Shawn Collins is resigning as executive director of the Cannabis Control Commission effective December 4, Acting Chairwoman Ava Callender Concepcion announced, providing some clarity around one of the two leadership questions that has hung over the commission for months.
The upheaval at the CCC erupted into public view in July when Chairwoman Shannon O’Brien announced during a meeting that Collins would be taking parental leave and then leaving the CCC by the end of the year. In September, Collins denied to the News Service that he had any firm plans to leave the agency, and O’Brien was suspended from her position by Treasurer Deborah Goldberg based on “[s]everal serious allegations” that were made by an unnamed commissioner and CCC staff about O’Brien’s behavior.
“That would be something I’d want to talk about with the commission as a whole. Again, I think making sure there’s a plan in place for that succession is important. It’s something that commissioners have raised in public meetings throughout the last year,” Collins, the only executive director the CCC has had since it was formed in 2017, said in September about leaving the agency by the end of the year. “At this point, there is no concrete plan for the end of the year.”
It is unclear whether Collins discussed his resignation with the commission as a whole. He has been out of the CCC office on parental leave for about two months and was expected to remain on leave until early December. Last month, commissioners voted to make Chief People Officer Debra Hilton-Creek acting executive director.
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