Board of Health: August 10, 2021

Transcript machine-generated with Whisper speech recognition (the source video has no caption track). No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:00 Let’s call the meeting to order of August 10, 2021. Welcome, everybody. First thing we’ll do is approve the minutes of June 29, 2021. Do we have a motion to approve? You’re muted, Joanne. My first motion. I motion to approve. Second. There was one thing that I questioned, Joanne. Did you change that? Did you see the question I had? Yes, yes, I did. And yes, it was. I thought that had been edited. Should I edit that? No, it was your report. I just seconded for discussion, but I seconded. What was the change? It was something. It said in the mental health minutes, it said that something would happen as needed. I don’t have it in front of me right here, but it didn’t seem to make sense to me. So, I’ll call on that. But she said it was correct, so it was correct. Okay? So, Ms. Miller? Ms. Miller? Yes. Ms. Hazlett? In favor? Dr. Belfreger? In favor. The next thing is we have a facility sticker rebate for 66 new street, number one. Do you think we could mute whoever’s doing that? Yes, thank you. So, the background of this place?

1:45 So, Leslie Downey bought a beach sticker, but has a handicapped placard. And so she doesn’t need the sticker for Devereaux Beach because she has a handicapped placard. So, this is a refund for a beach sticker to Leslie Downey, which occurred at Devereaux Beach. Okay, straightforward. We have a motion to approve that. Could I ask a question, though? So, she doesn’t need the sticker for the transfer station? So, she needs a sticker for the transfer station, but she does not need the sticker for Devereaux Beach, which has handicapped parking. That’s the policy of the Park and Rec Committee. Right, but that means that she doesn’t need it personally for the other facility. That’s correct. Sorry. We have a motion to approve. Rebate? Okay, a motion to approve. Second. Ms. Hazlett? In favor? Ms. Miller? In favor. Dr. Velfbacher? In favor. We’re using right through. So, let’s start the COVID update, please, Andrew. All right, COVID reports. So, obviously, the COVID report is still coming out on Friday. It usually comes out right after 9 a.m. As of August 6th, we have a total of 1,387 cases. We have an active case count at that time of 16 active cases.

3:17 To kind of give some history, as of July 30th, we are at 1370. On July 23rd, we are at 1359. For that two-week time period between 723 and 86, there was a total of 28 cases. We had seven cases from zero to 19 years old. We had eight cases from 20 to 29 years old. We had three cases from 39 years old, five cases from 40 to 49, three cases from 50 to 59, one case from 60 to 69, and one case 70 to 79. The average daily incident rate, as of August 6th, was 9.4%. You’ll see below that there’s actually, I put a graph in, the graph covers for the last six months. So, you know, in perspective for the whole pandemic, that’s a pretty small number. That is, we are no longer, the state’s no longer using the Keller coded system. It used to be gray, green, yellow, and red. That’s no longer the case. So, you’ll no longer see those color coding. However, that is still, you know, that’s an increase over the week before. Total tests performed for the whole pandemic is 63,441. Total tests for the last 14 days, it’s only 1,342. During the height of the pandemic, we would see approximately 4,000 cases, tests every two weeks.

4:55 So, that is increasing our percent positive rate. So, our percent positive for the last 14 days is 2.24. So, when you look at that over the last six months, that is considerably higher. But again, we’re not seeing the tests being taken by a lot of people. So, we have a higher number of positives, but the lower number of testing tends to increase that positivity rate. Obviously, again, that percent positive was higher than the week before. In the case report, obviously, same thing. We give the average cases, the ages of the average cases for the last 14 days. We give the Massachusetts Department of Public Health advisory regarding face coverings. Obviously, that was, you know, private sector, certain items, but a lot of federal mandates, the public transportation, stuff like that. We also give the CDC COVID-19 guidance that talks about if you’ve been fully vaccinated. It goes into a lot of different things than that. And then we had some DESI recommendations that were written by DESI and Mass Department of Public Health. And then we get, I’ll go into this a little bit more detail, talking about masking, talking about COVID testing, contact tracing, and quarantine. The three most important things during COVID really are vaccinations. We want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. When we do have cases, we want to continue on with contact tracing.

6:29 The state of Massachusetts is still operating the contact tracing collaborative. They need, they have decreased their employees as we’ve gone through the pandemic. And now they’re in the process of increasing that employee rate again. So there can be a little bit of lag time. So please be patient if you haven’t heard from somebody right away. We try to get everybody in the first 24 hours from when we see your test results, which is a positive result. The last thing that’s really important during the pandemic or during COVID is testing. Obviously, we’ve seen a huge decrease in testing. We want to make sure that that testing rate still stays high. We need to do a lot of surveillance. And the only way we can do surveillance is through testing. So anytime you have a symptom or you have been notified that you’re a contact, you need to get tested. The Board of Health, yep. Before you go on from the report, could I just ask two questions? One that I didn’t catch. What’s the total between 723 and 86, if you don’t mind? The total between 723 and 86 is 28. Thank you. I know you said the color coding is not being used anymore. Would we be in yellow if it were? We would be a green community. Would be green. So that’s better. Well, we’re not.

8:01 Gray is the best. Yeah, but it’s not yellow, so that’s good. Okay. Oh, one last thing. The testing. What about if people are using their self-testing? Is that affecting those numbers? That is not affecting those. Well, it could be affecting those self-numbers. So people can be using vinoxidosis tests at home, which is the antigen test. We need a PCR test to confirm that you have COVID-19. So if you do pass an antigen test, when we notify you, it comes up as a probable. And then we ask you to take a PCR to confirm the test. So our vaccination rate, we’re doing very well. So for the total population in town, fully vaccinated individuals is 78%. We have another, you know, about 1,900 people that are still one dose away becoming fully vaccinated. As far as numbers through all the different age groups, 12 to 15 years, we have 79% fully vaccinated. 16 to 19 is 94% fully vaccinated. 20 to 29 years is 83% vaccinated. 30 to 49 is 89% vaccinated. 50 to 64 is 89% vaccinated. 65 to 74 is 88% vaccinated. And 75 plus is greater than 95% fully vaccinated. So we do have a very high vaccination rate in Marblehead compared to the rest of the country.

9:38 And even comparable to other parts of Massachusetts. Great. As far as recommendations from the state of Massachusetts, we have two different pieces of information that have come out. So on July 30, the state of Massachusetts, the Department of Public Health released an advisory regarding face coverings and cloth masks. This advisory has been updated as July 30, 2021. We have weekly meetings with the state on Tuesdays where we often look for updates and get to discuss different items with them. This week, the governor is on vacation. So we didn’t receive some of the updates that we potentially could have seen. But I will read through this advisory that was released on July 30. On July 27, 2021, the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidance regarding the use of face coverings and cloth masks by individuals who are fully vaccinated for COVID-19. COVID vaccines are highly effective and every individual who is eligible in either works, studies, or resides in Massachusetts is advised to get vaccinated. The updated CDC guidance continues to state that individuals who are fully vaccinated may, as a general matter, resume many of the activities that they engaged in prior to the pandemic without wearing a mask or staying six feet apart, except where otherwise required by federal, state, or local laws, rules, or regulations.

11:12 In response to the recent spread of the Delta variant, however, the CDC’s updated guidance does recommend that even fully vaccinated persons wear masks or face coverings when indoors if other risk factors are present. In light of the information provided by the CDC and in order to maximize protection for vulnerable individuals from the Delta variant, the Department of Public Health now advises that a fully vaccinated person should wear a mask or face covering when indoors and not in your own home if you have a weakened immune system or if you are at an increased risk for severe disease because of your age or underlying medical condition. Or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at an increased risk for severe disease or is unvaccinated. The primary care provider can advise you whether you are at increased risk. Information from the CDC on the condition that may put you at increased risk can be found at the following website. The CDC website needs extra precautions. An individual is fully vaccinated two weeks after their second dose in a two-dose series, such as the Pfizer or the Moderna vaccine, or two weeks after a single dose vaccine such as the Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine. However, if a fully vaccinated individual becomes symptomatic, they should be tested and wear a mask until receiving test results. All people in Massachusetts, regardless of vaccination status, are required to continue wearing face coverings in certain settings, including transportation and healthcare facilities.

12:51 Please see Mass.gov Mass Rules for a complete list of venues where face coverings remain mandatory as of May 29, 2021. For individuals who are not fully vaccinated, it is important that you continue to wear a covering or mask to help prevent you from spreading COVID-19 to other people. People who show no symptoms of illness may still be able to spread COVID-19. For individuals who are not fully vaccinated, the CDC advises the following. Wear a face covering or mask that covers your nose and mouth. Stay six feet apart from others who you don’t live with. Avoid crowds at poorly ventilated indoor spaces. Wash your hands often with soap and water. Use hand sanitizer if soap and water aren’t available. Get tested if you have been exposed to or have symptoms associated with COVID-19. When you are wearing a face covering or cloth mask, it should fit snugly but comfortably against the side of the face. Be secured with ties or ear loops. Include multiple layers of fabric. Allow for breathing without restriction. Be able to be laundered and machine dried without damage or change to shape. More information, please refer to CDC, coronavirus 2019 vaccine fully vaccinated guidance. This advisory may change based on public health data for the guidance from the CDC. The other piece of information that came out recently, also on July 30th, is information coming from DESI and the Department of Public Health COVID-19 guidance for districts and schools, fall of 2020 and 2021.

14:40 As noted in the updates to DESI COVID-19 guidance released on May 27th, 2021, all districts and schools will be required to be in person full time, five days a week this fall. And all previously released Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, DESI, health and safety requirements will be lifted. Recent updates by the Center of Disease Control, CDC, to the guidance for COVID-19 prevention in the K-12 schools, emphasize the importance of all students returning to full time in-person school this fall. The CDC guidance supports the use of vaccines as the primary mitigation measure in school settings, and also continues to recommend masking in K-12 schools. Additionally, according to the CDC, because of the importance of in-person learning, schools where not everyone is fully vaccinated should implement physical distancing to the extent possible within their structures, but should not exclude students from in-person learning to keep a minimum distance requirement. Massachusetts has among the highest vaccination rates of any state in the nation, and evidence continues to reinforce that the COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective, especially against severe disease. At the same time, even for those students not yet vaccinated, the impaired risk of COVID-19 to children remains small. These factors continue to reinforce that many previously instituted COVID-19 mitigation measures in school settings are no longer necessary.

16:21 In a letter released earlier this month, U.S. Education Secretary Cardona reiterated the importance of COVID-19 vaccine adoption for eligible students. This reinforced the message sent by the Department of Public Health, DPH, and Dessie Commissioners Burrell and Riley last school year indicating that vaccination is a critical strategy in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on in-person learning. Fall 2021 recommendations. This guidance document was developed jointly by Dessie and DPH and outlines recommendations on masking, COVID-19 testing, and quarantine protocols. It also includes information on back-to-school vaccine clinics, local vaccine sites, and public awareness material for families. Dessie and DPH also continue to encourage schools to maintain ventilation upgrades from this past year as feasible, continue hand hygiene practices, and extend policies for students and staff to stay home when sick. As always, we will monitor the public health situation and may issue additional guidance as needed. Please note that the Dessie COVID-19 Help Center remains open and available for consultation with districts and schools. Dessie and DPH will issue frequently asked questions FAQs related to this guidance. Masking. This fall, Dessie and DPH strongly recommend that all students in kindergarten through grade 6 wear masks when indoors, except students who cannot do so due to medical conditions or behavioral needs.

17:59 Masks are not necessary outdoors and may be removed while eating indoors. Dessie and DPH also strongly recommend that unvaccinated staff in all grades, unvaccinated students in grades 7 and above, and unvaccinated visitors wear masks indoors in alignment with the state advisory on masking. Dessie and DPH recommend that schools allow vaccinated students to remain unmasked. Any individual at higher risk for severe disease from COVID or with a household member who is at high risk is encouraged to mask regardless of vaccination status, consistent with the updated DPH advisory on face coverings and masks. Any child or family who prefers to mask at school should be supported in this choice. By federal public health order, all students and staff are required to wear masks on school buses at this time. All staff and students must wear masks while in school health offices. Additional guidance for school health professionals is forthcoming from DPH. COVID testing. Districts and schools are highly encouraged to maintain or establish a robust plan for COVID-19 testing in schools, including both diagnostic testing and screening, pooled testing for students and staff. Dessie and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services will continue to offer these services at no cost to districts.

19:36 These no cost services will include optional support for districts who would like additional staff to conduct testing on site and or help with testing logistics and communication. Diagnostic testing, such as the Binance Now Rapid antigen testing, is an important tool for use in testing asymptomatic close contacts as part of updated quarantine guidance. See below. Diagnostic testing is especially important this year. As we head into cold and flu season, districts are strongly encouraged to sign up for the statewide COVID-19 testing program as soon as it becomes available later in August to minimize the number of students required to quarantine outside of school. Contact tracing and quarantine protocols. Dessie and DPH will soon release a new version of the protocols for responding to COVID-19 scenarios document. As part of this guidance, districts and the statewide testing program or using other approved diagnostic tests will be able to implement a new test and stay protocol in lieu of requiring asymptomatic close contacts to quarantine. Under test and stay, asymptomatic close contacts will have the option to remain in school and be tested daily with Binance Now for at least five days. Vaccinated staff and students are exempt from quarantine. So essentially that’s where we are with this. I know that’s a lot of information, but obviously there’s a lot of, you know, discussion about masks in schools and what are the recommendations for the Board of Health.

21:13 Any questions? To clarify, that was about what you read about schools was a joint statement by Dessie and DPH? Correct. So the only piece in there that, you know, I have a little bit of concern or it can be challenging is the part where people from outside of school, parents and vendors are coming into the school. And you have to essentially say, are you vaccinated or unvaccinated and unvaccinated people are supposed to be wearing masks? I think in the best way to protect everybody is that anybody coming from outside of school, if they’re not a student or teacher, they would be required, you know, so if they’re a parent or a vendor, they should be required to mask. And that way we don’t have to, you know, nobody has to ask those questions. It would just be a policy that the school adopts. So I have put together a recommendation that the board can make to the school department for them to adopt, you know, if you guys are willing to do that. You know, I took a few notes and I took a note saying unvaccinated teachers and visitors must wear a mask. Did you read that in one of the discussions? That’s correct. So unvaccinated, you know, unvaccinated teachers and staff must be wearing masks. That’s the recommendation. But you’re saying that everyone should wear a mask. No, I’m saying that any person from outside, if you’re a parent coming into the school to pick up your kid or you’re a vendor, you should the policy should be you must wear a mask.

22:44 Not just the unvaccinated. Yes. Okay. Who are in daily, regularly, people who are visiting. I would be in favor of that. So, and in Joanne, do you have anything? Yes, I think that sounds very reasonable and I would be in favor of that. Okay. So Andrew, you had dropped a statement. It was three parts. I would think that maybe we should do three separate votes if we’re going to go forward with recommendations. The Board of Health strongly recommends that all students in kindergarten through grade six wear masks when indoors, except students who cannot do so due to medical conditions or behavioral needs. Masks are not necessary outdoors and may be removed while eating indoors. And that’s the same as the young as Jesse’s statement. That is the same as Jesse’s and DPH statement. Yes. And that would be our recommendation number one for the school department school committee to hear. Do you want a motion for that? Yes. I’m sorry? I want a motion for that. I move that we accept that statement. I second. Miss Hazlett? In favor. Miss Miller? In favor. Dr. Belfbecker? In favor. Okay. The second piece is the Marblehead Board of Health strongly recommends that unvaccinated staff in all grades and unvaccinated students in grades seven and above wear masks indoors.

24:17 Masks are not necessary outdoors and may be removed while eating indoors. So for discussion’s sake, it makes more sense to do it this way than just to say K through 12 would wear masks because you assume that 12 year olds and older are hopefully vaccinated. And it’s just going with the state line to not require masks in the entire school system, but only in the unvaccinated ages. You’re really trying to encourage the vaccination and thereby giving them protection and allowing them to go unmasked. So do they have to show proof of vaccination? No. It’s on the honor system. Oh, really? Andrew, what was the number you had shared with us in Marblehead? I started writing it down 16 to 19 year olds 94 percent. Yes, 16 to 19 year olds is 94 percent and 12 to 15 year olds is 79 percent. Okay. Nice. I think that adds to the argument that this is a reasonable argument. Do you want to make a motion to support? I’d like to. I have one question, though, but I can make a second and have a question. You. I’ll second that. The question is, if this is happenstance, if we go into school and see that six percent of the student body isn’t masked, does that mean that we’re going to change our recommendation?

25:58 You’re going to see six percent unmasked because it’s 94 percent. You mean six percent. No, if we say them unmasked and not masked, that’s what I’m saying. Are we going to. I mean, we don’t have to show our vaccination sheet. Those six the six percent that are unvaccinated. I mean, how are we going to track that? It’s just like you say, it’s on the honor system. I think you have to take people’s word and obviously you hope that they’re doing what’s right and believe in the community and believe that everybody’s we’re in this together. And we have to have faith in everybody. I would like to have faith. Yes. I second that, but I’d like to make that statement. I hope that we see the unvaccinated follow the guidelines. I’m Miss Miller. I second that you need to move. I’m sorry. Yes, I’m sorry. I’m just saying in favor. Forgive me. I’m a phase with a favor. Dr. Bill Becker in favor and just we can always at our next meeting or calling meetings. We have to always change or making recommendations. This is this is tonight’s recommendation. Everything changes rapidly as we know. So we always even call emergency. We have to, you know, two days later, join the conversation. The Board of Health strongly recommends that all visitors, including vendors, wear masks at all times indoors.

27:31 All visitors, including vendors. Yes. I make that motion. I second that motion. I’m higher.

27:45 Miss Hazel it in favor. Miss Miller in favor. Dr. Bill Becker in favor. Great. So glad that we have made statements. I hope that the school committee either watches our meeting or CDC’s and I’m sure they’re they know they’re working very hard on this and hopefully we help them with our stance. So obviously I will speak with the superintendent tomorrow to pass along these recommendations to the superintendent for him to bring to the school committee. What is it? Is he aware that we’ve been going to discuss this tonight? Yes, he is aware. Thank you. I didn’t want to surprise him. Excuse me. There’s some names. Samantha, you could put yourself on mute, please. She’s on me now. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So the next. Is there anything more COVID related? Not at this time. Okay. So let’s move on to the mental health task force update to him, please. My pleasure. I’m really excited to share that we’ve built some momentum around the website that we’re building for the community for the mental health task force. The resources have been collected and are prepared and we have agreed to use the Lexington mental health task force website as a model and a blueprint for what we’re building for our town.

29:22 They’ve spent three years building out their website site and resources and I was able to speak with the, they have a full time staff person in charge of that. And for the community and she was really helpful in helping us me understand how they came to build it.

30:12 And I think that’s a really important tool for helping us out and it’s really fortunate to be able to work with someone who’s already done a lot of the legwork and developed a really impressive tool for their community. And I’m planning a speaker series to present programming on specifically how non-professionals in our community can recognize symptoms, mental health symptoms and recognize things of concern, areas of concern and then we’ll be equipped with tools as to how to proceed. So that is a speaker series we’re looking to get a speaker as soon as possible. Certainly with kids going back to school we’d like to have this able to present as soon as possible and we’re looking into how to fund this as quickly as possible as well. And at our last meeting we did agree to have Michelle Gottlieb who pulled this team together to continue to contribute to the task force and we appreciate her expertise. And also we were able to reach out to our new chief of police, Dennis King, who has agreed to join the mental health task force and was eager to work closely with us. And I think it’s going to be a pleasure to work with him and have him on board. So we’re planning, one other thing we’re working on is determining how we can make sure these tools and this resource is available to as many community members as possible.

31:48 And part of that is how do we market this to make sure members in the community know it’s there. It’s a tool that they can look toward when they’re, you know, needing to find some of the resources that we’ve pulled together. And we’re working with our schools, the Council on Aging, our faith community, and making sure we build all of the stakeholders, the constituent groups that we can make sure can communicate this resource out to the people as they need it. So that’s something we’re proceeding with very positively. And so I guess, you know, with respect to building it, and I think we’re getting closer to having something to bring forward, and then making sure that the people in the community that would benefit from these resources can access this, this tool. So we’ve got some momentum going there, and we’ll be meeting again in two weeks, and hopefully we’ll have some more set of a better understanding of how we can get the technology expertise to pull the website together. Great. Thank you for the hard work. Is the plan to meet every other week going forward? Yes, yes. And we’ve been doing so throughout the summer. So I think there was some question, it’s kind of challenging to bring everyone together in the summer, but we’ve been able to continue to meet.

33:20 And then in the fall, we will continue to meet every two weeks. It’s great that the police chief is joining your team. That’s nice. I agree. He was warmly enthusiastic about participating, so I’m very excited to have him work with us. He’s a nice man. I’ve met him. I read the Lexington program. It’s very comprehensive. And if we can do half of what they have, we will be doing a phenomenal job. So I think you’ve got a good model. And I was just wondering if anything’s going to be available for opening, especially with the non-professionals recognizing even if you have a handout or something, are you just going to wait until you have your Zika series? I think the priority right now is getting the websites up and running so that those tools can be accessed by community members. And we’re looking into specific, we’ve got a pretty specific interest in the goal of the speaker. We want to have someone that can really maybe anecdotally share with community members what some of these symptoms look like because we’re not all professionals and also it’s very difficult to access professional point of view. So we want to have a speaker that can broadly and anecdotally share with the community what kinds of things to look for and then what steps to take.

34:57 And we’re hopeful that part of the message in the speaker series can be mitigating the shame and the stigma associated with the mental health illness. And so that the people that are seeing loved ones and people in the community exhibit the symptoms are comfortable addressing it with the tools that are spelled out by the speaker. So we’ve got kind of a pretty intense recommendation for the speaker so matching that is going to be a challenge. But we also would like to have the speaker be someone that can be available perhaps in the schools and then we can have it be virtually available to more community members. And even we were talking about having it, you know, in the library, a speaker that could come to the library or maybe the pack to to make sure we connect with as many community members as possible. A lot of work. Great work important work. Michelle, did you want to add something about this, I see your hand is raised. I actually had a public participation comment. I have a question about COVID so I will wait for the appropriate public participation moment when I can ask my question.

36:31 Sounds good. Okay, so the next item on the agenda then we’ll get to you at the end you’ll be first on the list and show is the transportation update or discussion. Let’s talk about where we are, where we want to go, and I’ll hand it over to you, Andrew. Sounds good. At this time, the town of Marblehead has completed all mediation and resolved any potential litigation with contractors, engineering firms and property owners. This leaves us a balance of $1.25 million to continue to work on the project items that have not been completed are the new transfer station building, the scale house with permanent scale installation, the swap shed, the entrance gates, gates and a section of fence, and the motorized gate for the trash trailers. So essentially, this is a discussion on how we want to proceed. So obviously, the very big question is, would the board want to go back and ask for additional money? Are you trying to complete what we, what some of the items we have left to do with the money that’s left on the table? And that would be to make what we have more permanent, a more permanent layout. So obviously, you know, that’s, you know, putting in a scale house in a permanent location. We’re currently operating on a trailer. The trailer is a temporary situation. It’s not a permanent item.

38:07 So yes, you know, scale house is very high in the list. And with that is the permanent scale installation. It’s currently on the left hand side as you enter the entrance entrance, the facility, and that is not down on the ground level with the pavement. So obviously, that’s a very large one. The compactor is in good condition. Obviously, it has been rebuilt over the last couple of years. There’s the annual maintenance goes on on it. The compactor location, the building that it actually sits in, would need to be received. There’s a side where the old building connected to it that’s unsheathed, and it does need a new roof. Obviously, one of the very popular areas at the transfer station is the swap shop. And really, when you look at the transfer station now, the residential area is working wonderfully. Residents pull up. They have an area to dispose of their trash. They have an area to, you know, recycle all their items, cardboard, paper, co-mingle. They have a metal dumpster there. And then we have, you know, incredible yard waste facility. You know, this, the residential drop off and the yard waste area are some of the nicest facilities in the state. That yard waste, you know, a large paved area, very easy for all the homeowners. They’re no longer driving through potholes. It’s also easier for our contractor who’s removing all the material. Obviously, you know, our biggest issue right now is the upfront. So the entrance and the flow is not as good as it could be. So those are the areas that we would really want to concentrate on.

39:46 And of course, none of this would disrupt the cap. Correct. None of this would disrupt the cap. So have you met with the architect lately just for these contingency plans? So we have some just basic quick conversations. Let me see if I can share my screen and pull up. Maybe I can pull up. So yeah, we had some basic conversation with the architects. Really just, you know, how to make the facility work out a little bit better. Unfortunately, I am unable to share my screen. But that is kind of making the linear entrance. Well, we had a great plan for the transfer station. We want to try to stick to that as much as possible. Obviously, we have two sides of business at the transfer station. We have commercial, which brings in quite a bit of money for the town of Marblehead, and we have a residential side. We’re trying to separate those two groups as much as possible. But that front has, you know, kind of a circular motion for the contractors. So it’s not a good flow, kind of tripping over each other between the residential and the contractors. So trying to give them a little bit more of a linear flow. There’s a lot of trailers that go through there. And just trying to make it easy for the residents to get through that area in a safe and efficient manner.

41:20 So the upfront portion of the transfer station is really the area that we would concentrate on. Currently, on the left-hand side of the compactor is a waste oil tank. That waste oil tank, even though the tank does not leak, when people pour oil into that tank, there is a little oil that drips on the outside. Consultants would like to see, and Master E.P. would like to see these tanks under cover. So we’d like to use the oil tank on a concrete pad with a shed roof over it. We also do some electronics recycling at the front of the property and some light-ball recycling. So that would be needed to be relocated, but also keep it up front so we can keep an eye on those products and move that stuff in an efficient area. Obviously, we still have a tremendous amount of stickers at the transfer station as well as Mary Alley building. So we need a place for people to park and then go into the scale house to buy the facility sticker. So we need some upfront parking. We need some areas for people to still access the scale house. Most likely, you’d have the scale operator deal with all the scale business. Yes, there’s a lot of transactions, but potentially you’d have a space where another individual could be selling stickers or helping with some of the additional customers. So really trying to clean up that front of the site. Obviously, we don’t have enough money to complete the transfer station, but we want to try to give people as much as we could as possible.

42:51 So really, moving forward would be, next would be going to the architect and getting real estimates, today’s estimates. Obviously, cost of construction has risen over the years, and so we’d want to get hard, fast numbers before we go out to bid to know exactly what we’re dealing with. So that would be really the next step would be to talk to the architect to see how far we would have to take plans to get estimates for what we’d want to complete. So we’d want to get estimates for either a whole new building as originally planned or just redesigning and making more current what we have now. Correct. Those are really the two options. What would the cost be to get both costs, both the full building or the… The architects then ask what it’s going to cost to have the plans go through a full estimate and then see what it’s going to cost to do the kind of proposed, if you were going to just try to work with what you have now. So we could take that step and talk to the architects and get, you know, get estimates for the cost to do that stuff. So I think that would be the first step. And then once we know what cost is involved to get the estimates, then we would have to determine how we want to proceed. I mean, I think we should definitely know what we can do with 1.25 million, like how far that will really take us.

44:26 I’d like the differential of that plus what we were originally planning. I mean, I know that it’s going to be significantly more, but I think that I’d like to make this decision with an open mind. Okay. So you’d like to see what it’s going to cost to get the estimates for the original design of the building and get a cost of the estimates for what’s potentially proposed to make it work. I would. I don’t know about the other members. Yeah, I think having two estimates so we can have more to work with is a good idea. I do think that we have to be realistic and we should decide if we want to go back to town meeting or not. I think that that’s an important kind of elephant in the room. Do we want to go back and ask for more money? And I think that will also determine a lot of where we go going forward. So if we determine we want to go back to town meeting, we’d have to know by January how fast can we get them estimates to get the estimates. I will talk to the architects in the next couple of weeks and hopefully I might have some information at our next meeting. Or at least to give you a better timeline. So is that I know you were hoping for some direction tonight. And it was that what you were looking for. Yep, that sounds good. Do you need a vote? I don’t think we need a vote. I’ll talk to the architects and come back to tell you what it’s going to cost to get estimates.

46:05 So just the estimates, the cost of the estimates. Yeah, so the cost of the estimates for the original building or the original projects and estimates for the modified version, I’ll call it. But is that a potential big enough budget item that you shouldn’t just get the estimates or do you want us to tell you? I will see what the architects have to say. Because if it’s not too expensive, I would say we should just have both estimates for our next meeting. Yeah, so the estimates for the building could be substantial for them to go through the plans and bring, you know, to give all the, yeah. Okay, so maybe what we could do is get the estimates for the scale down plan because if that goes over the 1.2, we know we can’t even do that. And then maybe go back and get the second estimate. I’m just thinking we may not even have the money to do the smaller projects. I don’t know. What do you, Andrew, do you think we have? I wouldn’t think that you would have enough money to complete the scale house, the scale installation, the swap shop, and the entrance gates. Essentially the items that are listed. All right, well, you know better than anyone. Well, then let’s just go for both. Let’s not delay. Let’s see what the estimates will be for both of them, you know, what they think to go forward for both options.

47:49 Yeah, I think that sounds like a good plan. Joy, do you have? I agree. I think to make this decision, the more information, the better. And with finite resources, it’s interesting to kind of understand. I’ve always gone to the transfer station and thought it is just such an outstanding part of our community, the way it’s so efficient and I’m so impressed with it. And if there’s ways to use this $1.2 million to, you know, finish some of the goals that were initially laid out, I think that would be a fantastic achievement going forward. I agree. So you’ll reach out to the architects Andrew and we’ll talk again at our next meeting. Yep. Okay. Jimmy, I see that your hand is raised. I was going to just have the public participation at the end, but if this is specific to this discussion, go forward. It is taught. I just, you know, thank you for putting this on the agenda, Andrew. And I guess just backing up a bit, you know, in 2015 at Tom meeting when the town authorized 7.8 million for to complete the project, you know, including a new transfer station building, a new entrance way, scale and swap shed.

49:24 I think honestly what the taxpayers need to be is an accounting what happened. It sounds like there was a lot of litigation, some unforeseen things, but I think really before you go any further, you got to lay out what happened to the money that was authorized because 4.8 was for the building itself. And people, you know, I did a lot of the past year walking around the neighborhoods and short of the conditions, the streets. This was this is number two. And people said, whatever happened to the new building, why is it a mess? The back end is a very nice job with the recycling and the land waste and the capping. I’ll have to say, but the front end is a mess. And I don’t know why again, but I still get a lot of complaints for contractors because a compact does go down. And I think you really need first to do an accounting where the money went. And I’m not, you know, I’m sure you had a lot of headwinds and so forth. And then you’ve got 1.2 million left. And I can tell you, in this day and age, you’re not going to get anything with that. Okay. Nothing. And you’re going to leave it a lot of money to finish what you want to do, even the entry way. And I think I know you’ve had a committee before. I don’t know if that’s active. I really think you need to, like the Brown School Building Committee, get a committee together and start looking at this because this is not an easy fix.

50:59 And if you have to go back to town meeting, you’re never going to get a sense unless you account for what happened to the money. And I’m not saying, you know, I know you had has this waste up there unexpected. I know you had litigation. You have to explain that for us. And this, you know, just trying to spend the other 1.2 million isn’t going to cut it. People want to see the thing finished and how much it’s going to cost. And I think you’ve got a lot of work in front of you. That’s just my recommendation. I would be glad to volunteer to help you. I think it is a wonderful facility. If you live in any other community, you don’t have that. You know, bring your trash and stuff up. You have to drive out of town. The local contractors rely on it because in Marblehead you can’t typically put dumpsters out because it’s so crowded. And I’d like to help you succeed. But right now, I think what you need to do is to a full economy in the community and then figure out what it would need to finish as originally proposed. And then what you might do to go forward. So those are just my my suggestions. So thank you. And then on just one other subject, Andrew, on a brighter note, I hope hopefully you saw a national grid today rolled out of case EV 580 back row today. And I know that’s one of your things to go to all all electric equipment up there eventually. So that’s common. So that’s something we can look forward to. So thanks for just hearing my comments.

52:38 Thank you for your comments. All right. So we will talk about this more at our next meeting and move forward. The director’s report time. So just a couple things on the director’s report. So beach testing. Obviously we we sample the beaches, the main the public bathing beaches weekly. We’ve had some issues at Grace Oliver’s Beach. Grace Oliver’s Beach has been exceeding the geo mean. Geo mean is a formula. It’s not just an average of the weekly samples. But so a weekly sample cannot exceed one hundred and four colonies per feature dish. Essentially, that’s the basics to it. But the geo mean cannot exceed thirty five. So currently we had an exceedance. We were at thirty six. Grace Oliver’s Beach was closed for a period of time for us to take some additional samples and get that geo mean down. So we will continue to sample during the summer and September 15th I believe is going to be the last water sample for the season at the end of the season. We will sit down with myself and the drain department to kind of review our water quality samples for the whole summer. And obviously Grace Oliver is going to be an area that we will continue to concentrate on and try to figure out why we had some large exceedance. Obviously, you know, any time it rains, it’s washing off any pollutants that’s on the roadway, any pollutants that could be in your backyard run into some of these streams and washing it down into those areas.

54:19 And that’s why we sample. We want to make sure that people are swimming in safe water. And obviously we had some high exceedances that were causing some issues for us. So we want to try to identify are these natural causing or are these manmade issues to just make sure that we don’t have any issues out there that we need to deal with. The other item that I want to talk about is household hazardous waste. And I was just wondering about the, about the, that outlet there with Grace Oliver. What is coming out of that? I mean, it’s supposed to be fresh water. So it’s a stream that flows out from there. It’s from a stream? So it is stream water. It is stream water. Yep. It comes from steer swamp. So the wet wind in steer swamp flows out the stream to Grace Oliver’s beach. Okay. So that should not be a pollutant at all. Right. So we need to understand why we’re having some, you know, high levels of bacteria that were potentially coming out of there. And are they manmade or they, you know, are they just being washed off the roads or are they coming from something else? But you don’t think it’s coming from the stream. I don’t know where it’s coming from. That’s why we have to investigate. Okay. Thank you. Obviously the stream, you know, obviously that’s my point source, but I need to figure out where that bacteria is coming from to get into the stream. On a regular basis, we’re not having these exceedances. So most of the time I’m getting, you know, when we’re doing water quality testing, a lot of times it’s below 10,

55:52 but I’ve had some high levels that have caused my geomain to be over. And all the other beaches in town have been testing fine. Yep. All the other beaches have been testing fine. We haven’t had any other geomain exceedances for any other public bathing beaches. So what is the normal range for the most, the other beaches? You mentioned 10. Is that what the normal range is? So a normal range is anywhere from less than 10 to 104 is a passing water sample. So why is 36? So the geomain is a different number. So the geomain exceedance is the highest value can be is 35. So they take the five most recent tests and put that into a formula which becomes the geomain.

56:52 Any other questions on the water quality? And household hazardous waste. The next event will be September 15. We’re still following the same. This is a pickup at your home event. So you pre-register. There’s approximately 100 spots for both Marblehead and Swamscott residents. You prepay and they will come to your house on the day of the event to pick up the material. It’s not a curbside event. You need to keep the material safe. So it’s often left at the day of event by your garage or your porch. But the next event is September 15. And we will begin to advertise that and have people begin to sign up. And could you refresh your memory with the rates? I don’t have the rate sheet in front of me. It’s approximately $35 for 0 to 10 gallons and $65 for 10 to 20 gallons. Joanne, did you have a question? Andrew, I was wondering how that’s advertised. It goes on the town website. If you go to the health page under the, it’s also generally in the news. You’ll see a button for household hazardous waste. And then if you go to the Marblehead Board of Health page, to the waste side, there’s a household hazardous waste button that you can click on and that will bring you to the event. Okay.

58:25 Is that it? That’s it. I had a couple of questions. Mosquito-borne diseases. Yeah. Any incidences lately? So EEE in West Nile, we have not had any issues with EEE. And West Nile, we have not had any positive mosquitoes for West Nile either. Obviously, with a wetter season, there are more mosquitoes out. You need to continue to take precautions. Always wear mosquito repellent. Begin to go in at dust time and cooler weather. And they always advise that, you know, long pants and long sleeves in the evening time. But now we have not had any issues or positive mosquitoes for EEE or West Nile virus. That’s great. The other thing I had to ask about was air quality issues. And I know that we had all that smoke a couple weeks ago in the air from wildfires across the country. But is there any issues with public health and the air quality from that? Yeah, so air quality issues. So there was definitely some air quality issues associated with that smoke. We call it particular matter. And the state is actually offering a grant program that I think the application is due in October. And the idea is that to gather more data so the state will provide canisters that we can put on different properties around town. We’re going to try to choose between five and ten properties where we can take these canisters, put these canisters, and they will give instant readings.

59:57 We can have a website so people can better understand the air quality on a real-time basis. And then try to figure out why we are having some air quality issues if we do. So we’re looking at five particulate matter. Are you applying for that grant? We are, yes. As a community or as a consortium? As a community. Okay. All right. Thank you, Andrew. Public participation. Michelle, welcome back. Are you still there? Just like old times. Coming. There. All right. So where was I earlier in the meeting? Back to the conversation about masks in school with regard to vaccination status. I was curious kind of what your I think the decisions that you made made sense regarding masking, but I know that there are communities and states that have decided given the Delta variant to recommend masking regardless of vaccination status. And I’m curious to know what would trigger a switch to that, to moving towards indoor masking for all students or to recommending that move regardless of vaccination status or for recommending indoor masking in public building, you know, in indoor buildings in town, et cetera.

1:01:50 Would it be waiting for that recommendation from Department of Public Health and DESI? You know, what’s your thinking on that? I think a lot of the decision we made is based on the fact that we do have a high vaccination rate. And the fact that this community, therefore, is in a different place than a lot of other communities. And also based on the current guidelines by the DPH and DESI that we that we paid attention to. I think that if cases start rapidly rising or if there’s more incidents of breakthrough cases, I think we can definitely go back to the drawing board. But I think as of right now, we’ve gone based on the fact that this town is in decent shape compared to others. Would you agree, Andrew, with that? Yeah, obviously the other metrics that the state’s really looking at, besides vaccination rate, is hospitalization. Yeah. Okay, thanks. So that is all our business tonight. Our next meeting is… I’d like to ask about the next meeting because we’ve had a long hiatus. I mean, you want to make a recommendation because I have a few couple of suggestions.

1:03:21 You can go ahead. Well, since we met last, a lot has happened in the community with the surge with the mental health task force. They’ve made some very good inroads. And I expect them to be doing the same again. The school department may be looking to us again for more guidance. I recommend that we meet in two weeks on the 24th. And that not only for that reason, but the following week, the next week that we are to meet, if we met in September, could possibly be the seventh, which is a holiday. So we would have to adjust for another day that week. For that reason, I’d like to recommend the 24th and the 8th to meet. So a lot going on. I mean, as far as… I think we should ultimately get back to the second Tuesday of the month, like we historically have always done, which would be September 14th. And there’s no holiday that day. The 24th, I’m actually not available. If you do want to meet in two weeks, I could do the 25th. I’m not sure with that, but I’m just wondering how much we’ll really have to discuss.

1:04:51 Well, I know that during the pandemic, and we’re still in a pandemic, by the way. I’m troubled when even I just said it myself, because it’s not been declared that the pandemic is over. But when we are really in the throes, that we will meet weekly. We don’t need to do that now. But I still think that there’s a lot happening, and especially with schools opening, if they’re looking toward us, with the mental health task force maybe. I hope there’s some important things happening there. So those are my concerns. Does Wednesday the 25th work for everybody? Yeah, it’s the 25th, but I’ll make it work. Andrew, Andrea? Yep, that works. Let’s do that. If it’s a quick meeting, let’s hope it’s a quick meeting. That means that there’s not anything dramatic going on. As I said, when we met, when we were in the throes, we sometimes had half an hour, 45 minute meetings, but they were important. And then I would say we should move forward to the 14th of September, the second Tuesday, and just have that in our books as well. Well, as opposed to that week of the 8th. Which is the first Tuesday? The 8th. Right. Well, the 8th is the Wednesday, but we can’t meet on a Tuesday. Okay, the 14th.

1:06:23 Okay. So do we have a motion to adjourn tonight? Motion to adjourn. Second? Second. I second. Second, I second. Second. So moved. Second. Second. So moved.