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.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 1:51 PM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
John wants to spend a million dollars for cops to drive up and down 9 the marijuana mile. Instead of making up a reason to keep the money why not just give it back.
John has a long record of not following the rules. Look at his throwing out another candidates materials at the public library? Or his involvement in the questionable redistricting when he was at the state house years ago. Then he says we should pass a panhandling law when the SJC had declared those unconstitutional, and the former city solicitor says it is a bad move. But John still presses on thinking that he knows more than the SJC and the city solicitor. He lost the election for mayor, and barely won the election for his district council seat. His support is shrinking, thankfully, and if we can get him off the city council it will be a big plus for the city as a whole.
I see Boston is trying to make it easier for these shops to open. Mayor Wu is on the side of that effort. Guess those in Framingham think differently though for the life of me I can't imagine why
Wu has seen the light. Eliminating some of the biased bureaucracy is what's needed here as well. We have trouble with 6 or 8 stores... they have over 50 to allow in.
How many hours of the Council's and public's time would be saved if John S. was shown the door?
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