Board of Health: December 14, 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.

0:01 We’ll call this meeting to order of December 14, 2021, and it is being recorded for MHTV. Good evening, everybody. Let’s get right to your COVID update, Andrew, please. All right. So as of December 10, 2021, we’ve had a total of 1,890 cases. We’ve seen this, you know, very high increase over the last couple of weeks. As of November 29, we had a count of 1,751. December 3rd count was 1,811. And then on December 10, like I said, was 1,890. At that time, we had a total active cases of 120. We’re still holding strong on the 31 deaths at this time. You will see that the total cases by age group from 1,129 to, I don’t have that right. So 106 cases for the last two weeks. We had 250 to 11. We had five cases, 12 to 19. 22 cases from 20 to 29 years. 15 cases to 30 to 39. 23 cases, 40 to 49. 26 cases, 50 to 59. 17 cases, 60 to 69. 4 cases, 70 to 79. And 2 cases at 80 plus. Obviously, you can see that the 0 to 11 age group is being hit very hard. The 20s are being hit very hard. The 40s and the 50s are also being hit very hard.

1:35 Our average daily incident rate at that time was 47.3. I have a chart below this. These average daily case rates per 100,000, these were very similar to last year at the similar time. We’re fluctuating about the same number. If you follow the state’s case trends as total, we’re actually on a very similar projection, which is a very unfortunate, even given the highly vaccinated state of Massachusetts. Total tests taken so far is 85,464. Total tests in the last 14 days, 2,932. And percent positivity for the last 14 days, it was 4.71%. Obviously, that’s higher also. That percent positive is actually above the rate one year ago. Again, the ages of case for the last 14 days, I give you all that information. We are a highly vaccinated community. So I have brackets from 5 to 11. Fully vaccinated individuals per capita at this point with 34%. Partially vaccinated individuals per capita at that time was 29%. For the age group 12 to 15, 93% was fully vaccinated per capita.

3:09 16 to 19 years greater than 95% fully vaccinated. 20 to 29 years, 91% fully vaccinated. For 30 to 49, 94% fully vaccinated. For 50 to 64, 93% fully vaccinated. 65 to 74 years, 92% vaccinated. 85% greater than 95% fully vaccinated. So we’re doing extremely well with the vaccinations. Obviously, the booster is now available to anyone. As of Friday, it was 18 plus. They actually added the age groups 16 and 17 today. So fully vaccinated for the total population of Marblehead is 85%. We’re doing very well. We have been giving out vaccine to 5 and 11. We’ve had two clinics for that age group. We held those at the Brown School. Those are well attended. I know the school is sponsoring some additional vaccine clinics for that age group. And we’ve had booster shots for first responders. We will continue to offer boosters at this point. I believe our next booster shot for Marblehead employees will be January 5th. That’s really, for the most part, all the information at this time. I know the board wanted to talk about mask mandates. And so we can go right into that at this time, Todd. Okay.

4:40 So let’s go right into that. You sent us a draft of an order just before the meeting. Did you get to see that? It was sent just before the meeting. I did not. I’m not. I’m not politically now. So it’s just a draft. But before we even get to that, let’s have a discussion if this is something we, how we want to go about masks in town. Do either of you want to start out? Well, are we allowed to start out by saying we wish that our governor was being more assertive in his leadership to guide our state through this as a state? I did do some looking into the Massachusetts Medical Society. And they’re requesting that the governor requests indoor masking for our residents in our state. And there’s a lot of evidence that from that medical perspective that indicates that’s an important step to take to protect even vaccinated people. Because as more data emerges about the Omicron variant, it seems that that may be a new area of concern.

6:12 So I’d start with that. That was very impressive to me. 25,000 physicians in our state that are making this recommendation. I think that’s significant. It is a lame. Yeah, I did not look that up, but I have read the front page of the globe the last two days. And the requests for mandates are on the front page. Yesterday, that was in the bottom half of the front page, it asked for mandate. I didn’t read the whole article, but that was what the headline said. Also today, nurses at Brigham and Women are asking for beds to be freed up. They feel that some beds are being taken up for elective surgery, and they really feel that those beds need to be saved. So it seems that in the medical community that there is a tremendous amount of interest for us to be diligent and mindful of this variant and the ongoing Delta variant. So I would like to see us agree on some form of masking for the community. I don’t know, let’s hear what Todd has to say.

7:42 I think that it will be important that the very least that we strongly recommended doing it. I think that a lot of the businesses in town and the retail stores in town have those signs. And I think that they would appreciate us supporting their endeavor. They want to keep their employees healthy. They want to keep people coming into their shops, especially during the holiday. And there’s going to be a lot of visitors to our community over the next two holidays. And I think that they, along with many residents, would welcome some statement from us. I would suggest that we strongly recommend masking. And possibly we ask the selectmen to make a decision on the public municipal buildings. The two ways we could go are a full mandate where we would require every building across town to require people to wear masks, or a strong recommendation, as you just said, Helene, where we put our weight behind a statement, but we wouldn’t have to deal with enforcement, which is a very tricky point.

9:13 If we were to require and have a mandate, the question is where would enforcement come from? And if we had a strong recommendation, we would hope that our name has some weight and that we can have people say, though the Board of Health recommends this strongly, and therefore in my place of business, my restaurant, my store, we want you to wear masks when we come in, which is the prerogative of each owner. They can keep people out if they don’t have masks, if that’s what they choose to do. So I kind of would lean towards a recommendation, a strong recommendation at this point. And I also, like you said, Helene, I would also want the selectmen to hear a recommendation from us saying that municipal buildings should have masks. Therefore, public meetings, stuff like that, there doesn’t have to be a discussion of please put a mask on or we would like you to put a mask on, but if they have it inside public buildings, municipal buildings, then that wouldn’t be on the table either. It would just be everybody comes in wears a mask. So, like I said, I would I would lean more towards or stronger recommendation just like you said, I think it would be it would be effective, hopefully, and I think that would show that we do mean business that we want people to take masks seriously, even though we wouldn’t necessarily have the infrastructure to enforce it if we did a mandate. So, I just would like to add something because another reason not to mandate is if you recall back 20 months ago when people 20 months, 18 months ago when we were in a lockdown situation and people were out to get fresh air and there was so much discussion about how we could enforce the masking when it was mandated by the government.

11:03 But the governor and we even had signs, the electronic signs put up. I think the police department did that, but they just couldn’t handle all that was going on. And we had a lot of complaints. And I think if we mandated it, as you said, it would be impossible to even though it’s something we may hope that happens. But we I don’t think that we’re able to follow that through. I agree. Do you want a motion or? I think we should do two separate motions, one to make a new recommendation to the selectmen that they that they pursue this for municipal buildings because that is not our jurisdiction, I believe. Is that correct, Andrew? Yeah, in multiple towns. So in Salem, the mayor just passed the mandate for town buildings. It’s been handled a variety of different ways. So obviously, you know, Marblehead, the selectmen would need to do that. I mean, obviously, I think you have would have the authority to do that. But a lot of times it is taken care of by the selectmen or the mayor. Okay, thanks. Excuse me before I if I make the motion, I heard we heard Joanne speak first and called it the physicians, the 25,000 physicians, which seems to make me feel that she certainly has an opinion.

12:35 But I don’t know whether she’s interested in a mandate or strongly recommending. So maybe we should go around full circle. I, I appreciate the comments and the expertise about the difference between the mandate and the recommendation. And I absolutely feel we should recommend that protective line to be implemented in our communities. So I, I’m with you on that. And I, I appreciate the conversation about mandating. And I do understand that it comes with significant challenge to enforce. So I think, and certainly going forward, I think continuing conversations is Andrew is quick to get us numbers as they are availed to our town to see what what’s going on. I had a dear friend that was in the emergency room in Salem last week, and it was pretty full. And just from anecdotally, you know, that is something that is very concerning to imagine that, you know, if more people taking up the beds, the COVID patients taking up the beds. But I certainly appreciate also and celebrate that we’re so well vaccinated. So, so I do feel that moving forward with a recommendation. Is a, is an important place to start. I’d like to underline strongly recommend though. Yes, I agree. We should have the word strong. Would that be okay with you, Joanne? Yes, yes. Okay.

14:10 So, so I, like I was saying, I think we should have two separate motions one to, to tell the selectmen that we believe that they should have a municipal building mass mandate. And the other one that businesses, places of business, restaurants, shops, I don’t know how you want to word it to encompass everything that we strongly recommend that people wear masks in those establishments. How do you think we should, I think also we need a timeline. We’re meeting again on the 11th of January. And I know that the 15th of January is kind of a date that a lot of towns that are in the state of the state. And our own schools are using. So we should revisit that this on the 11th. And we may want to go forward through the winter. We may want to decide that at the end of that week, we would see the numbers. I’m not sure that that would happen, but I think that we should think about a deadline. Now, maybe we should discuss discuss that also before we make the motion. Any thoughts? I would say let’s do the January 15th date. And it’s, we can always have on the 11th, we can choose to say ending the 15th as we originally said, or let’s continue it for another month or whatever we decide. So I would say let’s go with the 15th. All right, so at least the 15th, so we revisited on the 11th. All right, good. So that I make a motion, I’m going to make the motion that we are going to carry this strongly recommend and then we’ll go with the municipal buildings if you don’t mind since we’re making more of a statement on this.

16:01 Is that okay? Yes, and I think once we make the motion, we should make the wording, we should all agree on the exact wording of our recommendation. So I move that we strongly recommend that all businesses in town, retail stores, businesses, shops, whatever the shops be, the VV factories or sale offs if they’re open, any place of business. We don’t have to say medical offices because I think they have their own rulings. Yeah, that’s under the state. So I don’t think we need to, but all businesses and all restaurants, we strongly recommend as a board that masks be worn in those places. This will go through at least January 15th, 2022. And I think we’re looking for a second. Did I miss anything? No, I think you didn’t. I just want to kind of wordsmith it a little bit. So do you want to second it with discussion and then we’ll vote after the week we discuss. Yes, I’ll second with discussion. So then can we begin discussing because I was thinking recommending that residents wear masks, strongly recommend residents wear masks in all public indoor spaces regardless of whether they are vaccinated.

17:33 Do we need to be more specific talking about businesses and differentiating that or can we just say all public indoor spaces? Well, I guess definition wise, is a shop a public indoor space or is it private? A good question. So I like to name them more specifically, but maybe you can, you were wordsmithing some of it that maybe we could, but I do like whether vaccinated or not. If you take a look at that order that I sent you, number one, you can use that as you strongly recommended. Let me give you two seconds. Can you send that again? I’d somehow rather not getting this. Oh, here it is. It just came up. 727. I apologize. So I’m sorry Andrew, just trying to, okay. All persons of the age of two years, that part Andrew? Yeah. Let me read that out loud. All persons of the age of two years must wear a mask or face covering such as fabric or surgical mask, covering the nose and mouth while indoors in any public space, including but not limited to retail establishments, restaurants, bars, performance venues, social clubs, houses of worship, personal care and fitness establishments, event spaces and municipal buildings. That’s great. Andrew, did you do that all by yourself? Like you borrow. That’s the way it is. And I think just ending it with regardless of vaccination status.

19:08 Even though the vast majority of our residents are vaccinated. Yes, but people come from a search. This is a total collaboration. Yes. So why don’t we do you both agree that the wording of that article number one from Andrew’s draft says it all. Yes, including the last statement that we just added. Yes. And the board of health strongly recommends that. Yes. So we need the dates on there. So through January 15th, 2020, we’re going to have to go through January 15th. And we should say it possibly will be up for discussion at the board of health January 11th meeting. Whether we extend or through January 15th with the with the expectation this will be discussed further. With the expectation of being discussed if necessary. If need need need be to go further. Get that a little cleaner. Yeah. The this recommendation will be effective through January 15th, 2022. And and will be effective through January 15th unless the board decides to lengthen the timeline with the time.

20:41 I also would like to have it for this weekend. So could we say by 8 a.m. December 17th gives people two days to three days to there’s nothing that really I mean it’s a recommendation so we don’t need to think it can be effective now immediately. Yeah. So do we but we should put that in effective immediately. Yeah, you should put that in. So this this strongly recommended order shall be effective at immediately. So that’s not where that’s at the second page. You can use that to

21:21 this emergency order shall be effective. So yeah, this is the recommendation. Yeah. So I just was reading. Yeah. Yes. This strong recommendation shall be effective at 5 a.m. on December 16th, 2021 and remain in effect in effect until lifted. And I think that well the 16th is two days from now, not tomorrow. So December 15th and until lifted on January 15th pending. Well, it’s not going to be lifted until the earliest of January 15th. Yes. Discussion of the board. Or not pending. Yeah. Well, yes, what’s wrong with that. And do you think you got it. Okay, that will figure it out. Yeah. So it’s in for a full month of 15th to 15th right now. Yes. Let’s take our vote. Andrea, is there a way you could like read it back or no. Yes. So the board of health strongly recommends all persons of the age of two years must wear a mask or face covering such as a fabric or surgical mask covering the nose and mouth while indoors and in any public space, including but not limited to retail establishments, restaurants, bars, performance venues, social clubs, houses of worship, personal care, fitness establishments, event spaces and municipal buildings.

22:56 This strong strongly recommended order shall be effective at 5am on December 15 and shall remain in effect. Do we say until lifted or until January 15th? It should be until lifted, but you will discuss on January. But there will be a discussion on January 11th. Yep. And you said the word order, which we’re going to take out. So yeah, this strongly recommended strong recommendation. Strong recommendation. Okay. So we have our motion, our second. So let’s vote on this. Well, we probably should accept the recommendation that was made as a I make that as a new motion that I’ll accept the recommendation is read. Okay. I second. Okay. Miss Aisling. In favor. Miss Miller. In favor. Dr. Belfbecker. In favor. And then let’s do a second motion recommending strongly recommending that the selectmen, the board of selectmen enforce a mask mandate in all municipal buildings. And they can figure out the details and the timing when they do that, if they do that, but we recommend that they do. Did you just step down from the chair to make that motion? Oh, I was always suggesting that both the motion should be on. Well, you could do that, you know, it would be. All right. You want to adopt that motion, Joanne?

24:28 Whatever he said. Yeah, just what he said. So we would like to have the selectmen recommend. Let’s see if I can articulate that now. Have the selectmen recommend residents wear masks in all public buildings in Marblehead. They’re going to mandate it. We’re going to recommend strongly recommend that they mandate. Thank you, Elaine. Go words. I’ll second that. Okay. Miss Aisling. In favor. Miss Miller. In favor. Dr. Belf Becker. In favor. Okay. I think that’s important too, because there’s going to be a lot of public meetings among the various boards, the Finance Committee, the selectmen, the state of the town. And I think there will be a lot of people coming together during this holiday time. I think it will be helpful. Absolutely. And I think we can move on. So it’s time for your update, Helene. Oh, boy. I didn’t even get a break. And I’ve been so busy with the mask mandate that I haven’t reviewed my notes from 11-16. The Superintendents Advisory Leadership Team, the acronym SALT, has met four times since we met last.

26:05 So they get the prize now because we were meeting weekly and now they are meeting weekly. And most of the discussion has been around masking and numbers of vaccines and when and where the vaccine is. And the vaccination clinics were going to be. And so on November 16, our last meeting was, by the way, on November 15. So this happened the day after we met. And the first school to ask for a waiver with the Commonwealth was Hopkinson. And our superintendent spoke with Hopkinson to get some information. And they were not going to enforce this right away. They wanted to see what happened, I think, at the Thanksgiving and Christmas break. I don’t know if that has continued because I really haven’t gotten a sense of that. But they were only at that time at 64% and 66%. So they certainly didn’t have the numbers to go there. But they, to ask to enforce the waiver, but they wanted to have it in their hip pocket for when they got their numbers or when the holiday season was over. And some of our faculty that are representatives of the union on SALT really did not want to rush.

27:40 And it seems that that’s been a common thread throughout. And that’s what happened on the 16th of November. They also started talking about the SOS, the Suicide Prevention Program. The SOS, I wrote down what the acronym means. I’ll get to it because I have it someplace in one of these because I kept talking about it. So it’s finally happening because we’ve talked about it again today. So those are the few threads that the masking, the vaccine, the times that the kids had the clinics. The first clinic was, my next meeting was November 30th and the first clinic was going to be December 2nd. And that was going to be at the Brown School and then there was, they’re going to have one on the 23rd, but today there was a vaccine clinic. Wasn’t there one? Oh, yesterday. Right, Andrew? Wasn’t there a clinic yesterday? So I’m sure the school had a clinic recently, but I don’t know if it was yesterday. I think it was yesterday. So they’re doing their job too.

29:02 That was discussed that once our students and faculty, it had to be staff and student body, the whole school, once they reached the 80% week, they could indeed have relief of the masks. But we have gotten to that point at the high school at on 1130 on November 30, 87% of the students and 69% of the middle school students had been fully vaccinated and they were still sticking to the January 15th date. And they were talking about the pool testing, especially at the Glover School. And they were also interested in the people coming to the School for Athletics, other schools, because it’s in our building, they must be masked. So that was another issue that was discussed. If you come from another school, you come into the Marblehead buildings, they are on their property outdoors, they should be masked. So that was that. Then on December 7th, they did talk, yes, that there was a flag pharmacy. Where’s flag pharmacy? I never heard of it. Is that a national group? No, I think it’s a local pharmacy.

30:33 Okay, well, they had one yesterday on 1213 at the vets. And they are having one on the 23rd. And they said today that people can go, older kids can go to the Brown School and have even the booster. So they’re allowing people. And on December 7th, the vets and the high school are over 80%, 87% for the vets and 86% for the high school. So that was a very important step so that the superintendent felt that he could make that request for the waiver, which he did. And he reported today that he got the waiver. To get back to one other point that was important, because it has to do with us, a point person was appointed in the school department because I guess there was an issue over the weekend before December 7th where people from the Board of Health were unavailable. What’s the matter with you, Andrew? You weren’t available 24-7 all weekend? So they decided they would get somebody which they do have now. They also talked about, because there had been more cases in the schools that they have the Google classroom for the high school and both middle schools, both the vets and the village, the students that are out.

32:06 And that there are packets for the elementary students. There’s a box outside of the Glover School that parents can pick up the homework and the teachers do reach out to the parents when the kids have been infected and are quarantined. Which is good because they’re very mindful of the fact that these kids need to keep up. So there was an issue, a problem about kids, people that do at home testing and the family doesn’t tell the school. I guess the Board of Health finds that out when there’s somebody that has the virus that doesn’t necessarily report to the school, but they, you will find out, is that right? Only if it’s a PCR. Only if it’s a PCR. If they do their own testing, it won’t happen. Correct. But if they’re not signed up for the program at the school, the test and stay, the school department doesn’t necessarily have the information. So we’re up to today, 12-14, December 14th, and they said that the clinic went very smoothly and they were busy on yesterday and that 16-12, again, may get the booster on the 23rd, is going to be a state clinic. So we’re not doing it, I guess, it’s a state.

33:39 So that was, and Superintendent Bucky did say that he spoke with the Commissioner and he got the waiver, but he is not recommending it until the school committee will work on that. And they’ve got this date, they’re not going to do anything before the vacation break. And that January 15th date for the school department is something that’s important because the Martin Luther King weekend is before the 15th. And when I was told, let me look at that correctly, no, it isn’t. Martin Luther King is the 17th. So I guess if it’s the 15th, they’re not going to go back to school until the 17th, the 15th is a Saturday, so it will probably be the 18th because of them, because of that. So more of the same in the principles we’re talking about, how they’re going to react as this goes forward, because it seems like it may be if they do accept the waiver, it may affect some of the teaching. The teachers will have to man the kids that are not vaccinated and it seems to be, it may become an issue. And there are positive cases throughout the school department and we got the numbers on the age group, so it seems that they’re all over.

35:19 And I think that we, oh, one other thing, yeah. Todd from the custodial department said he has been asked to disinfect all surfaces each day and that he is doing that every day at the end of the day. And if kids come to school without masks, he has gotten shipments of both youth and adult masks, so there’s no problem about people not getting masks. And they are going to start the SOS, the suicidal program at the high school in January, so after the first of the year. Deanna then spoke that her nurses were doing everything to help curb the spread and to help do the testing and to keep these kids as healthy as they can be. And that was the end. Can I ask a question, Helene? Yes. I’m curious, so they’re actually offering booster shots for kids 16 and older, and I just wonder, is that premature because I don’t think the 16 to 18 year olds were able to get the booster so but I assume kids that turned 18 and turned 19. In that age group. In other words, the kids haven’t had enough time to have that six months.

36:52 Yeah, I know that 16 years old will be able to. What was that? Didn’t they get it before the summer because I see you do have some so effective 11 17 2021 all individuals 18 plus are eligible for COVID 19 boosters. And then today, they announced that 16 and 17 year olds are available for the booster as well. So they can get it earlier you mean before the six months is up like, no, they can’t get it so you still have to wait so you still have to be fully vaccinated to get your booster. But there might be people that have received their, you know, their first two series earlier, due to either medical issues or other reasons so like that puts them available, you know, they can make it get it earlier sometimes. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to, because I felt I was a little bit inadequate and telling you what the SOS stands for. It’s signs of suicide. It’s a universal school based prevention program designed for middle and high school students but it’s being given at the high school, and they identify through various exercises. If, if there are people that are in trouble. That’s my word, but so. So that’s what it is. What is the purpose of it.

38:23 Yeah. Good. All right, I finished so there was, as I said, there was a common through the whole month of masking vaccination and this suicide prevention, the teachers are concerned about how they got a monitor this and if and when it happens. Thank you for that reporting for continuing to serve on that committee. Thank you. I do enjoy it. And they do look to us, although, you know, they ask me, like today they asked for what is the board going to do about we face our agenda, what are you going to do with the mask recommendation mandate I said, I’m only one person. So, there’s a lot that they don’t hear from me so I couldn’t. I just told them that we’re very thoughtful group, and they could expect something.

39:21 Joanne do you have a mental health task force update. Yes, thank you, Todd. Thank you, Elaine, I am. I’m going to pick up where Elaine mentioned the SOS because that’s one of the first things that I wanted to share the mental health, the Marblehead mental health task force met. Most recently, last Monday, and we went about setting new doing some new goal setting because we had achieved our first two initiatives in November. And what we came down with was to continue our speaker series. We’re interested in building smaller, more narrow speaker programs we have one planned in January, and that will be aimed at students and their parents, and we’re going to be working with clinicians that work mainly with young people and specifically aligned with the SOS program we’re going to be working with the woman that’s rolling that out at Marblehead high school, and just trying to connect patients and their family or excuse me, students and their families with some tools, because I think I had mentioned before we had looked to the Lexington mental health task force which was initiated, and they’ve done a lot of work that we kind of look to to say what else can we do and how can we be most effective and try to understand how to do it without trying to reinvent every wheel and the next the Lexington mental health task force was initiated when there were several young suicides in that community, and the community came together and said we need to make sure that this stops and make sure we have the tools and resources to try and prevent this from continuing to happen.

41:11 And that’s where we want to put some energy now in our in some of our endeavors and work with the SOS group that’s being launched and rolled out in January so that is going to be our first speaker program and we’re looking at the end of January for that. Our second program we want to do is aiming to again have a narrower conversation where we’re not having such broad demographics and we can keep a tighter control on the conversation we’re looking to connect with our older residents and work with the Council on Aging and also offer resources and tools and conversation for adult children of elderly parents who are encountering some challenge some mental health challenge. Certainly the isolation has has brought some of that to a tipping point and we really had a robust conversation about how this is a very needed conversation and the Council on Aging has some great tools. I think we’re going to do something during the day and then mirror in the evening so that we can, you know, connect with our older residents who were informed probably won’t be going out into an evening program. And this is something with a timeline of late March, early April, that we’re hoping to have that speaker program. And the third speaker program that we’re looking to do would involve suicide prevention in a broader scope instead of just high school students we’re looking to get a NAMI speaker and potentially for this program.

42:47 We’re looking to work with the NAN project which is something the Counseling Center, Teresa, the Counseling Center has worked with as has Dan Bauer in the past at the high school level. And it’s an organization that, you know, invites that conversation, similar to what SOS builds. So those are the three main speaker series that we’re planning and they really do. Our goal is to have a more narrow conversation where we can get into some depth with a smaller demographic group so we’re not, you know, reaching too far and hope and we certainly intend to have question and answering because our feedback was resonated and it was very true. You know, this kind of conversation that people that show up, if they have questions, we want to make sure we have the professionals there to answer specific questions and concerns. So we’re excited about that. There’s a lot of momentum and energy as we move into our speaker series. And that’s the number one goal. We also are excited to have Dr. Mark Labon from Salem State University. He was a member of our speaker panel in November. And we were excited to find out when we invited him to be a member of our speaker panel, he had done some work with the Marblehead Counseling Center with respect to prevention of alcohol and substance abuse. And so he’s done, he had already actually built this organization called Marblehead Cares. And then when we were looking for a way to move forward with our task force and our speaker series, we took that and found that there had been a coalition called Marblehead Cares that had disbanded.

44:30 So we were able to use that name. But then it was really remarkable to meet with Mark and find out that that was something that he had already worked with. So he is going to be attending our meeting next Monday on December 20th and he’s going to present what he was doing there and how we can perhaps pick up from what he had been doing before and make this part of our goals in 2022 to re resurrect that effort. We also are excited to have some social media outreach. We have built some social media platforms that we have a team of very talented people that are pretty savvy with this to make sure we can get the information out to the community as it’s availed. And Kim Howard and Kim Leventhal are both working to bring some positivity into our social media platforms so we can reach out to the community, especially going into the holiday season, which actually we are in the holiday season for many of us. And it can be a really difficult time and we want to make sure we’re there supporting our community and trying to point them in the direction of some resources and tools to support them. We also are excited. Two other things. We’re working with Dan Bauer to get a potential intern for the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force. We think it would be wonderful to have a young voice and a young,

46:01 young person who has some talents that they may be able to bring to us with respect to some social media building and updating and certainly with our website. We have weekly meetings on Thursday mornings. We have a Zoom meeting to continue to build out that website and add to it and make sure that we’re keeping it timely with respect to different tools that we find and updates as they are discovered, you know, some new things that we want to make sure are included there. I do want to share that during after the talk, we heard from lots of our community members about being interested in volunteering with the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force. And so now we’re looking for ways to harness this interest. And we certainly have so many talented people and find out what their talents are, interests are, and perhaps come up with some ways to utilize their interests. And in so doing, I did meet with SPUR. And as you are all aware, they do wonderful work in our community and bring volunteerism opportunities to members of our community. And one of the things, you know, what’s the golden rule? I think treat others the way you’d like to be treated. And then finding ways for members of our community to really, you know, it makes you feel great when you give to others, you’re often receiving a lot as well. So that’s an area where we may think of ways to collaborate and bring some of those volunteer opportunities to people that are looking for them and reaching for them.

47:39 So let’s see, I think that is my report on the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force. Excellent. I have a question. It was something that you said, but I really don’t have one question, but one that stands out in my mind is this intern, do you, is Dan Bauer located somewhere or is he going to a particular place because I might be able to help you with that? Oh, wonderful. Well, I sent him a brief write up about kind of what we would be most interested in. And I think we’re, I was visualizing, you know, these young people as they’re preparing to look ahead into their future careers. Lots of them are, you know, already in these young ages building resumes and perhaps, you know, their story for their college applications or where maybe they just have a personal interest in mental health and a connection to mental health. So, so he, he is working on that and any suggestions you have, I would welcome them, Helene, because who knows, maybe we’re going to get a lot of interest and we’ll have to think more of students who are in college and looking for internships, but you’re thinking of a younger age category. Yes. Well, that’s what we were thinking, but certainly, I mean, there are areas where, you know, I think some of the web, the social media and website and some of the things that younger people seem to have great savvy with and some of us really have great struggles with.

49:13 So we were hoping that, you know, we could leverage some of their, their expertise, but also, I think it would be really valuable to have those younger voices, you know, involved and if they’re able to attend the meeting and help us understand maybe boots on the ground, what are we missing, we may, we don’t want to miss anything here. And I think it would be very appreciative of having that young voice involved in our work. It certainly sounds good. Sure does. Well, thank you for the report and for continuing to serve on the committee for us. Thank you. So, we’ll move on the sustainable marble representative here. Andrew, do you want to preface the next agenda item it’s about the peaker plants and people. So sustainable marblehead was supposed to be here to present that this is regarding the peaker plant that’s being being built in Peabody. And they were concerned about some environmental air quality issues related to, you know, essentially carbon footprints and the fact that the plants will be natural gas burning may change later on. I mean, they had asked to be you know I put them on the agenda so I’m not prepared to speak for them. Okay, so and there’s, if there’s anybody here from sustainable marblehead please come on.

50:44 Okay, so I guess we will postpone this and if they want to get on our next agenda, they can reach out to us. Andrew your director’s report please. So a couple little quick things. So I’ve actually on December 11, I will be here, I know I’ve been here for 10 years. So the other day mark my 10 year anniversary. Seriously. Yeah, seriously. So, we could have gotten you a cake. No, no, no, we are too busy for any of that stuff at this point. But with that, I am eligible for a step increase. So I need the board to vote that I can move from a step five to a step six. And that would begin January 1 2022. And that’s purely based on number of years in service to town. Yeah, that’s based on yeah where I stand today, and all that stuff. Yes. So, good. Second day. So, when was that date so I can mark it down for the 20th. December 11 was my first day. Okay. And that was last Saturday, I hope you worked all day on Saturday. He was 17 when we hired him so I’ll vote. Miss Aisley. In favor. Miss Miller. In favor. Alright, Dr. Belficher. In favor.

52:17 Alright, so moving on. We had a very successful household hazardous waste day on December 8. Again, we served, you know, Marblehead and Swamp Scott. I believe we served over 120 homes. We are working on the next day that will be in March, will probably very similar in the beginning of the month. As I said, we’re trying to do this quarterly. This is going extremely well. The only thing with this next event is that we are entering a new year and there will be a slight increase in the prices. So we will put out the notification in the next coming couple of weeks and we get all that from the company ACV. And this is household hazardous waste, but we come directly to your home, rather than having the events at the transfer station, the companies come to your home and remove the hazardous waste. We bring it back to the transfer station to repack it. So rather than having two events per year, we’re now able to do it quarterly. So we’re able to serve more people. We can serve people that now work on Saturdays or work during the day. You just need to leave in a safe place close to your porch or your garage and we’ll come right in and pick it up. So that’s been very, you know, very exciting. You know, obviously we’ve been extremely busy with COVID over the last couple of weeks. You know, it’s really unfortunate that we are in this situation with the numbers that they are, but we are very thankful that the community has taken the vaccination very seriously and we have a very extremely high vaccination rate. We’re hoping that during the holidays that people will take some precautions.

53:48 If you are going to do some large gatherings with family, we always recommend possibly to do some rapid tests before you attend some of these large events. And this will kind of decrease the chances of transmission. So we just kind of want to remind that stuff. But obviously during the holidays, as far as trash and recycling goes, please remember to follow Recycle Smart or the Recyclopedia online at recyclesmart.org. And this will explain what you can recycle and what you can’t. Unfortunately, you know, wrapping paper is not always recyclable. Certain things like that, you know, please remove your lights off your tree before you recycle that. We can’t deal with trees that have lights on them. So just all these little tips. We have a lot of stuff that we’ve worked with Sustainable Marblehead and some other groups to just promote a recycling holidays. And obviously the biggest thing that we always are pushing these days is that we want each home to get into food composting. It’s the biggest change that you can make in your waste stream. And so please, it’s the easiest thing to do. I know it can be yucky at times, but it makes a huge difference. So we just want to remind everybody about that. There’s a tremendous amount of food waste during the holidays. And this is a great time to start. Sign your relatives up, sign your friends up, sign your neighbors up. It can be a great gift. So I just want to kind of plug in for that and continue on. So thank you very much. Would you say still 30% of waste is compostable? Yeah. About 30? Yeah. Yeah. How many households do you have now? It’s over 650 households currently.

55:21 Excellent. And we’re getting, you know, at this point, we’re getting three or four a week right now. Great. So could we put in the minutes of accommodation to Andrew Petty for his 10 years of service for the town of Marblehead? Thank you. I’d like to make that as a motion. Seconded. Okay. Miss Aisley. In favor. Miss Miller. In favor. Dr. Belfbecker. In favor. Okay. Is that the report tonight? That is the report tonight. All right. We have our public comment period. If you want to say anything, please raise your hand. I’ll recognize you. Okay. So our next meeting is January 11th that Tuesday. So we will need a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Miss Miller. In favor. Miss Aisley. In favor. Dr. Belfbecker. In favor. And have nice holidays, everybody.