ATHOL — On Tuesday, July 5, Athol Town Manager Shaun Suhoski emailed a letter to members of the Cannabis Conference Committee appointed to hammer out differences between competing pieces of legislation passed by the House and Senate on Beacon Hill. The legislation is meant to address several issues that went unaddressed, or were inadequately addressed, in the measure legalizing marijuana that was passed by voters in 2016.
In his correspondence, Suhoski expressed concern over “language that interferes with contract rights and, potentially, over 1,000 existing host community agreements.” Earlier this year, the town manager brought to the attention of Athol’s Selectboard language in the legislation which would have threatened community impact fees included in the community host agreements signed by the town and the various cannabis businesses that have set up shop in Athol. Each of the agreements were drawn up under language included in the 2016 legislation.
State Sen. Jo Comerford (D-Northampton), told the Athol Daily News on Thursday, July 7, that language targeting community impact fees was no longer in either piece of legislation passed separately by the House and Senate. Comerford is one of six legislators appointed to the conference committee.
“One of the things that concerned Shaun,” she said, “was the revisiting of host community agreements. That doesn’t happen in either draft. There was a concern that the Senate bill reported out of committee would include a proposal to consider the agreements retroactive to 2016, so the Cannabis Control Commission and the state would say every current host agreement would need to be reexamined. That was a nightmare scenario for our region.
“People like Shaun, and other town administrators made it very, very clear to me earlier on that that was not a proposal that would be a positive proposal for our region. But that was not in the Senate bill. The host community agreements that towns have brokered will remain in place.”
Comerford added that both versions of the legislation do allow for community impact fees going forward.
“There are different views on how to regulate those,” she continued, “and there are different views regarding what the review process should be. But the community impact fees and the host community agreements — the core concerns have been heard and addressed in both versions of the legislation.”
“I greatly appreciate her advocacy,” said Suhoski of Sen. Comerford. “They did in fact remove that retroactive enactment date, which would have gone back to 2016, earlier in the process. My most recent comments reflect those of the Massachusetts Municipal Association, which represents the large majority of communities across the Commonwealth. My comments also reflect a good number of town administrators I’ve interacted with in my role as chairman of the Small Town Administrators of Massachusetts.”
Despite being pleased that some of his concerns have been addressed, however, Suhoski said one major proposal is still cause for worry.
“There’s a whole enumeration of powers that the Cannabis Control Commission would be granted under this legislation. It’s really going to give the CCC unfettered control over the process and, to be honest, that’s fine, although I wish it had been done at the beginning and not after the fact. But here we are.
“One of those controls over host community agreements, over compliance with the new rules — although it won’t be retroactive in terms of the enactment date — is specific language which says the CCC will review host community agreements, and it enumerates when the CCC can review them but key to that is the language that says, ‘at any license renewal.’”
Suhoski explained that under existing law all current host community agreements sunset after five years.
“That means that any annual license renewal by the CCC for any of these businesses, those agreements are now subject to CCC oversight. So, a five-year agreement could become a one-year agreement — or a zero-year agreement. The CCC has full oversight over that and can throw these agreements out.
“Each of those agreements now could be subjected to CCC review — and this is outside of the court system, which is supposed to have jurisdiction over contracts at each annual license renewal. That, in my view, greatly curtails and hamstrings the existing contracts that were reached in good faith, and with good intentions by the industry and by the communities, to do good things in the communities and support the host communities.”
Language granting the CCC oversight powers is still included in one of the draft pieces of legislation, according to Suhoski.
“So, the potential is still there for the CCC to throw out all those contracts — at their whim, in their discretion — not at the discretion of the courts or the parties to the contracts. That’s my remaining concern.”
In addition to Comerford, Suhoski also praised the work of state Sen. Anne Gobi and Reps. Sussanah Whipps and Natalie Blais relative to his concerns on the cannabis legislation.
The morning the Athol Daily News spoke to her, Comerford was on her way to the first meeting of the Cannabis Conference Committee. She said the panel is charged with completing its work on final language for a compromise bill by the end of July.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com