Globe misses real story on Wu soccer stadium cost controversy | Inept Mass. cannabis watchdog faces sweeping overhaul | Prosecutorial overreach doomed case against Karen Read |

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Dead man walking: Time is running out for the Bay State’s rogue cannabis regulator as State House leaders eye sweeping overhaul

That would be the Cannabis Control Commission, which has misgoverned the state’s budding pot industry for nearly a decade.

The House recently passed a bill that would put the troubled CCC, riven for years by chronic infighting and allegations of mismanagement, firmly under the thumb of Gov. Maura Healey.

Now one of the agency’s leading critics in the Senate tells Contrarian Boston he’s throwing his support behind the effort and hopes to get a reform bill passed this year.

“Here we have an agency that has been in the news with all these different problems and nothing has been done,” state Sen. Michael Moore (D-Millbury) said. “I think we have a good shot at getting something done – the fact that the House has acted on it so quickly indicates it’s a priority with them.”

The proposal would rein in the often unwieldy five-member commission, where the chair, at best, has been first among equals.

Instead, the commission would be winnowed down to a full-time chair, empowered to help lead the agency, and two part-time commissioners – all appointed by the governor.

Photo by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash

Established in 2017 on the heels of a statewide referendum, the pot regulator has earned a reputation as a dumpster fire of a dysfunctional state authority.

It can take cannabis storefronts years to get licensed in the first place, saddling pot shop owners with huge debt loads before they even open.

Adding to the industry’s woes, black market operators continue to be major players, undercutting prices at the legal establishments.

Meanwhile, the agency has struggled just to undertake basic regulatory tasks.

In a report released last year, state Inspector General Jeffrey S. Shapiro found that the CCC failed to collect up to $1.2 million in provisional licensing fees from cannabis establishments and $550,000 in prorated license fees.

In an unusual move, Shapiro also called for the pot agency to be put into state receivership.

“To have an inspector general come out and recommend an agency be put into receivership, I think speaks volumes,” Moore said.

Interestingly, the House bill would also end State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg’s controversial oversight of the cannabis agency.

A calculated campaign of HR complaints and flimsy allegations of racist comments led to the resignation of the commission’s first chair and the firing last year of its second leader, former state treasurer Shannon O’Brien, critics say,

Goldberg engaged in long and bitter legal battle to oust O’Brien - a former long-time colleague in Democratic state politics who she had appointed CCC chair in 2022 - racking up a $1 million-plus legal tab that’s still running.

Goldberg is now battling a wrongful termination lawsuit, with the state treasurer having fought to keep records of the disciplinary hearings that led to O’Brien’s firing hidden from the public.

O’Brien, in turn, is paying out of her own pocket to force Goldberg to release the records, arguing that forcing their public release is the only way she can clear her name after being tarred with ginned-up allegations.

What a mess.

Missing the real story: Boston mayor acknowledges sky-high cost estimates for her controversial soccer stadium plan really did come from City Hall

Leave it to The Boston Globe to brush aside the real news and instead churn out a story that was all but a press release for one of its favorite progressive pols.

That would be the paper’s coverage of a very significant admission by Boston Mayor Michelle Wu about the cost of one of her pet projects, the controversial construction of an 11,000-seat pro soccer stadium in historic Franklin Park.