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Carroll supervisors air concerns over cannabis, impact fees and gaming money

By Pat Cloonan pcloonan@heraldstandard.Com 4 min read
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Carroll Township supervisors had medical marijuana, natural gas impact fees and gaming-fueled Local Share Accounts on their plates Wednesday night.

The Carroll board opened up with only three residents at a hearing on an amendment to the township zoning ordinance to allow grower/processor and dispensary facilities in agricultural and industrial zones.

One had questions that kept township Solicitor Herman Bigi busy for much of the half-hour hearing, necessary before the township board votes on that amendment on Aug. 1.

“It’s a medical thing,” Maya Patch said. “Why don’t they just build it next to the hospital?”

Monongahela Valley Hospital, that is.

“We don’t know if a medical marijuana facility will ever come to Carroll Township,” Bigi said.

But, as he said last week, it is an effort to be proactive, as Act 16 of 2016 kicks in with permits for grower/processor and dispensary operations across the state.

For the record, the hospital has no comment about the proposal. Patch was disappointed that the board did not answer one of her questions: “How do you feel about it?”

“It’s here,” board Chairman Thomas Rapp said. “It doesn’t matter what we think.”

The issue has touched the lives of Rapp, whose 25-year-old granddaughter has cerebral palsy “and has up to 20 seizures a day,” and Supervisor Gary Lenzi.

“My father died at 49,” said Lenzi, now 65. “They gave him (medical marijuana) at the National Institutes of Health in Maryland for cancer to keep him calm.”

The solicitor cited Act 16 and its prohibitions. Marijuana can be administered as pills, oils, topical forms, such as gels, or in a nebulizer, but Bigi said the law excludes “dry leaf or plant form,” and cannot be smoked.

“There are only 17 conditions … you can be treated for under this act,” Bigi said. They include cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy.

No one sought to grow, process or dispense medical marijuana or cannabis in Carroll, but so far permits were awarded for grower/processor operations in McKeesport and Carmichaels, while dispensaries have been approved in Washington, Uniontown, Greensburg and Pittsburgh.

Bigi said the amendment allowing such facilities in manufacturing zones and as conditional uses in agricultural zones has approvals from the Washington County and Carroll Township planning commissions.

“The only benefit to the township would be for the tax money,” Patch said. Two forms of revenue benefiting the township came up during the voting meeting that followed the hearing.

“We’re concerned for the Local Share Account money,” Rapp said. “Every township in Washington County gets up front $25,000 plus $10 for each resident.”

“A lot of communities really rely on that money for their operations,” board Vice Chairman James Harrison said.

There’s concern that distribution of LSA money as provided locally by The Meadows Racetrack and Casino would go through Harrisburg, rather than host counties.

That could end such distribution by county officials as the joint grant to Mon Valley Hospital and Washington Health System of $500,000 for community education and training.

According to the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, as composed for state Senate action the omnibus gaming reform House Bill 271 restores “the uniform local share assessment for host counties and municipalities” that the state Supreme Court found unconstitutional.

The board approved a letter to Rep. Rick Saccone, R-Elizabeth Township, with copies to go to Rep. Bud Cook, R-Coal Center, and Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-Carroll Township, as well as one “just to keep him informed” to U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Hollidaysburg.

Carroll is entirely in districts represented by Bartolotta, Cook and Shuster, but until 2013 two of five precincts in the township were in Saccone’s 39th Legislative District.

The board also accepted for deposit into the township Capital Reserve Fund the 2016 payment of $269,020.91 in natural gas impact fee revenue under Act 13 of 2012. Rapp said that represents what is received from EQT’s five well pads with each carrying as many as 20 wells.

“They’re increasing (the number of wells) every day,” Rapp said. “(EQT has) applied to the (state Department of Environmental Protection) for permission to drill additional wells.”

Other business Wednesday included approval for Professional Code Services Inc. of Gibsonia to prepare a residential tenant registration program.

“This will be a big slap in the face for (slumlords),” Zoning Officer Dennis W. Butler said.

“We have no idea how many (tenants) are in those buildings,” Rapp said.

If the program works out, Rapp said it could be extended to commercial landlord-tenant situations.

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