Wendy Foxmyn, Deerfield’s Administrator, Shares Good News

Things are happening in our little town.  There are a lot of moving parts, and the person who might know the most about them is our Town Administrator, Wendy Foxmyn. I sat down with Wendy last week in her town hall office to discuss these developments and other things about the town.

The first thing I asked Wendy was the status of our town’s only recreational marijuana dispensary, that is supposed to open in the red single family house across from Red Roof Inn on Route 5.   “It’s a different group now,” she said. “But it’s still going to be a dispensary, just with different people.

So expect to have a place in town in the next months that will be selling weed to the over-21 public.  Cultivators are getting permission to begin growing in town, and the main hurdle to licensing is having financial stability.  The same people who are buying the Castaways in Whately are in talks to begin getting licensed, she said.

Someone else has proposed a medical marijuana dispensary to be located right next to the red house, in the shops that house the Sturbridge Outlets, the discount store.  One of these storefronts, located not in Deerfield, but in Whately, might also become a pot shop.  There are two active pot business licenses being sought out by people coming before the board.  The nearby Atlantic Furniture buildings, now not in use, might also be a pot location.

Wendy said there are other interesting things happening in town, as she took another bite of ice cream. “This is lunch, and probably dinner,” she said.

I asked her about why so many of the select board are also on the planning board, school committee and the oversight committees. “There are too few people for all of these boards,” Wendy said.  But one good thing that’s happening in the Town Administrator’s office is that they’ve hired a per diem assistant to work on the Complete Streets Program. Not the one that we all worked on in 2012, but a new one, that will bring improvements to the town common, the sidewalks and the entrance to the village.

“We are trying to fix up the common, and the former Congregational Church that the town inherited when the church disbanded,” she said. It was not much of a gift since the town still has to go to probate court and eventually, they will own the historic building as well as the land around the library.   Though the building is going to require a whole lot of work, it is still potentially a new senior center, and can most likely be a good place for Seniors to gather instead of the current cramped quarters.

The new library is going to be a big deal for the town, and anyone wondering about the potential should take a look at the Sunderland Library. It’s a magnificent building and its used by so many different people.  Wendy added that two parcels in the former pickle factory land have been sold, to a Greenfield bakery and a manufacturer.

Wendy said that the Complete Streets Program grant is exciting–“we just have to address the parking issues and other unsafe intersections, and with this would come new sidewalks and other improvements.  “We will have more meetings, get the designs figured out, and we will apply for funding, I think it’s going to happen this time.”

In other news, Gianni Figs restaurant and the new Ciesluk’s Market, as well as Bittersweet Bakery, have all gotten their liquor licenses, and if the town applies for the state to grant more, it will also increase the number of retail pot establishments that can be licensed too.