Buchanan Mayor Brenda Hess has received a lot of feedback about allowing medical marijuana facilities in the city. Some of it has not been nice.
Hess received an anonymous threatening letter, which blamed her for putting a medical marijuana provision center on Red Bud Trail and Bluff Street.
“When I opened that letter in my driveway, I was shocked and appalled,” Hess said. “My life has been put in an uproar with people judging me and sending me hateful emails, and saying bad things about my parents, that ‘you didn’t raise your daughter right. How dare her [put a medical marijuana facility there].’”
A pained groan murmured through the crowd, as people were visibly disturbed to hear the content of the letter.
“[The letter I received] was ugly. It was ugly and it was hateful,” Hess continued. “I get paid $40 a meeting to be your mayor. I’m not making a big paycheck, guys. I do [this job] because I love you (the people) and I love this town.”
During her speech, Hess made sure to clarify that the council was not voting on proposed locations for facilities, rather whether or not to allow businesses to apply for permits to operate in the first place.
“This, and all of the other meetings we have had, have not been about where this one dispensary would be,” Hess said. “We’re just looking to see, and getting input, on whether or not various types of medical marijuana [facilities] would be allowed in the town. It’s a much broader thing that we’re looking at.”
Ultimately, city council members voted Monday to postpone a decision about opting into Michigan’s medical marijuana law until the March 27 regular meeting.
“I think this is a healthy action by the commission,” Marx said. “This is all new territory for every community out there, and everybody is about neck-and-neck in trying to figure out where they’re at and what they’re doing.”
The lone nay vote on postponing the issue came from councilman Dan Vigansky who, moments before, made an unsuccessful motion to approve allowing Buchanan to opt into the law.
Buchanan City Manager Bill Marx explained that the Michigan State University Extension office will be hosting a work session on March 6 in Lawrence, Michigan.
“It’s designed for community leaders, commissioners and township people to go to,” Marx said. “So [the council members] want to take advantage of that, and see if they can learn any more.”
Specifically, council members have an eye toward what kind of regulation and zoning requirements the state may implement for medical marijuana facilities.
“I’m hoping to find out all of the rules,” Hess said. “Because the law is pretty straightforward, but we have some specific questions [about zoning].
“I wouldn’t want a dispensary next door to my house, but I also don’t want a 7-Eleven,” she said. “We have zoning laws for a reason.”
Buchanan resident Johnny Wallace was the first to bring the issue of a medical marijuana provision center to the council. He said that he’s hopeful about the council’s decision to postpone a vote.
“I want them [the council] to make a good informed decision,” Wallace said. “I think they are going to move forward. We’re going to give them another business plan, and there are specific things going on that should help this process go on.”
Wallace, who initially suggested the location on Red Bud Trail, said that the location he initially proposed is off the table as far as he is concerned.
“We have another proposed site. We’ve [Wallace and his business partners] been working on that since they [the council] said no,” he said. “I told everyone here before that I’m willing to work with the public, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Jeannie Harris, who lives along Bluff Street and has been an outspoken opponent to the proposed location, said the proposed location of the provision center has been the main sticking point for her and fellow residents.
“Our concern, from our neighborhood, was the fact that Mr. Wallace had proposed to put it in our neighborhood,” she said. “We did not want it in a residential neighborhood. It’s [the proposed location] right across from homes!
“If they [the council] would’ve told us that months ago, we would not have been coming here and getting up and talking against it,” she said. “That was our main concern.”
Harris says, though, that she and other Bluff Street residents plan to continue coming to meetings about medical marijuana legislation.
“Oh yeah. We’re gonna keep coming.”