At least four high-ranking employees at New York’s Office of Cannabis Management have recently resigned their positions, a month after NY Cannabis Insider reported on other high-profile departures from the agency.
The OCM confirmed the agency received notices of resignation this week from Deputy Director of Licensing Danielle Holmes, Director of Health and Safety Nicole Rosa and First Deputy General Counsel Patricia Piskorski Heer. Additionally, General Counsel Linda Baldwin will leave the OCM once a replacement is hired.
Aaron Ghitelman, the OCM’s former spokesperson who worked with the four resigning employees, said all are top-notch public servants, but that he’s not surprised they’re leaving. Ghitelman said the clock for mass resignations in the agency has been ticking since Gov. Kathy Hochul publicly called New York’s cannabis rollout a “disaster” in January.
“These are people who are working six, seven-day weeks, working overtime for well over a year now,” Ghitelman said Thursday afternoon. “To have the chief executive of the state … publicly criticize and humiliate you for doing things she approved, why would anybody in their right mind stick around?”
Ghitelman, who left the OCM four months ago, said employees at the OCM have been working long hours while short-staffed for over a year, and public criticism of the agency has affected morale there. He added that Baldwin, Heer, Holmes and Rosa will be difficult to replace, as they have decades of experience in state government, combined. [Read more at syracuse.com]
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