SHEFFIELD — This year had all the makings of a quiet election year in Sheffield until after the holidays. Popular incumbent selectboard chair Rene Wood is running for reelection and faces no challengers. None of the other races are contested — with one exception.
Dale Martin is not running for reelection to the Planning Board but fellow incumbent Caitlin Marsden McNeill is. Two other candidates have thrown their hats into the ring: Robbie Cooper and Sam Stolzar. That means there will be three office seekers for two seats in the May 10 town elections.
It’s a far cry from what happened last year when no one ran to fill the retiring Jim Collingwood’s seat by petitioning onto the ballot. Collingwood’s seat was only filled because Sari Hoy later ran a write-in campaign.
This year was an unusual one because the Planning Board has been the focus of a great deal of attention as the town was confronted with multiple applications from developers who want to grow cannabis.
In the case of the recent application for Wise Acre Farm for a marijuana production facility on Polikoff Road, the Planning Board was the special-permit-granting authority.
The proposal sparked widespread opposition in the East Ashley Falls neighborhood and it culminated in a marathon session earlier this year during which the board rejected Wise Acre’s application after getting an earful from dozens of angry residents whose lengthy comments pushed the hearing almost to midnight. One of those residents who rose up in opposition to the Wise Acre proposal was Stolzar, who lives with his family on Polikoff Road, near the Connecticut line.
“Putting something like that in the middle of a residential neighborhood was just bad from the get-go,” Stolzar said in an interview.
The applicant, Wise Acre’s Jon Piasecki of West Stockbridge, has another proposal for a grow facility in Sheffield on a three-acre field on Bull Hill Road. That application is still in the early stages and has been referred to the Ashley Falls Historic District Commission for review, Marsden McNeill said. A community outreach meeting for Piasecki’s proposal was held virtually on April 22.
“Bull Hill will be met with the same kind of resistance,” Stolzar added.
Sheffield has a marijuana retail outlet and grow facility, The Pass, on Route 7. There is also the Nova Farms growing facility on Kellogg Road, and Ted Dobson’s Equinox Farm. Another grow facility is proposed farther south on Polikoff Road, not far from Stolzar’s house, by ZGC LLC, whose board of directors includes salad greens farmer Christopher Regan of Millerton, New York.
Stolzar pointed to a petition that he supports which asks for a review of the town’s current cannabis bylaw. Of the developers, he said, “They’re trying to make Sheffield the marijuana epicenter of New England or something. In my opinion, that’s not the best idea. That’s not the direction this town should be going in.”
Stolzar added that he is less concerned about retail marijuana establishments because they are sited in commercial zones and do not give off noxious odors the way grow facilities do.
When he decided to run earlier this year, Stolzar did not know which way the Planning Board was going to vote on the Wise Acre proposal, but the panel’s unanimous vote has convinced him that the board is “on the right path.”
Stolzar is also concerned about commercial truck traffic in East Ashley Falls coming up from Connecticut. It was a subject he raised at a recent selectboard meeting.
“Our neighborhoods have become the cut-through for the gravel pits down in Canaan,” he said. “It’s trucks all day long — 19-wheelers and dump trucks. I have three kids and I don’t want them getting run over.”
“Smart growth — not ridiculous growth” will, if he is elected, be Stolzar’s guiding principle on the Planning Board.
Stolzar is a 2005 graduate of Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire, where he majored in mass communications. He is a Great Barrington police officer, having joined the force in 2006.
Robbie Cooper
Cooper grew up in Millerton, New York, where he and his father run the family business, Associated Lightning Rod. Cooper spent much of his adolescence in Salisbury, Connecticut, later attended the University of Connecticut and studied psychology.
Cooper’s father, Rob, was a member of the planning board in Millerton, so the younger Cooper figures he might have politics and public service “in his blood.” Cooper lived on East Street in Great Barrington for 10 years before moving to a home on South Main Street in 2016. He and his partner Holli Stanton have a baby and two 7-year-olds.
Cooper, 37, said in entering the race for Planning Board, he feels welcome as a younger person — something that has not always been the case in Millerton. He acknowledges that he was drawn to the race, in part, because of the cannabis issue.
“I’m certainly not a one-issue candidate, but I know the hot issue is going to be the cannabis industry,” Cooper told The Edge. “I’m pro-cannabis, but that doesn’t mean that I want an open door to every business interest that may come into town.”
Cooper also has about 20 years of experience interpreting strict installation standards and building codes. He thinks that will help him navigate the waters of the Planning Board’s deliberations and review process.
Cooper said the Polikoff Road issue “was so heated and there was so much tension brewing that I was kind of inspired in a way. I think I can bring a pretty honest perspective. Maybe being a bit younger than someone who would generally be on a planning board will give me a unique perspective while having the best interests of the community at heart.”
As for other issues, Cooper pointed to the possibility of big-box stores coming to town, as happened when the town was sharply divided over the proposal for a Dollar General store on North Main Street. That proposal was ultimately successful, even after the Zoning Board of Appeals revoked a building permit the town had mistakenly issued, causing a prolonged legal battle.
“I think there is always an issue if any of the big box stores try to come in,” Cooper said, though he described Dollar General, which is open most nights until 10, as “perhaps a necessary evil.”
Cooper does think it’s worth updating the town’s master plan, which was completed in 2014, before the COVID-19 pandemic and before recreational marijuana was legalized.
“The master plan probably needs to be updated to extend to some of the present-day needs,” Cooper said. “I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few weeks looking through the master plan and trying to get oriented with it, but so much of it is open ended.”
Caitlin Marsden McNeill
After two years on the Planning Board, Marsden McNeill has seen lots of action. When she moved back to the Berkshires in 2015, she became interested in serving her community, so she joined the Sheffield Land Trust and served on its Funding & Financial Management Committee.
“Then I started attending Planning Board meetings,” Marsden McNeill told The Edge. “That was right when the cannabis bylaws were being written, so I was fortunate enough to sit in on many of those meetings as a member of the public and really see the bylaw review process.”
Marsden McNeill described the board as “very civilized.” Most of its votes are unanimous, which is unusual for a planning board, and its members are well versed in site plan review procedures and in the town’s zoning bylaws.
“I attribute that to the leadership of Jim Collingwood and now Ken Smith,” she said of the past and current chairs. “Having that kind of leadership on the board is really crucial in ensuring that we are really taking into account the best interests of Sheffield.”
“This year we are dealing with more public engagement than we previously had and that’s been really inspiring,” Marsden McNeill continued, adding that 60–70 people routinely log in to meetings. “I’m so excited there are three people running for Planning Board. It’s really great to see the young generation become active in politics, especially now with cannabis. It is an incredibly important board in a way that people didn’t always appreciate previously.”
On other matters, Marsden McNeill said she would like to see Sheffield “maintain its traditionally New England charm” and avoid the “sprawl” that afflicted some other towns in the Berkshires. She and others are also working on drafting a 5G amendment to the town’s current telecommunications bylaw.
Like Cooper, whose candidacy she has endorsed, Marsden McNeill thinks the master plan could stand to be updated:
“I do think there are some opportunities that we have … in terms of really revisiting what our vision is for Sheffield. We have an aging demographic. How do we encourage more families to live here?”
Marsden McNeill thinks the town has to do some deep thinking: “We used to be the nationally acclaimed antiques capital and those days are gone, with the internet. We also don’t want to be pigeonholed into becoming the pot capital. That’s not what we need to be known for.”
Marsden McNeill, 37, is married and had a baby last fall. She is a graduate of Berkshire School and Mount Holyoke, where she earned a B.A. in politics. She has been a restaurateur in New York City and worked most recently as director of community relations at Mountainside, an addiction treatment center in Canaan, Connecticut. Click here to view her LinkedIn profile.
