They Already Know, Matthew
On April 29, 2023, I bumped into Gary at the library.
Feeling emboldened from just having finished reading POVERTY, BY AMERICA by Matthew Desmond, I approached Gary and suggested that the profits from your wife’s unused cannabis license could do a lot of good, could help the 326 Littleton households enrolled in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), could be put to a public use.
I told Gary that I believed there was something “not right” about your wife’s HCA-supported shop not being open since it had been three years since the Select Board had given her an HCA.
Gary nodded, perhaps in agreement, perhaps to be polite, who’s to say?
Either way, I can tell you this, Matthew:
Gary already knows.
On July 19, 2023, I met with Chuck.
I think it’s important for you to understand, Matthew, that by mid-July 2023, the thought that Chuck might have made a promise (four and a half years earlier) to David Giannetta about “the other license” had failed to hold much meaning for me.
David’s shop was up and open. He was selling a much-celebrated product and collecting that 3% excise tax for the town.
This was a very good thing. Both for Littleton’s cannabis enthusiasts and the town coffers.
When speaking with Chuck that morning, I did express my concern that your wife might have been paid not to open. Chuck agreed with the idea that if someone had offered your wife all the money she needed to both build out the Apothecary and stock the shelves—as she claimed in early November 2021—your wife ought to have been open and collecting tax revenue for the town way back in early 2022.
It was also during this meeting that I told Chuck about my radical idea to use the profits from a cannabis shop to end poverty in Littleton. I suggested this could be a model for other communities.
Chuck told me that he would be “proud” to be part of an effort to end poverty in Littleton. Chuck left that meeting with my copy of POVERTY, BY AMERICA. Later, he told me he read it “while on the Cape.”
So, Chuck already knows.
On July 20, 2023, Mark and I walked the track at Russell Street. I gave Mark the same information I’d given Chuck: paid not to open, waste of a tax-revenue-generating license, 100% profits to the poor in town.
Mark liked the idea of ending poverty but held the opinion that until the special permit lapsed, the matter was not properly before the Select Board, since the Planning Board oversees the special permit.
Mark also said that he didn’t want to do anything that “could get the town sued.”
I said, “By who? By her?”
“By anyone!”
(Those of you who know and love Mark know exactly how those two words sounded.)
“Well,” I said, “a fair reading of the Apothecary’s HCA precludes that very thing. There’s a covenant not to sue baked right into her HCA. And get this: David Giannetta’s doesn’t have one of those. And do you know why she’s got that term in her HCA and David doesn’t have it in his? Because according to the person who negotiated those two HCAs—that person being Chuck—she was always threatening to sue the town, which is why Chuck made sure that covenant was in there.”
Mark already knows.
On July 26, 2023, Karen and I had lunch together. Not knowing her as well as Mark or Chuck, I was initially less pointed with my concerns about your wife’s unused license, though by the end of our lunch—we went Dutch, fwiw—I’d clearly expressed my concerns: paid not to open, married to you—a member of the board that oversees his own wife’s license.
Karen already knows.
On September 12, 2023, I had a brief conversation with Ryan, our town’s interim TA, in the multipurpose room at Town Hall.
With Ryan, I shared my concerns about your wife’s failure to get her ass in gear despite holding a multi-million dollar “license to print money” that she got from your Select Board. I explained that being paid not to open is a lot easier than doing the work it would take to open.
Ryan already knows.
Alongside the recent calls for your resignation, the suggestion has been made that your wife’s behavior (and by extension, yours) should be looked into “at the town level.”
The “town” already knows.
Although I got the sense from all five of these people—Gary, Chuck, Mark, Karen, and Ryan—that what I was sharing was of concern to them, I suspect that none of them thought to look into it “at the town level.”
Do you know why?
Because it’s tough to police ourselves when we all share the same zip code.
TTYS,
Jkb