As the Boston Herald reported Sept. 28, O’Brien is listed as “owner/partner” of Greenfield Greenery in that company’s 2020 application for a cultivation license. Greenfield, a city in western Massachusetts, held a zoning board meeting in June 2021, at which O’Brien represented herself as CEO of the business.
Greenfield Greenery holds a provisional license from the state. But the decision to award Greenfield Greenery with a final license rests on an upcoming inspection of the operations, and a vote by the CCC, the very regulatory body now helmed by O’Brien.
Furthermore, O’Brien is listed as an “adviser” on Charlemont FarmWorks’ cultivation business license application. That company, too, holds a provisional license as of September 2022.
O’Brien arrives as the chair of the CCC following her tenure as former state treasurer (1999-2003), former state senator (1993-1995) and former state representative (1987-1993). She lost the 2002 gubernatorial election to Mitt Romney.
As chair of the CCC, O’Brien’s salary is listed at $181,722.
A Boston Herald columnist jumped on the headline and called for O’Brien’s ouster Sept. 29.
The CCC has not publicly commented on this news, and the commission has no shortage of important business to attend to. Earlier this summer, Gov. Charlie Baker signed a law that charged the CCC with elevating the state cannabis industry’s diversity and tightening the oversight of host community agreements. Those host community agreements form the backbone of Massachusetts’ version of the local approval process for license applicants. Greenfield Greenery filed its own host community agreement in October 2020.
"You're probably aware of this, that you're joining the commission at a pivotal time," Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion told O'Brien earlier this month, without knowing perhaps the full ramifications of the CCC’s impending workload.
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