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Move, but not too quickly

East Palestine officials acted quickly to clear the way for a proposed facility to grow and process medical marijuana within the village.

Council held a special meeting June 5 and unanimously passed a resolution allowing Pure Ohio LLC to construct and operate a facility at privately owned property on Kemple Road.

The company must still receive the proper Tier II license from the Ohio Department of Commerce before it can become reality.

The facility will cost an estimated $2.5 million to $3 million to build and the company plans to use local contractors for the project and says it will hire locally for the jobs it will provide.

From seven to 15 new jobs would be available in the beginning and within four years there could be 35 to 50 jobs. And these will be jobs that provide good wages ranging from $15 per hour to $85,000 annually.

We commend village officials for jumping on this opportunity for future jobs and expansion of the town’s economic base.

We understand that there is a June 14 deadline to apply for the Tier II license, so council needed to act quickly to help this project along.

However, we question the need to call a special meeting and pass it through so quickly. Medical marijuana, although legal now in Ohio, is a new concept here and many people are still not completely comfortable with the idea. We realize that sitting on their hands and allowing the deadline to pass could have caused the village to miss out on this economic opportunity, but holding a meeting to allow for public input before taking a vote may have bolstered the opinion of the plan with residents.

Allowing people to voice their opinion about the project, whether for or against, may have fostered a lot of goodwill for both the proposed grow operation and the officials who approved it.

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