ATHOL — There was no holding back by Town Manager Shaun Suhoski and members of Athol’s Selectboard when discussion at the board’s meeting on Tuesday, March 15, turned to proposed changes in state law governing the host community agreement (HCA) between municipalities and marijuana businesses. Suhoski said he has been following the issue closely in his role as a member of the Rural Policy Advisory Commission of the Small Town Administrators of Massachusetts.
“It’s partly selfish,” he said, “because in Athol we have seven host community agreements with cannabis industries, and the Legislature had six or seven bills pending in the last session that carried over to this session that would do all manner and sort of things and upend what’s been in the law for a few years. And there are probably 1,200 host community agreements across the state that are already negotiated and now in place.”
As a result, said Suhoski, an omnibus bill relative to HCAs, S2660, is due to be considered by the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
“And there’s some concerning language in there. The fact that they want to pass a bill in 2022 — the effective date, it says, is 2016. Isn’t that helpful?” asked Suhoski with more than a touch of sarcasm. “We have six years of negotiated contracts; contract law, that’s a whole separate judicial process.
“This could get messy. What they’re looking to do is re-write every host community agreement. They want to eliminate anything based on percentage of sales, yet the Commonwealth still gets 17 percent. The policy doesn’t make sense to me, and it’s going to impact our agreements, and that’s what irritates me.”
Suhoski noted that the HCAs between Athol and cannabis retailers, cultivation operations and delivery services have all been approved by the Selectboard.
“It’s not always a 5-nothing vote on these agreements,” he continued. “There’s a compromise between benefits to the community — it’s not all about money, but benefits to the community — as we opened up to this new business. And I know that some votes in the past were conditioned upon that promise that was in the law and in these agreements that were negotiated.”
The law legalizing cannabis passed in 2016 allowed communities to receive a 3 percent sales tax, based on a business’s revenue, as well as to negotiate another 3 percent in “community impact” fee.
“We took a risk as a town,” said board Chair Rebecca Bialecki, “to allow some of these industries to come and be based here. And some of that required actual costs. There were a number of times we had to ask that attorney’s fees be incurred to help support that. We had to have extra meetings; all of that burden on all of personnel, including the Planning Department, the Zoning Department, everybody here at Town Hall had some role to play, including all of our inspectional services. These aren’t small operations we’re talking about.
“And so we did that with the intention of having a host community agreement that would be able to pay for some of those extra costs that we were forced to absorb. I have a real problem with saying now, ‘We’re going to go back in time and undo this.’ How is it fair to towns to do that?”
Bialecki said part of the motivation for the legislation is, undoubtedly, money.
“How many politicians who are voting for this get some big cannabis money in their donation bucket that drives some of these votes?” she wondered aloud. “That’s my personal opinion, but I think money drives the entire industry and that’s what makes me sick to my stomach.”
In response to a question from board Vice Chair Alan Dodge, Suhoski said, “Senate 2660 was reported to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Sen. Gobi is a member of that committee, but I don’t know her position. It may vary on different components in the bill. But that’s where this is going next.”
“I don’t believe our local legislators are part of the problem here at all,” Bialecki interjected. “This is largely being driven by eastern Mass. The whole thing started when one town and one public servant did the wrong thing and benefited personally from these host community agreements, took advantage of the company, and got caught. And now, we’re all paying for Fall River being a problem.”
In May 2021, former Fall River mayor Jasiel Correia was found guilty on 21 of 24 criminal counts, including nine counts of wire fraud and four counts each of extortion, extortion conspiracy, and filing false tax returns. A jury found Correia had defrauded investors in his now-defunct startup company and had extorted bribes from prospective marijuana business owners.
Saying he could hear the irritation in board members’ voices, Suhoski said, “I will give a heads up to our legislators that I brought this to your attention. I can ask whether they’ve formulated an opinion.”
Bialecki pointed out that projected cannabis revenues had been targeted for a variety of items but, because of the current uncertainty, those allocations haven’t been included in Suhoski’s proposed FY23 budget.
“Shame on all the legislators who are dealing with this and putting us in this situation to begin with,” said Dodge.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com.