FILE - This Sept. 15, 2015 file photo shows marijuana plants a few weeks away from harvest in a medical marijuana cultivation center in Albion, Ill. (AP Photo/Seth Perlman, File)

The consultant hired to score the applications for Arkansas' first medical marijuana dispensaries expects to complete the process in mid- to late November.

If the company successfully grades the 198 applications before December, state officials expect the first medical marijuana dispensary to open in Arkansas by the end of March.

An official from Public Consulting Group -- the Boston firm selected for the job -- met with the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission for the first time during a two-hour meeting Tuesday afternoon, detailing the process the company would use to grade the applications.

Thomas Aldridge, a manager in the company's health-focused department, assured the commission that the five-member team and support staff had been thoroughly vetted to ensure they had no conflicts of interest. The scorers, Aldridge said, have professional backgrounds similar to the makeup of the commission.

Aldridge said the company was comfortable evaluating applicants for government licensure, but he admitted that this is Public Consulting Group's first dive into the medical marijuana industry.

The Department of Finance and Administration plans to send Public Consulting Group the applications within the next week so it can begin working.

Once complete, the scored proposals will be returned to the commission, which will organize them by region and assign bonus points for minority-group ownership, community benefits and the like before issuing 32 selling permits.

"It's not our job to determine who gets a license," Aldridge said. "It's our job to give you a score for the applications that were reviewed."

The commission voted to outsource the dispensary review after legal delays and allegations of impropriety marred the scoring process for the Natural State's first five cultivation licenses. The five commissioners evaluated those applications themselves.

Unsuccessful growing-permit applicants accused commissioners of conflicts of interest in scoring, and they challenged whether state regulators verified that each group had complied with key requirements such as locating growing facilities at least 3,000 feet from churches, schools or day care centers.

One commissioner, Dr. Carlos Roman, has said a growing-license applicant tried to bribe and extort him. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week obtained a secretly recorded video of a meeting between Roman and Ken Shollmier to discuss why the latter's application was unsuccessful. That video, recorded by Shollmier, is at the center of a federal corruption investigation.

Shollmier has denied allegations against him, saying Roman asked him for a loan and spread false rumors about a bribe attempt. Both men said last week that no money ever changed hands between the two.

Roman was the only commissioner who didn't attend or phone in to Tuesday's meeting.

Aldridge said Public Consulting Group had taken great care to ensure that its scoring process couldn't be tainted by any bias or conflicts of interest.

The scoring team, he said, is composed of a nurse, an attorney, a pharmacist, a cannabis-industry expert and an individual with seven years of government experience.

The firm, Aldridge said, focuses mostly on government work, with extensive experience screening Medicaid providers.

Dr. Ronda Henry-Tillman, the commission chairman, questioned Aldridge several times during the meeting about why no medical doctors were included on the scoring team. She said that including a physician was important because medical expertise was needed to evaluate whether a dispensary applicant had demonstrated an ability to advise registered patients on how they should use medical marijuana to treat their individual conditions.

"This is medical marijuana, and I get very nervous about patient care, education and understanding," Henry-Tillman said. "To see the lack of support for the medical element is mind-boggling to me."

Aldridge said the company has physicians on staff and that it would revisit including them more in the process.

Commissioner James Miller asked why Public Consulting Group's bid was significantly lower than that of the other company that bid. Public Consulting Group agreed to score the applications for $99,472, thus avoiding the required legislative review triggered by all contracts that exceed $100,000. The other consultant, Virginia-based ICF Inc. LLC, submitted a bid of $361,514.

Aldridge said his firm had been considering entering the cannabis industry as more states legalize it for medical and recreational use.

"Quite frankly, it's a project that we've taken most, if not all, the profit out of for our firm," he said. "Instead we've turned toward establishing our footprint and our qualifications in this business so that when the next one comes along, either with you or with another state, we might have the opportunity to bid with hopefully a good reference in our hand, a good solid piece of work we performed for another state."

In other business, the commission voted to hold a meeting for public comments in the coming weeks. The decision came after state Reps. Vivian Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, and Reginald Murdock, D-Marianna, asked to speak at the meeting over the objections of the commission's legal counsel.

Flowers and Murdock have raised concerns about the way one applicant, Carpenter Medical Group, was disqualified by Alcoholic Beverage Control Division staff members after commissioners had scored it. However, Flowers after the meeting said her concerns about the commission's processes, consistency and transparency extend beyond Carpenter Medical Group's treatment.

Allowing time for public comment, Flowers said, should remedy those issues.

The time and place of the meeting will be set at a later time, but state officials said they expect a huge turnout.

The commission also approved a cultivation license holder's request to make some minor changes to its floor plan, but it tabled another group's request to change its ownership structure until commissioners can review additional information.

Commissioners also asked counsel to draft a rule that would establish a process to give aggrieved applicants the opportunity to take their issues before the full commission. They plan to discuss the draft rule at their next meeting.

It's been nearly two years since Arkansans approved Amendment 98 to the Arkansas Constitution, which legalized marijuana for medicinal use. As of Friday, 6,221 registered patients had been approved for ID cards that will allow them to purchase the drug once it's available.

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A Section on 10/17/2018