MENOMINEE — The Menominee City Council Monday voted 5-4 to remove an action item regarding a marijuana settlement from the agenda.
Council members Bill Plemel, Michael DeDamos, Joe Dulak, Doug Robinson and Mayor Casey Hoffman voted yes to remove the possible action on the settlement. Council members Steve Fifarek, Cheryl Haupt, Josh Jones and Donna Marineau voted no to keep the item on the agenda.
“I read all nine pages of it,” Haupt said. “It looks like a good agreement — it hits the high points that I would’ve liked to see in previous editions. I’m kind of disappointed we don’t get a chance to vote on it tonight.”
Marineau asked council members why they wanted to remove it.
Robinson said he felt under pressure to make a decision. He wanted to come up with questions and discuss it.
“I don’t have anything positive or negative to say,” Robinson said. “It was just impossible for me to assimilate all that information in such a short period of time.”
DeDamos said he was sent the drafts all at once, leading him to question which version he needed to review.
Dulak said he received the document at 3:45 p.m. on Friday. Over the past few weeks, they’ve received several versions of the settlement agreement. He mentioned a nondisparagement clause and wondered if the council would see it in the final version.
“You’re not going to enforce that,” said Matt Cross of Cummings, McClorey, Davis, & Acho, the attorney representing the city in the lawsuit who fielded questions at the meeting. “It’s a First Amendment issue. That’s why it was taken out.”
Cross also explained that he emailed the council members the new settlement version five minutes after receiving it.
“It was a living document, changing every few minutes up until the point you got it,” Cross said.
The settlement would eliminate federal and state claims and appeals.
However, Cross said the lingering issue is that if a settlement agreement is reached, there could still be litigation based on that.
Cross said he thinks the intervening defendants — Attitude Wellness/Lume, OI Holdings/Higher Love, NU Group/Nirvana, Rocky North/GreenPharm and Highwire Farms — would take the position that they’d like to be off the hook for any additional requirement to front the costs for the city for the 2024 settlement agreement.
Cross said the city would need to decide how to proceed with that. As it stands, the settlement would require them to still pay, and it would add The Fire Station and Rize as companies that have to pay, too.
Cross said the intervening defendants, who were originally the plaintiffs, want it to be a universal settlement.
“It’s just not easy to get on the same page,” Cross said. “We’re doing our best; I think everyone is trying.”
He said there was not much left to do on the case, and he told the council he would set up one-on-one meetings to discuss the matter further and clarify for council members.
“It doesn’t feel like we are that far apart in coming to a resolution that at least gets the city out of the litigation,” Cross said.
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