Barre Select Board Opens Marijuana Farm Talks, Orders Police Call Tracking at Stetson

BARRE -- February 19, 2019, Barre Select Board agrees to begin host community agreement process for town's first outdoor marijuana cultivation proposal. The board voted unanimously Tuesday to schedule a joint session with the Planning Board for March 4 or 5 and a first public hearing March 18, with a projected vote on a final agreement around May 6, all tied to a proposal by Castlerock Agricultural Enterprises Inc., whose principal, Matt Egan, an ER physician and Walnut Hill Road resident, presented plans to grow cannabis wholesale on five to eight acres of a 134-acre wooded property. In a separate unanimous vote, the board directed Police Chief Carbone to begin formally tracking all departmental time and resources spent on calls to the Stetson residential youth facility, after a board member noted the department had been called to the campus roughly 15 times more often per capita than to the regional high school over a recent two-week period. The board also restored a $2,000 annual education stipend accidentally omitted from the police chief's contract, approved Joel Cranston to the Cemetery Commission, and accepted a $29,000 voluntary payment in lieu of taxes from Insight Meditation.