The state’s adult cannabis program continues to cause headaches for Gov. Ned Lamont’s administration.
Ginny-Rae Clay, the cannabis Social Equity Council’s executive director, announced in a combative email that she is, “with a heavy heart,” resigning, effective August 1. Clay wrote, “my final days in this role have been marred by unsubstantiated allegations, threats, and publicly leaked false narratives, all of which have unjustly called my character and integrity into question.”
Some gear grinding is expected when government creates a new state agency, especially when it is undertaking a task, regulating the widespread cultivation and sale of marijuana, that the government has previously treated as a crime. The legalization of the adult use of marijuana is complex and involves hundreds of millions of dollars a year, adding to the scrutiny of the state agency that it was always going to draw.
The state’s marijuana legalization role is rooted in the belief that the war on drugs was fought primarily in poor neighborhoods and the benefits from legalizing marijuana should flow to those disproportionately impacted areas through licenses, jobs, and community grants. That sounds simpler than it is turnout out to be.
Members of the SEC voted to postpone a second round of community grants at their fractious June 4 meeting. At it, some members of the board made vague references to chatter on the street that the licensing process was not fair. The moratorium on making more community grants came as Lamont made a rare request that a comprehensive audit of the cannabis agency be performed by State Comptroller Sean Scanlon’s office. That has begun.
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A June 23 report in the CT Mirror revealed questions about Clay’s role in the first round of community grants. The SEC made 162 grants to 150 organizations in six urban regions, distributing $5.2 million. The recipients included a handful of churches. One of them was the Waterbury church Clay attends, the CTMirror’s Mark Pazniokas reported. It received $15,000.
Given the large number of churches in the six grant regions and the tiny number that received SEC grants, the money going to Clay’s church caused alarm and consternation. Add to that the hefty fees of up to 10% the organizations hired by SEC to distribute the millions and it’s easy to see why a grant to Clay’s church caused concern.
Concern became dismay when Andrea Comer, the volunteer chair of the SEC, learned that a representative of an applicant with a pending social equity plan claimed Clay told them to visit a church in Waterbury that “needed a new freezer.” The applicant declined to purchase a new freezer for the church and seemed to believe that decision caused a delay in its application.
SEC member Michael Jefferson opposed the moratorium on grants while the comptroller audits the agency. He viewed it in apocalyptic terms, telling board members it is “the first step in dismantling the Social Equity Council.” Jefferson has defended Clay and, to me, seemed unconcerned when Comer informed him about the complaint that Clay had pressured an applicant to donate a freezer for a Waterbury church. On Tuesday, Jefferson called Clay’s resignation “unfortunate” and the result “of a personal vendetta and personal infighting.”
Governments everywhere feature rivalries, likes and dislikes. In Connecticut’s one-party state, combatants know to wage their fights out of public view. The Clay resignation was a rare public display of hostilities. It follows months of carefully phrased alerts by Lamont and the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus. It was the BPRC that raised concerns about the grant program that caused the SEC to enact its moratorium.
BPRC members have maintained sustained interest in the details of the cannabis program. They are aware of the details of applications not only from the SEC but through their communities. The process of winning licenses and approval for social equity plans has become one of state government’s mysteries. The rules are clear. How they are applied has caused open consternation in state government, and that remains unusual in Connecticut.
Audits are conducted out of public view but the hubbub around the SEC has changed this examination by the comptroller. Scanlon will have to address not only the payment of a grant to the church Clay attends but also the email claiming an applicant was pressured to make a specific contribution while an application was pending.
The day after Clay made her incendiary charge that she was the target of “unsubstantiated allegations, threats,” and “false narratives,” she appeared on WNHH’s Urban Talk Radio with genial host Kingsley Ossei. In the hour-long interview, Clay referred briefly to her impending departure but not to the tumultuous events that caused it. Scanlon will not have the same option. His audit must unravel the mysteries of regulating cannabis in Connecticut, including who threatened Clay.
Kevin Rennie can be reached at [email protected]
