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Date: 8/14/2019
CHICOPEE – The City Council blocked redeveloping property at 919 Meadow St. into a medical marijuana dispensary for the next two years at the Aug. 6 meeting.
The Council took the action after hearing from residents the proposed location was too small without enough parking.
A line of residents told the councilors during the speak-out portion of the meeting the location was too small and too close to schools.
Councilor James Tillotson said, “They [the residents] don’t want it and I don’t blame them.”
Green Meadow Farm LLC had requested the council approval of a withdrawal of its application. If the council had approved, Green Meadow Farms could have started the process of locating at the same address all over again. Instead the council denied the request and the applicant could not start a new effort for that location for two years. City Council President John Vieau said the one-half acre location was not large enough.
“It’s like trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole,” he said. The council also approved a bonding issue of $750,000 that would allow the city to make sure the former library building next to City Hall was structurally sound so it could be offered for redevelopment.
City Councilor Joel McAuliffe said the action was “long over-due.”
An affirmative vote at the meeting will also allow the city to move forward on the long-discussed Fuller Road reconstruction project.
The council unanimously approved the amended layout for the job. Mayor Richard Kos, in his briefing to the council, noted discussions about improving Fuller Road had started in 2006.
According to a letter from Elizabette Botelho, the Department of Public Works superintendent, “once the City Council has approved this portion of the Fuller Road layout we can proceed with the eminent domain takings from private abutters thus completing the Fuller Road Right of Way. A secure right of way is necessary prior to project bidding. The actual bidding timetable depends on MassDOT’s final review and funding of the project.”
The council also voted to approve a transfer of funds for the Police Department to pay WestComm for civilian dispatchers. Police Chief William Jebb explained to the councilors that using WestComm and civilian dispatchers would free up three officers per shift for other duties. Kos added that firefighters would also be freed up by the shift to civilian dispatchers.
Jebb added the shift would assist him in overtime costs.
He added that once the new system is in place, cell phone users in the city would have their 9-1-1 calls go straight to Chicopee police and fire rather than to a State Police dispatcher who would then transfer the call.
Kos also introduced the council to the first graduating class from the Police Department Youth Academy. The first class of 18 youth spent a week with officer Mark Harmon at the Boys & Girls Club, who added the young people learned about every division of the department.
Harmon said the participants expressed “a change in heart” in how they view police officers and two of the youths said they were interested in becoming officers.