Board of Health: September 19, 2023

Transcript captured from MHTV’s Vimeo auto-captioning. No speaker labels; proper names and dollar figures occasionally misheard. Click any timecode to jump to that moment in the source video.

0:00 Begin the meeting

0:04 in the meeting of September 18th. It is, uh, 7 29. By the time I congratulate Andrew on the, uh, wonderful program he had last night with the legal when we owe us. Thank you. I think you spoke for almost an hour and 45 minutes. Very close to that, yes. It was at least an hour and a half and more. Yeah. So, uh, you did a great job and I loved all your, uh,

0:29 all your, um, uh, probe pieces and, um, I learned some things, so I’m glad that I, I jumped in. Very good. So, uh, thank you for doing it. I’m sure that we’ve enjoyed it. I had to go to another meeting, so I, any other questions, but I’m sure that they were, you did a good job doing that. I’ll put a copy of that recording up on our website. That would be great.

0:55 So, um, could we get, uh, look at the minutes? Everybody still there? Minutes? Yes. Any, uh, additions or corrections? No. No. And so could I have a motion to accept them? Uh, a motion to accept the minutes of July 11th, 2023? Is there a second? Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. So vote and, uh, you will have those in the file. So wants to see them. Um, we have a refund of the, on August 7th meeting minutes as well. Yes. Oh, are those on here? Yep.

1:34 I don’t seem to have them. Yes. Maybe I, I left a copy over there for you.

1:42 I apologize. Okay. Um,

1:52 so I would like to mo a motion for the, uh, to approve the minutes of August 7th.

1:58 I’ll make a motion to approve the minutes of August 7th, 2023. Second. Um, I was David in favor.

2:11 I apologize for that, where it’s, but

2:16 aha, there it’s, I that I it’s,

2:23 sorry about that. John Caswell raised his,

2:31 John Caswell raised his hand since he’s with HT V.

2:42 How’s it going, John? Uh, I was just wondering if you could set the camera so that we could see the board at home. Uh, yeah. Lemme see if I can switch the, uh, the camera setting. Thank you. Well, we have the, uh, attractive person on there, Andrew.

3:13 Thank you, Mr. Caswell.

3:18 So now your transfer station? Uh, no. So yeah. Transfer station refund request. I have three requests for refunds tonight. Uh, the first is for Aandra Donovan, uh, for 14 Lincoln Park. Uh, the $10 refund, uh, she bought our small recyclable bin and not a large, um, so that’s the first one. Uh, Alessandra Mc Donovan at 14 Lincoln Park. Do, do you want us to make a motion to approve that? Yep. I’m looking for motion to approve. Motion. Motion. Go approve. Alessandra’s refund. Second in favor. In favor. Vote passes. Uh, the second one is for Mr. Flynn at 11 Glover Square. Um, and this is, he returned a large recycle bin for, its for, so it’s for $75. He, he returned it. He didn’t take a number. He did not take the number.

4:04 Yep. So, uh, a motion to, has, has he had the money returned, or is that looking for it now? No, he’s got, I have to do the refunds to give them back the money. All those in favor for motion to plan to get this refund. In favor? In favor. Wait. We need a motion. Oh, motion to refund. Refund for $75. All those in favor? In favor, unanimous. Uh, and the last one’s for Judy Carroll of eight Glendale Road. Uh, this is a $55 refund for facility stickers. Uh, they bought three, they’re charged 180 5 and it should be one 30. Motion to refund. $55 to Jody Carol, Carol. Second in favor,

4:47 unanimous. So that’s all done. Is that, that’s it on that, that’s it. On that we have, uh, Elaine, uh, we need to speak today, uh, to us. So, uh, I had the pleasure to meet her, so I I’m very happy to have you here this evening, by the way, is it we or ladies?

5:11 Great. Thanks for having me. Um, so good evening and thank you for the opportunity to present tonight. My name is Elaine Leahy and I’m the Executive Director of Sustainable Marblehead as well as a resident. I wanna start off by saying thank you to Andrew and to each of the board members, Helene, Joanne, and Tom for all the good work that you are doing here at Marblehead on behalf of all of us residents. So, I’ll give you a brief overview of sustainable Marblehead and then present some projects where I see some overlap and hopefully we can partner on, uh, to make progress on achieving our common goals. So, sustainable Marblehead is a community organization working to educate and engage the Marblehead community to reduce waste and pollution

6:00 and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040. Our vision is a vibrant and engaged community actively addressing the climate crisis to ensure that our town and planet are habitable and beautiful for generations. Our working groups include conservation barber, town trees and urban forestry, green homes and buildings, and clean energy and public policy. And we work with volunteers across the community and have partnered with many town representatives, including the Marblehead Housing Authority, the Marblehead Tree, warden Recreation and Parks Commission, and of course, you the Board of Health, just to name a few. So where great we partner,

6:47 I see four opportunities and look forward to hearing your feedback on some of these ideas. Uh, number one is composting in the community. I think we agree on the fact that the more we can promote composting, the better the benefits of composting include removing food waste from our trap stream, which lessens its weight. So less weight is going to equal less cost to pull away. Um, we’re also going to be extending the life of our landfills by diverting this food waste, um, from adding more tonnage to these already very, almost filled places. Some of them, uh, another benefit is reducing the amount of greenhouse gases entering the

7:32 atmosphere from decomposing food waste in the landfills. And finally, the creation of compost is returning valuable nutrients back into the Earth, so they don’t go to waste on Marblehead. Net zero plan under the lead of the health department with support from sustainable Marblehead reads the line significantly increased participation in composting programs. And that’s something that I hope we can work on together. To accomplish this, we hope to run a promotion where we will make available 50 free black earth bins to, to new subscribers in Marblehead. And we will help to promote and run this campaign with you, and perhaps we can plan an event together in support of this initiative. Um,

8:19 number two is composting in the schools. As of last year, the Marblehead High School through the National Green School Society and the Veterans Middle School, through their green team, are composting students, food waste. These students and teachers are really doing an excellent job and should definitely be commended. So thank you to them. Um, we would like to explore further to see where we could work together to possibly expand composting at the schools where it’s feasible. Um, number three is recycling education. So I learned from Andrew that typically there’s about a 30%, um, contamination rate in our com in our recycling,

9:05 which just means that there’s items being thrown away that don’t actually belong. Um, someone from Sustainable told me they had heard from Andrew years ago, there was even a bowling ball in the, in the recycling. So we clearly, we have some work to do to educate or reeducate people on what goes into recycling and what doesn’t. Um, and the reason, part of the reason this is so important is that we wanna keep our recycling being high value, um, especially with an eye toward the contract expiring a few years. Um, so to that end, we hope to again, do the Compost Recycled Trash webinar that we do during the holiday season. And Andrew’s joined us for two, I think two years now. And it’s been a great way to educate people.

9:52 And then finally number four is mental health, which is spending time in nature, so more time walking and biking, and less time in cars. This is shown to improve mental health while also reducing the town’s carbon footprint. So we think it would be great to work with you on an event to get people outside. And perhaps we could also speak to the wonderful organization who cares for many of our green spaces and trails, the Marblehead Conservancy about partnering on this as well. So thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight about these initiatives and I, and Sustainable Marblehead look forward to working together to bring these ideas to life. Thank you. So, obviously Elaine and I met, we had long conversation and,

10:39 and Sustainable Marblehead is, you know, a great partner of ours and we’ll continue to be a great partner of ours. Um, so when we talk about the composting, um, we’re always trying to encourage people to sign up with Black Earth to receive curbside collection of prop posting. Um, because of the number of individuals we have already that signed up, uh, it’s just over a hundred dollars for a family. Um, to have a year long of compo compost collection curbside, it’s a little over $2 a week, so very low cost. Um, but there is some huge savings to the town and obviously there’s a huge savings for the environment. Um, and at the end, you know, it does make a really nice product. Uh, people in town can buy that product, they can use it on their lawn, they can use it to fertilize trees. It’s a really good relationship and stuff like that. So, um, I’ve agreed to use,

11:26 you know, some grant money that we receive from d e p for re small recycling dividends that we receive. It’s about $12,000 every year. Um, and we’re gonna put this towards, uh, the first 50 bins of the next 50 people that sign up. Um, and so there’s two different size bins that you can get. Um, there’s a 13 gallon bin, uh, that, you know, an average family of four would use. Um, we fill that up pretty, you know, pretty close to the top on a weekly basis. Um, I mean, the great thing about composting, yes, there’s a little bit of a yuck factor to it, but once you get a system down, you have your one gallon kitchen, you know, compost bucket. Um, we have a filter on it, so we don’t have any odors that come out of that. And then we have our 13 gallon bin outside. So we just fill up that one gallon bin inside and bring it outside. Um,

12:13 it also allows us to use paper towels. We can wipe everything up and put that right in that compost bin and all that stuff gets composted. Um, so we do a substantial amount of material out of, out of our household every, you know, every year. And I assume most of the people that are doing it, you know, we’d be contributing equal amounts. Um, but I think this is a great program. Um, so yeah, you could either get a 13 gallon bin or if you’re a slightly smaller family or doing individual or two people, um, they all also offer a four gallon bin. Is that The same price? No. So the 13 gallon bin is 29 50 and the four gallon bin is $10. Um, but we’ll be working with Black Earth, uh, and covering those costs. So the way it works is that you contact Black Earth, you sign up,

12:58 they’ll let me know of the people that sign up and we’ll deliver the bin. Um, Did you have their, their, uh, address there? I don’t have their, um, you know, obviously it’s black earth.com. Um, it’s pretty easy to find. Um, they’re all over the North Shore. They’re all over Massachusetts. Um, you see that there are trucks everywhere. If you’re paying attention, you’ll probably start to notice them here and there and stuff like that. But we Have a cost, uh, that comes out from the transfer station for to Black Earth, right? We do, yes. And so what, what is, ‘cause I, I have my own Black Earth subscription. Yep. So I, so I don’t use the one, the transfer station. Correct. But what, what exactly does that one do? So that’s just like anyone with a sticker can come with their compost. Correct. So in, and then we pay for that. Yep. Which is a decent amount. What I,

13:44 I don’t have the in front of me. Like, what would you say it was? There’s Eight bins up there, so it’s quite a bit, I forget what the total amount was, but it’s, it’s A few thousand bucks, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. As, as far as costs. Yeah. Um, but the actual tonnage that comes out of there is substantial as well. Yeah. What I’m getting at is that, um, so it’s a few thousand bucks for those. Yep. So if people were to sign up individually, you’d actually kind of be saving money for the town and also they deliver compost to you. Right? So it’s, it’s beneficial in that respect. So, um, um, So those wouldn’t be one of the 50, uh, free ones, is that what you’re saying? No, they would, So yeah, you would’ve to currently sign up. So you’d have to be a new customer. Um, so, you know, that’s how the program’s gonna run is for new customers. Um, but again, this is a cost savings for the town in a way.

14:31 You’re diverting food waste from our solid waste stream, which is, you know, resulting in reduced tonnage, which is ultimately a reduction the cost for us. And Black Earth also picks up their door too, doesn’t it? They do. And that’s what the, the program that we’re talking about, That’s what we’re trying to, if people subscribe to that instead of going to the transfer station, it saves the town money. Again. It’s a few thousand bucks a month. It’s not a small amount. Yep. It’s also not going into their curbside trash. You’re right. And this is for one year? For the first year. Uh, yeah. So this is for the, but you use that 13 gallon bin, you know, for the whole life Free, the free the Benefits just for the bin. Yeah. You still have to pay for the yearly. You still have to pay for it’s just the bin. Yep. And Freepost. Yeah. I Think that’s fantastic. And how are we able to promote this?

15:19 So we are able to work with Black Earth, obviously, I think sustainable Marblehead ISS gonna do a lot of the promotions. Um, and then I will work with Black Earth. They can promote it on their website. Um, I was chatting with them today quickly, um, so they can put something together for us, but I assume Sustainable Marblehead will like the promotion of it and kind of like the advertisement. So we’ll, we’ll allow ‘em To do that. Well, I see someone from the press here. I’d like to see maybe if we’ve got the first person that wants the free bin that we could get a photograph break up here with. I can’t guarantee anything I’m hoping might add someone.

15:52 Joanne promotion for that too, is a lot of the reason why I put the website on that first meeting is because the easier that is to navigate, the easier it is to promote this recycling. What can be recycled, what can’t be. But it has to be easily understood or else people just will get off it. Course. Yes. Yeah. And I, I think this is, uh, just a wonderful conversation to have because especially around composting. Um, my daughter, when she was in high school, today’s her 25th birthday, she was involved at the high school in getting, that was her senior project to, you know, partner with the League of Women Voters and, and do that. And I just remember this thing, you know, she was pulling apart the garbage every day. It was really glamorous. I wonder, I know it was really successful. And people do get behind this because they can make a very simple

16:40 difference and, um, make a big impact. So, um, I I was just thinking of, you know, some of the bigger, um, organizations we have in Marblehead, like we have our new assisted living facility, that’s a really big property that may want to partner with, um, potentially, I’m imagining if They’re gonna, yeah. So how does that work? The state does have rules and regulations about, depending on the amount of material that you put out through your restaurants and stuff like that, they are gonna begin to capture some of these. So depending on if you’re a large university at this point, you have to compost your food waste. Right. Um, so it’s gonna slowly come down. Uh, but that’s kind of a segue to the next piece of school composting. Um, so again, yeah, you know, we began composting at the high school. Um,

17:25 we had a great group of kids there working on the green team. Um, they actually were able, I think as part of a senior project, um, they taught some other kids at the vet school, so at the junior high school. Um, and they, they’ve started composting there. Um, but working with Sustainable Marblehead, we really like to go to all the schools. Um, and really if you begin this school, you know, the kids at the young age, they’ll learn how to do it. They’ll become a normal thing to do. So by the time they get to high school, it’s just second nature. Um, but the other great thing about teaching the kids how to do this stuff is they often bring it home. So mom and dad are doing this in the schools and now we really should be doing this on at home. So we’d love to partner with them to, you know, continue on with that education and really try to bring it to all the elementary

18:11 schools, you know, the village schools and keep going with this. So is this available immediately? Uh, I mean, obviously we have to make sure we have to talk to the schools. You need to have some champions in the school that are really gonna oversee these programs. Uh, so you need a teacher that’s gonna agree to kinda oversee the lunchroom and make sure everything’s done properly and go from there. So, and All Citizens 15. Yeah. That’s available immediately. Yep. And you, and it’s a great partnership. So I think it’s terrific to have always to see two groups working together. And then with the recycling education, obviously, you know, we wanna create a product that is valuable. So we all use Recycle Smart in the state of Massachusetts. Um, we have Recycle Smart on our website. Um, it allows you to use the recycling,

18:58 uh, the recycler pedia, which is the dictionary for recycling items. So if you have a question about what items can be recycled, you go onto that. Um, and it says, you know, I wanna recycle a plastic cup. Is it a clear plastic cup? Is it a black plastic cup? And it kind of takes you through that and says, yes, that blend belongs in your recycling bin, or that belongs in the trash. It’s a very valuable tool. Everybody should know that it’s available to everybody. Um, it’s right in our website. Um, but that’s how we kind of clean up our recycle stream. And eventually we’d like to partner with Sustainable Marblehead and start to do audits curbside. So if they’re volunteers that would like to walk street to street, uh, they actually open up all the recycle bins, they take a look at it and they’re looking for contamination. Uh, so contamination could be a plastic bag, you know,

19:45 obviously there’s a whole bunch of items. It could be a black, um, plastic, uh, recycling item that can’t be recycled technically. And there’s nothing, you know, you’re not gonna say, oh, this doesn’t get picked up. But it can say, you know, provide a little bit of education. Hey, we noticed some items in here that don’t technically belong. Please remember to use Recycle Smart. And you know, we have some flyers that’s the flyer that we, um, hand out at all times. If you buy a recycle bin from the town, either a 65 or a 55 gallon toter right on top of it, it’s printed with the Recycle Smart Label. It actually tells you what belongs in the recycle bin and what doesn’t. Um, so we’re always trying to promote people to that. And yes, the idea is to make a better product.

20:29 And, and, um, the spiking, uh, program, I think they have one at at, they, they did have one at the Glover Schools is still happening. Or The biking program or the, Uh, what wasn’t that a walking to school that was Oh yeah, they, they definitely still do some walking to school. Um, obviously, you know, we’ll continue to talk about other initiatives as far as get outside. One of the other things that you probably don’t even realize that you do is that we often have cleanup days in the town where we sponsor, you know, provide plastic bags and gloves. Um, and that’s another, and, you know, cleanup parks and beaches and all this stuff. It’s another great way to get outside and, you know, you know, return to the community, um, help out the community and clean up your parks and beaches. So it’s always a great Partnership program doing that. I think with the, the beaches.

21:14 Yeah, I should give a plug. This Saturday, um, sustainable Marblehead and Spur are doing the Land and sea cleanup, and thanks to Andrew and the Board of Health, we have all the bags, the gloves, everything you’re gonna need to do the litter cleanup around town. Like Andrew said, it’s a great opportunity to get outside and kind of just keep all this plastic out of our oceans and keep the towel working pic and span. So thank you for doing that. What time and where could people meet if they wanna do that? So that, um, if you go to Spurs website and click on the volunteer, there are locations all around town. Um, and that starts at 10:00 AM on Saturday. And then at 1115 Sustainable Marblehead. It’s gonna be doing some fun games and things with kids,

22:02 so at Deux Beach. So you’re welcome to come by then too. Good. Great. I I have one question ‘cause I know you brought it up to me and it, I know it’s not something that either one of us are really involved in, but you, you mentioned to me about the high school church needing to be replaced or there’s a lifespan for it mm-hmm. And that the boosters are trying to raise money for that. Are they, are they still working on that or do you know anything about what’s happening there? Uh, yeah, so they are still trying to work on that. And the, the reason I had brought it up is certain, um, groups talk about turf in terms of plastic waste and P F A SS chemicals that are used in it. I’m not an expert on it,

22:50 but it’s just, you know, something people are thinking about. And I believe there could be a turf me without the P F A SS chemicals. So I’m not sure. So that might be something to just check into, you know, just your safety. We don’t oversee the, the school department’s property, but is it something you could look into and or about the, about that? Um, yeah, I, I can look into it. I can’t guarantee that we can have any influence on what product they’re gonna choose. I’m not sure how that product gets bid out. I don’t know what’s available for products if there’s turf field available without P F A S. Um, so I mean, we can definitely take a look into it. Um, but the school committee should be concerned about some of these issues as well. Um, so I’m Sure they are and, and will have to get approval from them Yep. To,

23:39 to do that. Um, as, even as far as the safety with Aaron Rogers in injury last week, I think people weren’t concerned about it too. So, uh, I’m not concerned with Aaron Rogers in the Jets.

23:55 Okay. Well thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Much Thank You for the work you’re doing. Thanks. Um, so, uh, we we’re talking about mental health. Are you ready? Yes. I mean, what a great segue. I I think it would be, um, great for the mental health task force to find out about the day that we could participate in support your outdoor mental health, um, appreciation for the great outdoors. So I’ll be in touch about that. ‘cause I think that’s something we could collaborate on. So, um, the Marvel Head Mental Health task force, we met last Monday night and the evening, uh, started out, we presented our strategic plan, which I know I had mentioned last time.

24:40 Um, and we came up with our strategic priorities, number one being membership. And Mark Labon is, um, really leading that effort in terms of making sure we have the right people on the board to meet the needs that are most of our priorities going forward. So, um, I think I, I did mention before also that we’re gonna have formal proxies in case some of our members that serve that work for the town, um, can’t attend and we can’t get our forum. So if we have some formal proxies, we would be able to have other people represent that, that perspective. Um, and so we’ll have the board voting board members, friends of the board, non-voting, voting members, and both will, uh,

25:29 all of our subcommittees will be comprised of voting members, non-voting members. And, um, we are also gonna have, another pillar will be community engagement, which is gonna be working with the community to find topics that are meaningful and engage, um, with, with speaking programs, or excuse me, speaker programs. And also we’re interested in doing a community survey survey so that we can understand what the needs are in the community and really do a deep, uh, dive into understanding what the priorities should be to be addressed. Um, and we, we actually on Friday are gonna meet with, uh, someone from the University of Massachusetts Boston

26:15 that conducts these surveys and just get a sense for what that would entail. But throughout our last meeting, the discussion we learned, there’s, there’s really been some of these, um, for assessments done, for example, the high school, uh, youth risk assessments, which really helps us understand what’s going on in that very important demographic in our community. So, um, I, I think it’s great to bring all these wise people together that understand we don’t need to reinvent the wheel if this work is then done, let’s really examine that and, um, not redo it. Certainly. Uh, we also, um, I have another pillar about branding and marketing, and this is the Marblehead Mental Health Task force.

27:01 The Marblehead Cares Task Force, making sure that that is, uh, robust and continues to be, um, having content added as it’s developed and available. So when people have needs, they can find it there. We also have some social media that we have a team that works on to make sure we reach out to the community where they are. And certainly social media is a really important place, and we probably should expand that because, um, you have a, a person helping you with that, don’t you? Yes. We a, a member of our, uh, death force, uh, Kim Leventhal. Oh, what about that gentleman that you said Oh, and the website? Yes, we have, um, we have a wonderful guy, Peter Schlack, who runs Flat Rock Creative, and he did build our website for us as a, a, a very generous gesture.

27:49 And now he is helping support that, and he’s also helping support our branding. Um, we have some magnets and we’re making brochures. And for example, next Thursday, the Council on Aging is having a health fair, and we will be displaying at that health fair, um, and have a table with resources that we’ve put together. As well as, I know I was just right in Andrew’s office across from Andrew’s office. There’s lots of great mental health resources available through our health department. So we’ll be putting together, um, some offerings at that event next Thursday. Um, also we have legislative and, um, political politics as one of our, our, um, pillars, and that’s to influence and advocate for funding at the state level. And, uh,

28:37 we wanna create and partner with, excuse me, with leaders to meet goals. And we identified, for example, you know, our select board member who we are looking forward to have added to our board, potentially Brett Murray is going to be a member of the task force. Jenny Armenia and Brendan Creighton are tremendous leaders with mental health in our communities, as well as our, uh, Congressman Seth Moulton, uh, does some very important work with mental health. So we wanna make sure that we work together with these leaders and serve our, our community as, as successfully as we can. Another thing at our meeting we were excited to talk about was, um, Dr. Toro wrote our most recent Marblehead Caress article in the Marblehead

29:22 Currents. And I think it’s really important to just highlight his article because it really presented mental health as a public health issue. And, you know, historically that wasn’t the case. And, um, now, you know, there’s lots of our, our, uh, educational institutions are really, um, engaging with that position in terms of we don’t have enough caretakers to, and clinicians to care for all the mental health needs in our, in our community, in our state, in our country. Um, so, so what can you do? We can’t get, we can’t snap our fingers and have enough clinicians,

30:09 but we can work to prevent, um, mental health, illness, mental illness, um, prevent crises as, and, um, so it’s a really exciting way to look at mental health and it’s, it’s really exciting that It’s being, Um, advanced. And I think, uh, Tom did an excellent job presenting that in the, in the article. Um, and then we did, uh, you know, so we are building this, this, um, our organization into these subcommittees and I think it’s going to be a very exciting year for the mental health task force. We’ve got some very important, um, priorities we’re gonna be setting on the subcommittees. And, uh, let’s see. I think that

30:57 That’s a very extensive, a very extensive list. I’m exhaust, sorry, I just did the minutes, the Meeting, some mental health counseling after. Okay. Meet you. I can offer you some tea. So, um, you have new, uh, new members now, so You have um, well, we have, actually, that’s what we’re doing with the membership. We’re really, um, uh, Dr. Mark Labon is a member of the task force, and he is going to be, um, really reaching out to everyone and evaluating what their interest is and make sure we have the right people at the table. Because, you know, this task force was put together two and a half years ago, and the Board of Health identified how can we, um, serve our,

31:42 our community successfully, and they found excellent people. Um, there have already been some changes. For example, um, Moses grader was on our, our task force, and we had people from, of course, Dan Bauer was on the task force. And so we’ve had some people coming and going and we wanna make sure that we have, um, the right people in Place. Well, and you need, you, you need some support. We, I, I wrote down eight different, uh, things that you’re planning to do. And I Yes, it’s, you’re doing some support. We are saying it’s very, um, Oh, Uh, very ambitious. We have an ambitious No, it’s strategy, the program at the senior center. Um, what time is that? That is from 10 to two. And, um,

32:29 Sharon Dover just invited us to, to have a table there, So, so do you have that, uh, taken care of? Do you need some help? Um, actually I was just gonna reach out to the mental health task force, but um, I think a couple people already stepped up to join Us. Call you. Thank you so much, Helene. There you go. I Appreciate that. And I think you have another item on the agenda right after this. Yes. Thank you. Um, before that, do you have questions of No, no, no. Okay. Um, so the other thing we were talking about the, uh, town Bike Rodeo safety program. And I think in the springtime and throughout the summer we noticed that there were, uh, it was so wonderful to see the sun come out and kids jump on their bikes, but then what I was noticing a great deal and people were making comments to me

33:18 that there’s lots of kids that aren’t wearing their helmets that are texting while riding, riding on the wrong side of the street, maybe not really understanding safety and how important it is to take steps towards being safe on their Bikes. And, um, so one of the things that we as a board can do is partner with the Marblehead Police Department, the schools Park and Rec Marblehead Cycle. And, um, Uh, There’s a gentleman, Tom, uh, Regan, who does teach these classes, and Dennis has already, I went to him to talk about this and he’s already got a bike rodeo safety class going. So I, I think it’s really Important That the Board of Health, um, really come out in favor of helping support these young people and even people

34:06 that just haven’t maybe been on a bike in a long time and need to remember the rules of the Road. So, um, I, Dennis is, uh, working on this and he’s got the staff To pull this through and Tom Regan agreed. And we’ve got lots of Support in the community, so, great. So you’ve got a program already starting with the, We, we’ve got the balls rolling, but we don’t have a date that, um, that I used to do This. Yes. Yeah. I did it when I Was a kid, so, so it’s something We can bring back and really just bring a lot of, I think, uh, energy behind it because I think the kids that don’t know might not, how do we catch them? Yeah. And, you know, make sure that their parents and Families are aware of this opportunity to give them some safety lessons. That good? Anyone

34:52 Have questions? No worries. I think it’s a great program because some kids really need to ask some instruction. So I, I, I imagine, I would think that they, like you said, I think the fourth grade or something used to do it. Yeah. The one thing I’d say that when I was a kid, what we all strobe for is they gave out ribbons. Mm-hmm. The more tasks you put and little, you know, kids like stickers because Yes. So bring those in and that’s how you get all the kids to, um, complete all the tasks. Yeah. Good. That’s a great suggestion. I wonder if we can remind Our, you know, our team. I’m sure there’s Yes. Thank you. That’s a great suggestion. Are we on to, uh, facility stickers? Yeah. Uh, so facility stickers.

35:38 So obviously we’ve had a lot of conversation about facility stickers. We need to continue this conversation. Mm-hmm. Um, we need to decide how we want to do our facility stickers. Is it gonna continue to be a sticker that goes on the car? Do we want to change it out? Um, you know, we’ve talked about a stickless system using cameras. Um, you know, the board really needs to decide about how we run this. So currently you buy a facility sticker, uh, you can buy the first one for $80. The second one for each additional family member is 25. And that has to be on your car. It’s supposed to go on the front left corner of the bumper. Um, and that way when you pull into the facility, the employee that’s checking for these stickers can easily identify it, just allow you to go through no issues. If they don’t see that sticker,

36:25 they need to ask what you’re doing there, what your purpose is, it’s what’s gonna generate a conversation and it’s gonna slow the process down a little bit. You know, there’s many other ways to do this. So you could have a sticker that has more information on it that doesn’t necessarily go on the car. That could be a kind of a, a card or that could have the make of the car. The sticker number could have the license plate on it. And again, you’d have to have that available to the attendant than the attendant would’ve to take a look at that card and verify that it’s the card, the person and all that stuff, and continue on. Or we can start to really look at the sticker list system. So the sticker list system, um, back in the day we talked to a company, I wanna say it was actually Stickless System Company. Um, back then it would cost about $60,000. Um,

37:15 all the license plate would, when you signed up your license plate information would be fed into the computer and that as you came through, a camera would read your license plate. Now the, some of the issues with the Stickless systems is that if you’re not on the list, it would send an email or a text to the employees in the facility to their cell phones to say, this car is in your facility. And they do not have permission to be there. At that point, the employee would have to search down this car, talk to the person to figure out what’s going on. When I spoke with Eagle Eye, they’re not, they don’t have a, like a, a facility sticker. They’ve never worked at the train station before. Mm-hmm. They’ve only worked with small parking lots with small businesses and stuff like

38:00 that. So unfortunately they really weren’t where I thought they were or wanted them to be. Um, but that doesn’t, you know, there’s other companies that we could talk to. Like I said, we did find a company called Stickless System before. Um, there is, you know, a cost to it about $60,000 is what I remember. Um, but again, you’re also adding some burden to the employees, um, that if a vehicle came in there, they’re, the employee’s gonna have to allow you to use their cell phone. So we can send a message to them and then they track down this car. Really the easiest system is that every car that enters the facility, regardless if it’s a resident or a commercial truck that’s trying to use dump off recycling or trying to dump off brush, should have a sticker on it.

38:47 And the easy location, and we can see it. There needs to be an employee that checks those stickers and that’s all they do, essentially. Yes. If it’s not busy, they can cut. So obviously when we move to the new facility, you’re gonna have the upfront by the scale house is gonna be the commercial area, you’re gonna have the back or the residential area that are gonna access in residential, uh, enter in access road, you’re gonna come up the hill and you’re gonna go past kind of the, the, um, kiosk building. And there should be an employee that stands there at all times looking to make sure that people have stickers and they can also answer questions. Somebody’s trying to get rid of a tv, we can deal with that, that time. Mattresses, brushing, all that stuff. That would be the perfect situation.

39:35 Now some of our issues is employees. I don’t have enough employees currently to run our full operation the way we would all love it to be run. I think, um, the only way we can get, you know, obviously we currently, um, one of our employees currently left. We’re in the process of hiring a new one. We’ve gone through some interviews and we hope to have a new person on board in the next couple of weeks. However, moving forward, we’re gonna need backups for these people. So if I have a scale house and I have a person checking stickers in the back, if somebody’s out sick, I have to move them to the scale house to keep that going. That means that area is left unmanned essentially. Yes. I have three other heavy equipment operators that can float around.

40:21 One’s up front checking trucks for loads and, and operating the theor one’s in the back, pushing brush around and doing other things. And one’s hauling bins, recycling bins to j r M facility. So we don’t have a lot of extra employees. This is something that we really need to work on and we need to, when we do the budgeting this year, we need to really think about how many additional employees that we need to have for our transfer station operations. We really need to have an extra for the kind of the two scale operators, you know, the scale operator and the sticker checker. Um, there needs to be extra for that person. Somebody can float around. And again, we need to remember that we operate six days a week. Generally employees, you know, will, I have a group of employees that work Monday through Friday and I have a group

41:09 of employees that work Tuesday through Saturday. It cuts down a little bit on overtime, but there’s always overtime that needs to be filled. Um, and then again, because of vacations and stuff like that, you probably need another heavy equipment operator. Um, because all those bins with the amount of material going have to be hauled to Peabody. We used to just haul some of the material to sale, but now we have to haul longer distance and it takes a considerable amount of time. Um, do you want me to keep going? Do you have questions about the residential side or, I, the one thing that you talk about $60,000 about a a a new program would be, uh, would be automatic, but with where that money come from. I mean, So that would’ve to come out of the facility budget,

41:54 Which we would’ve to increase. So you, you Would, it would be part of the project or you know, and so that would be towards the bottom of the list. So at the end of the project, if you did have money left, you could, you could try to incorporate that. Um, or, you know, if, if that’s something that the board wants to, you know, continue to investigate. And another Thing, the stickers are being sold at the end of the year. Correct. So no. Yeah. So obviously This wouldn’t be good for this year. Would So residential stickers? Correct. So residential stickers start on, uh, January 1st and run for a calendar year. Um, and so yeah, we would not be operational for January 1st at this point. So I did talk to Evans before she left. I was like, what’s, what’s the worst thing about your job? Evans being the one that checks the stickers. And she said the people. Yep.

42:41 And she meet the community, just giving her a real hard time. And you’re gonna run into that with whoever you hire there. That’s correct. And there’s also problems with, when you have someone checking stickers, you can’t have someone from town ‘cause they just throw favors and everybody like, it’s just gonna get messy. And so you have to get, so it’s a very specific person you need and that nurse is still gonna get harassed. You also get back up to that person. Yep. Which is why I lean towards the sticker reader. Also, I lean towards the sticker reader because it gives you an opportunity to separate the transfer station from the beach. Uh, there are beach people, there are transfer station people and there are crossover, but you, then you have an option and it makes the cost of a sticker less

43:27 for, you know, because it all goes in the general fund. So you can separate them, which might entice people, you know, say you went 50 30, um, you know, it might entice more people to actually be proactive about buying stickers because there is a big complaint on the cost of it to use the transfer station at 50 as opposed to 80. And so the cost and the separation, so obviously the separation of the stickers would have to occur at town meeting. Right. Um, and they were brought together at town meeting. They have to be separated at town meeting. Yeah. We’d have to analyze the costs. Um, and so obviously the idea with the stickers is that there are some town costs that are, you know, accounted for by the town budget. Um, and then there are costs that should be picked up by the cost of that sticker. Mm-hmm. And so yeah, we can divide those costs out.

44:13 I just think when you start to really look at some of that, you’re gonna realize that maybe marble head’s getting a really good deal on their, their transfer station stickers and stuff like that. No, I, I, I think they probably are. I think we have to be conscious though of, of, you know, you still have to be aware of when it goes up because Salem Transfer Station shut down ‘cause their stickers were too expensive. Well, sale swamps got, when I asked the residents, That’s why Salem shut down because they have an uncapped landfill that was shut down by d e p. Yeah. But you know that, that’s why that is shut down. Yeah. So it had nothing to do with the customers. No. Well, I’ve been talking to the residents, they just wouldn’t buy it. ‘cause it was, you know, and if you’re lacking money, then how you’re gonna fund anything, you know? So in The past you’ve, uh, checked the various communities. Yeah. So generally the way we, you know, so if we’re looking to gauge our sticker price, we look at surrounding communities and stuff like that and go by that, um,

45:00 we’re, you know, much lower than most surrounding communities. No. And I think at the benefit of the, uh, beach Yeah. And obviously like same thing, you know, a lot of communities have separated the amount, um, and, and they see too high numbers for both the beach and the transfer station. Mm-hmm. Um, so a lot of people feel that they’re getting a good deal. I mean, obviously there’s only one beach they, you technically need the sticker for on Marblehead. Yeah. Um, the only concern I have about the sticker list system is that it still goes back to the employees to track that car down, to have that phone. That’s, I think that’s, and so that’s the other piece is that they’re now gonna have to try to figure out who that car is and stuff like that. No, I think that, I think that definitely adds a wrinkle to it. Um, but I, I think, uh, I, I still lean that way just because talking to like Evans and stuff like that and

45:50 just how much, how much, I mean, she got solved. She got solved. Yes. And I think, I think, um, that’s where I would really think, if I may, I think it’s not a sticker problem. It’s a resident problem because these are not people from swamps got that are coming in and being rude and

46:10 unacceptably, um, harmful to our employees. Correct. So my question is, if anyone is going to come use this facility and chooses to treat our employees with anything less than respect, I think they, there’s gotta be a consequence. Yeah. No, I think your figures out, you know, I, I think truthfully, um, this is just something we have in our society right now that is grievous. It’s people not treating people the way they’d like to be treated. The golden rule. Right. So we, I I agree. I I love that you went and did some digging and found options, but I think it’s not, the stickers not the problem. It’s the fact that our employees are being assaulted

47:00 and treated terribly when people go to be told that they need to a sticker. And so I think what we have to do is change the culture at the transfer station where those people will be treated with respect or you will not use this facility. The sticker list you were talking about, does it catch the license plate still? So It catches the license plate, but we don’t have any mechanism to go after them. Right. What, what I’m saying is if it catches the license plate, then there’s a consequence. So there’s always a consequence to the police And you know, whereas, you know, if you have a situation at the front, I don’t know, if someone whips out their phone and takes a picture of the whole situation and records it, then You could do it. There, there are cameras at, Yeah, there, there are cameras. They will be live shortly. Um, I mean,

47:47 and that’s done for legal helping purposes. That’s another issue that we deal with up there all the time, is that people are always trying to put things where they shouldn’t belong or drop off things that don’t belong at all. Um, and obviously then we get stuck with the cost of disposal of household hazardous waste. You know, there’s a whole lit, uh, of items That get left there. I also spent the morning after I heard that there was, uh, abuse and, and, uh, of the, the employees, uh, mostly, uh, verbal abuse. There was some, uh, pushing going on. And I was, I was horrified to hear that. And our employees are being treated like that. And obviously for a manager, we, we want to disengage from those situations. So you’re not gonna engage into somebody that’s combative and aggressive. You,

48:34 you need to disengage from that because it’s not a healthy situation. Right. There’s no winning in this situation. Let the person do what they want, let them leave and it’s over. Mm-hmm. But obviously we’re still losing out from that Situation. So do you think that if we, um, put some signage up there that if, if, if you, there’s already signage. Yeah, there is signage. I mean obviously like, you know, the idea is that you would the best thing to have happen Oh, that really care about that, that’s side No, I care about It. Right. But so like, you know, have the person there that’s checking the stickers on a regular basis, really start to enforce some of this stuff, um, you know, really enforce that. You have to have a sticker to be, and and this applies to the commercial guys as well. I’m not saying for the way and pay, but if you want to use that, um,

49:21 that recycling area, you’re gonna have to have a sticker for that area. Um, and so everybody that goes there has to have a sticker. Mm-hmm. Now obviously there’s gonna be the person that wants to get rid of their tv. I’m a resident, this is a one time, okay. You’re gonna have that transaction and stuff like that. But that’s the area, you know, that’s what we want to get to. Obviously once the cameras are live and stuff like that. Yes. Most of that area is gonna be under surveillance per se. When, uh, when do you have to order the sticker? So Yes, we’ve already actually purchased, we’ve already ordered the stickers because I have So You I was gonna say, can you have a line to me with the license plate just to try it out this year? Um, I’m not, you know, so so you’d be asking for, I’d have to go back to the guy to see if we can add a line. So you’d wanna be able to put it on a card so you could come in and have it on

50:09 the card with the license plate number, the make the model or the make the color, something that’s gonna kind of identify it so it can’t be passed on is, you know, is that where the board wants to go? I’m Just thinking, but while we’re looking into, uh, the, the automatic that maybe we could do something in between this year to have a line and, and possibly do that. I don’t know if you, uh, have time to do it if you want us to. Yeah, We definitely have time to do it if, you know, that’s something the board wants to do And Yeah. One thing I heard over and over again was, uh, that a lot of people that, um, don’t want to put it on their car, don’t want people knowing they live in Marblehead. So just taking Marblehead off and writing facility sticker, you get the same thing. It’s the all the same looking sticker.

50:55 You just remove the identification for people that maybe work in bad parts of Boston or something like that. Correct. That, that is something that we’ve, you know, I work in this area, you know, I can’t have a sticker in my car. Yeah. I think a good example was a guy that works at a prison. Yeah. Doesn’t lot people knowing he works at a prison. Yeah. So, Or where he lives. So there’s a line right there that we have. So Yep. Do you want that in a form of motion for this one year, uh, trial? No. So I, you know, so what I’m understanding is that it’s not gonna say Marblehead, it’s gonna say facility sticker the numbers. Um, do you, are we gonna say that it has to be attached to the vehicle or it does not? I think so. Okay. I wouldn’t mind if you just, you know, if you did a white spot under and whenever they bought it, the person they bought it from, you know, because you have to show your vehicle registration if they wrote the license

51:41 plate number right on it in just a permanent marker, something. I still think the license plate matching milk, the car is important instead of, so people don’t have to pass it on. Yeah, No, that’s what I’m saying. Another Okay. Another member of the family. That’s good idea. Let’s do both. Okay. Um, so it’s gonna save facility sticker. It’s blue this year, and it’s gonna have the license plate, so there’s gonna be a a L I C number, and then we’ll be able to write a license plate actually on mm-hmm. This degree itself. And it’s gonna be on the car. It’s gonna be on the car. Mm-hmm. So it’s gonna be all of that. It’s gonna be All of that, right? Yes. I, and I would just like to raise, I, I would really love for all of us to think of a way that our employees can really feel safe and appreciated and a way to change this, you know, some of the behaviors that go on up there.

52:27 Does anyone think there’s an answer to, I don’t think this is an easy answer to that. It’s just people living all sorts of different lives, having all sorts of different days and different feelings and, uh, it’s, you Know, well, I don’t think they should take it out on town Employees. No. I mean, I don’t think they should either, but I Don’t think what they’re going through has any reason to take it out on other people. I, I, I hope that all of us going up there talking to them know that we care and we’re trying to work with this, and now it’s on, uh, uh, uh, post circuit TV or, uh, town TV and, um, I hope that the message will get out. All Right. So commercial stickers. Uh, so commercial stickers allow Marble ahead business owners,

53:16 um, they have to either reside in Marblehead or they have to have their business in Marblehead. Mm-hmm. Um, they can recycle material. So no, your commingle, your cardboard, the metal at this point, um, is still allowable, but you have to have a sticker. Now, this is a limited quantity. What I can’t have happen is that all of a sudden I see huge truckloads of cardboard coming in. So that sticker for commercial is $280, which is essentially a ton of commercial material. Mm-hmm. But if we start to see that it’s being abused, I’m gonna have to come back and then re recommend that the program ends. Yeah. Just to be clear, for everyone that’s watching our reporting on it, it’s, we, we used to get paid for our recycling and now we have to pay. So

54:06 It’s, It’s a huge swing. So you gotta make it up somehow. Correct. And, um, yeah, So, so same thing. You know, it’s not one sticker, it’s every sticker for every vehicle. And so again, it will say facility sticker, uh, the license plate and stuff like that for the commercial. And obviously it’s gonna be a different color, it’s gonna be a slightly different shape. Um, but it’s gonna go in the same location as the car. So we can easily look, you know, the employees will always be looking in that location to make sure that they have a sticker. So If we wanted to go to the license plate reader or whatever it is in the future, we weren’t gonna be able to complete that by the end of this year anyway. Correct. Yeah. So the, yeah. So this one, so we can have that conversation still, but this needs to be the option of 2024. Correct. And that will allow us to continue to do research. Yeah. Uh,

54:52 look out for comp, you know, ideally as we find other facilities that are, know, it doesn’t have to be an equal facility, but similar type of traffic and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And what the best system is. So honestly, when I spoke to some of them, they’re like, well, really the best way to handle, it’s a gate. So you pull up to the gate, but we, we don’t have that capability of installing the gate in the middle of the facility. Um, and so that’s where it just doesn’t work for us. But generally you would’ve, all the lists of the cars, they pull up to a gate, your license plate would be red. It’d be recognized, the gate opens and you track through. Mm-hmm. Um, because of our traffic issues and our flow, let’s see how the license plate works. And maybe at another time we could thousand on that. You can’t, you can’t put the, um, the gate in because you can’t put it on the cap. You can’t have a location. Yeah. It’s just not feasible. Okay.

55:39 So I just want to talk about that. So we, we will move forward in that direction. Um, anything else for Oh, um, discounts, any of that stuff? So in the past, we’ve never offered any discount. The reason being is that it’s really hard to pick a group of people that are honorable of a discount. You know, there’s so many different people in this town. Um, and so it’s hard to say this group of people deserves a discount where, you know, you could have other people, um, that are struggling and stuff like that. And the discount would be, you know, applicable to that person. Um, I always have a policy that if you’re trying to get rid of something, you live in town, you can always call me. We can work with you. We work with Marveled Counseling Center. We work with other, um, marveled housing department, um, to help ‘em deal with residents that need to get rid of material.

56:27 We’re always willing to help ‘em help out with those situations. Um, if there’s residents that are looking for fur furniture, um, again, you know, if, if you’re unable to afford a furniture and you’re looking to use the swap shop, please then come and talk to us and we can try to figure those things out. Um, the hard thing about the swap shop, um, you know, guides and policies and stuff like that, obviously, you know, the idea is that you’re bringing material, people are taking it. It’s supposed to, you know, of course, again, it’s marblehead residents ‘cause that’s only the people that can get the stickers. Um, you know, again, uh, we have had some issues with people in the past, and again, I’ve had to tell, um, the res the, the, the at attendants that are working at the swab shop to just, you need to just back away. You need to let this person take what they want. Um,

57:14 you know, it’s not worth the effort to get into an altercation with this person, confront them. Um, it just ends up, we’ve had some situations where they’ve gone to the police over employees and stuff like that. It’s best, um, just that after, you know, offer to help them out and understand what they’re doing. But, you know, be kind. We’re trying to offer really good customer service. Mm-hmm. So that’s, but if people Wanna use it on a regular basis, whether they’re seniors or younger, or family member families, uh, young families or whatever they are, are they entitled to write for an abatement?

57:47 You know, it, it would have to. It’s on a case by case basis. You gotta come and talk to me. You gotta explain why you believe you deserve abatement or you need one. Um, we generally don’t, you know, maybe there’s one or two a year that we give out. Um, and generally it’s on a case by case basis. Okay. As long as, as long as they know that there’s a case by case. Yep. Alright. Thank you. Now, I was just more well known ‘cause I’ve had a bunch of people come up to me with it, um, about this couple from Gloucester that runs a thrift store and comes and like, literally takes things out of people’s cars before they can get it over to the swap shed. And so I, I don’t Know if, so I don’t know the couple, and I don’t know the thrift store in Gloucester. Mm-hmm. Um, we definitely have some regular people there. Mm-hmm. Um, there’s regular people there almost every day looking at,

58:33 so another area that gets a lot of drop off is that metal bin. Yeah. Unless some good items, um, it needs to be just metal. Sometimes there’s other items that get dropped there and people will go and grab that stuff. Um, there’s definitely pickers in town that live here. Um, again, um, it’s not costing us anything. So it’s, it’s one of those things that’s, you know, as long as you’re not creating a situation or you’re not making a mess, you’re not making more work for us, we’re gonna kind of let it go. Yeah. But there aren’t regulars. What, there are regulars over there. Definitely regulars. There’s definitely people I see every day. Yeah. I’m not concerned, you know, the pickers are the pickers, you know. Yeah. It’s just that, that, I keep hearing about that. One couple, I, I meant to go talk to the swap shop people this weekend,

59:19 but they couldn’t open it just to hear about it. Um, usually Gretchen who runs a swap shop will reach out to me and say, Hey, we’re having with this, okay, you’re having issues with this person. Uh, can you come and help deal with them? Okay. So, yeah. Um, but yeah, again, I think, you know, once we really get that second, you know, another person up there checking stickers, I mean, that, that is the issue right now too, is that, um, you know, I only have two people, or once we hire the second person, I only have two people checking stickers, you know, or working the scale house and then checking stickers Saturday that person goes inside and it runs the scale house. So Saturdays I’m short with people checking stickers that that is something that we need to work on future. You know what, I was just thinking about something. We’ve got a new employee coming on. Maybe we should have a training for the whole, all the people up there,

1:00:06 if you could, they could take a half hour in the morning for two mornings, three mornings, uh, three weeks in a row or something to have a training. So we always are doing trainings on different stuff. Obviously we talk about customer service safety. Um, we’re doing that stuff constantly. Um, the hard thing again is that it’s a really busy facility. We see it busy times, 1100 cars a day, 1300 cars on the weekends. Um, of those 1100 cars, it’s about 60 cars that are commercial. Um, these guys are really busy, you know, moving bins. So it’s, it’s always hard to try to find that time. We have to do it, but we do the education pieces. Um, but then it’s also hard to find the time to do maintenance, picking up trash and all this stuff. Um, again, we just need to remember to continue to look at the employees and how many

1:00:52 employees we have up there. Um, So I know Evan Evans did a lot this year. I mean, I saw, I, I heard the complaints from people, so it was, so I’m curious to see what the difference is between this year and last year for calendar year for stickers sold based on her efforts. And then, then maybe that can be justified, you know, for another employee. Correct. ‘cause if you’re, if you’re pulling an extra a hundred grand in right, then it’s easy. Yep. Easy argument. Correct. So, yep. So we’ll definitely keep an eye on that and see what the differences are and continue going forward. Mm-hmm. So obviously we have big discussions about that during budget period. Mm-hmm. Um, So we’re gonna go on to transfer station update. Sure. Uh, transfer station facility update. Um,

1:01:39 so we have gone through the planning board. We’re waiting for d e p approval. Um, I have a contract that needs to be approved for Winter Street. Um, this will allow them for all their subs to do all the construction documents. This will allow Winter Street to do the construction documents. And this will allow Winter Street to do the construction admin. Uh, the total contract place with all those people included is 2 31 4 80. So 231,000 for $80. So I need that approved so we can move forward with that. I’m looking for a motion for 231,480. Uh, for, to begin the transfer station, I’ll make a Motion for the allegation of $231,480 to approve the contract with Winter Street Architects, uh,

1:02:27 for construction drawings. Yeah, it’s additional services. Number 12, you can call Additional services. Number 12. Can you just detail it all little more please? Yep. So, civil engineering, uh, 19,000. Uh, Goldman Milano, structural Engineering, uh, Sullivan Engineering, uh, design team, m e p Engineers Scale, house pit structure Transaction Hutt, um, that’s 65,000. Um, that swap shop site plan. So plumbing, heating, cooling, uh, electrical feeder sizes, all your H V A C, electrical work, um, construction documents for them as well. Uh, cons, construction administration from them as well. Um, estimator writer Levitt Bucknell specifications, uh, Putnam Associates. Um,

1:03:13 design team specifier, uh, and architectural piece. Uh, project site design, final coordination, site work, design development planning, board site approval, um, specification coordination, cost coordination, uh, construction documents, construction administration, uh, R f I shop drawings, field reports, final push for punch list reports and final affidavit. What now In the swap shed, um, does that, when you say plumbing and all that stuff, what is the swap? Shed just gonna be the new one. There’s, There’s nothings, there’s no plumbing. So say electrical. Alright, so just electrical. So it’s basically just one big garage kind of, yes. Yeah. Okay. And solely electrical. Yep. Okay. And obviously the ideal is that everything is gonna be solar ready. Uh,

1:04:02 we’re hoping to work with, um, municipal light, uh, but solar panels on that. The idea is to actually have this whole facility, uh, be net zero. Mm-hmm.

1:04:14 Okay. Any additions there, Sir? Uh, nope. We, um, we, uh, period of the, uh, planning board is passed. So that ruling in May made stands. Um, other than that, we just, uh, we gotta get this, we’ve a waiting for this money so that we could, uh, Try and obviously the plan is obviously, you know, we’re waiting for d e p approval, get all your construction documents, get this out to bid, try to get these bids as quickly as possible, obviously giving them correct amount of time, um, and get this construction project started. So in a perfect world, foundations are in before winter, and you can do a lot of your construction,

1:05:02 uh, during the winter period, which is our slower period people need to remember. This is the biggest piece is that there’s gonna be a lot of interruptions up there. We’re gonna be building a new scale house. We’re gonna be working on the compactor. Um, there’s gonna be a new concrete floor and an area that’s gonna go under the, the trailers and stuff like that. Obviously, the idea is to keep the facility open. Residents are our main, um, our number one priority. So we always try to make sure that recyclings open for reci residents, trash is open for residents, but there’s certain times that we’re unable to do that. And we will continue just like we did in the past, um, that we’ll try to keep everything operational. Um, but this is a, you know, this is gonna have some impacts on the operations up there.

1:05:50 It’s supposed to be an easy winter, so maybe be in our favor. So we said last time, so I need a, has it been motion approved and everything? Uh, no, the motion’s been made. I’ll second that question. That was really, should have been seconded with questions. Uh, so now second. Uh, all those in favor? In favor in favor? Yes. Unanimous. You can go ahead. Uh, but yeah, again, you know, we will continue to take a look at that sticker of the system, um, and any other issues that come up and stuff like that. So with, in addition to the transfer station update, what was the result of talking with, uh, Mike about looking at the line in the back of the truck? Moving on too possibly. Yep. You know, as a buffer. Yep. So obviously, like, you know, like you understand is that the guidelines are guidelines. Yeah.

1:06:39 The idea with D E P is that they really want construction demolition material to be recycled. Mm-hmm. They really want commercial construction demolition material to be recycled. Yeah. They really want us to ban commercial vehicles coming in and saying, you can’t come here. You need to bring that to other places. Right, right. The problem is, is that the issue is if we allow large trucks to draw that five cubic yard line mm-hmm. What happens when we hit capacity? So currently I can bring some demolition material to our facilities that we drop to. Mm-hmm. What happens if I hit that 20%? I Can tell them it’s done. And I’ve talked to a lot of ‘em. They’re okay with that. You Can tell residents, but I have to tell residents it’s over too.

1:07:24 I no problem with the residents. So again, you’re, you’re taking, we used to have it that residents were the priority. We built this facility for residents. We always made sure that they had an area to get rid of this material. Mm-hmm. Now you’re gonna tell them, no, I, I can’t take anything. I can’t take that piece of scrap button. I’d just say it’s till the next trailer’s coming comes in. Yeah. No, it’s Still like, yeah. Till the next trailer and stuff like that. But yeah. So you are gonna get some illegal dumping for that. Yeah, totally. And that’s what you would like to see done. I wouldn’t like to see that, but I think we gotta make it an even playing round for these guys that were kind of caught off guard. And I think saying to mass, d e p, like this is a short term solution to make everything even for everyone while we

1:08:10 look towards recycling 100% of c and d, but with, um, a sorting floor possibly in the back, which we, we’d have to talk about later, bring the town meeting and things like that. I think this is a, as a buffer to that is the way to go. D e p wants the commercial side to be recycled. Yeah. They don’t understand why we’re even allowing commercial guys with c d into our facility. Yeah. They, they would say that really needs to be cycled obviously, that, you know, they have a little bit more of a leniency for residents that can’t drive to a commercial facility in their car and get rid of a little bit of material. Mm-hmm. Um, I, you know, I just think that, you know, if we allow this, we’re gonna get a lot more eyes on us from d e P and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And I also Think we have a responsibility to our residents,

1:08:56 Which some of these commercial guys are,

1:09:00 But they’re not coming in as residents. They’re coming in as commercial. Yeah, I know. But they’re serving residents and it costs residents more when they have to go to pub.

1:09:11 I’m hard line in favor of this.

1:09:17 All right. So, uh, onto the director’s report. So What’s, what’s the, The board has to decide how they want to handle? Well, I’d like to make, to make a motion that, in that the commercial trucks could put a very thick visible line that, uh, whoever’s watching, I think it’s generally Mike up there, uh, can view, um, in that we could turn away once we hit, once he believes we’ve, he estimates that we’ve hit about 20%, um, in the trailer of c and d. That, um, that would be it for c and d for that trailer until the next one. And again, I’ll reiterate that. You could have a trailer of a hundred percent c and d with my Tacoma truck if it’s all Tacoma trucks lined up with c and d. So really it should be monitored anyway. It it

1:10:04 Is though. He’s, he’s supposed to be monitoring anyway. Yeah, Yeah. No, I know. So he really already should be saying, Hey guys, we’ve already hit our 20%, so regardless of truck size, so We, we do get monitored at the facility. Yeah. And so we do get reports back if we’re over that 20%. Yep. We’ve only had one in the last couple of years. Yeah. And, and in the last couple years, those trucks are allowed to, so it was only last November. That’s, um, so I, I am in favor of then if it’s, if we’ve only had one in the last couple years, then it probably wouldn’t be much of a change. And you’d make it, um, an even playing ground for everyone. And we can talk about the sorting floor, which would bring increased revenue into town and, uh, facilitate a lot of hiring new people.

1:10:50 Maybe help sustain the everything Once in, in these years that it’s been over 20%, I think that, uh, we don’t have an issue. That’s why I’d say we should be able to put the line. There’s also a cost factor. There is you put that 20% in that truck. Mm-hmm. Then that truck goes lighter Than if it was all trash. I’m going hard line on this chair. Well, right. Jerry, Can you explain that? So solid waste weighs more than c d Oh Yeah. You got loose two by fours or something like that. It, it’s, there’s lot trailer capacity with, if I feel two trailers, one salt, like if I had two trailers, one was all solid waste, all hit capacity of that trailer and solid waste.

1:11:37 If I fill a whole trailer with c d, I probably won’t hit capacity weight, uh, in that trailer. What’s the differential potential? I didn’t bring That. Okay. Sorry. But it’s a, it’s a, there Is a significant, yeah, there’s a, you know, there’s a, it’s all about compaction And do you think that we’re ready for this? Or you wanna wait and see how we, I, I, I really think the best would be like you’re about to enter into construction period. You’re about to have some disruptions to commercial. Really, I think the best is, you know, let’s build a new facility. Let’s continue it. Analyze, dealing with commercial C and D and go that way. Again, if you want to add another sorting area and deal with a lot of c and d, you’re gonna have to do a feasibility study. You’re gonna have to go to town meeting and ask for money for engineering to do

1:12:23 that feasibility study. Once we have that feasibility study that says, this is how you can do it, you’re gonna need to go back to the town and ask for those appropriations to get that done. And obviously, again, you’re gonna need additional employees and all that stuff. There’s, so there’s many, many different thoughts. I think we’re so close to getting this transfer station approved and static to get the building done that I think we really need to concentrate on that. I don’t think it will interrupt that at all. Just, it’s just letting five or six trucks back in. That’s It. I’m not in favor of voting for five or six Trucks. I’m leaving the motion out there. I’m hoping Joanne will do the right thing.

1:12:58 I think, I think I really have to learn more and go spend some time watching what that looks like. Mm-hmm. Because, um, I’m open to learn, but I think I’ll have to go spend some time and understand what this looks like. ‘cause it’s very difficult for me. I highly recommend calling all those guys and talking to ‘em about it. And they’re all in favor. They will comply, um, with, you know, the estimate. They have to go to pv, they have to go to Peabody, but it makes it an even playing field. That’s it. I, I just, I think I, if I can be frank, I feel, you know, certainly wanna support our community and every member of our community, but I think that we talk about, you know, what an onus we have on our very under, um,

1:13:44 understaffed staff mm-hmm. Up there now. And so now we’re asking them to juggle something even more. And that’s where I’m feeling like I need to, it’s not Really because they have to look anyway. It’s already something they have to do. That’s why I say you just make it a big thick line and then it’s nice and easy. Well, I’ll go spend, I’ll give you my word. I’ll go spend some time there. Okay. And look and see and try and understand if that’s something I Can We withdraw your motion at this, this time? Um, I’ll leave it in. So it’s on the record, But is there a second, second to the motion

1:14:25 hearing on, uh, the motion is not nine second. Are

1:14:31 we ready for the directors report? Yeah. Alright. So switching over to the other side of public health, uh, fentanyl test reps and Narcan. Um, Tom and I, and I have been talking about this a little bit currently. We offer, um, I don’t know if everybody’s, you know, knows what fentanyl test strips are. Jenny Armini Too. Let’s just throw our name in there. Sure. Health. Um, so we’ve, we have, at our office, you have, we have access to Narcan and fentanyl test strips and some other educational material. Um, if you’re in need of this material, you can come and speak with the, the public health nurse. Um, she can show you how to use the Narcan. Um, and you can walk away with this pro, you know, these products. Um, obviously the concern is that you need to have a face-to-face. And obviously the concern is that with that it might be discouraging people from

1:15:19 coming to get these products. Um, obviously we wanna make sure everybody’s safe. And so we want to try to get these products out there, um, as easily as possible. Um, so what we’ve been talking about is having, uh, kind of like a mailbox available on the outside of the building. Um, Thomas suggested the firehouse. I think I’m more leaning towards, or we could do both. Um, the Mary Alley building. Um, obviously once we leave the building at nighttime, there’s nobody there. Um, and so, you know, it would be pretty discreet. Um, so it’s gonna be a small mailbox to be a black mailbox, and it’s gonna have a public health, uh, sticker right on it. Um, and so you can know, you could have go there, um, and get fentanyl test kits. Mm-hmm. Um, the public health nurse will take a look and make sure that there’s an ample

1:16:04 supply in there. Um, and we’ll kind of gauge what’s needed to be in there on a regular basis. Yeah. The only reason I lean towards the fire station, I’m, I, I’m not like, fully committed to that, is that there’s less chance of vandalism because It’s, well, I, I think that this is a public health issue and I think it’s important that we oversee it. And, um, I, I did talk with, um, Andrew about the location. I think it belongs here. I also feel that it’s not as, as visible as the, as visible spot in town as the firehouse is. And, um, I think that I would like to suggest that we hear that it’s under our control. Public health nurses here, even if we have someone that

1:16:49 is in, is in need of this, and there’s an incident that there’s a nurse here that can, They Won’t be here when people come and Get it. Um, and obviously we can report back if we have vandalism issues Yeah. And if we’re having vandal That’s fair. Yeah. That we can, we, you know, okay. Readdress the situation. Um, I mean, it’s a, you know, we’re talking about a $15 mailbox, so we’re not talking something Very crazy here. I, I think it’s a, it’s, it’s too bad that we have to have this idea, but I think that if, if we have it, I think it should happen. And, uh, I would like to entertain a motion to accept this mailbox. I, I’m happy to make a motion to have a mailbox, um, in the Mary building with the public health, um, band logo on it,

1:17:35 and offer ethanol test strips. I second that. Um, all in favor? In favor. And I just, I’m gonna say one thing. I’m try not to get emotion. Excuse me. Yeah. It Was unanimous. Yeah, I know. No, this is, Lemme finish the vote. Okay.

1:17:53 All Set? Yes. Okay. All right. I’m just gonna say something and I attempt not to get emotional during this. Um, so I grew up in this town, um, and I can tell you, if you don’t think your kids are gonna try something that could be laced with fentanyl, you’re most likely wrong. I’d estimate that 75% of the people that I grew up in this town with have tried drugs at least once or twice. And one of my close friends, I didn’t even know he was trying it. Uh, if you saw a picture of him, he was the model of health. He was the muscle magazine, everything. He only tried it twice and he’s dead. So, you know, it was, he, it was a street opioid, whatever it was, but he’s dead. And I know Ivy Leaguers, I know people in the band, I know sport people that played sports.

1:18:39 If you don’t think they’re gonna try it at least once in your life, you’re, you’re gambling. So knowing that these are fully available is critical. And uh, so anyone listening, anyone writing in the paper, um, just spread the word. Even if you think your kid’s the greatest kid on earth, you know, like there’s a good chance that they’re in there. And I’m just speaking from experiences. There’s marblehead, the kids grow up here, we don’t think anything happens. And then it does, and then you forget about the people 10 years later. So, and then it happens again. And it happens actually more regularly. Go talk to a police officer or a firefighter, ask them how many times there’s overdoses in town. So spreading the word in all your circles. By the way, there, there’s adults too. I’m sure Andrew knows that spreading the circle around that these are available,

1:19:25 you know, it’s educationally early at the schools and everything like that, but adults, they know the risks. They’re making adult decisions. They’re gonna have whatever good time they want to have, but, um, let ‘em do it safely so they don’t die. So just spread the word. That’s it. Well, fentanyl is not, it is not the opioids. It, It can be laced with fentanyl. Yeah. So that is a big thing. So yeah, they’re seeing a lot of opioids laced. So there, there’s all these pill factories now all this stuff’s all manufactured. Mm-hmm. You know, IES And stuff like that. And so that’s a huge concern. Mm-hmm. You know, I’m really sorry for your loss and stuff like that. It’s, It’s not my life. It’s the community’s loss. It’s been over and over again. We’ve seen it, you know, I’m not gonna name names or honestly out anyone,

1:20:11 but it’s, uh, it’s people you wouldn’t expect, you know, And just to go along with that, if you are suspecting somebody in your family’s using it, uh, we do recommend that you have Narcan available. Um, and that can save a life too. That’s also available through the health department. And there’s other places that you can get it healthy suits and Lynn, but we wanna make sure that people know that this is available as well. Mm-hmm. I think it’s important that it citizens pick that up and learn how to use it and have it, I have one, my, my husband has one use cards, and A lot of times we now, a lot of communities are moving. So the ad boxes that are allowed around a lot of communities, there’s also many communities are putting Narcan in there as well.

1:20:53 Thank you. And this is their situation, and I’m glad that we’re doing something to help those that have been in trouble. Um, the website, you wanna Yeah. Website. So obviously, you know, kinda ask the, you know, the three of you to take a look at a website, uh, come back with suggestions. Um, I think Tom, I, I definitely think you have some ideas of what you want to do. Um, I think the easiest way to kind of move forward on this is that, you know, I think, you know, through email or how do you think the best way, That’s why I tried to map it out with the itself, because there is no easy and, and it gets smaller the more you do it. Yeah. Um, so I think, uh, if you initially start, who’s who do you work with?

1:21:39 So Joanne, in our financing department, it’s kind of in charge of the website changes things up. Okay. Um, so I, I think, you know, so that’s the current situation. Yeah. I think moving later on, we’re hoping that we can bring other people on board and maybe a company to kind of take a look at it. You Could probably get community volunteers too. I know at least one person stepped up and told me they’d help, but, um, so, um, yeah. I mean, I put my design out there, what I would do, just grouping things better, making it just, you know, more exploding out so you can, it, it, the less items you have on the, on the side, the easier it is to navigate. And so, so I think if you can get me, you know, did you already send me that Excel? Yeah. I have one extra copy. This is my last one I’ll send You. No, but did you have it as a, um, like can you just send me the document?

1:22:27 Uh, I did it at my previous job and it’s on that computer, but I can do another one If you have it. I can take, you know, we can just make a copy of it. I can give it to you and that’s fine. Yeah. Um, and then we can start to build it out and start to change it. And then this obviously with websites, you know, this is an evolving piece. Yeah. Um, so, You know, it’s funny progress. I’m not, it’s A work in progress. It’s funny, I’m not that I have to website of course, but I looked at it and it seemed easy for me to Look at. I think that’s the hard thing is that I’m on it all the time, so I know where to go. But if, you know, for somebody that’s just go to the site the first time mm-hmm. There’s too much, like Tom says it sometimes it’s like, well, I want to go here. I’m not finding that. Or, and for whatever reason, at times with our website, it digs up really old information. Like, how is that even still linked there?

1:23:13 That’s so outta date, um, that you shouldn’t have access to that, that I think the website should be home for a lot more things. So there’s a things in my mind I’d love to put on there, but it would, if you just kept going the same route, then it just becomes even more Correct. Things like, and just more unorganized. So, Uh, yeah. So we’ll, we’ll work together and get, you know, I’ll get a copy of that and we’ll start to work with Joanne and start to get that built out. Great.

1:23:38 Was everyone okay with I, I mean, we, I, I like the color code. I think that’s, Well, it’s not the color. I just did that for you guys. Yeah. So that you guys could see where I was going with it so that you could see, like when I put C Ovid 19 up here, like I colored the ones here that would go in that category. Right. So here’s like the kind of the first page, like if you went to the first page, these show you the task, this Is what it is On that first page, and then you’d open up the tab. This Is what would limit down to that. Just Those Well text me. Could we all get a, a copy of that? Because we, we can’t all see that. And then as we see things, that content that needs to be updated, we can make notes and go talk to Joanne. Just so the content that we have, the access to the notice is Date we Yep. And so, like, you know, as we change things, you know, I’ll tell you, you know, we’ve updated this. You guys can take a look at it. You can say,

1:24:25 I hate that, or Nope. Let’s keep, you know, progressing in those areas. Okay. Uh, and then, you know, like we said, it’s a work in progress. Uh, fall leave collection. Wait a minute. I just wanted to thank you for putting that together. Yeah, yeah. That’s a big help. Okay. Yeah, no problem. Um, quality of collection. So we have final out of the schedule with, um, Republic. Um, this is for curbside collection of beef and grass. Um, so it’s gonna be, and this will go on our website. Um, we can push this out to the papers as well. Uh, the week of October 23rd, the week of November 6th, the week of November 27th, DEC the week of December 11th, the week of April 22nd, the week of May 13th and the week of June 3rd. Now this is leaf bags only.

1:25:12 No plastic bags will be collected or emptied. No trash cans or any of that will be emptied either. Um, and no brush, we won’t pick up any brush. So you can’t fill, uh, the leaf bag full of sticks and expect this put up. So it’s only leaf and grass and that’s it. Um, obviously if there’s a legal holiday during that week, it’s gonna be one day delayed. You know, and it generally occurs, the idea is that it occurs on your day of trash. Um, but sometimes they get backed up, um, and it gets pushed further and further into the week. But if we’ll get collected, if there are issues, you can always call the office and we’ll sort, are you Gonna post an ad with that? Yeah, we generally post an ad with this. It gets put on the, the website. Um, we also make those cards, um, the postcards so people can have those and put ‘em up on their boards at home.

1:26:00 Um, because it does go fall and spring. It’s for the whole year. Do people Use those Cards? They do, yeah. Yep. Um, but yeah, and then we also push it out through our website, through the server. Um, household hazardous waste day. Um, so we have household hazardous waste Day. The next day is Saturday, November 18th. It’s gonna be at the Marblehead Transfer Station. Again, it’s gonna be a very busy day up there. ‘cause we’ll have both Marblehead and swamps got residents coming to this event. Um, so please make note of that. Um, we will post this on our website as well. Um, the costs, um, household hazardous waste is always expensive to get rid of. So please remember that when you’re buying these items at the store,

1:26:47 remember to buy what you’re gonna use. You want to use everything up. Obviously you don’t want to overuse it, but it’s more expensive to get rid of the leftover than it is to buy the item. So the cost for three to 10, uh, for zero to three gallons or pounds. So zero to three gallons or pounds is $30 for 10 to 25 gallons, it’s $60. And we have a middle one there. So three to 10 gallons or pounds is 40. So a full car is 10 to 25 gallons and it’s $60. What we usually consider a half car is three to 10 gallons or pounds. That’s 40. And then the lowest one zero to three gallons or pounds is $30.

1:27:34 Remember that latex paint is non-hazardous. If it’s dried up completely dry, it can be thrown away in your household trash, as long as, and obviously household trash, everything has to be in the bag tightly, you know, sealed and stuff like that. Um, so as long as latex paint is non-hazardous, so many times we get a lot of late text paint. Um, it can be labeled as acrylic. The keys are cleanup with soap and water. So if you’re looking at the can and it says cleanup with soap and water, you know that it’s non-hazardous Now since the first time we’ve had it since the we’ve had the you to do It. No, we were, for several years, we started a program that was a pilot program. Um,

1:28:20 it was one of the first in the state where we were doing household hazardous waste collection curbs, not curbside, but at the person’s home. We weren’t allowed to do a curbside, but if it was in a safe location by the garage or on the porch, we had vehicles that came around to your home to pick it up. It was a great program. We were able to do it during the week. We, it was great because there’s a lot of people that can’t attend the programs on Saturdays. So we captured everybody. Unfortunately, another company bought them and stopped the program. Mm-hmm. Um, we, but We’ve had, we have done, we have picked this up again. Yeah. Before this, this, uh, date of 1118. Yeah. So the dates changed. So trying to schedule Saturdays, there’s only three companies that offer household hazardous waste collection on,

1:29:09 on the weekends essentially. Um, so it’s very challenging to find dates. Everything books out, years and days. All Right. That was gonna be my question. A lot of people ask if we can do multiple dates, but that’s the challenge to that. Like Yeah, It’s, it, it’s really expensive too. So we have set up costs that run anywhere between three and $5,000 Yeah. That the town has to pay for. And That’s, that’s that. Okay. Yeah. Um, so we do have another date in April. Mm-hmm. So we are always trying to do it twice a year. Okay. So two of year I, when we were doing the, um, when we had the company, um, and they’re going, you know, right to your home. Mm-hmm. We were able to do it four times a year. Yeah. Okay. ‘cause there was no cost at all to us. Mm-hmm.

1:29:51 Um, with the state, we’re always working with the state. We’re always trying to get the state to start or have a company start their own. We want a location that people can bring material to year round, doesn’t make, you know, all the time. Um, the state does have a grant. They’re offering $250,000 for a community to start a facility. It’s not worth the money. Um, we estimated building a facility that would take household hazardous space is at least a million dollars. Yep. Um, I mean the state’s looking at locations, um, they’re even considering that location. Um, I think it’s vers that expired Red Roof Inn next to, um, bed Bath and Beyond. So a central location. Um, but a company needs to agree to start that process.

1:30:39 Um, the last thing I have is, uh, flu clinics. Um, so we are offering high dose flu clinics for people over the age of 65. Um, it’s gonna be at the c o a, it’s a pre-registered event as we have limited supply of vaccine. Um, it is 9 26, so September 26 from nine to 11. Again, you must pre-register. It’s gonna be held at the c o A and pre-register by calling the c o a or call in the health office and we’ll guide you to the website and stuff like that. We will be having an employee flu clinic on October 11th from three to six in this room. Um, again, you’re gonna have to sign up. Um, but we’ll have all that information. We’ll push that out to the employees.

1:31:26 That’s it. That’s great. Um, anybody have any other questions for Andrew or Jerry have anything to say

1:31:36 before we go to Public? We are having a lot to say Finally. So we’re gonna see a lot of you, huh? We don’t mind that. Um, we’re getting, we, we’ve become family. Yeah. How many years has it been? Uh, I think 11. Oh boy, not quite. How long have you been here? I’ve been here 12 years. Okay. You’ve been here less than a year? When I Okay. When I, when I, when I, when I on committee. Yep. Well, We’re glad to have you. Um, before we go to public comment, I’d just like to ask the board if, um, I could request a change of the date of the February meeting. Um, and I’m, I’m looking at, uh, moving up one week, but to the Monday and not the Tuesday, February 5th.

1:32:24 I’m fine with that. I’d also like to suggest that we do two meetings a month instead of one. I don’t think much gets, you know, Well, why don’t we, um, discuss that next meeting and, and consider it for the first of the year.

1:32:37 Okay. Can we put up and see it’ll go on the agenda for next meeting. Yeah. I, and I think Andrew sent something out that if you want something on the agenda to please let him know. And, um, we’re gonna let him know on this one. Now, you don’t have to call, but, um, we’ll discuss as one of our items as two meetings. Sure. We’ll look at our calendar and see if that’s possible for us to do that. And I what, would you repeat the date in February? It’s the, it’s the week before. It’s the first, uh, week, but I’d like to meet on the Monday instead of the Tuesday. Okay. What’s the Date? February 5th. Okay. Is that okay with everyone? Yep. Mm-hmm. I was either gonna have to do the week before or the week after this. And the third week is school vacation. And I didn’t think it was fair to have a meeting in school vacation, so I needed to either go up or down and, um, thank you.

1:33:24 Thank you very much for that. Um, so, uh, public comment. Uh, anybody have anything to say? Name and address? Hi, Leelan Mar Marvel Current and also Westport Lane. Just wanted to check Andrew follow up. So the narcan’s free, the Fentanyl free. Yep. Correct. The Narcan though, you have to come in to get it? Correct. Okay. Do you Have at this point we might be able to move to a, uh, you know, a similar protocols where it might be a little available in the mailbox itself. Okay. Um, do you have statistics on overdoses? Not, not with me today. But you have ‘em, I believe if you, if I speak with the police chief, I can get statistics on This. Okay, Cool. And last question, um, are you seeing an increase in Covid in town at all? So Obviously we don’t, we don’t monitor the number of covid. You know,

1:34:11 it’s not readily available. We do see positive cases coming through Maven. So if you go to your doctor’s office and you do test the doctor’s office, it’s a confirmed case. And so we do see that. Um, we do look at the state’s wastewater, uh, numbers for this area. Now it’s not for Marblehead. Um, so I can’t correlate the exact numbers and stuff like that. Um, but what everybody’s saying is that, you know, looking at wastewater, the numbers are up. Um, there’s a potential or at the same levels as 2020. Um, again, um, you know, there’s a lot of discussion about comparing the two, you know, this variant for that variant. Um, so, you know, we, we feel we’re waiting for the some C D C guidelines. Um,

1:34:57 there might be a whole phase out where they start to just treat covid similar to the flu. Um, obviously we’re encouraging people that if you are sick to stay home, um, get your booster shots. Um, we do have rapid tests available currently. Um, but they’ll only be available till the end of the month when they begin to expire. Are they free? They are free, yes. Okay. Yep. But they’re only good till September 30th. Till September 30th. Yep. Oh, okay. Unless we Get, so yeah, it’s just the end of the month, unfortunately. Um, we’ve tried to work with the state and request additional test kits, um, but they would get those from the feds and they’re not promising anything at this point. Does the Board of Health have, this is my last question, sorry. Does the board of health or the, or the health department have any advice on the new booster? We do not. No. So we look, you know, obviously we always say that we look,

1:35:46 you know, we’ve tell you to follow the recommendations of your primary care physician. Okay. The C D C. And I think believe the state of Massachusetts is gonna come out with their own, uh, protocols for that as well. Okay. Thank you. Yep. But your primary care physician’s, really, your, your primary dialogue. Thank you. Yes. Um, Barbara, better. Um, I just have a, a question on, on construction. And it’s not, not only this department, but all the departments. Um, and you just approved a $200,000, uh, construction project. Let me ask you a question. Who from the town is monitoring the construction? And again, I’m going to guess we see as a taxpayer,

1:36:33 um, always to do overruns and we just keep appropriating more, um, more money. Um, so I, I’d like to know who, and I, typically the building department has a superintendent that monitors, um, projects, public pro projects. Who in the health department is gonna monitor this construction. So in this case, obviously it’s a deam project, so it has to be, have a, have to have an owner’s project manager, Jerry Smith, and then obviously, yeah. Yep. Okay. And then obviously it has to be monitored by our architects. Okay. And then I’m just curious because allegedly, and I, and I haven’t got all of the skinny on this, but, um,

1:37:19 you, you had, uh, two projects that the town appropriated 20, uh, $223 million, um, for, um, and there was a whole list of things. And evidently, um, the money was spent, but we didn’t get everything that was included in the project. What was the deal? So the project has be to land closure and transfer station work. Land closure is the base, the foundation, the transfer station, and sit on top of it or mandated by the state of Massachusetts to close and cap the landfill. All the money has to be utilized for that to have it complete. Once that can is complete, you can move forward with the transfer station and that project there integrated

1:38:08 together essentially. So you can only get as, so far as it allows, um, you have to gather All the waste, you have to bring it in, you have to get the landfill. But nothing was, and no one foresaw that situation. I’m just curious. The, the, the, the, there were errors in the pre, prior to the town doing anything with, with the engineers and they way underestimated the amount of hazardous material in the dump. Well, Bob, Bob, uh, a Andrew did a, uh, speech last night. I, I attended it and it was very good showing where all, you know, everything, you know, where they found raw stuff. And you know, I don’t think it explains everything. You know, I, you know, me personally, I think they’re better, needed, better financial documents, things like that.

1:38:54 I’m not opposed to, uh, it kind of sounds like you’re volunteering yourself to maybe as opposed No, no. I not to maybe help supervise. I gave the, i I would. Um, and I, and I have, you know, when the library, the first iteration, not this iteration, um, ‘cause I tipped off Kim on a couple of situations that happened previous, and the town seems to be running overages. Um, and the taxpayers are picking up the bill for this. Um, and you know, all, all I know is ‘cause I’ve been in construction, if I run a project and we are $7 million, whatever the, um, $7 million shortage,

1:39:40 um, that’s, that’s a big number. And somebody’s gotta be on a, um, held accountable. So the landfill closure, you have no choice, but you have to gather every piece of waste that you find. So when you’re dealing with 17 acres of estimated waste, yeah, you’re not gonna dig a hole around the whole thing to figure out exactly where all the waste is. You’re gonna be punching holes in all over the place to get an idea. Underground construction’s very different than vertical construction. Vertical construction, most of your unknowns are known unless you’re doing a rehab and a remodel. Underground Construction is very different. Did you have a contingency typically in the construction project?

1:40:26 Contingency is, especially when you have an unknown, you, you put together a contingency because somebody should have figured this thing out. I mean, you know, the the last, in fact, I think you, at the meeting for the new library, you know, and I, I said, did anybody look at the, the invert, you know, the drainage situation because you, you’re gonna flood the bloody new revised library if that isn’t, uh, attended to. And I mean, this is, and the town always seems to get, um, you know, Bob, I I recommend you looking, watching the, the, uh, program that he put on the Yeah, No, very interesting. Eyeopening seeing it. Yeah. And it’s not only this department, believe me, the schools, um,

1:41:15 it, you know, it, it, she Got 173 slides last night. Yeah, no, I, no, it’d be very Interesting. Watch. Well, but I also, the transparency going forward, like I’m all over that. Like I know exactly how to do that. Obviously I wasn’t part of it before. I know how I do it going forward. You sure you don’t wanna volunteer some time to get, I’ll give you a hand, whatever you, whatever you want. Rob. I know you’re experienced guy and you give a lot to town, so I, I’m in favor of having you included. Well, I mean, I, I’ll give you a hand. Um, you know, as much time as I, I can afford, but you know, the taxpayers are getting closed on a lot of this stuff and 7 million bucks if that’s the number on the, on the overage or what has to be spent to complete the transfer station

1:42:04 to, you know, satisfy all the codes and so forth. I mean, you know, like I said, I wouldn’t be in the construction business very long if I ran a $7 million, um, overage and, and the customer said, what the hell are you doing? You never calculated a contingency like that. That’s like a big, So, so what are your feelings about the big dig? Well, that’s, believe me, don’t Yeah, don’t get me started on that one. I Mean, what, what was the over on that? How many billions? Yeah, it’s insane. Public, public construction is app falling the way it’s been. We’re also having, we have requirements to pay for billing wage. We, we are not playing under the same rules. I’m familiar with all of that. Uh, okay. But we’re a little town, um,

1:42:52 we got x number of taxpayers that have to contribute. Yep. So we, we have, we, you know, all the citizens and people running your committee and the select board and so forth, um, and the school department have, have a responsibility. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, do construction and monitor it probably. But the, the building superintendent, and we don’t have one unfortunately should be on, on this because they are the construction people for the, for the town. They’re the experts in town. They should be, I mean, we had so many engineers involved in that landfill closure project. You’d be surprised. Well, what, uh, then if they made a mistake, then they should be,

1:43:39 you know, they have insurance for all of that. Right. But there’s still something called betterment. So if you do the work, it was required to be done, you still have to pay for it. Yeah, I understand that. But who’s gonna be accountable if, so with the Landfill, You run over the contingency, I mean the landfill, somebody did an estimate on this thing. That’s correct. With a contingency. Did you have a contingency? So, so obviously all the estimates were wrong. Again, I ask, did you have a contingency in the, in the project budget? Okay. That’s what you’re looking at here. So Obviously there’s always, you know, the, the engineers are creating estimates. They’re saying this is what we think we found it was well over what they had estimated for material and stuff like that. I think, you know, that’s all I’m gonna say at this point.

1:44:25 Okay. Well I’ll, I’ll get it. I’d love to, I’d love to hear your presentation, I guess. Mm-hmm. But anyway, I just, I just hate to see the town get, get always. And again, I’m not picking on, on your project. Everything going forward is above ground. Yeah. Correct. I mean, we Have some foundation work and stuff like that. Yeah. Yes. So are you doing great beams on top of the cap or no? We are not. No. Okay. How, how are you doing that? I’m not putting anything on top Of the cap. So the, the areas that, so where we are building the swap shop is a pre-established area that was built into again, Okay. The land Foreclosure, that cap is the foundation for what has to go on top of it. So if we wanted to put the swap shop in your location, it had to be built into that cap. So that work is already

1:45:13 Completed on top of the cap. Yep. Mm-hmm. Okay. Alright. Alright. Uh, I’ll be watching, Uh, any other comments from the, uh, audience. With that said, um, I neglect could tell us that our next meeting is October 10th, and that’s the second Tuesday of the month. We’ll bring up your suggestion of, uh, uh, two meetings a month. And, um, I’m looking for motion to adjourn. Uh, motion to adjourn. Seconded. All those in favor? In favor. We’re adjourned at nine 15. Thank you.