Marijuana and the forgetful city council

 

http://207.172.210.8:5002/CablecastPublicSite/show/2646?channel=1

1:19:00 to1:37:00 

Last night’s council meeting revealed how far the Mayor and Council will go in public to “jury rig” the reasons why they should keep the 3% host agreement impact fee (even without just cause). All the mj businesses in Town were forced to pay the impact fee thanks to the mis-guided legislature who added the impact fee after the law was approved by the voters. A good lawyer will use those ill-informed and biased statements in court when operators sue us for their money back. It’s over a million in a separate account and not in the general fund. To my knowledge there has not been any adverse impacts on Framingham since retail stores were opened.  The mayor is heard saying that he will see if the money can be used for marijuana drug addiction in our schools. Thankfully Adam Steiner did not think the city should ‘jury-rig’ specific expenditures to substantiate keeping the impact fees. Those fees are for 5 years, then they stop.

It is disheartening to hear how little those on the council remember when all the marijuana laws were approved by the voters. First, the overlay district now in place was shot down by TM. (5 current council members were TMM’s when the overlay district was shot down by TM) Brought back to life under pressure from a council chair and an ill-informed mayor. The State regs were in place and it was clear what the guidelines were in defining where a pot retail business could go. Ignoring the state regulations one or two mis-informed and biased Marijuana Task Force members on the council decided what parts of Town the retail shops could go. Leaving only a small strip on Rte 30 and Rte 9 from Natick to Southboro. Not because of facts but rather propaganda, lies and mis-information.

The council voted to create an ad-hock committee to look at increasing the number of licenses and expanding the over-lay district.  But without a serious cramming of the books and revisiting the historical  record of what happened and why, the ad-hock committee will only serve a select few personal opinions and not the entire committee or the marijuana industry.

Police chief from Uvalde is fired, School bus driver shortage, Baker wants 40m for school safety plan

From CNN: 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/24/us/uvalde-school-police-pete-arredondo

 In a preliminary report released July 17, the Texas House panel placed blame more broadly, outlining a series of failures by multiple law enforcement agencies.

The 77-page report described "an overall lackadaisical approach" by the 376 local, state and federal law enforcement officers who responded and were at the school.

"There is no one to whom we can attribute malice or ill motives," the report says. "Instead, we found systemic failures and egregious poor decision making."

I can't see how a reasonable person could look at the camera footage and not agree more than one cop could be found derelict of duty and fired. Perhaps no laws were broken, but clearly those few who could have done their duty and took out the gunman before more innocent lives were taken in that classroom.

Still no word from the SC Chair about what steps are being taken to fix school security issues. At least Gov Baker is thinking school security. 

https://www.boston.com/news/schools/2022/08/25/baker-announces-40m-proposal-to-bolster-school-safety/

The Governor will file something shortly so that schools can apply for grants to pay for security and communications upgrades, multi-hazard emergency planning for child-care providers. Also funding for a pilot program for taking anonymous tips regarding school threats. Baker's quote, 'it's incumbent upon us to do all that we can to provide safe classrooms' 

 

 I understand the buss driver shortage here but why is Marlboro fully staffed and FPS is short 17 drivers working with the same company? Are the drivers from Marlboro paid more?

https://patch.com/massachusetts/framingham/framingham-demands-530k-school-bus-provider-durham