Board declines cap on cannabis stores, flags emergency-plan and communication gaps after outage

At its Dec. 19 meeting the Presque Isle Planning Board discussed whether to restrict the number of cannabis retail stores in the city and opted not to set a cap. The item was part of ‘Other Business’ and drew little debate on the merits of limiting stores; most board members said they preferred to let the market decide for now.

The meeting shifted to emergency-preparedness concerns after Vice-Chair Ward Gerow described communication problems during a recent power outage. Gerow said he called City Hall and the Police Department dispatch while offices were closed and that dispatch staff could not tell him where warming centers were located. He said the City should have a clear point-of-contact phone number for residents during severe weather events and suggested the City consider reassigning non-emergency call handling away from the Public Safety command center.

City Manager Tyler Brown said the outage resulted from two transmission lines being down in New Brunswick, that the City’s emergency plan dates to 2016 and needs updating, and that the Forum is not currently a viable warming/cooling center because it lacks a backup generator. Brown said the Public Safety building has a backup generator but it is reserved for command functions; the City has budgeted funds to purchase backup generators for several buildings and plans to designate the Recreation Center as a warming/cooling site in the future. Brown also said the High School is a Red Cross–designated warming/cooling center and that the City will conduct a debrief next week to address communication and resource gaps, including how food availability would be handled in a longer outage.

The board did not take formal action on emergency planning at the meeting beyond asking staff to pursue a debrief and consider updates to the emergency plan.