Board of Health: September 10, 2024

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0:02 September 10th and order two more. And, uh, first item on the agenda is the charter committee. Nobody needs to take if got water right now is We’re gonna do That one. Yeah. Um, so let me pass these. Yep. Doctors one pack out with all board members. Okay. So this will be going over what the state requires of boards of health, and then we’ll have discussion about the, the board versus the department and charter committee. Uh, so local boards of health in Massachusetts are required by state statute and regulations before, many importantly, crucial duties relative to the protection of public health, the control of disease, the promotion of sanitary living conditions, and the protection of the environment from damage and pollution.

0:49 These requirements reflect the legislatures understanding that many critical health problems are best handled by the involvement of local community officials, familiar with local conditions. The following is a list of duties and responsibilities of local boards of health in Massachusetts, each item includes a citation to the statute of regulation, which imposes the duty or responsibility. The items have been grouped under general subject categories. Following list Required duties is a list of additional powers of local boards of health, which can extend the local board’s authority or the bo broad range of health, sanitation, environmental problems. Um, so a, to begin with, obviously that’s, Is it this taken out of this? Uh, no. So that some from that, that, so

1:34 that is the handbook. Um, a lot of this comes from the MAHB Yep. Who I spoke to Today. Yep. Correct. So, duties of the local Board of Health in Massachusetts. So I believe I’ve sent this out to all the members. I recommend that you take the classes with MAHB, um, to make sure everybody’s familiar with all the risk responsibilities. So obviously a records record keeping and reports, um, you know, and cities submit an annual report to the city council concerning the board’s activity. Uh, so obviously Marvel had, we do an annual report, um, that is submitted in January and is handed out during town meeting. Um, maintain numerous records and retain them for required minimum retention periods.

2:23 Um, there’s three dozen categories of board of health records and the retention periods, uh, processed numerous types of reports of cases of diseases. So I’ll just go down this very briefly. Obviously you guys have copies of all this. Um, a healthcare and disease control upon request telephone to a gas and electric utility company in certified writing was seven days of a said telephone call, that there’s a serious illness in a residence such that no gas or electric, uh, company shall shut off or fail to restore gas with electric service in any residence during such time as there is a serious illness. Uh, this comes up time to time, and yes, we might hear from doctors to say, we have a critically ill patient in the home. Um, please make sure you know

3:09 that the utilities are not shut off. Um, so we’re able to write letters to the utility companies, um, or the doctors are able to write directly to the utility companies, um, to make sure that service is not shut off for them. Um, receive reports of cases of dangerous disease, uh, disease dangerous to public health, keep records of these reports, and also forward copies of these reports to the local school committee and to other local boards and whose jurisdiction the patient resides. Often, we work very closely with the school to make sure that we’re following, uh, communicable diseases, um, report cases of dangerous diseases to the Department of Public Health within 24 hours for IIC diseases required reporting. Uh, so in the state of Massachusetts, we use

3:54 a system called Maven. Uh, when you go into your doctor’s office, um, and it’s discovered that you have a disease that gets entered into the records, that record also comes to our office, um, and also goes to the state of Massachusetts. There might need to be a conversation about exclusion or, you know, obviously we dealt with this a lot during Covid, um, but making sure that communication and communicable diseases are controlled. Um, we also have to send the Department of Public Health Weekly reports of deaths due to dangerous diseases. Again, during Covid. This was very popular. Um, and we need, they had a state list that we were following and making sure that everybody was accounted for. Um, received notices of school scheduling sent home

4:39 because of dangerous diseases. Again, communications between the health department and the school. Um, report, uh, report to the Department of Public Health cases of certain contagious diseases occurring at dairy farms. Uh, we do not have any dairy farms, um, but you’ve heard Tom and I discuss, uh, avian flu and the concern with dairy farms. So that’s very popular right now. Um, receive reports of inflammation, swelling, redness, or unnatural discharge from the eyes of an infant less than two weeks old, and take immediate action to prevent blindness. Um, obviously a lot of this stuff was written way back in time. Obviously today, um, most people are going to their doctor right after an infant is born, um, and making sure that they have all appropriate shots, um,

5:27 and making sure that if there’s any concerns or questions, um, these items are taken care of. Um, they do that in the hospital now, don’t they take, do the eyes? Yeah, they do the eyes at the hospital. Yes. Yep. Um, receive reports of persons affected with cerebral palsy and submit an annual report of these cases. The Department of Public Health. Again, this is all done through Maven, so we don’t have to report anything on that. That’s instantly done through the computer system Now, uh, provide anti rabid vaccine and treatment. Um, we work quickly talking about, uh, rabies vaccinations, uh, before the meeting. Uh, and yes, if there’s an individual in town that is bit by a wild animal or a dog and they’re unable to provide vaccine for themselves, we must provide that to them. Uh, we also have to make sure that the dog has all,

6:16 you know, shots and is up to dates with rabies. Um, and do any follow-ups with that? Um, so with this, the most common stuff is generally we’ll get calls about bats. Um, for a long time there wasn’t a concern about bats in homes, but now we definitely have a concern about that. And if we find a bat in your bedroom and you’re unsure of how long it’s been there, uh, we recommend that you get rabies, uh, shots at this point. Um, to, obviously we’re following up with, uh, rabies on a regular basis. Um, supervise or karaoke disinfection of dwelling, which have housed the person who have suffered or died of dangerous disease. Uh, this doesn’t happen very often.

7:01 I’ve never had to deal with this, but obviously this was something that we’d be working with the state to deal with. Um, obviously you’d be, we wouldn’t be doing the cleaning, but we’d be bringing in cleaning crews to handle all this stuff. Um, receive reports of food poisoning and send these reports to the State Department of Public Health. Um, this is something that we work with on a regular basis, um, and our public health nurse and our inspector work together to go out, conduct inspections, complete the reports and make sure everything’s followed up. Um, obviously in the recent fu, you know, recent, um, there’s been a large listeria case that’s been across, uh, the United States, and we’ve had cases of foodborne illnesses, uh, related to the listeria of deli needs. So we, we do investigate those. Um, not on a regular basis, but anytime there’s a

7:49 and illness complaint, we investigate that. Um, is this this past week that they took everything off the shelves? Yeah, the, so the Demine has been off the shelves for quite some time, um, in large, large volumes, but yes, so we will get reports that just, you know, contacts, um, grocery stores that we know that have the selling meats, and then go out and conduct inspections to make sure that everything’s off the shelf. Uh, receive notices from inspectors of the Division of Occupational Safety regarding violations of health laws or nuisances and industrial establishments. Uh, investigate these reports and enforce appropriate laws. Um, a lot of time we’ll have reports about asbestos or dust, um, and we do need to go out and investigate that

8:34 and just make sure appropriate permits are, are in hand, um, and are appropriate actions are being taken. Um, housing and dwelling enforce. Chapter two, the state sanitary code minimum Standards of fitness for human habitation. Uh, so this is for anybody that is renting an apartment or a home. Um, if you’re having issues and it’s not up to the state sanitary code for housing, um, you try to work with your landlord. If you’re unable to work with your landlord, you’re more than welcome to call in and request an inspection. We’ll do a full inspection and make sure that everything meets the standard of the, the law, uh, enforce the state lead Poisoning prevention regulations. Um, myself and my inspector are lead certified. Um, so we can go into homes if you have children,

9:22 um, and do testing. Generally, this is for homes that you’re renting, not homes for that you own. Um, and then it just says, yes, we found lead and you need to, the owner of the, the home needs to hire an inspector, come in and then do lead abatement. Um, but yes, we’re involved in those activities. Um, review and approve or disapprove from eliminating definitive plans for subdivision. Um, this is Marblehead. There’s not a lot of additional subdivisions, um, but in this case, subdivisions would come to the board. The board would look at the subdivision, um, and make sure there weren’t any issues with any, with anything. Generally, when we are looking at subdivisions, we’re looking at re regard. Uh, regarding to Title V. So sit, sanitary, you know, sewage.

10:08 Um, but for Title V, it’s in-ground septic systems, and there’s a lot more, um, information that needs to be reviewed before those subdivisions can be your approved, uh, hazardous waste. Assign the site for hazardous waste disposal facility as follows, uh, notify the Department of Environmental Protection of receipt of an application to sign a site. Um, so hazardous waste. Um, obviously we don’t have any hazardous waste sites in town, um, but we do conduct household hazardous waste day. I do have to notify a mass DEP. Um, we, the board of the department or the board always has to oversee that activity. Um, so we have to make sure we notify the mass DEP before the event. We oversee the event,

10:54 and then we make sure that they have all the necessary paperwork goes with that. Um, chairperson of the board serves on the local assessment committee established whenever a developer seeks to construct and operate a hazardous waste facility within the town city. Obviously, again, uh, we don’t have that currently, um, but if we did have that, we would have to have the chair sit on that and take a look at that. Uh, notify the mayor of city council board of selecting the following, uh, pending applications for license for the collection, storage, treatment and disposal of hazardous waste upon notification from DEP. Again, you know, kind of went over that. Um, solid waste. Um, assign sites for sanitary landfills, refuse incinerators, waste storage,

11:39 and treatment plans, risk, uh, refuse transfer stations after a public hearing. Again, we do have a transfer station. We used to have a burn facility. We used to have a landfill. Um, the board oversaw all of those operations and continue to do that. Um, consider an act on applications for permits for the disposal of special wastes. Um, we don’t have a special waste transfer station, so we do not look at that. Um, consider an act on application for special permits for salvaging or recite materials from sanitary landfill sites. Again, we have a closed landfill site that’s the only landfill in town. Um, and so we’re not pulling, um, material, you know, recite the materials out of the landfill. Um, the closest landfill that they have done that needs in recent past is actually the Peabody Landfill,

12:26 um, was mine for the metals in that landfill. Uh, periodically inspect sanitary landfill sites and provide written notification of the deficiencies. Um, we use a third party to do these inspections, um, and we have a contract with them. There is a prescribed how often they have to come out. Um, so we are compliant with that. Uh, periodically examine and evaluate refuge tra re refuse transfer stations. Um, again, we often talk about our transfer station, um, what we’re collecting there, how it should be run. Um, again, we also have a third party that does some evaluations for us for groundwater and all that stuff. Um, and inspect and verify satisfactory completion of all corrective work to San sanitary landfill projects.

13:13 Again, we had an engineer. We had all our permits approved by mass DEP and got final sign off for that. Um, handle requests for variance variances of regulations governing sanitary landfills. Again, it’s our landfill. We didn’t need any, um, variances. Um, again, if it’s our variance, we’d be asking for a variance from mass. DEP, um, septage and garbage. Um, septage enforce Title V, the state’s environmental code. Um, minimum requirements for subsurface disposal sewage. Um, we are 90%, uh, sewer in marblehead, meaning that there’s a sewer pipe that comes into your house and you don’t have sewage in your backyard. Um, if you do, yes, we would be looking at that. Occasionally they find old septic systems on properties in

14:00 Marblehead, um, that generally will be collapse, you know, uh, decommissioned. Then they’ll go out and inspect for that. Um, make rules and regulations for the removal of transportation, disposal of garbage, um, and other offensive substances. Um, so we don’t, you know, we look at the removal on transportation, but we don’t, um, regulate trash trucks and stuff like that. There are many communities that we do. Um, and that is something that we can look at in, in the future. Um, and some communities, they permit all trash trucks that go into that, into the community. Uh, and it can be kind of a revenue source. Um, issue permits for the removal of transportation and garbage. Again, same idea. Um, again, you can issue permits to all trash trucks, um,

14:47 and make sure that you know their seals are properly, you know, know that leach aid’s not coming outta the back of the truck and they’re not leaving the issue. Um, occasionally we will get a complaint that Leach aid is coming outta the back of the trash truck. We will contact the individual right away and make sure that that’s fixed, um, and make sure that it’s cleaned up, you know, suitably, uh, nuisances, investigate nuisances, which the board’s opinion may be interest to health. Um, so nuisances can be anything from noise, dust, things like that. So yes, we will go out and take a look at any and all nuisances. Um, there’s a threshold to it. Um, again, for noise and stuff like that, there are thresholds and mass. DEP has a policy that we follow for all that stuff. Um, assigned locations for slaughterhouses or other noxious

15:35 or offensive trades. We don’t have, we’re lucky. We, we don’t have any slaughterhouses at this time. Um, food issue permits for all food service establishments, including restaurants. Of course, this is an annual and pretty large deal. Um, we issue all the food services and we enforce the state sanitary code, minimum sanitation standards for the food establishments, meaning we go out and conduct inspections. Uh, for food establishments. It’s a minimum of two inspections a year. Um, part of the regulation also has a list of required inspections for different codes and how often they must occur. Um, issue permits for plants which break in canned eggs. We don’t have any of that in town. Uh, license milk pasteurization plants. We don’t have any of those in town,

16:21 but we would have to take a look at that. Um, city note, uh, health department shall have milk inspectors. Um, town board should have a point of milk inspector. Um, this is an older rule. Again, we go out and take a look at for all the food service and retail food. Um, and we conduct the inspections in that way. Um, we don’t have any bottling plants for carbonated beverages, but if you did, you’d have to take a look at all that stuff. Um, bakeries. All bakeries obviously have to conform to regulation. Um, we do have some, um, at home baked. So baked products are the least risky products out there. You can do some at home baking and sell these products. They have to be sold either at the farmer’s market

17:08 or at the point of creation, so at the home. Um, so yes, we can do, we do do some of those inspections currently. Um, enforce, uh, prohibits importation of shellfish. Um, so yes, when we’re going out to, um, grocery stores and even seafood establishments or restaurants, we make sure that all their seafood is in compliance. A lot of times when we’re looking at oysters, that oysters have to come with the tag, where they’re coming from, dates and all that stuff. So we will look to make sure that the restaurants are collecting their tags and all that stuff, and they have to keep ‘em for a certain period of time. We will see all their logs for all that information. Um, we would also look at sushi and sushi, you know, how things are done with all that and how it’s kept.

17:54 Uh, and for state statutes, regulations, relatively the adulteration of mis branding of food, um, a lot of times what will happen is that large corporations will miss mark food. We will get notifications a lot of times to make sure that this food is off the shelf. And so, yeah, we will go out and make sure that re you know, generally grocery stores have removed these products. Um, pools and beaches. Um, and fourth chapter five, this gate cemetery code for minimum standard for swimming pools. Um, we have several pools in town that we do, uh, go out and conduct inspections. Again, it’s required at least twice. So two minimum inspections for the pools. Um, state sanitary code for the minimum standards for bathing beaches. We talk about the bathing beaches quite a bit.

18:39 Uh, tomorrow is the last day of the Bath Bathing Beach testing program that we do. Um, so that has been a, you know, obviously with the Bathing Beach community, it’s great information. It’s very important. Um, and we also, that comes along with that is prohibit swimming in water that fails to meet prescribed standards for bathing beaches. And we also would have to review plans for new or altered bathing beaches. Mm-Hmm. Um, we don’t have any new bathing beaches. Um, and if there anything that was gonna be changed, we’d have to take a look at that. Generally, you know, we wouldn’t see large construction on our bathing beaches, uh, camps, motels and mo uh, mobile home parks. Um, we do have camps. We do inspect all the recreational camps, um, per, you know, the state, you know, state sanitary code.

19:27 Um, and then obviously again, with camps, we have to conduct inspections with all those, again, two minimum. Uh, camps are pretty, a lot of work goes into the very beginnings. There’s a lot of rules and regulations and requirements for campers. So we need to make sure that we take a look at all that. Again, that’s generally the inspector, uh, and the public health nurse, um, miscellaneous. So all these extra stuff that, um, we’re required to do. Um, pesticides, the board does have a pesticide policy. Um, so we make sure that everybody’s aware of that policy. Um, the policy states that we’re not supposed to use pesticides on town property. Um, occasionally the school does need a waiver from that, um, as they need to get rid of bees or something like that.

20:12 Um,

20:16 animal inspectors. So it does say master of law that we should be nominating an animal specter. Um, the way that it’s done in Marblehead is that it’s all done through the Board of Selectmen and through the police station. Um, licensed massage parlors. So this is an older regulation. Um, and now the state license, all massage parlors, um, issue burial permits. We work with the town clerk to issue the burial permits. Um, again, it’s gone to a computer program, so very, very easy. In the past, people would come in to request burial permits and take a look at all that stuff. Um, license and if necessary, revoke licenses for funeral direct, uh, directors. Um, again, you need to be a licensed funeral director. Um, again, that’s all done through a computer program and pretty straightforward, um, approved location

21:02 of cemeteries. Um, again, we have a, you know, small temp. Uh, we have an established cemeteries in town. Um, even the expansion has al already been approved at this point. We don’t really think that we’ll be taking a look at too much of that stuff. Um, there has been a lot of new information on green cemeteries, green burials, and actually creating a cemetery on, on your own property. Um, so that is probably some of the newest stuff. Um, it doesn’t happen very long. If you were to create a cemetery on your property, you have to hold the property forever. And so those things generally would never happen. Um,

21:45 smoking, um, obviously, you know, the board has created tobacco regulations. Um, so if we receive written complaints regarding failures to comply, we have to take a look at that. Uh, we do have a, a grant for tobacco control, which allows their inspectors to go out and inspect establishments, and we get reports back from them. Um, and depending on the reports, we might have to either issue a fine, bring them before the board suspend their license. Um, but again, the board has created regulations. We’ll be looking at new regulations or updating those regulations in the near future. Um, again, inspect areas described in the complaint of enforce no smoking laws and, uh, provide the response to all that.

22:30 Um, some of the other stuff, just the authorities to regulate activities for air noise pollution. Um, we have had some noise violations. A lot of times noise violations come from mechanical issues, AC units. The biggest noise violation that I’ve ever had to deal with was a substation that was owned by a power company. Um, it was very loud. They ultimately, it was a pure tone issue, um, and ultimately had to put up a sound barrier, um,

23:03 Authority to regulate betterments. And then the, the other last big piece that we do have a part in is emergency preparedness. So obviously we’re always doing public health emergency preparedness. Um, after nine 11, uh, the state put together a lot of, they created, they got a lot of grant funding from the CDC. Um, we have now have a local coalition. Uh, it’s 15 communities on the North Shore that participates on a reg on a monthly basis, um, to prepare for public health emergency preparedness. So we’re always looking at different things, drills, and obviously that was very big during covid. Um, so these are all the requirements, um, per mass general law. Um, you guys have copies of that. And then, so that’s the law. So obviously the very beginning,

23:49 the town created the Board of Health. Obviously it’s a full-time job to do all this stuff. The board members are working. And so they created, you know, the director position and then started to hire employees to conduct all these inspections. So you had a public health nurse to make sure that the town was compliant with all the regulations, you know, relevant to disease and an inspector to make sure that we’re com compliant. Okay. But, but then you questions Yes. Then you as director of only 30% as a, as a director of for pub public health. Right. Every 70% is need to be with the transfer station. Correct. And obviously that’s the, you know, that is also regulated by the state of Massachusetts to say that we are responsible

24:35 for overseeing those operations, But, but the percentage isn’t divided evenly. Right. But this percentage is only done that way really for budgetary reasons.

24:46 Well, but if, if we want you doing one of these activities and you’re doing 70% of your work over the Right, but obviously it’s not, it’s not that like cut and dry and obviously, you know, work ebbs, ebbs and flows. And as things come up, we have to deal with them. All this stuff is regulated. It even falls to the Board of Health. Um, and obviously I’m the, their agent, and so I have to act on all these different items. So just because I work, you know, technically 70% for the waste department, that’s just the way the budget works. You know, obviously because of the waste revolving account, that was the larger budget, they could put more of my salary in that line item. And yes, 30% comes to the health side, but I don’t look at it that way.

25:32 It’s whatever’s needed. I have to go and, and make sure that’s taken care of, which, Which you’ll probably hear during the charter, uh, discussion that some committee members may feel that it’s skewed and that needs to be more help in the health department. Yeah. And obviously we can talk about that. So, um, as far as the budgetary, so the budget came up, you know, obviously last couple years, one of the big concerns is that the state, you know, Marblehead has been level funded for the whole time. I’ve been here many years before that. So we haven’t been able to really expand the health department. We, we have been expanding. We have moved our public health thirst up to full time, which is 40 hours a week. We’ve, uh, made our health inspector full-time, which is 37

26:19 and a half hours a week. Um, the admin is split 50 50. That’s just the easiest way to do it. Um, we have been able to increase some of our employees over on the way side. Um, obviously, you know, that is a little bit more of a, a money generating department. And so we’re able to do that. The state of Massachusetts, after Covid looked at all the health departments across the state, state and said, folks, we are underfunding public health. We need to take a better look at this. And they came out with a formula to say, per capita, this is what you should be putting forward for a budget. I believe that number comes out for the population of 70 or for 20,000. It comes out, I don’t have the exact number. It’s, I’ve got 739 9, uh, dollars

27:07 and 6 6 6, 730 9,000 thousand 600. Yep. Seven 39,600 was for a population of 40,000 at $36 and 98 cents per capita. Right. We are now at 324,000 and we are 43% below. Right. What we should be. Right. And for that, we could not be, uh, a town, uh, board of Health. We couldn’t be approved Town Board of Health. Well, we couldn’t be the accredit. Yeah. We’re not certifying the accredited, uh, Depart. Depart because we do not fit into that. Correct. Um, so what the state has done is that they try to supplement.

27:52 Uh, so they’ve created several large grants. Um, there’s a public health excellence grant that we’re a part of, and they’re trying to get all communities in Massachusetts to be part of that. And the whole reason behind that is you should be working with your neighbors to make sure that you’re complying with all your inspections. So it’s sharing of resources, sharing of people like that. Um, so we are a part of a public health excellence grant. Um, again, we get A-A-C-D-C grant for public health emergency preparedness. Um, again, it’s 15 communities on the North Shore. Um, that one’s approximately $114,000 a year. Um, and that’s just essentially to hire some employees to make sure that we’re meeting all the mandates that we have plans filed, um, that we’re running our drills, we can answer to the state. Um, and if there’s any questions, we can take care of that.

28:38 Um, again, that, that’s been occurring since nine 11. Um, but it’s been obviously during covid that was very active. Um, we have a substance abuse from the grant from BS a s, um, so Bureau of Substance Abuse, um, that we’re working on youth pro prevention. Um, we have our Youth Prevention Coalition. And so it’s Lynn Swamp, Scott Marblehead and Salem, um, to deal with, uh, you know, substance abuse for, uh, youth. Um, we have a, we received opioid settlement funds that we’re working with our police department, fire department and town administrator. Um, we do receive some small grants from Mass DEP for, um, products that we can use at the transfer station.

29:24 Um, they’re called Rice Recycling Dividends Points. Um, they offer several different grants that we can apply for. Um, and that allows us to buy containers and stuff like that. Um, but obviously that, yeah, we are, you know, in the state’s eyes, we do need a more robust, um, budget for the health department and obviously that with that would come employees and all these things. Well, I, for one, am going to recommend those, those extra employees, whether it be a halftime equivalent to fit in with the, with the, uh, clerk. Yep. If we have a halftime clerk right now. ‘cause you spend time at the transfer station, you’re not full-time clerk

30:10 On the weekend. Yeah. So he’s only at the transfer station on Saturdays. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Monday through Friday then. Yeah. So the, the biggest The biggest issue with the transfer station is that obviously that’s a six day a week operation. Um, so you’re always gonna have overtime, you’re always gonna need additional employees, uh, to cover for vacation, sick time and stuff like that. Again, the commercial side does generate revenue for the town, and we’re able to use that waste revolving account to kind of offset some costs. The wayside is probably the most, you know, for our department that is, we spend a lot of time, we receive a lot of phone calls about missed trash, um, complaints, um, you know, operations, we have a lot of accounts. There’s approximately 400 commercial accounts that we have

30:56 for that with the plan. So the idea moving forward would be that we create an assistant director for the wayside that can kind of concentrate on that, uh, and free up some of my time. Um, obviously that operation, when we look at it, we want that operation to grow. We’ll continue to look at that and how it can grow.

31:17 So, so have, have you, uh, put in the assistant director for this? So, Yeah, so I, so this year the town is looking at budgets and they’ve asked us to create a budget very, very early. So with request that budgets were supposed to be in September 6th. Um, but obviously we’re going through a long budget review process. If we do need to make changes, we can make those changes, um, and make sure that we put in our request for everything that we’re looking for. Did we Submit our budget on the sixth? We did submit our budget on the sixth. I do have, the board doesn’t Nope. They don’t get to see it until afterwards. Okay. But, yep. So I have copies of the budget. Um, and then we can obviously talk about things that we wanna, so obviously, you know, does the board want, what kind of events do they want to hold

32:03 for substance abuse? Um, you know, what are we gonna be looking at, you know, this we have to get into long-term planning. The hard thing about this is that we’re looking at FY 26, so this is gonna start next July 1st. And so this is a little bit of Harvard piece when you’re trying to plan out, um, over a year essentially now. But, But working with the charter committee, that, that timing is fine, because I, I think that’s just the beginning of the conversation. I’m not so sure that’s, you know, fine. No, but I’m saying I think that they’re gonna be looking toward 26, aren’t they? Are they Gonna, we’re gonna try to go to town meeting in May of 26. 25. 25. Yeah. So they’re looking toward the budget of 26th. But to be, I asked for this conversation

32:52 before it had anything to do with the charter committee, so, and it please no one in the room and please, I, I am not being critical. I think what you do, especially with the resource limited resources you have, is unbelievable. My biggest concern is public health, contemporary public health is not prioritized, and it is not prioritized because of the resources. And, um, it, to me, a newcomer to both Marblehead and to the board, the, the distinction between the board and the department is not clear. Yep. Okay. And it,

33:41 I have been fortunate enough to deal with public health globally, and we are a backward country when it comes to public health. And it’s because our healthcare delivery system is market oriented. And it’s not federal or national or state driven. It’s market driven. Right? Mm-Hmm. And so the things that the market driven system doesn’t want to do, like rabies and disease prevention, public health has been stuck with Yeah. But the pandemic, it started before the pandemic, there were intellectual conversations about how public health would serve the community better,

34:29 and the pandemic brought those to, to the top of the agenda. And basic, today, public health is in, in the expansive definition, public health is what communities do to make their citizens healthier. And I would just love to have us talk about how we can be organized. But let me take a step back. What you gave us was mass gen, mass general law. Yes. Okay. I went back and did a, a, a search. Yep. And basically, as far as I can tell, there’s, and, and I got, I’m not great at this, but I think it’s called chapter 1 1, 1, section 41

35:15 through 47 there, the, the state of Massachusetts expects us to have a board of health, and it has a couple of places where it says, if you don’t wanna have a board of health, you have a Department of Health. There is nowhere that says Boards of health work together. Um, and, and I see our system, it may be the right way to do it and may be way the Massachusetts laws. Okay. So I also went into the bylaws of the town, the term public health in the entire bylaws, as far as I can search them, is used once. Okay. And it’s only used once in the definition

36:03 of the di director of Public Health. Your role, the, the Department of Health is not mentioned once Correct. In the entire bylaws of the state of the, of, of the town. So I think this is an opportunity for us to create an organization that will try to promote the health of this community in different ways than we’ve done before.

36:35 Yeah. So before the, what Was done was that you, you met the bare minimums, I’m gonna say. Yeah. You met the requirements for all the inspections, the permitting and stuff like that. But because of the level funded, that was, that was, I’m not blaming, I, you, you, you, this, this team of volunteers who have worked 30 years for this, for this town, have done an amazing job. And, and, and you are, I don’t know, 15 years in, in this place, have done an amazing job, but tomorrow we should be working hard at figuring out how to make the health of the health of the community better. Okay. Let me just give one little story. Well, I just have, I just have to interrupt. We’ve been working hard to make the health of the community better every day.

37:21 Well, okay. By and large, what you have been doing is preventing disease, preventing controlling and regulating disease. You, with all due respect, I, I know you have the training, but the, and nothing I have seen is health promoting. Let me just give one little story about why, how I see health promotion. Uh, one of the very first patients that I took care of as an intern a hundred years ago was a nine year, nine month old who had been driving in the backseat of his mom’s car, uh, un unrestrained. And he had severe head injuries. Okay. Um, and at it was at the time that we didn’t even have seat belts. This is a long time ago when I was an intern,

38:08 and we certainly didn’t have car seats. And the first thing we thought of is, wow, let’s work. I’ve trained in Colorado, let’s work col, Colorado legislature to legislate that you can’t drive a car with in, with an infant in it, without a car seat. Okay? That’s what you have done here. The next step, which was done, was to make it an insurance, provide the funding for hospitals to give car seats for every newborn that was discharged. That’s improving health. Yes. This town, I’m absolutely amazed that the, the talented people in this town, we should be thinking

38:56 of ways to, to, to improve the health status. And, and, and, and that is very, very important today. One, because the federal and the organized public health community, the CDC and the FDA did not do a very good job, uh, with managing the pandemic. They did not give the state of Massachusetts or the town of Marble had very good directions. And as a result, we, the community has lost a great deal of trust in, in, in this board and every other board. Not because you deserve it, because that’s just the way it has been. Okay. So we, we need to regain that trust. The second issue also is that even in this state, which has

39:43 absolutely the best healthcare system in the country, without question, and some of the most pre the premier hospitals in, in the world, it’s constrained, right? Public health can offer a great deal. Public health is never gonna deal with individual primary care doctors. But public health deals with populations. It talks about when you have groups, if you treat this group a certain way, they treat all newborns, and you make it possible that all newborns are gonna have, um, car seats, you’re gonna reduce the, you’re going to improve the health of newborns. And that’s what, that’s what we need to do. And my only concern has been we need to figure out

40:33 how we are organized. Because again, the town in the Massachusetts law do not bring up a, a community, a jurisdiction that has both a, a board of health and a, uh, a Department of Health. Well, I would, I would like to interrupt you because I spoke with Cheryl today at the Mass Associate Health Boards, and I asked her about that dilemma that you have. And she sent me, um, some information. First of all, I’d like to just state that she said, this information is provided for educational purposes only, and is not to be construed as legal advice. She is an attorney, so I think she’s protecting herself.

41:20 But she said, for legal advice, we should go to our municipal attorney. But this is what she’s advised us. She spoke like you did, of many different setups of boards of health. Some are appointed, some are elected. Uh, some insist that a, a physician be on there. Uh, some have three members, some have five members, and she refers to pursuant to certain general laws. But then she went to what we have right now, and she, this is the statement that she wrote. Many municipalities with boards of health refer informally to their collective staff as the health departments. That’s informally,

42:05 even though they are not statutorily created health departments. So that’s how we are living right now, whether we choose to continue that way, because you’re asking for maybe a broader description. This is where, this is where we are operating or how we’re operating. She also wrote, because I told her that we’re working, working on this because we’re, the town is trying to create a town charter. And she said a town charter may make other provisions for the election or appointment of a board of health. In other words, the charter may determine that we are some other animal.

42:48 And that’s where you may have some influence. Well, no, I, I, but I, but I’m, but I’m elected here. I, I volunteered, I volunteered for the charter committee. So, but I’m elected here and I believe that I best serve the people who voted for me. I beat blank first time Tom beat the heck out of me the second time I beat blank. Uh, so, but, but, but I think that using the, the, the experience we should, we should work very hard to try to develop a health promotion structure for you. You, you, and again, I, I really don’t, I’m not a troublemaker, but, but, but these are important issues.

43:35 You were asked to put in a, a, a flat budget. Yep. As I read the call or No, the local newspapers. Yep. The school board was asked that last year, and they said no, I think the Board of Health Talk talk, but Andrew has to put it in the way he’s been asked by the town. He’s a town employee. I think the board probably hasn’t advocated. Well, we as well as we could, We have advocated. Okay. So, but, so this is like, it’s just the start of the budget season, and this is a different year and stuff like that. So, and obviously, so because, so on the way side, our budget always has to go up because of contracts. But this is the opportunity for the board to take a look at everything across and do that fighting for what you believe in

44:20 and say, this is what we want. This is why we want it, or this is how we’re trying to increase services. This is how we’re gonna do it. This is the structure that we wanna put forward and work to try to meet what the state is saying. It should be the, the, you know, the budget of the, the health department. Obviously the budget of the waste department, you know, is always gonna have a discussion piece still. Okay. The only other point I’ll make about this is I think that the current and think we were structured under supports. You, I, my previous, when I was running before, uh, you and I talked and, and I think you said, I hope I’m not quote right, that you have never had a formal review.

45:05 That’s correct. Okay. I, I think you do a great job and the town is very lucky. You’re here in return, the town ought to be coaching you to be better next year than you were this year. And there are a fair amount of seniority in this town. We should have a regular review with you. Does, whether it’s the chair or the, the, the board a whole, we should be like any good market oriented firm, we should be saying, Hey, you’re a, you’re a star, a potential star. Let’s see where you might grow next year. Maybe. How would you like to start doing that task? So we need to reorganize in a structure,

45:51 whether it says that, that the director of public health reports to the board chair or to the board itself, or any of those things. But, but the, the same thing would’ve to be true for, for for Marty and any other employment. Do you? No. So I review All the You review both. Okay. All right. Well then you’re left alone. That just is totally unfair to, to both you and to the town. If you’re as good as I think the board collectively thinks you are, we should be helping you grow on behalf of the town. And the ambiguity that we have is in inappropriate. So the Biggest piece that you’re always, you know, that we’ve talked about too, is making sure that, you know, the board of health is a science-based board and should always stay that way.

46:37 Obviously there’s two sides to it, but it is sanitation, public health, and it really should be science-based. So we need to make sure through the whole process that it doesn’t become political.

46:52 True, true. In my, my mind. Unrelated, what, what I, I don’t wanna make it more political. No, we don’t. I just wanna get correct of you. So a good, you, you and I are the same, but we just wanna make sure that when we’re thinking of, you know, creating something that it, it’s not a political, there’s no political piece to it. I’m lost On that. How would there be a political Piece? So political politics could be people’s opinions based versus facts. I think that’s what you evaluated in getting gets different. Oh, oh, Okay. Get different feedback. So like, if my science is different from your science, something Like that, that, or like you, you know, you affected me and therefore I’m gonna get on the board and change this and I’m gonna get rid of you. Yeah. Well, but, but in some ways the regulations that you read

47:37 or are working under, um, Are Not as clear purely science as you could. You and I talked after I got elected, but before I swore in and I said, gee, I’d be interested in seeing the data you get from your system. Yep. Okay. And you came back and said, we can’t give it to you. Yep. Okay. Forget me for a change. But it says basically if Tony Fauci came live to Mar, came to live in Marblehead and joined the Board of health, the board, the Department of Health wouldn’t give Tony the data on diseases that take place in the city.

48:22 That doesn’t make sense. We, We would give him the data, but we wouldn’t give them any personal information. Okay. That’s not the way it came way. Yeah. Okay. I also wanna say that my style is, Because it’s a small community, that piece is always, I understand this Is always very big. What you said is that no volunteer can have access to that database. So Because of, because of what’s in that database, no volunteer can have access to the database. They can have access to the strict data. They can’t have access to the database. Okay.

48:58 I I was about to say, the times that I’ve sat here as chair, I, I feel that I haven’t actually evaluated the director, but I’ve also also felt that I’ve counseled him when I felt, I’m sure you did. And I feel that he’s being, I’m not faulting anybody. So I think that it’s informal, not, I I sometimes counseled him like a home this afternoon. Correct. You’ve heard. Right. And, uh, that kind of thing. So I, I don’t, uh, But employee reviews in today’s world, with all due respect, you and I are in a boomer generation. There’s a few other generations between us and your grandchildren and my grandchildren. Seven And Rachel.

49:44 And the way you manage people today and the way you get the best out of them is very different than the way we did now. And we owe our employees. And, and it seems like we just owe one now we owe one, I think we owe an organizational, do we want to say that the director of public health and the director of we based management reports either to the board or to the chair of the board or some subgroup. You can assign that, any of those. But that should be done. And I think you, you, last week, you, you set up the board, set up two vice chairs. Each of us should be free to work beyond what the, the operational side of the,

50:32 of the health state does for, for, uh, the community. And I think we should, we should push on that. And in my report, I, I have some things about that. Yeah. So I think, I think that’s kind of the, the kick up to that. Um, you know, in the private sector where they do reviews, there’s large bonuses, there’s, so it’s slightly different.

50:59 I’ve given, I’ve given reviews in public sectors. Right. I’ve done it at the counseling center. I’ve done, um, li Jenna as a group on the board of school board, uh, I’m done at the JCC. And Obviously we don’t have to have all the answers tonight. This is You, you’re, you’re absolutely right. It would be nice if we had some extra money to give you bonus, but I think it’s better off that we formally say to you, you’ve done a great job formally in front of your peers in the community, which we have. Would you write it in the, in the town report? There are other boards that are talking about doing the same thing. So we’d be lagging behind if we to. Okay. It’s not a bad thing. Again, I I, I just think that we,

51:48 the intellectual base of this community is such that we should not be as far behind contemporary public health as I see us today. And that’s gonna mean resources. And it’s also gonna mean when we go to five people on the board, we’re gonna need two more people who are gonna be, will have to be willing to work with you and the community to figure out what we can do to make things better, to be in this community. Right. Okay. So, so much for the philosophical and make, I think the Academics love this kind, but It’s always helpful. But the, I think that we came here tonight to talk about how we’re gonna present to the charter. And you mentioned in, uh, a note to Andrew that I saw

52:36 that was forwarded to me nothing that broke any open meeting launch. That some people may wanna go home around nine o’clock for Mm-Hmm. Particular reason. And I’m one of them. I put my phone on my, I put mine on whatever you call it. I don’t know if you call it, but to watch it later. So, ‘cause I, I plan ahead.

53:02 So, um, anyhow, if, if that’s your, um, pleasure and my pleasure in a certain way that because I’ve made a accommodations, I think that maybe we should go on to the questions that we’re giving us and we could then be prepared for our meeting on September 24th. Before we talk about that, we were asked to be there at six 30 and I know you work out of town. Is that comfortable? Yeah, I’m gonna be there. Yeah. What, what’s the rest of the day? The, it’s the 24th. It’s a Tuesday, right? Yes. But would you Yeah, no, that’s fine. That’s fine. We would rather seven o’clock. No, No. Okay, so that’s, Well, we meet for two hours. So the board felt on that scope for anyway. Well, Well he, she said we were first.

53:47 Oh. But I mean, we can go Before we close off Tom’s thing, I’m just say Tom, I mean I think what you’re saying is the right direction, I think. I don’t see any negatives. I think maybe you’re making, you’re talking about progress and I think that’s a good thing. Right? So I think, you know, it’s good to put all that out there to think about it, to throw it in, you know, to throw everything you have, you know, into the budget. I think we’ll definitely run into constraints. Correct. And so, but it doesn’t hurt to throw it out there and just start planting the seed and you know, eventually we get some, The first time you might not get it the second time. Might get a little bit of the third time. You, you, you might. Right. So with that though, I have copies of the budget and so for you guys to all take a look at it, but then come up with, ID like, you need to come up with what you wanna do for FY 26.

54:33 You know, if there’s additional, um, substance abuse events that we wanna hold. This Is the budget that we’re working on right now. No, this is next year’s, but FY 26, This is the one you’re putting In. So yeah, there’s, there’s two columns. So there’s an FY 25 column and there’s an FY 26 that I have proposed numbers. Now, obviously, you know, the whole idea of this conversation is to get the board to think about what they want be doing in the future. So you need to really think about this over the next month in an October meeting, you’re gonna come back to me and we’re gonna have further discussions about where you’d like me to add money so we can try to accomplish some of the things that you wanna do in the future. Okay. Thank you. And then obviously that will begin the fight. Thank you for doing this so well To technically, if you submit the budget,

55:22 if you can’t currently submit the budget without the board approval. Correct. The board is nothing more than an advisory board then it is not an executive board of health. Mm-Hmm. Right. Correct. Okay. The, I I think the voters believe when they voted,

55:40 voted for us, me against blank and everybody else, uh, that they thought they were voting us to make their contributions to what’s going on. But if we don’t sign it, we’re meaningless. So Later on, before we meet with, so we’ll have months and months of meetings with finance liaisons and talking about budgets and what potentially is additional money we could get before we go to town meeting. The board will go to submit the budget to town meeting saying we’ve looked at this, this, and we’re gonna put our stamp on it. Okay. Okay. Sort of like the Docus center gene. Alright. Yep. Alright. So do you wanna spend a half an hour on, on,

56:25 on Repe preparing for the, the 24th? Well, we have two people from the, from the charter committee. I, I don’t believe we have to prepare. I think we’ve had the conversation that I wanna have. I I’m gonna say what I think you can say what you think and, and well, I think, uh, it, Jim, it’s still Andrew will go separately. The three of us go on September 24th. Andrew doesn’t come with us. I understand, but I thought that you wanted us to go with the United Funds. No,

57:03 I think he just wanted to make sure that he had this conversation. I didn’t because understands didn’t. I think we did. I I didn’t think we needed a meeting for the ch to prepare for the charter committee. I thought, like you said, that we each come with our own ideas and we would, we would present them and at that meeting they would flush it out. But now, um, when you said you wanted to have a meeting about the charter, I came, but I just assumed as wait and do it because, um, I don’t think I may, I don’t think it’s something Tried. I have a lot of problems wrapping my head around the open meeting law. The fact that I can’t talk to the two of you in the entire month means I have to say things that I would not normally wanna say in public.

57:48 Right. That’s what I meant. That we have to have a meeting where we said these things, understanding where the other person is coming so that the three of us, when we get there, the three of us don’t have to be, I I I, the board, the charter committee won’t trust us anyway if we all said the same thing because they’re savvy enough to know that. But we, we now understand, be hopefully you understand a little more about my vocabulary. I I hope that between the two of you, he will be able to help Andrew everything he needs about transfer stations. Because I had never heard of a transfer station until two years ago. Joanne took me to Wellesley. So I have a little bit of background and I’ve talked to Andrew a lot. I’ve talked to Tom a lot. But, and I love the transfer station,

58:36 but I am not gonna be able to add, but I, I hope I can add some value to the town and to this board and to the, to the town’s deliberation about the future. Because public health, one other, you know, public health can underpin primary care. And the other thing that public health can do by dealing with populations is lower healthcare costs. I mean, it, it, it, it, at least it does it in Germany. It does it in England, it does it in a whole other places. And Massachusetts with the fantastic still with the fantastic healthcare delivery structure it has is still being strained. Well, we Only have the highest healthcare costs across the country for whatever reason, but, well, because the, you

59:23 Gotta bank for quality, I guess, And a dog have to buy your homes and pay for the food list in the state. So anyway, I, I, I think that the, the town is well served by over time supporting the, the public health aspects. Public health. I think we would all agree. Is it fair to say that we all could all agree when they ask us in, in the charter committee, do we do our job about public health Very well. I, I certainly will say no. So we’re gonna say, or I would say that we meet the, the standards we we’re not promoting public health. Right. You know, we have a lot of room that we can grow in public health. Just the numbers alone show it. Correct. Just the numbers alone show it. So why do we put the charter?

1:00:10 So can I just say one more last thing about the charter piece? So the one big question obviously is why is the transfer station underneath the health department or under the Board of Health is very appropriate to be under the board of health? A for all the regulatory reasons and the b for operation reasons. So obviously Transp station crew starts at seven o’clock. Uh, our office opens at eight, but our and transfer station s at three 30 and we’re there at five o’clock. We’re able to manage and help with the curbside collection in a huge way. The number of calls that we receive regarding curbside collection is one of the biggest calls that come through our office, and that’s a huge piece for public health to help deal with the sanitation piece of it. Um, this community does have rodents.

1:00:55 Those rodents can be, you know, obviously grown population from waste and stuff like that. So the longer trash sits on the curb, the worse it is for the, the population of Marblehead. And our department can really help or always helps to make sure we try to alleviate that as much as possible. Um, so I do believe that is appropriate that the transfer station trash collection stays under, uh, the board. I mean, I don’t think you have a choice right now. I think limited resources, Well, they do it too. I mean, it’s Allion wise, limited Resources in a perfect world could separate them and, and you know, but Yeah, you just we’re not in that world, so, correct. Yeah. You’d want to extend certain hours for, you know, communications. Um, yeah, But it also falls under the MAHP.

1:01:42 Yeah. It falls under the reason regulations that the board has to, you know, take a look at. Yeah. Otherwise We, we changing Commonwealth, You’re not allowed to change it. You’d still have to be in, you know, doing inspections of that facility. You’d have to be regulating that facility. It’s easier if we are just making sure that all that stuff is done ourselves. Okay. So, um, could we just, uh, tick off that we’ve addressed this, uh, the charter, the Board of Health, depart Health, uh, could we go to the Board of Health meeting calendar? ‘cause I think there’s some issues about people needing to be away at certain times. What could we do that, are you ready for that? I will be away out of country, probably off soon, probably the 1st of January to the

1:02:29 13th of January, whatever that Monday is The 1st of January To whatever of the, the Monday of the beginning of the third week of January, I will be in my son’s. So I thought was February, but January, so the 14th. 14th is, Yeah, I should be back unless there’s a major error problem. So let’s keep it that way. If we need to change it and I can’t change it later, that that’s my one. I you and I have similar back Toback 12. Okay. If you, once I’m back, I’m back. If we either have to delay because your plane’s delayed or I, I, not a problem. He’s gonna have to run the meeting of, we can redo it on time. We’ll all be there. So that’s that.

1:03:15 Um, February, uh, 11th is the date. And that’s what we have. That’s the second Tuesday. And, uh, if we, I thought you were in February. I was saying if we had to do the 18th, it’s a school vacation week and we really don’t usually meet on Yes. So it’s February 11th. Um, and maybe Marty, um, you’ll put these out. Um, doesn’t, and I’m just going through ‘em. If you wanna do a hold on any of the dates. So I’ve got January 4th. Let’s stop from the trial. October 8th is the next meeting. November 12th is the following meeting. And the week before November 12th is 10th. It’s is the federal election. November 5th. Then December 10th is a December meeting.

1:04:01 These are all the third Tuesdays, then the January 14th. Right. There may be an issue with somebody flying home that be one and somebody flying out, but there’ll be one, there’ll be two people here, either you and me or you and him. So they’ll, and then March 11th has the date and, uh, March, April 8th is the date. May 6th is town meeting. I checked that today with the office. And it doesn’t affect our meeting of May 13th. Then June 10th is the town election, and there will be five people being voted As long as legislature has signed the documents and we’re moving forward with that. But I don’t see any issues with

1:04:47 That. And we don’t even have to take that date. But the second Tuesday is June 10th and would have to go to the, the following 17th. That’s the only one that we would need to change. Okay. If you have a whole new board.

1:05:05 So maybe I’ll, I’ll send this to Marty tomorrow if he has, doesn’t have any questions, but I felt it. But Obviously if things come up and we need to change, Feel like you please speak up. I just think that if, if people speak to this, um, except when you’re going to a wedding in, in Kenya, um, we, we could hopefully not have to change them. But the only one that, that Tom and I affirm on is that January date we need to have it firm and otherwise, um, he and I are going in different directions. Um, c community health, uh, update. You wanna give a mental health,

1:05:50 It was a meeting of the mental health task force last night. It was, uh, uh, another very good meeting. We, um, uh, we talked last time. We are moving toward, uh, adapting, um, membership. And, um, DR has been successful in bringing a young student, um, onto the membership of the I referred that student. Well, thank you very much for referring the student. Uh, uh, she seems to be a very smart, bright, articulate, um, and interested person. She’s about to apply colleges and she’s interested in psychology and business. It’s a very, she’s given the needs of the mental health world. Somebody who knows a little business

1:06:36 and knows a little mental health, uh, ought to be doing good things for, for the community and the state. Um, we heard from, um, Brett Mullen, who works for the Granite Recovery, uh, centers. They’re in New Hampshire, and he spent some time talking to us about the difficulty of, uh, treatment, uh, and recovery centers in, in this community. Um, and, uh, In this community mean our community or his community, Well, all communi it’s mental health providers earn short supply, certainly in the United States, and actually I believe in Europe

1:07:21 and everywhere else right now, just because of the anxiety that, and other issues out there that the pandemic triggered.

1:07:35 So it was a way that we would understand. Now, Ariel Khan, the the new student who’s on there will give us a perspective on what it’s like, um, to be a high school student today and let us understand, uh, the mental health world for, uh, gen Z.

1:07:59 She’s pretty stable, so she’s gonna have to look search for it. Think that’s pretty, I think it’s pretty obvious. Yeah. What I can tell from my 17-year-old. Okay. Um, okay. Uh, I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Leba this week, and we had a wonderful conversation. And he wants to come to this board, but he has to wait until intercession because he teaches on Tuesday nights. And so You can meet with him yet too. He’s coming to my house next week. So we are, um, we’re gonna meet with him on January. So, um, that if it all goes well, it’s January 14th. I’m gonna give him that date as a, as a date. That, uh, probably won’t be changing.

1:08:45 That’s the date we need to coordinate, you know, so, um, unless his inter session goes into February, but I think he’s, he specifically said he wanted January. So, um, will you want, do you want to talk about the bills? Yep. I, oh, I do my, I have all of my comm community health report. Just, I have some time sensitivity for, um, last I was Gonna ask you, is that the one that, that you wanna do for the, um, for, for hiring the people? For the, uh, No, I I if you just gimme a minute, I’ll walk, walk us through. Okay. ‘cause I was going to ask if, if, when Dr. Cole comes, we could do it instead of, is that, I think we need to take care of this now. Sorry. We need to take care of this.

1:09:31 Well, last time we, I mentioned that the mental health task force had gone to UMass Boston to discuss a health status sur a mental health status survey. We, we have talked about that additionally. I brought it up here. Everybody said go ahead and get for more, more of, okay. I, I shared the overview that the UMass Boston people have provided for us. And, um, I actually, the deadline that I thought, I thought that we might have to go to Tom meeting to get approval to do a survey, but I was talking to Swampscott, they did this a couple years ago.

1:10:17 They didn’t not have to go to TOM meeting. And so we, I would respectfully request that we’ve, we either you do or we vote on you’re doing, uh, inviting, um, Dr. Coyle to the next meeting to give us background. I think the way she proposes this document, it will inform the Board of Health and other, uh, the town. The visitor should have this as well. The, the, it’ll inform the Board of Health and other town leaders about unmet health needs in the community. And we’ll provide guidance for fu future steps, um, to make Marble a well community Pearl. But it sounds like, and Swamp, swamp Scott said that she was terrific.

1:11:02 They made great progress. They started out dealing with only the seniors, and they realized that going for the whole population made a whole lot of sense. If you’re gonna fix the sidewalks for wheelchairs, then you still can do tricycles bicycles and baby carriages on the TRI and the sidewalks as well. So will you I don’t, do we need a motion, the motion to invite her? No. Yeah, you don’t need it. Okay. Then the other, so Arms that piece though is we, we will wanna have an understanding of the cost to complete the survey. The cost of implementing 35,000 bucks is what the estimate is. Okay. So I I I will just, you know, make, so the estimates I have from other PLA places are much higher than that. And so I just need to understand is that first step

1:11:48 or the second step and third steps need to go along with this. The numbers that I’ve heard are more around the hundred thousand. Okay. Um, I, I, I talked to person today, they paid 30. Okay. Now maybe they, that’s why I I I, I, I’m not an expert on this. Yep. It’s just an opportunity. We, I want No, we need, we need to Help. I, I just, again, because I believe we want to be health promotion, we gotta rebuild the trust that the community had. Not because we did it, you all did anything to lose the trust, but the system lost the trust. Okay. So, but the second thing, which is time sensitive is there is a, uh, a program, I Don’t have this. Sure you do, but anyway, yeah.

1:12:35 Um, but I’ll, I’ll send it to video yesterday. Yeah. Um, there is a program sponsored by the executive branch of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to support jurisdictions doing best practice activities. There are two, actually, there are three best practice activities that fit, uh, that totally align with what we ought to be doing. I think that the Mass UMass Boston covers one of them. So I would like us to consider on the pages that you all have back there, and you have that we ask that the Board

1:13:21 of Health vote to ask the town administrator to submit the best practice. The town can only submit two and it can only submit them together. And in the past years when the executive branch has done this, it has run outta money by October. So if we don’t get it done, we don’t get the ability for, um, if, if, if, if, if Thatcher’s unable to, to nominate us, we will have to wait at least a year for this. So I would very much like to move that, uh, the Board of Health respectfully request the town administrator to, uh, nominate, um,

1:14:08 these two best practice. I, I’ll give you the, the wording, these two public health and mental health best practices to nominate for the Board of Health, um, uh, for that competition. Right. So, I don’t know what, what the other options were. Are there, you, you selected these two options, correct? Yes. I, I read this about the ma maternal and I I looked up, um, in the town report we have approximately 160 births a year in the town. And I’m not sure whether we would get that grant when there’s big cities that are, But we’re talking about, it’s my impression

1:14:56 that first come, first serve. Now, Tommy mentioned that outside when we were talking, we may get penalized for the MBTA thing and all of that. And, uh, I, I got that signal maybe from the, from the, uh, our, our House representative as well. But I think we should submit it. Yes, you’re right. I, I chose, I knew that in order to get this done by October, we had to go to somebody to could write what needs to be done in two weeks. I’m the only person that I know of that volunteered to do that. And therefore, these are the two things that I’m best able to write. But I actually think they are the best for us right now.

1:15:44 Um, maternal child health landscape to understand the community strengths and ga and gaps in understanding infant children. The town of mar, the town of Marblehead, uh, every, most of you probably know, uh, hospitals are required to do a health status survey of their in catchment areas every three years. Salem Hospital did theirs in 2022, and I looked at that. It’s very interesting. Marblehead is the third highest percentage of under 18, and the second highest percentage of over 60

1:16:32 or something like that. And therefore relatively low from working class, the middle aged people. And, and so I think that this our, our challenge of making sure we have all the social services. You are welcome to go on that line and, and, and find another one that you’d rather do. And you can, we, I’m just saying that I, I don’t think it’s like when, when we apply for United Way, uh, like at the YMC of, of the JCC, we ask for funding and they laugh and updates because they wanna skip to Lowell and to, right. But I think With our Short funding Or our, you know, level funded, I think this is our option to see if we can become eligible and try to increase the public health of the community. What’s the harm? What’s the harm he’s willing

1:17:19 to write it and stuff like that. I was wondering if it was something that was more appropriate, and I don’t think we should worry about the MBTA. I think we, Yeah, I think we should do it. Yeah. I think if, if, if ER’s willing to do it, clearly any grant writer knows, the first thing you do is submit the first grant. You likelihood if you’re getting, that may be pretty small, but you’ll get a, what we used to call a pink sheet. You get a review of what it looks like, and then you’ll be able to be much better to preparing the next one. So if somebody tells us that this isn’t a very good proposal, well, I’ll apologize and we’ll write again. Uh, but I’m sure it’s gonna be a good proposal. But whether we’re the, the community, the best community to be receiving it, that’s all.

1:18:05 We might not be. Please, it is not a robust website. It doesn’t tell anything about how it, it, it, it, it, it isn’t implied. And I spoke to the, to the director of it and she did not imply that it’s competition. No, Dr. To call the director? No. At mass. Oh, I, yeah, that’s different. Oh, okay. Yeah. I spoke to the person who’s running this competition or this, this program. Okay. The, the, the best practice program by the executive of, of, of Massachusetts. And she did not in any way imply that it’s competitive. It’s first come, first serve,

1:18:52 and I, I don’t know, it, it doesn’t give what it wants, but whatever it wants, I can figure out how to work with Thatcher to get it done. But for me to do one or two of these between now and September 1st, I need to know why October. Hmm. October 1st. October 1st, uh, we’re better off than I write about things. I know I was chair of the Maternal Mortality Review committee for the State of New Mexico for three years. So I know a little bit about maternal. Yeah, you do those sorts of things. I mean, I, you, you, you’ve got me. Okay. I be blank and I’m here, so you might as well use me. All right. I just, I just was questioning, I don’t wanna be a one blank. I just was questioning that whether

1:19:37 we we would get it or not. And so, Well, if we don’t, then we don’t. If we don’t get it because I’ve chosen the wrong ones, then I’ll apologize. But these are the two that I’m best prepared to write. Okay. We do, If you wanna write, go online and find which one you wanna write. Go ahead. Uh, so yeah, so, Um, state of Massachusetts best practices Grand. I can send you the link tomorrow. Oh, that would be great. Yeah, because I could do something in my field. Right. But we need to decide that Tom’s gonna write this so he can get it done and we can move forward with these grants. Well, but we can, I, I make the motion then that we, um, do request that, um, to Thatcher that he submit it for us on our behalf.

1:20:23 And if we have to modify which one we’re gonna do based on Helene’s review, that’s fine. Well, The other thing is, is that I, I was told that the town was, was picking No. So the town’s not gonna go forward with the grant. I talked to Alicia today. Um, so I, I believe our two will be the two that will be submitting. Okay. I have not obviously, you know, factual need to check with any other department, but I think we would be the ones that would be submitting for this grant. Okay. Oh, that’s good news. Alright, well, why don’t we, uh, I, I’m looking for motion to, uh, to, uh, authorize, uh, Dr. Zaro to write a, a grant to grants and add as stated, You gotta write the motion to ask Thatcher to put us in the competition. I’m not gonna start writing

1:21:10 until I know we’re in the competition. We’re in the program. That’s what does, Does the town administrator have to do that? Yes. Yeah, that’s in the, so is That your motion? Yes. I, I stand Now. I’ll second it, But that’s in the motion. Yes. Okay. Yeah. So the Board of Health requests. Okay, I’ll, I’ll review, Read that to us. Lisa, uh, The Thomas, I requests the time administrator to submit the following proposals for funding for the FY 25 best Practice programs of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Um, a that’s, you know, and then they said that here. So You’ve got it all there? Yep, I Have it there. You had it? Yeah. Okay. Well, I have it right here too. I didn’t need exactly. No, that’s, that’s not what I sent. Well, anyway,

1:21:55 It’s all second it, so now we vote on it. All in favor. So yeah, I’ll talk to Thatcher tomorrow about it, um, and make sure we try to get moving on this. If we need to have a meeting, then we’ll have a meeting. But Yeah, once it’s approved, then I think Thatcher can ask us to write and I’ll certainly talk to, I’m, I’m gonna talk to the community and, and one of the jobs that I’m, I, I’m prepared to do is to try to develop an advisory board and hopefully we’ll get a few names. This is a talented, talented town. If we can get a half a dozen people to say they’re gonna support it, I don’t think anybody on Beacon Hill is gonna say they, they’re not capable of doing it. Even though we may have fewer

1:22:42 babies born here than other places. I mean, this is, this is a, an incredible place.

1:22:52 Uh, so, um, can we move on with the bills? Yeah. Thank you. So this is just between last meeting and this current meeting. What came up? So, uh, we paid Agri Source $560, that’s grinding and co post removal. Um, a one exterminators that’s for rack control. We paid them $245 at T Mobility. That’s internet access. We paid 80 and, uh, Verizon Internet access. We paid 1 69 61 Black Earth Compost. They do residential food, composting, pickup, and replacement bags. We paid 1,604, um, Bob’s Tire Co. That’s for tire disposal. Uh, we paid 1065 Spot seven five Elon Financial Services. That’s the credit card used to purchase, uh, TerraCycle boxes for the schools to recycle chip bags.

1:23:38 We paid 1,417 Spot 5G and L Labs Inc. That’s testing services. We paid $490 Home Depot for curbside recycling bins and maintenance supplies. We paid $771 and 74 cents. John Deere Financial, that’s where we lease. Um, to own our loader, we paid 29,916 Spot oh six Marblehead Counseling for psychological counseling. We paid $3,259 and 96 cents Mar. That’s part of our 120 Mm-Hmm. Marblehead Light Department for electricity, $767 and 37 cents Marblehead water and sewer for water and sewer. So 115 Spot seven Next Gen Supply Group, which is custodial supplies paid

1:24:23 a hundred eighteen sixty eight, uh, printer Pro Solutions Inc. That’s miscellaneous office supplies. We paid $481 38 cents, RMG Enterprise, LLC. That, uh, is a company that recycles, um, TVs, monitors, laptops and things like that. Uh, we paid $605 and 46 cents. Uh, Uline Inc. Which is, uh, barrels for the school kitchens. We paid, uh, $2,859 and 69 cents Utech Inc. Mattress Recycling. We paid $4,866 Waste Management. That’s for trash disposal. Um, $71,782 and 15 cents. William Scottsman Inc. That’s the trailer rental $647 16 cents.

1:25:11 And Winter Street Architects, Inc. That’s the firm for the transfer station project, $8,200. And some of the, those are all just expenses. Some of those we do make money on. So I’m just showing the out.

1:25:28 I’m interested in the, uh, school stuff that we’re purchasing. Do they get, do they We, We have expanded the school composting program. Um, so now all schools are composting both in the kitchens and in the cafeterias. But do they Reimburses? No. So we support that program and so we brought the supplies to get, get it kickstarted. Uh, we pay for Black Earth, who is the collection company for them as well. Uh, we pay for all the disposal of the trash. We pay for all the disposal of the recycling as well. It’s all kind of part of the program.

1:26:03 And was that all followed up to a clear, Uh, let’s take a look at the budget. So, I mean, we’ve spent, uh, in this fiscal year, we have budgeted $180,000, um, for recycling, compost disposal. Um, you know, there’s a whole, you know, that, that r and g, the TV monitor recycling. So that’s, uh, there’s a whole bunch of things that go into that. Um, I can’t give you the number off the top of my head for Waste Management. Is This, is this the first year we’ve done it with the school? No, so we’ve been doing the school compost program for quite some time. Um, but we’ve only been in the high school for the longest period of time. We’ve been in the, um, veterans Middle school for the last, this will be the second year. Um, and now we’re in all schools. Um, it’s part of the Waste Reduction program for

1:26:48 through the state of Massachusetts as well. But yeah, this is the first year that we’ll be in both elementary schools and then, uh, the village school. Okay. And that’s collection twice a week for, um, compost up there as well. Well, that’s something that the school Chameleon Oaks should know about. Yeah. Obviously I’m sure a lot of kids are coming home and talking about it with their parents. Um, and yeah, we’re, you know, it’s a great program. Really the idea is to teach the kids in the elementary schools. Um, they’ll actually bring it home with them and increase the amount of, um, food recycling that’s done throughout the whole community. Um, but it makes it easier as they go up through the, the middle school and the high school.

1:27:30 Okay. Do you wanna quickly, When we look at schools, we look at them as really a zero, uh, waste facilities technically. Um, there shouldn’t be a lot of trash that comes out of there. You think should be either recycling or compostable in an ideal world. Well, we started with compostable Yeah. In those TerraCycle. Yep. We started with a compostable with, uh, Michelle Beck. Correct. Alright, so do you wanna quickly, uh, Yeah, I’ll go over a couple things. Yeah. Obviously, you know, this is kind of, we’re coming to the end of, um, peak mosquito season. Um, we don’t have any issues in Marblehead, but across the state there’s warnings for Triple E and West N Virus. Um, I think the biggest piece is that, um, people always need to remember and keep these things in their mind when they’re in Marblehead, when they’re traveling, when they’re going

1:28:16 to other communities, especially during this fall when they might be traveling for sports. Um, you really should be wearing mosquito repellent during the day as well as during the evening times. Um, and during the evening times from dawn to dusk, you really should be considering wearing long sleeves. Um, and this includes traveling not to Florida, to the islands, everywhere you go. At this point, we really want to remind people that this needs to be in your mind. You really need to be considering this, these issues. Um, there’s other diseases that will be coming about more and more. Um, dengue fever is on the rise. We’re seeing more and more cases, um, across the state of Massachusetts. So we just really wanna remind everybody about that. Um, with the rodents, um, we are a coastal community. We do have rodents. Um, if you have a concern about them or you’re seeing them, um, we always recommend

1:29:03 that you hire a pest control company. Um, but if you, we do have a flyer that we send out. So if we get a phone call in, um, with somebody that has concern about rodents, um, we flyer the neighborhood. We have a standard flyer that goes out, um, about things that you can do. Um, you know, talks about trapping, it talks about hiring a company, um, making sure your garbage is put away, making sure that there’s no food sources. Um, right now we’re seeing a little bit more activity for rodents. Um, and it’s mainly because we’re having a really dry spell right now. Um, so they’re, they’re chasing a water source. Um, they’ll be going into your flower beds, they’ll be going into, really your fruit and vegetable gardens are, are really popular right now. Um, they’re going to steal those, you know, cherry tomatoes and stuff like that, um, as a water source. Um, so there’s a little bit more activity around that.

1:29:50 Um, we’ve definitely got a couple extra phone calls. We just always wanna remind communities, you know, the whole community about that. Um, it’s really important, uh, what you do will affect your neighbors and, and it can just kinda, it can spi spiral outta control really quickly. Um, you need to remember about bird feeders and all the things like that. Anything can become a food source, uh, even dog waste. So I just wanna really remind everybody about that. Um, trans, The squirrels and the bunnies are that Squirrels and the bunnies are part of that. Yep. Um, transit station update. Um, we are in the process of putting the project up to bid. Um, with that we have to gather, you know, you know, we have to do the whole process again. Um, so I do have a change order from the architects, um,

1:30:35 for the consulting fees for doing all this work, you know, doing some redrafting and then we get everything out to back, out to bid, um, bid documents, all that stuff. Um, so I had not to exceed 41,575 that I’m asking to be approved. And this is not to exceed. So we’re trying to work with the architect as much as possible. Say, no, you don’t need to spend that money, you need to stop there. Um, but this is everything that he is put together. So the consultants and myself will review it and make sure that, you know, every chance we have, um, we could try to save some money. So not to exceed 41,000. Yeah. 41,575. What was it? What was it the last time? Uh, for the whole thing. So the, to like the last time it was a little over 200.

1:31:21 Yeah. For the design and everything. Yeah. Um, so this is all for the bidding documents. Going back to the consultants, they didn’t separate out the bidding portion. So in the, in the past they’ve separated out the bidding. Yeah. But we’ve already spent, we’ve already gone out to bid once. So you spent, you’ve spent all that money. Yeah. So now that you’re going out to bid again, you don’t know what the portion, the 200? I don’t, no, I can, yeah. I didn’t bring it with me, so, Mm-Hmm. Do you mind if I put in up to 40 1005 75? That’s fine. Not to exceed. Yep. Because it has a little bit different connotation. That’s fine. Alright. I would like to, uh, have somebody make a motion of not to, uh, uh, up to 40 1005 75. I’ll make the motion to, for the consulting to, yeah. Up to 41,000. What

1:32:09 Is it? Five seven. 5 5 70 second. All all in favor? Mm-Hmm.

1:32:14 Um, I, I’ve spoken to the school. I have some dates we can talk afterwards. Okay. So you can share with the people. Uh, I have five dates, uh, beginning of November. Perfect. Um, so I’m sure we can get something to work with that. Um, I have household hazardous waste coming up on October 16th. Um, we’re doing this event slightly different. Try to make sure that we try to, you know, capture everybody in Marblehead. It is gonna be a Wednesday event, and it’s from four in the afternoon to seven o’clock in the evening. Uh, the transfer station will be closed, so it’ll be just for household hazardous waste. Um, I also have a company, so we’ll have the company to take care of all your household hazardous waste. Um, always taking latex paint this time.

1:33:00 We’re separated now to latex paint. So a little change with that. Um, I’ll be taking TVs, monitors, all that stuff like before. Um, again, Marblehead residents can get rid of one of that stuff every day. Um, but yes, from four to seven, um, we will be posting this on the website. It’s up there now, uh, but slightly different. Um, and so we’re, we’re excited again. We’re trying to make sure that we hit everybody in the community, um, so they’re able to hit these events. Um, and that’s it. Well, thank you very much. Uh, any questions from the public?

1:33:37 Thank you for coming and staying with us. Um, anything online? Gentlemen?

1:33:44 No. Hands up. Did everybody have a good evening? And thank you for coming and it was a projective evening. Thank you. Hi. Thanks. Yes. Yeah. Have you seen this again?