This is another Baltimore ballot question story.

We know. Just hear us out.

With advocates duking it out over ballot questions that will determine the future of institutions like Harborplace and the Baltimore City Council, it’s been easy to forget that there are other referenda on the ballot this cycle.

Among them is the little talked about Question G. Sandwiched between hot button questions F and H, G is meant to prepare the city for a new revenue stream created by the legalization of recreational marijuana (If you need a handy mnemonic device, Banner TikTok guy Krishna Sharma says the G stands for ganja).

Here’s everything you need to know about Question G before casting your ballot.

What would it do?

Question G would create a city fund to capture Baltimore’s share of the taxes collected on recreational marijuana.

As it does on alcohol, Maryland has been charging 9% sales tax on cannabis sales — raking in about $73 million in the first year of sales. Roughly a third of that money will be set aside for a new Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund, intended to benefit communities with disproportionate numbers of cannabis-related arrests.

The law defines a “disproportionately impacted area” as an area with more than 150% of the state’s 10-year average for cannabis possession charges, meaning Baltimore qualifies. The money is distributed by proportion of cannabis-related arrests, so Baltimore will receive about 30% of the pot.

The question appearing on ballots this fall would establish a fund for that money to flow into.

How does the money get spent?

In anticipation of receiving a share of those funds (but well before it was clear how much the city would receive), the Baltimore City Council voted in May 2023 to create a 17-member commission dedicated to distributing the money in accordance with state law. The commission, designed by council President Nick Mosby, will control the fund if voters create it by approving Question G.

State lawmakers legislated a few stipulations about how the money can be spent. None can be put toward law enforcement activities or replace existing local program funding. A state survey found the top preferences for spending the money were on mental health and substance abuse services, education and after-school programs and housing and homelessness prevention.

By law, Comptroller Bill Henry or his designee will sit on the commission, while the City Council president and 14 other members of the council can each propose at least one candidate. Candidates are submitted to the mayor for approval, and members serve four-year terms.

The legislation specifies that at least one commission member is a service provider for incarcerated residents and at least one member is a part of a community-based organization that works with low-income residents.

So far, 11 of the commission’s 17 members have been appointed.

How did the council get involved in this?

The state legislation enacting the fund called for each county in Maryland (or in this case city) to create its own commission to oversee spending. The Baltimore City Council, under Mosby’s leadership, was the first local legislature to jump on that task.

Mosby said he felt it was important to move quickly on the issue to ensure that Baltimore was “positioned to take advantage of the opportunity.”

“We wanted to ensure that ... this money was locked down to kind of supplement the work that the city is doing and not supplant existing city budget line items,” he said.

The move also boxed out Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration from directing how the money would be spent, although the mayor and his team mounted little opposition to the plan. The city’s finance department initially argued the city should maintain flexibility to allocate the funds “with the overall context of the city’s budget” to maximize their impact.

The council approved the charter amendment over the objection, and Scott ultimately signed the legislation, sending it to the ballot.

Is this about more than cannabis taxes?

Probably. Mosby, who did not win his bid for reelection and will depart the council in December, has attempted to strengthen the council’s position during his tenure. That’s been no easy task, given the city’s strong-mayor form of government.

Still, Mosby found some success. Additional budgeting powers, created by a charter amendment approved by voters before Mosby joined the council, were bestowed on the body during his tenure. Mosby created an additional committee to handle financial issues and pushed to give the council oversight of the budget earlier during the budgeting process.

Other suggested changes fell flat. A proposed charter amendment to restructure the mayor-controlled Board of Estimates ultimately failed to get a hearing, and an attempt to add more council staff was blocked by Scott.

“With a lot of pushing and pulling, we’ve taken steps in the right direction,” Mosby said. “Do I look back over the four years and wish that we could have done more? Yes. I think there were a lot of intentional roadblocks in the way to ensure we didn’t, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”