The City Council in Springfield is expected to take votes this month on long-stalled permit requests for marijuana businesses, as the burgeoning legal cannabis industry tries for inroads in the largest city in western Massachusetts.
After a nearly two-hour meeting Tuesday evening where City Councilors asked questions about the process the city administration used to evaluate bidders looking to open marijuana businesses in Springfield, City Council President Marcus Williams said the legislative body should act on the special permits that have been pending for months.
“It is my intention to have these items appear before the Council and have each Councilor, based on their own assessment of the information, vote it up or down,” Williams said. “I don’t believe another subcommittee or committee-of-the-whole is going to garner much more information than we already have been presented.”
The Council has been hung up over a question of whether Page Cultivate, the would-be developer of a proposed $20 million marijuana growing facility in East Springfield, was afforded preferential treatment by the city administration during the bidding process.
Tuesday’s meeting produced no “smoking gun” revelations. It also did not appear to change the opinions of the Councilors who had said previously they believe Page Cultivate got an unfair break by being allowed to change its site plan after the review process began in order to satisfy a zoning requirement that its operations not be within 250 feet of a residence.
At Tuesday night’s meeting, Councilors, who obtained reams of documents from the city Law Department pertaining to the marijuana review process through a freedom of information request, questioned City Auditor Yong No. He reiterated the conclusions of an audit released last December that found the process was “sound and fair” but the execution was lacking.
Specifically, the audit found mistakes were made tabulating the scores assigned to each bidder by a mayoral-appointed evaluation panel. It wound up impacting the final rankings of some applicants.
“It was unfortunate but it’s understandable that you’d have errors with a manual process,” No said.
The auditor said he found no evidence of malfeasance such as attempts to manipulate the scoring and said it did not appear any bidder received an unfair advantage.
However, his audit did not specifically address the questions about Page Cultivate.
Councilors were told that the marijuana evaluation committee was informed of a possible buffer zone violation with the initial site plan included with Page Cultivate’s application but proceeded with the review anyway.
City Councilor Trayce Whitfield, who is the Council’s representative on the evaluation committee, said she thought there would be a follow-up about the buffer zone question before recommendations were forwarded to Mayor Domenic Sarno, but there was not.
“(The City Council) worked extremely hard on the zoning laws to make sure they are put in place for a reason and followed and in this case they were not followed and special treatment was given as far as I am concerned,” Whitfield said.
City Solicitor Ed Pikula, who did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, had said previously that it was legal for Page Cultivate to adjust the site plan for the proposed facility once it became aware of the buffer zone problem.
But, City Councilor Kateri Walsh said she remains convinced Page Cultivate was given a break not afforded others.
“Some of this information was helpful, but it doesn’t change my mind that I think there was some unfairness in this process,” Walsh said at the end of Tuesday’s meeting.
City Councilors have acknowledged the city is losing money and jobs as the marijuana industry stagnates — in Springfield at least.
Since Massachusetts voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016 it has become a $1.4 billion-a- year industry in the state. Tax revenue from cannabis surpassed alcohol last year.
However, Springfield has just two recreational marijuana stores. Special permits have been approved for three locations for still un-opened cannabis retailers. The city’s zoning law allows for up to 13 retail stores. There are no cannabis cultivation businesses currently operating in the city.
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