Natick Report

More than you really want to know about Natick, Mass.

Natick applying for racial equity grant, puts focus on housing

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Natick announced at its Select Board meeting this week that it is submitting an application for a grant designed to help the town come up with a racial equity plan.

The Racial Equity Municipal Action Plan, offered through a collaboration including the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, will only be awarded to three to five municipalities. Natick is already in the midst of forming an equity task force.

The goal of the grant program is to provide cities and towns with “technical assistance to create racial equity action plans and to take meaningful action to advance racial equity,” according to MAPC. Recipients will be announced by Sept. 10.

Deputy Town Administrator James Errickson says Natick’s application will focus on “barriers to housing in regards to equity and the need to make sure that we are not unnecessarily burdening any one population.” Zoning and land use will be examined, he said.

Anything developed through such a grant would need to sync up with the town’s 2030+ master plan.

Natick is partnering with neighboring communities, including Framingham, to support each other’s submissions for this program.

Wellesley has also applied for this grant.

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Natick votes: We’re going to need a bigger box in November

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Natick voters have three ways to cast ballots for the Sept. 1 state primary election:

  • By mail using an early voting/absentee ballot (requires an application). You can track your ballot online.
  • Vote early in person at Town Hall (Aug. 22-23) and the Morse Institute Library (Aug. 24-28). COVID-19 protocols apply.
  • Vote in person on Election Day.  All polling locations will be open from 7:00AM-8:00PM, and note that precincts 1-3 have been moved to the Natick High gym.

Natick Town Hall

Packer advises dropping off ballots in the mail slot at Town Hall at this point, rather than mailing them.

Staff has been checking the lockbox that ballots stuck into the mail slot go into numerous times per day because it’s been getting full. “We are looking at a larger solution for that problem for November,” she says.

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Natick borders evil Ardham in HBO’s Lovecraft Country TV series

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We haven’t seen HBO’s new Lovecraft Country series based on a novel that draws from the writings of H.P. Lovecraft and whose characters struggle against a racist society as well as monsters.

But reader Christine Roberts, whose Dad grew up in Natick, shared this screenshot from the show indicating that Natick and South Natick are right on the edge of Ardham, the epicenter of evil on the show. “In the Lovecraft stories, Arkham [Ardham in the show] is an approximation of Salem,” she says.

Whether Natick will rate a mention, well, we guess you’ll need to tune in.

Lovecraft country screenshot

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Recreational pot shops eager to call Natick home

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Natick residents in 2016 voted in favor of legalizing adult recreational use of marijuana in the state, and now eight businesses are vying to bring cannabis shops to town.

Town Meeting voted in 2018 to approve a handful of zones where such businesses could locate, and in the map below you can see where seven of the eight applicants propose setting up shop. Among the most intriguing: a business that seeks to operate out of the space where Bernie & Phyl’s sells furniture on Rte. 9, right across from the Amazing lingerie store—quite the transition for that section of the road. (We reached out to Bernie & Phyl’s but haven’t heard back.)

Natick Rec pot map

A maximum of two applicants will be approved, and based on the town’s review and licensing schedule, it looks like any such business would not open before next spring:

  • June/July – Review by the Marijuana Establishments RFI review committee.
  • August – Interviews with Respondents; select top tier respondents.
  • September – Community Meeting with top tier respondents.
  • September/October – Recommendation to Select Board
  • Fall, 2020 – Community Host Agreement
  • Winter, 2020/2021 – Special Permit Process with Planning Board
  • Spring 2021 – Licensing with Select Board

These businesses aren’t waiting until the last minute, though, to get the word out about their intentions. They lay it on thick about the educational and community contributions they will make, though in fairness,  the Natick request for information application calls for some of that (“Royalty Group and its Team will be the kind of cannabis organization that is focused on the people who make up the company, especially its employees, and who are a community driven organization that seeks to better the municipalities in which we conduct our businesses in.”).

There are so many references to education on these feel-good outfits’ websites that I almost mistook some of them for schools. Quality, uniqueness, safety, organically, and community, are among their catchwords. Marijuana, pot and weed, not so much. They sometimes spell out, in their menus, the various impacts their products will have on you, from pain relief to relaxation to creativity.

Dale Buckman, a Natick resident who leads the sciency-sounding Phytotherapy Natick, recently reached out to the community online to share information on the outfit’s plans if it gets selected to open in town. Interestingly, the business looks to open at the current Bernie & Phyl’s space on Rte. 9 (combining cannabis and furniture sales might not be the worst idea, but that’s not the plan).

Phytotherapy assures that “We have laid out a vision for success that will benefit the Town, our organization and, most importantly the residents of the Town of Natick.” Its Natick-specific website is focused on its building, traffic and education plans, not its products, which are hinted at on its main website.

The business says it has or will reach out to a number of usual suspects among Natick’s community service organizations, and that it will attempt to give Natick residents preference (to the extent it can under the law) for 30-45 jobs it anticipates filling at its retail shop. It touts plans for educational forums and materials for adults, with some knowledge designed for dispensing to children.

ReLeaf, Justice Grown, C3 & more

Among the others looking to set up shop in Natick is reLeaf Alternative, which manages to check off a bunch of those aforementioned catchwords in its mission statement: “to provide quality education, experience and service to our communities by delivering organically grown cannabis in a safe environment.”

ReLeaf does educate on its website by laying out different types of cannabis and strains, and also pushes planned community involvement.

C3 Industries, whose name could represent just about any type of company, distinguishes itself by having cultivation, manufacturing and retail operations. The business is based in Ann Arbor, Mich., but has a presence in Portland, Ore., and has designs on expanding its High Profile brand to Massachusetts.

Another candidate, Justice Grown, was launched in 2014 by civil rights attorneys, and it has Middleborough and Gardner as other Massachusetts targets (it has dispensaries already in Pennsylvania). Among its missions: “We work to undo the damage done by cannabis prohibition through action and charitable giving.”

Other applications to Natick were filed by Strain, Cypress Tree, and Revolutionary Clinics.

Under a separate process, medical marijuana dispensary Bountiful Farms (which has a rare “.care” web address) looks to open at 13 Mercer Rd., in Natick behind The Verve hotel.

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