vacation is over, time to pay attention

 Tomorrow night's CC meeting will be worth getting involved with. The big news is the expansion of the zoning by-law for the developer Steve Cucinatti, cell phone #781-696-4428 who's building the Nobscot plaza community. He is asking to increase the size of the over-lay district to include 12 lots along Edmunds and Edgell and 6 lots along Edgell all of which are zoned B4 zoning. He wants mixed used development in an eligible location as-of-right. Note: It pays to open the proposed map and letter from Cucinatti's lawyer to get the full picture of what they are proposing for Nobscot. .

He is backed by Market Basket if you can believe it. Another corporation trying to bully us into excepting his zoning proposal (more profit and less open space and more congestion at Water and Edgell). The developer's proposal is also supported by a few member's of the council, (I'm guessing it's Janet, Mike, Phil). All the background material is on the meeting portal for CC meeting Sept 20. 

I encourage anyone in the Nobscot area to contact your councilperson and the at-large and voice your opinion. And do try to watch the CC meeting tomorrow night at 7PM on your local gov access station. 

http://framinghamma.iqm2.com/citizens/default.aspx

http://framinghamma.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=13601

Also near the end of the meeting, the council will either adopt or send back, two ordinances. One that deals with panhandling and the other is median safety. The panhandling ordinance which has been reviewed by the ACLUM, past city solicitor Chris Petrini and our new city solicitor Kathy Fallon, all of whom have written that the ordinances will not stand up to a constitutional challenge.  

The Median Safety proposed ordinance is another invitation to federal court, in my opinion. As I read the regulations, I may be subject to arrest if I'm holding a candidates sign on a side walk on Concord Street or Rte 30. You can read what our city solicitor has to say below.

8-25-22_Opinion-proposed_Ordinance_Regulating_the_Manner_and_Place_of_Solicitation.pdf (legistarweb-production.s3.amazonaws.com)

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.