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Cite Considerations Over “Ongoing Governance Points” on the CCC
Warning that motion is “desperately wanted” to handle upheaval on the Hashish Management Fee, the Senate’s high Republican and a number of other different lawmakers urged their colleagues Monday to topic the state’s marijuana regulatory company to new scrutiny.
A quintet of legislators mentioned they consider the Joint Committee on Hashish Coverage ought to open its personal oversight listening to to look at publicly reported issues on the CCC or advance laws that will arise an unbiased inner audit unit inside the company.
Their request comes 4 days after Treasurer Deborah Goldberg suspended CCC Chair Shannon O’Brien for undisclosed causes. The lawmakers requested their colleagues to research why O’Brien is suspended, who’s executing the chair’s duties in her stead, and what legislative modifications would possibly enhance the scenario.
Of their nine-page letter, the legislators additionally described considerations over “ongoing governance points” on the CCC, licensing delays, the company’s inadvertent public launch of personnel data earlier this 12 months, an alleged “retaliation in opposition to an unbiased journalist,” and a proposed coverage that will permit individuals required to register as intercourse offenders to function retail or supply operator brokers within the marijuana business.
“As everyone knows, the Hashish Management Fee (CCC) will not be performing because it ought to,” the authors — Democrat Sens. Michael Moore and Michael Brady, Senate Minority Chief Bruce Tarr, and Republican Reps. Donald Berthiaume and Michael Soter — wrote. “Our constituents, media experiences, and even the actions and phrases of the CCC itself have repeatedly made clear that motion is desperately wanted to carry oversight, transparency, and accountability to the CCC.”
The lawmakers mentioned the Hashish Coverage Fee has authority below legislative guidelines to open an oversight listening to concerning the CCC. An alternative choice, they mentioned, can be for the Legislature to “delegate its oversight duties” by way of laws filed by Moore and Berthiaume (S 58) that will create a brand new inner audit unit on the CCC, just like audit models in place at MassDOT, the Govt Workplace of Well being and Human Providers and Massachusetts State Police.
“The invoice obtained its listening to on July 18, 2023, and the legislature’s motion presently is suitable and wanted to guard the expenditure of public funds, guarantee a functioning regulatory scheme and produce public accountability, transparency and oversight to an company that’s clearly not functioning correctly,” lawmakers wrote.
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