Report: Uxbridge school committee member secretly changed Town contract to benefit his cannabis business
Image | Courtesy of Google Maps
Barry Desruisseaux, the owner of Green N' Go drive-through cannabis dispensary in Uxbridge (pictured), is facing accusations that he secretly altered an agreement between the Town and his business. Uxbridge officials failed to notice the alterations, according to Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro.
The Office of Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro has issued a rebuke to the Town of Uxbridge, after an investigation found the Town had failed to notice the owner of a cannabis business had secretly altered a Town contract as he was seeking approval to operate in Uxbridge.
The inspector general's investigation found Barry Desruisseaux, the owner of a prospective cannabis dispensary and then-member of the Uxbridge Planning Board, in 2019 altered a host community agreement to remove clauses he found objectionable after the Town refused to make requested changes.
The Uxbridge cannabis dispensary in question, operating under the name Green N’ Go, has since opened. Green N' Go currently operates as a standard walk-in cannabis retail store, but is pursuing regulatory approval to operate as a drive-through dispensary. Operating at the former site of a car wash, patrons will drive into the building via garage doors to purchase products.
Desruisseaux is a minority owner of Green N' Go, but the current investor group is attempting to remove him from ownership, according to an email from Brian Carney, another member of the ownership group.
HCAs are a controversial aspect of the cannabis licensing process. Business leaders in the cannabis space have often decried these deals as forcing business owners to pay fees they label as exuberant and unnecessary, claiming cannabis businesses do not impose any unique costs on communities and there has been little accountability for how municipalities have spent this money.
In January, Uxbridge settled a lawsuit with Caroline’s Cannabis, another dispensary in the town, for $1.2 million over community impact fees that were part of the HCA signed by Caroline’s. Some Massachusetts municipalities, including Worcester, have stopped collecting impact fees from cannabis businesses.
In the spring of 2019, Desruisseaux had been in negotiations with then-Town Manager Angeline Ellison over provisions in his business’ HCA, which is an agreement between a cannabis business and a municipality and required part of the state process for applying for a cannabis business license.
In an April 2019 email, Desruisseaux objected to several paragraphs of the proposed agreement, saying they were onerous or unfair, according to a May 30 letter from the Office of the Inspector General to Uxbridge officials, state legislators, and Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission officials. He requested a host agreement similar to prior agreements issued by Uxbridge, but Ellison declined, saying HCAs for other businesses shouldn’t be compared as each business is different.
Later in April, Ellison left her position as town manager, with Uxbridge Police Chief Marc Montminy taking over as acting town manager. A few weeks later in May, the Town sent a final draft of the document, which it expected Desruisseaux to sign and return.
Instead, Desruisseaux made significant alterations to the document, returning an agreement that was two pages shorter than the one he received.
“The deleted sections pertained to core operational and public safety matters. Several of Desruisseaux’s edits were especially noteworthy,” reads the inspector general’s letter. “For example, Desruisseaux removed the specified hours of operation, effectively allowing 16 more hours per week of retail sales. Desruisseaux also eliminated the town’s input on facility managers and struck the section stating the circumstances under which the town could terminate the HCA, as well as the provision limiting the agreement to five years.”
Desruisseaux did not immediately respond to requests for comment from WBJ to the email listed on his CCC application, nor through the contact information listed for Green N’ Go. He is no longer a member of the Town’s Planning Board, according to Uxbridge's municipal website. Desruisseaux is still a member of the Uxbridge School Committee; he was chairman of the School Committee until Tuesday, when he was ousted as the result of a Town election, according to an article from the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
Montminy, who viewed his duties as acting town manager to be mainly as a caretaker during the brief time frame between Ellison’s departure and the appointment of an interim town manager, signed the HCA without reviewing, believing it to contain already approved language. Uxbridge’s town council did not review the HCA either, as it was not the town’s practice to review documents again at that stage in the process.
The inspector general’s letter said inspectors found not all not all town board members had completed mandatory state ethics training as required by state law.
“It is critical that municipalities have strong contracting procedures in place to mitigate vulnerabilities, as illustrated by this troubling and preventable course of events,” Shapiro said in a Thursday press release announcing the findings.
In an email to WBJ, current Uxbridge Town Manager Steven Sette, who took over the role in May 2022, declined to comment, saying Uxbridge’s board of selectmen is reviewing the OIG’s letter.
The letter outlines recommendations to town officials, including digitally locking documents to prevent unnegotiated changes, implementing a review process before final execution of documents, reviewing the previously-approved HCA with legal council to determine if legal remedies are available, and ensuring town officials complete the mandatory ethics training.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Green N' Go dispensary is operating as a drive-through. The business is still seeking regulatory approvals to do so. An earlier version of this article also incorrectly stated that Desruisseaux was chairman of the Uxbridge School Committee; while he remains on the Committee, he was ousted from the chair position in a Tuesday vote. This story has also been updated to clarify Desruisseaux's ownership status with Green N' Go.
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments