BY JOHN CHICK Special to the VOICE
Whatever tension existed inside Pelham Town Council chambers April 15 deflated in an instant when the Policy and Priorities Committee referred to legal counsel a staff recommendation to exempt pot producer Leviathan from the Town’s interim control bylaw.
By a tally of 5-1, councilors voted to send the matter to legal, delaying their decision as to whether to grant Leviathan’s request.
The controversial staff report released last week recommended giving Leviathan its desired exemption from the ICB, put into effect last autumn for one year. The Toronto-based cannabis company wants the amendment so it can get its grow operation up and running at its Foss Road site as soon as possible.
“Planning staff are of the opinion that the proposed cannabis production facility is consistent with accepted practices for these facilities, is consistent with provincial plans and policies, conforms to the Town’s Official Plan and that compatibility concerns expressed by residents can be addressed satisfactorily through a Site Plan Agreement,” the staff report read.
“We need to ensure that the interim control bylaw is bulletproof,” Ward 2 Councilor John Wink said afterward in explaining the move. “We need that opinion. All that I can say is we’ve never had legal opinion on this. We’re doing our due diligence on this. That [staff] opinion wasn’t based on any legal thoughts. We’re covering our butts.”
For Ward 1’s Mike Ciolfi —the only councilor to vote against delaying a decision — the situation is cut and dry. The ICB exists for a reason, he said, and exemptions shouldn’t be given to anyone.
“I think council should turn down any request,” he said. “Come back after the ICB. It would open floodgates … we’re only talking six months away,” he said, referring to the bylaw’s current expiry in October.
Leviathan’s property is in Ciolfi’s ward.
He doesn’t understand what he sees as council semantics.
“To me it was simple,” Ciolfi said after the meeting. “The ICB is in there, just let it run out. But I respect my fellow councilors, and hopefully we’ll get it right the next time it comes around. And if [Leviathan] didn’t like the decision, they could appeal it anyways.”
While sources told the Voice prior to the meeting that council would likely refute the staff report and reject Leviathan’s request for an exemption, no elected officials other than Ciolfi would say on the record which way they were leaning.
“To say we’d either accept it or deny it, that’s a moot point at this point,” Wink said.
Some councilors said they hadn’t even had time to fully read the staff report. Ward 2’s Ron Kore told the Voice last week he usually doesn’t read his council materials until Sunday mornings. Ward 3’s Bob Hildebrandt said he didn’t see the report until Monday, the day of the meeting.
“Our problem is we don’t have a chance to discuss with staff ahead of time,” Hildebrandt said. “I got my stuff this morning at 9. You’re sitting, thinking ‘holy smokes.’”
(Agendas for council meetings—including relevant reports—are posted publicly to the Town’s website on the Friday before a Monday council meeting, and council as whole generally receives their copy 24 hours before this.)
As soon as council voted to delay the matter, a throng of community activists left the meeting en masse. Outside, Jim Jeffs of the Pelham Community Preservation Coalition —who lives near the Foss Road site —called the situation farcical.
“It’s a waste of staff’s time and our tax dollars,” he said. “There was nothing in the report about why Leviathan should be exempted. Why are we even talking to them?”
Rick McCombs was less kind.
“It’s just one fiasco after another,” McCombs said. “It’s nonsense, it’s a way to stall for time until the interim control bylaw’s gone. The old council, they were all out to get you anyways, now you’ve got a new council that’s green and doesn’t know how procedure works … so the staff has got control.”
The “covering of the butt” as Wink put it is still probably a prudent move given that Leviathan has intimated that it may take legal action against the Town if its ICB request is denied. The company previously questioned the legality of the bylaw, and its veiled threat to sue was reaffirmed via a letter to its shareholders on Tuesday.
“We are perplexed by Council’s latest delay and are pressing the Town to determine our exemption application,” words credited to CEO Martin Doane read. “We have no choice but to refine our court application materials in the event of an adverse decision. We remain confident in our chances of success should we be forced to litigate.”
It is not known how long the Town’s legal counsel will take to render an opinion.
Return of the arches?
At the start of last Monday’s meeting, Pelham’s reigning Citizen of the Year, Frank Adamson, and Summerfest committee chair Bob Gibson presented a plan to replace the arches in Pelham Town Square. All necessary funds, they said— a total of over $100,000 —would be raised solely through private donations. The arches proved a polarizing concept in their previous form, with residents seeming to either love or hate them. The new ones, according to Adamson and Gibson, would be constructed from more durable wood and open a higher clearance for trucks.
Pelham resident Carol Gresham followed Adamson and Gibson with a statement of support, comparing the previous arches to Fonthill’s version of the CN or Eiffel Tower.
Wink said that opposition to the arches came from a vocal minority.
“It’s amazing how the few people who are against the arches are the most vocal,” he said. “I applaud the Summerfest committee for coming up with a plan to bring the arches back at no cost to the Town.”
Still, Mayor Marvin Junkin—mindful of the mixed reception the previous arches got —suggested that the public be given an opportunity to consider other options for decorating the area.
“How can we tell that the majority of the community wants to see this?” Junkin asked.
Ward 3 Councilor Lisa Haun agreed, saying that there should be a way for Pelham residents to provide input or even vote on ideas, either through the Town website or the Voice. A previous Voice poll found readers favoring the arches’ return by a relatively slim margin, with 55% voting yes, 45% voting no. Of those voting yes, however, nearly two thirds specified that no Town money should be spent on such an effort. Overall, 64% of respondents said that they would not be willing to contribute even a single dollar to the project.
Gibson suggested he could build a scale model of the new arches, and then superimpose it on a satellite photo of the Town Square, allowing residents to see how they’d look.
Council voted to receive the proposal for consideration.
