The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission tapped a new acting leader following a contentious dismissal of its former chair.
Bruce Stebbins, an existing commission member, will serve as acting chair until a permanent replacement is found, state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg announced. The move comes after Goldberg fired Shannon O’Brien this week from the position, citing “gross misconduct.”
“The chair committed gross misconduct and demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a CCC commissioner,” Goldberg said in a statement to news outlets this week.
Goldberg added that the decision came after “careful consideration of over twenty hours of meetings, reviewing hundreds of pages of testimony and documents, and evaluating statutes, case law and policies.”
O’Brien’s tenure was mired by controversy, including a paid suspension in September 2023 following allegations of racist comments. Court filings published in December 2023 accused O’Brien of making “racially, ethnically and culturally insensitive statements.”
Specific allegations against O’Brien include using the word “yellow” to describe someone of Asian descent during a commission meeting. O’Brien acknowledged using the term but claimed she was quoting a developer of color. The investigative report included redacted sections containing anonymous statements, the CommonWealth Beacon reported.
O’Brien was also accused of presuming that a commission member and a state senator knew each other because both are people of color.
When confronted about these statements, O’Brien allegedly told investigators, “I should have cleaned it up. It’s difficult sometimes to know how to say the right thing,” according to ABC last year.
Two separate investigations were conducted into O’Brien’s conduct, which were made public by O’Brien herself, the CommonWealth Beacon reported.
The dismissal follows months of instability at the commission. WBUR reported that O’Brien, in her testimony during the closed-door hearings, charged that the “CCC has become an agency beset by a toxic internal work culture.”
Goldberg’s office has spent more than $616,000 pursuing this matter, while O’Brien continued to collect her $196,551 salary during her suspension, according to the outlet.
O’Brien plans to appeal her termination. Her attorneys have argued that the hearings conducted by the treasurer were not fair and that O’Brien’s behavior does not rise to the level of “gross misconduct” due to a lack of intent to harm, claiming violation of her due process rights. O’Brien herself has denied the allegations.
“Shannon O’Brien will appeal the decision to terminate her, including Treasurer Goldberg’s rationale and the hearing procedures that violated Shannon O’Brien’s due process rights, including but not limited to Treasurer Goldberg acting as the judge, prosecutor, jury and executioner,” William Gildea of Todd & Weld LLP told Law360 in an email.
Acting Chair Stebbins, who has been with the commission for four years, previously worked as Springfield’s business development administrator and served two terms on the city council.
“This is a crucial time for the state’s cannabis industry, which has grown in my four years as a Commissioner into a multi-billion-dollar, increasingly equitable marketplace,” Stebbins said in a statement on Thursday.
Stebbins said he looks forward to working on “important policy initiatives in the coming months” and supporting Massachusetts’ position as “a regional and national regulatory leader in this space.”
[[{“value”:”The body is expected to appoint a permanent chair in the coming months, as O’Brien preps to appeal.
The post Massachusetts names acting cannabis commission chair after former leader fired appeared first on Green Market Report.”}]] Read More