This Isn't How I Thought it was Going to Be, Chuck
If you’ve thought for even one moment that writing about the malfeasance in our town’s government has been enjoyable in any way for me, Chuck, think again. While I have endeavored to write about these issues engagingly, I take no pleasure in the state of our town.
I will say that this isn’t how I saw myself spending large portions of my days at this time in my life—sharing with our community my concerns about what’s been happening both at the Big Kids’ Table and behind closed doors.
But here we are, and there’s still so much more.
We’re going to have to take it step by step.
Let’s start with this:
You, Chuck, present yourself in a way that, when believed, would make any allegation of wrongdoing by you seem very out of character. I suspect your presentation of yourself to the outside world has been largely beneficial to you over the years with all your insulating charm. You know, Chuck, you’re the sort of person who, by culturally entitled default, always gets “the benefit of the doubt,” which, to be fair, I gave you on many occasions myself because I preferred living in a town where I didn’t believe “Chuck’s dirty.”
It truly saddens me that I believe this about you now.
Too many people have said too many things—and not just about cannabis in town, which your sticky little fingers are all over—but about the other stuff the Select Board manages: the stuff “involving money.”
So, Chuck, I want you to understand how I came to conclude “Chuck’s dirty” as it relates to your role on our Select Board.
Since late August, I’ve heard, from several people, that you take money from Jason Sidman, the CEO of Sanctuary Medicinals, Inc.
One person (former town employee; former/current elected official) shared the ethically fraught idea that Jason Sidman cuts you a regular check for being on a board for Sanctuary. No speculation was had as to the sort of board Jason Sidman pays you to be on, but seeing as though your board (Littleton Select Board) has a contractual relationship with Jason Sidman, which permits him to grow a multi-million-dollar crop in his multi-million-dollar building on Taylor Street, it seems any money going from Jason Sidman to you, Chuck, would be verboten.
Then, another person (former town employee), with no “social overlap” with the first person, tells me Jason Sidman was seen giving you “bags of money.”
Another person said that “bag of money” thing as well.
Wow.
Cut checks?
Bags of money?
Let’s be real: checks leave a paper trail, which seems amateurish.
And frankly, “bags of money” seem far more likely since cannabis has been a cash/debit-card-only business in the commonwealth all along, i.e., cash or “cashed-backed” plastic. In the early days of selling legal cannabis here in Massachusetts, owners/operators of recreational cannabis shops had to drive their car-fuls of money—the actual greenback dollar bills—to the bank themselves. These owners/operators (SWG w/MMM!) made many, many trips to the bank. And some days, they didn’t feel like it, so there was a lot of cash lying around.
While there’s a lot to be concerned about when it comes to an allegation that you’re on the take, what concerns me more is the source of these (and other) allegations.
In addition to the three above examples, everyone (but one) falls into one (or more) of these three categories:
former town employees;
former members of town boards and/or committees; and sadly,
current members of town boards and/or committees
*
This leaves me to ask myself, “How can it be that all these plugged-in people know, or have reason to believe, that Chuck Decoste receives money from Jason Sidman and not bring it up?”
And then it occurred to me, maybe they didn’t have a way to explain it, maybe they weren’t able to figure out why, years after Jason Sidman had already gotten his HCA from the Select Board, he would be paying you anything at all.
Jason Sidman came to Littleton looking to get permission from the Select Board to grow cannabis. He got that.
What would he need you for, Chuck?
TTYS,
Jkb