - WSLCB).
    • He outlined how roundtables would continue in their current format, closed to the public and one board member participating, with a public health/prevention group, along with a “sports and entertainment facilities” roundtable. Vollendroff noted that agency leaders had already been “meeting independently” with SEF representatives. “I would also suggest that we hold open the opportunity for additional roundtables that come up,” if the board felt it useful.
      • Vollendroff, who had a background in behavioral health and recovery when joining the board, pointed out that he’d taken over from former Board Chair David Postman as lead of the public health/prevention roundtable. Besides this role, Vollendroff also represented the board in SEF meetings, tribal conversations, and weekly internal Agency Directors (formerly called Management Team) meetings which Holmes professed an interest in attending on March 11th. It remained unclear to what extent Vollendroff briefed or requested input from his fellow board members on any of those proceedings.
    • Advisory councils would be “structured as they historically have, public meetings with all of us attending,” Vollendroff stated. He argued that Garrett should be the WSLCB CAC lead, citing her seniority on the board and past leadership of that council, and proposed Pete Holmes would act as lead for the WSLCB AAC. “I'm open to discussion if there's a board member that really has a significant interest in any one of those areas and wants to step in, I'm happy to have that conversation.”
      • Garrett's institutional knowledge from serving on the board since 2016, previously leading the WSLCB CAC, and representing the agency on the Washington State Legislative Task Force on Social Equity in Cannabis made her a sensible choice to continue as head of that group.
      • However, Holmes, who joined the board in January, could be considered to have the most expertise in cannabis policy of anyone to have joined the board since it became responsible for regulating the plant. Before being one of the earliest elected officials to back Initiative 502 in 2012, he pioneered a policy as Seattle City Attorney not to pursue cannabis possession prosecutions in 2009. Holmes also served on the board of directors for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) prior to joining the board and publicly backed a bill to legalize cannabis home grows in 2024.
        • This was reflected in Holmes’ March 14th confirmation hearing by the Washington State Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, where most of the discussion focused on his cannabis perspectives.

• With no questions from the other board members, Vollendroff offered a few remarks on how he planned to move forward standing up the councils.
  • With no opposition to his proposals for the advisory bodies, Vollendroff wrapped up his remarks by noting that groups would probably meet twice annually, but he wanted to be mindful not to inadvertently add more meetings than were reduced through efficiency changes.
    • The WSLCB Public Health and Prevention Roundtable meets quarterly to receive briefings while privately sharing perspectives with the Chair and agency staff leaders. At publication time, the group had last met on March 24th, an event that Vollendroff had not publicly mentioned nor briefed board members on. Cannabis Observer learned about the event when Washington Association for Substance Misuse and Violence Prevention (WASAVP) Board Member and Lobbyist Scott Waller vaguely referenced it in public testimony to legislators (video - TVW), indicating participants had received a demonstration of a prototype dashboard on youth access compliance checks from WSLCB Research Program staff.  At publication time, the dashboard remained unpublished and had not been otherwise mentioned publicly.
  • Vollendroff said he’d work with Executive Assistant Gretchen Frost ("sooner rather than later”) to initiate the proposed council revisions “and take it to the next steps.”