SOUTH DEERFIELD — Before the public hearing on Dollar General ended Monday evening, local businessman and resident Mark Valone offered up a major penny for his thoughts.
He said, turning to Tolly Stark and members of the new grassroots group Deerfield For Responsible Development, that he was willing to financially support independent legal efforts to investigate the unlicensed tree-clearing that has prompted an outpouring of civic engagement in recent months, most of which has been centered around preventing a proposed Dollar General from being built at the corner of Mill Village Road and routes 5 and 10.
It was an interesting and unexpected turn of events around a potential business that vocal residents have been adamant in denying, or, at least for the time being, filibustering, its coming to town.
Valone’s offer to pay for a lawyer could end in Greg Gardner, the current owner of the land, and Dollar General not being able to get a permit from the state to create a driveway to the store from routes 5 and 10, as intended in the current proposed plans state. It could also just drive up the cost of pursuing this endeavor in Deerfield, for the national company that already has a store in Greenfield, to the point that it backs out altogether.
At least, that’s what some residents are hoping for and have suggested.
Part of the reason it has gotten to this point is because residents haven’t heard what they’ve wanted to hear from either the Planning Board or Selectboard. The grassroots group sent letters to both bodies since the last public hearing in the beginning of July.
Yet Planning Board Chairman John Waite stated at Monday’s public hearing — which did not include any new facts from the pending independent discovery — that after consulting the town’s lawyer, there is nothing the board can do when it comes to pursuing legal action on the illicit tree-clearing.
“That’s a separate issue from the site plan review application,” Waite told the few dozen in attendance, to the disappointment of many of them.
Business owner Gina Bordoni-Cowley, who runs Rock Fossil & Dinosaur Shop, pleaded with the board about the issues this tree-clearing has created for her. Since the trees were removed in late April, early May, she said anytime there’s significant rain, parts of her shop are flooding.
The board was cautious to offer any help, saying it’s probably more under the state’s jurisdiction, since that’s technically who owns the land where the trees were removed from — not Gardner’s and Dollar General.
At one moment in the meeting, a game of pass-the-buck occurred when the planning board said it didn’t know who could enforce the tree-removal issue and press the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, and asked what about the Selectboard or the Town Administrator.
No town official could give a concrete answer, mainly because it was unclear what answer there was to give. This is where Valone stepped in, right before the hearing closed, to present an unexpected offer.
Just last week Valone, a prominent businessman in the area and who is proposing a seed-to-weed marijuana industry in the old Deerfield Plastics building, has sparred with the Selectboard over what he felt was its members delaying his, or anyone’s chances of getting licensed to open a retail pot shop.
Monday night, though, Valone was able to drum up the support by offering to help out on an issue he said he’s passionate about.
“I think it’s a pretty severe thing that happened,” Valone said. “Anyone who drives by says, ‘What the hell happened?’ ”
Afterward, Valone said this doesn’t directly have to do with any of his businesses or proposed ones; he added that he feels Dollar General is bad for property values in town. What it comes down to for him, he said, is getting an answer on an issue that as recently as this past week a spokesman for MassDOT said the agency still has no timeline it can share on potential ramifications, if any, for the illicit tree-clearing cut.
“I lie on the side that the townspeople lie on,” Valone said. “If they all said we want the Dollar General, then I wouldn’t be here tonight.”
You can reach
Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264