Wilton Town Manager Rhonda Irish, left, and Selectpersons Keith Swett, Tom Saviello, Tiffany Maiuri and David Leavitt review information Tuesday. (Dee Menear/Franklin Journal)
WILTON — The Board of Selectpersons agreed Tuesday to have the Planning Board move ahead with an application for a medical marijuana store.
Selectpersons recently considered having a moratorium on medical caregiver storefronts, but they made no motion Tuesday to go forward with it.
In June, voters amended the zoning ordinance to allow marijuana retail sales, manufacturing and cultivation. The ordinance does not distinguish between adult-use and medical marijuana establishments.
Code Enforcement Officer Charlie Lavin said Tuesday that the Planning Board has received an application for a medical marijuana store.
“The Planning Board feels it is up to this board if you want to do a moratorium. Otherwise, they will just take each case they get and work it through what we have in the ordinance,” Town Manager Rhonda Irish said.
Over the winter, the Planning Board and ordinance committee could work on putting together an ordinance specific to medical marijuana storefronts, Irish said.
“I feel like the Planning Board has already done what they need to do. I think they can handle it,” Selectperson Tom Saviello said.
Irish also updated selectpersons on a petition filed with the Maine Public Utilities Commission to intervene in Central Maine Power’s New England Clean Energy Connect project.
The board approved late-filing the petition at the Oct. 2 meeting. The deadline for intervention filing was Oct. 13, 2017, according to information in the PUC project docket.
The $950 million project proposes building a 145-mile transmission line to deliver power generated by Hydro-Quebec to users in Massachusetts. The line through Maine would begin in Beattie Township in Franklin County and extend east and south into Somerset, Androscoggin and Cumberland counties.
As an intervenor, Wilton will have a seat at the table in any decisions, any requests, any filings that are made in proceedings and would be copied on all correspondence in the docket, Board of Selectpersons Chairwoman Tiffany Maiuri said at the Oct. 2 meeting.
“Central Maine Power Co. and the New England Clean Energy Connect Project has ceased negotiations with a group that had formed to work out something that was more amenable to the people of Franklin County,” according to Maiuri.
Irish said she is receiving a dozen or more emails a day on the proposed project.
“It just keeps us informed. As an intervenor, I also receive the emails,” Saviello said.
“I got an email tonight that the public advocate had apparently come up with some kind of a settlement proposal that will be discussed on Oct. 18. They have not responded to Franklin County,” he said.
Saviello said he did not anticipate that the Department of Environmental Protection would issue permits until 2019.
“Once the permits are issued, they will be appealed and there will be public hearings,” he said.
dmenear@thefranklinjournal.com
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