HADLEY — Bylaws to give the town better control over where adult-use marijuana is grown and sold, as well as where it can be consumed, the creation of a municipal human resources department, and farmland preservation projects come before annual Town Meeting Thursday.
The 28-article warrant, which includes a $17.5 million budget for town and school operations, begins at 7 p.m. at Hopkins Academy.
Residents will be asked to act on a zoning bylaw that sets rules for where marijuana can be sold and cultivated, with growing limited to indoor inside structures that are dark to the sky.
“If this does not pass we will have no local regulation on marijuana growth and sales,” Planning Board Clerk William Dwyer told residents at a warrant preview meeting last week. A vote against the article will not eliminate growing or selling marijuana, he said.
A general bylaw on marijuana will provide better control over where marijuana can be consumed.
The general fund budget of $17.5 million marks an increase of just over $1 million, or 6.1 percent, from the current year’s $16.5 million budget. The budget preserves level services, with $120,024 going toward the creation of a human resources department. The budget also enhances public safety, with a $62,487 bump in salaries and supplies for the fire department, increasing that budget to $676,362.
Four spending items for the Department of Public Works, totaling $265,000, will require a Proposition 2 ½ debt exclusion override vote sometime after June 6. These are $100,000 to clean and repair drainage ditches, $75,000 to purchase a skid steer loader, $30,000 to buy a hot box that will hold hot asphalt to fill potholes and $60,000 for a mini-excavator.
Voters will be asked to use $210,000 in Community Preservation Act money to help Kestrel Land Trust put the Szala Farm property, 170 acres between Comins and Shattuck roads, in the state’s Agricultural Preservation Restriction program. Another $83,091 will go toward similar preservation of the Niedbala Farm.
Renovating Hopkins Academy’s playing fields will depend on $185,000 from the CPA account, and $32,000 will go to the third phase of overhauling Zatyrka Park.
Zatyrka Park will also be the subject of a swap in which its 6 acres will be permanently protected under Article 97 of the state constitution. The idea is to get legislative approval to remove the similar protection on the ballfield on River Drive next to the North Hadley Village Hall, a building the town has been trying to sell.
Select Board member David J. Fill II said that sale is on hold until the ballfield’s protection ends.
The lone petition article on the warrant seeks to support an effort in the state Legislature to examine whether the state flag’s imagery, including the depiction of an American Indian, should be changed.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
