CHESHIRE, Mass. — The town is going to take a renewed look at the marijuana bylaws.

 

Stafford Hill Resident Justin Kruszyna attended Tuesday night’s selectmen’s meeting with a petition asking for the Planning Board to take another look at the laws and the Board of Selectmen agreed to pass the request along.

 

"I just want to turn this in," Kruszyna said. "Hopefully this is the next step."

 

In June, town meeting members were split on a citizens petition article that would regulate outdoor marijuana cultivation. Because the town meeting vote was a tie vote it failed.

 

This article was in response to a proposed outdoor cultivation operation proposed on Stafford Hill.

 

The article itself was flawed because it did not follow the proper planning procedure and even if it was accepted would most likely be rejected by the attorney general. However there was consensus that outdoor cultivation may have been a blind spot in the original bylaw creation.

 

Planning Board Chairwoman Donna DeFino noted at a previous meeting that Berkshire Regional Planning Committee was already whipping up a draft bylaw to address the gap in the town's controls, however, Kruszyna said he was not confident that they would get it right and preferred it to go right to the Cheshire Planning Board. 

 

The selectmen took a moment to consider the petition but ultimately approved it.

 

"We will look at the petition and I think it is reasonable that we understand the petition before we make or do not make a recommendation to hand it off to the Planning Board," Chairman Robert Ciskowski said.

 

In other business the selectmen voted to ratify asking National Grid to change over town street lights to LED.

 

"We will start that process soon," St. John IV said. 

 

Also, St. John read a brief highway department report and noted that efforts will be put toward patching route 116 in the coming weeks.

 

"‘They wanted to get some manpower up there," he said.

 

St. John said in his report that 15 have applied for the council on aging program director position and interviews will begin soon.