WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Board of Selectmen are wondering if it should support an application for a medical marijuana dispensary in town, knowing that a successful applicant would have an advantage gaining a license for recreational sales down the road.

 

Town Manager Jason Hoch informed the board on Monday that an applicant who first approached the town in the spring may be close to moving forward with the commonwealth's application process. Part of that process is securing a letter of support, or at least non-opposition, from the town.

 

"In this case, you have the veto if you choose not to issue one of those letters," Hoch said. "You can just have it die."

 

On the other hand, if the town board permits the application to continue and a state license to distribute is ultimately issued, it would "give someone an express path to retail," he said.

 

Selectwoman Jane Patton said whatever decision the board ultimately makes on the application, her colleagues should be aware that the applicant might be trying to "game the system" and to find a backdoor permit to retail recreational pot.

 

Patton pressed Hoch for information about the timing of the applicant's inquiries to the town and how that timetable lined up with the town's ongoing discussion about a possible local ban on retail marijuana sales.

 

Selectwoman Anne O'Connor pointed out that if the medical marijuana dispensary did at some point transition to recreational retail, at least the town would know that the licensee already had met a strict standard for approval from the Department of Public Health, which has regulated medical marijuana since 2012.

 

Hoch concurred.

 

"The barriers to entry are higher going the medical route," he said. "With the rules that have been in place for medical and the rigor that is there … you could potentially see it as 'working the system,' but it's a pretty solid commitment on the part of the applicant."

 

Patton indicated she would be more supportive of the medical dispensary if she was certain that that was the applicant's "end game."

 

"If this approval didn't automatically throw this individual to the front of the line [for a recreational retail license] and they're grandfathered — if this was legit just for medical marijuana, I'd say great," Patton said. "I've heard great things about what [medical marijuana] can do for people.

 

"But if this is so they can work the system … I want us to be aware if someone's working the system with the hope of getting a retail business."

 

In other business on Monday, the Board of Selectmen revisited the topic of school regionalization and discussed the burgeoning list of topics that might join a planned Nov. 14 special town meeting to decide whether to expand the Mount Greylock Regional School District to include its two feeder elementary schools.

 

Hoch informed the board that he likely will compose a warrant article to see if the town will agree to purchase the Simonds Road property where the Turners House veterans home once operated with hopes of turning the structure into a new police station.

 

In the spring, he announced his intention to relocate the Police Department from its current cramped and outdated facility inside Town Hall to the Route 7 site.

 

He told the board on Monday that he plans to propose that the town pay the $300,000 negotiated purchase price out of its stabilization account, which currently stands at $1.6 million and which "is designed for capital projects."

 

Hoch said he and his staff are in the final stages of selecting an owner's project manager for the renovation and addition that is planned for the former Turner House and that he hopes to have "biddable plans" developed by February.

 

The town also may be asked to acquire another piece of land at the Nov. 14 special town meeting. The town has identified a small parcel on Main Street (Route 2) across the road from the former Spruces Mobile Home Park that will be needed to complete the 2-mile bike path planned to run — mostly along the Hoosic River — from the junction of North Street and Syndicate Road to the North Adams city line to the east.

 

Hoch said that while the North Adams piece of the trail is still in development, the Williamstown portion is further along in the design process, and the Department of Transportation, which is in charge of the project, will hold its 25 percent design hearing at Town Hall on Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 6:30 p.m.

 

The planned special town meeting also may include a few zoning bylaw changes under discussion by the Planning Board and a request from Berkshire Gas for an easement on a portion of the Williamstown Elementary School property for the relocation of a regulator station.

 

Chairman Hugh Daley, who earlier in the evening had expressed concern about the timetable for finalizing a school regionalization warrant article in time for the Nov. 14 date, asked Hoch if the town needs to have a meeting with or without the school question to keep the police station and bike path projects on track.

 

Hoch agreed that the town had enough issues of its own to justify the meeting even if the school committees cannot finalize their proposal in time to put regionalization to a vote this fall.