The challenge for the state's 351 cities and towns is to revamp their zoning regulations so that they're not caught flat-footed by applications from cannabis retailers and manufacturers.
Forty businesses and organizations have signed off on the Great Barrington proposal. There are some high-profile businesses on the list, including Guido’s, Prairie Whale and Soco. Most recently the Berkshire Co-op Market came on board.
Great Barrington Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin suggested better marketing targeted toward students and perhaps the many senior centers across the county. In addition, she wondered why the so-called CharlieCards, the BRTA's cashless payment system, were not available for purchase at places like supermarkets and pharmacies.
If voters approve the Great Barrington bylaw, indoor cultivation of marijuana of the sort envisioned in the mills will be permitted by-right in the light industrial zone that covers much of Housatonic.
In Great Barrington, it's costing $150,000 annually and is rising at 30 percent per year, to unclog the town sewer system. Reliable estimates put the cost of fixing the wipe clogs nationwide at $1 billion per year.
Tabakin asked the school committee to delay its vote to approve or reject the proposed budget because she would like the school committee to meet first with Great Barrington’s selectmen and finance committee.
100 Bridge Street has been delayed to the point that the $1 million that would have been used to pay for the burial of overhead utilities is in danger of lapsing when the grant expires at the end of June 2019.
Town manager Jennifer Tabakin said the impacted area will include Castle Street, Railroad Street and both sides of Main Street from Castle Street to Elm Street.
If it passes at town meeting, the GB On Tap program intends to provide additional drinking fountains and bottle refilling stations throughout town. In addition, it will help participating merchants and restaurants offer refillable water bottles for sale.
Town manager Jennifer Tabakin reminded town residents of the upcoming deadlines for citizen petitions to have items placed for a vote on the warrant for the annual town meeting.
Gwendolyn Hampton VanSant, who directs Multicultural BRIDGE and co-chairs the Du Bois 150th Committee, was in Town Hall Monday night with Randy Weinstein, founder and director of the Du Bois Center at Great Barrington, to gain approval to mount banners on utility poles in town and to report on the progress the committee had made on celebrating the birthday of iconic scholar and civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois.
Selectman Steve Bannon then made a motion that, if building inspector Edwin May attends a hearing in front of the Great Barrington Zoning Board of Appeals or goes to court in the Gary J. O'Brien matter, the town will provide an attorney to represent him. It passed unanimously.
There are five sections on the poster: birth and childhood, familial ties, civil rights activism, a return to Great Barrington, and lasting impact. Photographs and captions accompany each section and there is a scannable QR code to learn more about Du Bois.
"My immediate concern is the [fuel] trucks. Any fuel storage has to have 110-percent containment under it. How that's okay, I don't understand. If something happens, there nothing between that truck and the ground."
-- Selectboard member Ed Abrahams
In addition to the trucks and the transfer station activities, there are reports of race cars gunning their engines on the O'Brien property on the weekends.
