The physique is anticipated to nominate a everlasting chair within the coming months, as O’Brien preps to attraction.
The Massachusetts Hashish Management Fee tapped a brand new performing chief following a contentious dismissal of its former chair.
Bruce Stebbins, an current fee member, will function performing chair till a everlasting substitute is discovered, state Treasurer Deborah Goldberg introduced. The transfer comes after Goldberg fired Shannon O’Brien this week from the place, citing “gross misconduct.”
“The chair dedicated gross misconduct and demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a CCC commissioner,” Goldberg mentioned in a press release to information shops this week.
Goldberg added that the choice got here after “cautious consideration of over twenty hours of conferences, reviewing a whole bunch of pages of testimony and paperwork, and evaluating statutes, case regulation and insurance policies.”
O’Brien’s tenure was mired by controversy, together with a paid suspension in September 2023 following allegations of racist feedback. Court docket filings printed in December 2023 accused O’Brien of creating “racially, ethnically and culturally insensitive statements.”
Particular allegations in opposition to O’Brien embrace utilizing the phrase “yellow” to explain somebody of Asian descent throughout a fee assembly. O’Brien acknowledged utilizing the time period however claimed she was quoting a developer of colour. The investigative report included redacted sections containing nameless statements, the CommonWealth Beacon reported.
O’Brien was additionally accused of presuming {that a} fee member and a state senator knew one another as a result of each are folks of colour.
When confronted about these statements, O’Brien allegedly instructed investigators, “I ought to have cleaned it up. It’s troublesome typically to know the right way to say the suitable factor,” in response to ABC final 12 months.
Two separate investigations had been carried out into O’Brien’s conduct, which had been made public by O’Brien herself, the CommonWealth Beacon reported.
The dismissal follows months of instability on the fee. WBUR reported that O’Brien, in her testimony in the course of the closed-door hearings, charged that the “CCC has grow to be an company beset by a poisonous inner work tradition.”
Goldberg’s workplace has spent greater than $616,000 pursuing this matter, whereas O’Brien continued to gather her $196,551 wage throughout her suspension, in response to the outlet.
O’Brien plans to attraction her termination. Her attorneys have argued that the hearings carried out by the treasurer weren’t truthful and that O’Brien’s conduct doesn’t rise to the extent of “gross misconduct” as a consequence of a scarcity of intent to hurt, claiming violation of her due course of rights. O’Brien herself has denied the allegations.
“Shannon O’Brien will attraction the choice to terminate her, together with Treasurer Goldberg’s rationale and the listening to procedures that violated Shannon O’Brien’s due course of rights, together with however not restricted to Treasurer Goldberg performing because the decide, prosecutor, jury and executioner,” William Gildea of Todd & Weld LLP instructed Law360 in an e-mail.
Appearing Chair Stebbins, who has been with the fee for 4 years, beforehand labored as Springfield’s enterprise growth administrator and served two phrases on the town council.
“It is a essential time for the state’s hashish trade, which has grown in my 4 years as a Commissioner right into a multi-billion-dollar, more and more equitable market,” Stebbins mentioned in a press release on Thursday.
Stebbins mentioned he seems ahead to engaged on “vital coverage initiatives within the coming months” and supporting Massachusetts’ place as “a regional and nationwide regulatory chief on this house.”
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