Blandford Select Board hires two highway workers, eyes battery storage bylaw

BLANDFORD -- February 12, 2024, Blandford Select Board unanimously approves two new highway hires and a cannabis permit credit while advancing a battery energy storage bylaw. The board voted without dissent to hire Clayton Therrien and Alex Tetreault as full-time highway department employees at the February 12 meeting, with both candidates lacking commercial driver's licenses and a board policy on town-paid CDL training still to be formalized in contract language. Members also voted to apply a previously paid $39,225 Belfleur Holdings building permit fee against a new $6,500 permit for the cannabis cultivator's first greenhouse on North Blandford Road, directing finance staff to resolve the multi-fiscal-year accounting; a construction fraud dispute had halted the project for nearly two years. An eight-page battery energy storage systems bylaw drafted with outside counsel is headed for a special town meeting warrant, with one board member estimating a proposed 200-megawatt facility on North Blandford Road could generate more than $100,000 annually in personal property taxes, "you can do the math," the member said of the potential $12,500-per-megawatt personal property rate.