Kalamazoo commissioners unanimously adopted changes to the city’s marijuana social equity policy, adding expungement workshops as an explicit funding priority.
The Kalamazoo City Commission voted 7-0 on August 17 to adopt amendments to the city’s marijuana social equity policy, updating how the city directs marijuana tax revenue toward community benefit programs.
The policy, first adopted in 2020 alongside the city’s marijuana licensing framework, is funded by 25% of local marijuana business permit fees and state marijuana tax revenue, historically between $280,000 and $350,000 annually, according to city staff. The update comes after six years in which no social-equity-qualified cannabis business has successfully opened and operated in Kalamazoo, a central goal of the original 2020 policy.
Commissioner Chris Praedel called the update an opportunity to “turn course and adapt to the changing times” based on what the city has learned since 2020. Commissioner Jae Slaby said she had pushed during earlier discussion to explicitly name expungement workshops in the policy language rather than leave them as an assumed priority, noting that without the specific language, “anyone can come into that role and not know that that was something brought up.” Mayor David Anderson noted the expungement provision is one piece of broader changes and thanked city staff for the work.
