EASTHAMPTON — After close to an hour of discussion on Wednesday, the City Council agreed to pay for the $18,000 grand opening celebration of the new Mountain View School from the city’s cannabis stabilization fund.
The vote, however, was not unanimous. Councilor At-Large Brad Riley, who questioned the process for the appropriation, voted against it.
Public discussion on funding the Oct. 22 event was brought up at a September School Building Committee meeting by Superintendent Allison LeClair, said Mayor Nicole LaChapelle at the council’s public hearing Wednesday.
“The superintendent came to that meeting and asked for funding from the School Building Committee and spoke up at that meeting and said it was an inappropriate use of bonded funds,” she said, referring to money used to build the school.
LaChapelle said the budget for the event was originally $4,700 and a logo had already been designed. Plans at that time also included food trucks for attendees to purchase food from. The mayor decided that as a community celebration, she did not want to require people to have to pay for food.
In the end, the event grew to include an outreach fair with booths from the Easthampton Healthy Youth Coalition and the state Department of Public Health as well as free ice cream from Mount Tom’s, musical entertainment, free food from four vendors and a shuttle to and from the new building. The bill for all of these activities climbed to $18,035.60.
“I wanted people to come to the event unfettered whether they could or could not afford a food truck. I honestly did not care,” LaChapelle said. “I just thought that we should all celebrate together and that it should not be a worry on anybody’s discretionary or actual income, whether you can afford it or not or whatnot. And it was a great way to give stable income to our local food trucks.”
One by one, each councilor shared their perspective on the matter and how they intended to vote.
Much like he had at the last Finance Committee meeting, Precinct 3 Councilor Tom Peake inquired why funding the event wasn’t discussed beforehand.
“I went to the event — I thought it was a great event. And I agree with the idea of providing food at the event so that everyone, regardless of what their budget was, could eat, is perfectly understandable,” said Peake. “I guess the part that really trips me up is why this couldn’t have been discussed prior to the event because at this point, the money has been spent. The vendors are awaiting payment … and cannabis seems like a perfectly fine way to spend it.”
Riley, who said he was unaware of the Oct. 22 party until seeing a Dec. 15 Gazette article and receiving subsequent email correspondence about it, sought out the itemized receipts on the event for further clarification. He questioned the idea of paying for the event with community impact fees from cannabis establishments as a “reason to say that taxpayers are not paying for it.”
“To me, that’s disingenuous. It’s true that if you never shop at a local dispensary in Easthampton, you wouldn’t be paying for this party with your tax dollars if we approved the appropriation. But the cannabis stabilization fund is still a community benefit that everyone should be benefiting from equally,” he said.
Riley also noted that the criteria for the cannabis stabilization fund appropriations shall be “reasonably related” to the costs imposed upon the municipality by the operation of a marijuana establishment. He felt that no city dispensary directly affected the ability to have the party.
“Unless there’s a compelling reason as to why we can skirt the appropriations process which Councilor Peake has brought up — and by the way, that’s a process that no other department does that. So this is everybody else plays by the same set of rules – … we’re just trying to make an exception for this one spot,” he said.
At-large Councilor Koni Denham agreed with Riley’s sentiments and reasserted sentiments she shared at the Finance Committee meeting that the spending for the event was “excessive.”
Although she voted in favor of the supplemental appropriation, Denham also noted that the residents who are on fixed incomes made a big sacrifice in voting yes on building the new school.
“I understand the idea of a celebration. I think that there should be something celebratory, I’m not disputing that in any way and no disrespect to the schools or the committee or the mayor. I just think it was excessive,” she said. “I think it was far more than was necessary.”
At-Large City Councilor Owen Zaret commended the due diligence of his fellow councilors and said that while he doesn’t disagree with a preference to have discussed the event beforehand, he saw the event as “much-needed” in the wake of the pandemic.
Resident Megan Harvey, who serves on the School Committee, also spoke during the public hearing, described the opening of the school and the school itself as a “triumph.” She said the event was attended by several residents including a number who didn’t have students attending the school.
President Homar Gomez noted a concern regarding how taxpayers’ money or “peoples’ money” is spent as some councilors considered $18,000 reasonable.
“One dollar is too much when we’re using peoples’ money. I’m not saying $18,000 was too much for this event, I’m saying that $18,000 is too much because $1 is too much when it’s peoples’ money. We need to be aware of that,” he said.
Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.
