Board of Health: October 8, 2024

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.

0:08 And, uh, on the first item on the agenda, unless anybody has any other comments, and it’s about the, uh, charter committee discussion. That meeting will be held, uh, in the selections room on October 22nd at 6:00 PM They’ve given us several questions to answer, and I just discussed it with my board. Well, I didn’t discuss it. I mentioned it to my board that, um, we’re not gonna go over the whole, uh, program that we’re gonna present because there’s no need to do it here and then there again. So I think that we’ll present it unless you have any questions about No, my, my Comments, what I would suggest is, I think we agreed last time

0:53 that there’s absolutely no reference in the bylaws to either the Department of Health or anything about the way the board relates to the Department of Health. The, the, the co, the, uh, the charter committee is not gonna deal with that kind of details. I believe the board working with the department should develop, I think it’s called a warrant. Is that what we need to take to the town meeting? That’s a warrant. If you wanna present an article. Yes. And we, we propose how the board works with the departments. Okay. Because there’s nothing in there. And it’s much easier.

1:40 What, the way I understand it, that once the charter, if the charter is approved, then it becomes Massachusetts law and it would have to go through the legislature again to make any changes. So I think we should work at defining the relationship between the, the board and the department departments, and have that in the bylaws, which is changeable in the town meeting. Well, last time, last month, I read to you what I got from the Mass Association of, of Voice of Health. So I’m looking for it right now, is here. How Does that work at town meeting? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. You just read What you want.

2:26 No. You bring an article at this, at the, uh, no. I mean, I know how an article, but this is all language more than voting on anything like, you know, kind of like a leaf blower ban. It’s like, this is like, we’re gonna rewrite. So you just read it to the town and say yes or no. Well, when we just asked for the five member board, we wrote a Yeah, no, but that’s, that, that’s what I, and then They voted on. We, we read it and No, but I’m saying like, that’s different. ‘cause that’s like, I, we’d like to go from three to five. That’s an easy vote. Like this is all language. It’s not that to separate. Well, but it doesn’t have to be more than a PA pager or, so I, I think that, well, I think you both know my biases. I believe that we ought to work very hard

3:12 to convince the town that, that the Board of Health does more than the transfer station. And we have a, an agenda to deal with the public health of the community. And we ought to say that, and that that’s our responsibility in the bylaws. And therefore we ought to get the town to, to agree to that. Well, the Charter committee’s gonna hear a lot of that. Yeah, no, I’m just wondering more like, do you have to read them everything that you like word for word, what you write in the bylaws? Is that Y Yeah, I think so. That becomes, that becomes the town’s, the town’s law. But it is changeable. The, the difference between the bylaws and the charter is the charter is a big deal. Yeah. But I don’t think that the charter committee is gonna come to

4:00 the de the level of detail about the Board of Health or any other board. Okay. No, I’m not opposed to it. I’m just curious. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Tell Yeah.

4:14 ‘cause it’s not like, you know, it’s not like bylaws or regulations or, you know, bylaws, you know, like OHCC where it spells out exactly what you would see Or, right. This would be like a long thing. Right? This would be, you know, This Would Be law, Right? So I have a little different twist on this. I spoke to, uh, Charlotte SBAR at Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, and she wrote me and sent me the Organization of Health Boards. And in the fourth paragraph, she wrote, A vote of town meeting may replace a board of health with a department, with the state, with calling it a department. That’s Paragraph 1 1 1 in the Massachusetts General, right. That the Health Department shall consist of a commissioner of public health who shall exercise the duties of the Board of Health.

5:01 So the Commissioner of Public Health shall exercise the duties of the Board of Health. So there’s a very real connection between the Commissioner of Health and the Board of Health exercise, the duties of the Board of Health with a, with advice of an Advisory Council of Health. I don’t know what an Advisory Council of Health is. Do you? The advisory means that what I, in my mind, that’s what we are. We rubber stamp things through DocuSign, and we don’t do, we don’t set policy or strategy. I would write something very different. Do we Do set Policy? Sorry? We do set policy. Well, I’m, I’ve been here now for two years, and except for voting on lawnmowers or leaf blowers and hearing the person talk about tobacco,

5:48 I’m not seeing many policies. We basically approve what AAMI thinks we ought to do. So the rest of this is many municipalities or boards of health refer informally to the collective staff. Staff as the health department. It’s informal, even though they are not statutorily created health departments.

6:12 I, I, I know I’ve read all that. I believe me, I, I’ve read all that. That is what is done in general. But there we read a whole bunch of charters and bylaws from other places. And I think it’s in the Department of Health’s best interest. And it’s in the department. It’s in the, in the board’s best interest to have our responsibilities delineated. To have an organization that has what’s a budget? How many millions of dollars and have nothing in the bylaws of the community to speak to. It is delinquent in my mind. Um, it, it’s not unique.

6:59 We have a town administrator and there’s not a word about the town administrator in anything, but that is, that is gonna be corrected by the chart. Well, we do have a mission statement. We do have all these things that you’ve been, uh, given and, um, I, I wasn’t ready for this discussion, but I do have here, do we have a misuse statement? We has, what, what is the Board of Health and what is the health department? Here is the statement right here of our own, But that does not appear in the bylaws. We could make, we could in the bylaws of the town. Well, that’s what they’re working on now, is the charter committee. No, charter committee’s not gonna change the bylaws. They’re Not, they’re not looking at it. Well, the, the, the charter committee is gonna be at 30,000 feet.

7:47 The Board of Health and the Department of Health operate on a daily, monthly basis, rather than waste everybody’s time. I had set up scheduled to set up an appointment with Andrew that we would try to provide a draft to bring back for discussion. We, you can vote it down. That’s fine. Uh, um, but I, I just think that if we’re, if the goal of the 21st century deliberation that’s going on in the charter committee is to make the town more efficient and therefore make it a better place to live, we should delineate the responsibilities and we ought to be able

8:32 to hold each other accountable for what we do. Andrew admitted the other day that he, at the other meeting, the last meeting, that he’s never had a formal review. He can’t run a business like that. Right. But We’re not a business, well, We are an organization that has certain goals and objectives and that there has to be a way of capturing organizational history and knowledge and all of those things. Isn’t that in a job description? Who has a job description? Do you have a job description? Yes. Oh, yeah. I’m not seeing that. Yeah, He does have one. Because when we hire, when we hire, we have the job description.

9:18 Is it contemporary? The, you know, we can send it around, but it’s set by the Compensation Committee. They’re the one that, uh, essentially approves it. Um, it gets graded and scored, and that’s how it goes on the salary table.

9:35 So, while you’re thinking about that, what is the Board of Health and what is the health department? These, this is our document. The Board of Health and Health Department, two distinct, but connected entities, um, are charged of protecting and safeguarding the public and environmental health from the town of Marblehead, both the public and the environmental as we know it. That’s how we subdivided our committees. The Board of Health is, sta is a statutory board comprised of three community leaders, which now will change at, at, at large, elected by the residents for a three year term. One member of the Board of Health is the chairperson elected by the board annually. Health Department is a professionally staffed office within the town of Marblehead, department of Health and Waste consisting of a director of public health nurse administrative staff and health inspectors. See if even if we expand that, we have

10:22 to change that language. The Board of Health holds monthly meetings and conducts public health hearings as necessary. Oftentimes, the board functions in a quasi judicial manner, uh, to adjudicate hearings for health code violations. Generally speaking, the board adopts regulations that provide protections beyond the minimum standards outlined in the marblehead general laws, um, and sets town-wide policy related to important health issues. While the Health Department handles the day-to-Day, procedural operations, administrative duties, and executes the various health laws and regulations, the health department may also be delegated as the enforcing authority by town bylaws passed by town meeting the municipal, the municipal equivalent of the legislature. The health department in broad terms, also works to prevent

11:07 and control, control communicable diseases and promote the healthy community among other things. So, I mean, I don’t know where that last sentence is, that last sentence in the bylaws, The Health department. I, I don’t know how, how much is in the bylaws. I mean, I, I don’t disagree with you about it. You know, if we were all to disappear today and they were to reorganize Marblehead and they had to reorganize the, the Board of Health and the Health Department, is there enough information there where they could replicate what we have put together and what we have today? I think that’s kind of your point. Like, let’s really make sure that it’s spelled out. Um, these are the duties of the Board of Health. These are the duties of the health department. This is what we expect.

11:52 Right. So this is interesting. It goes on, I mean, to me, the board through the, the board through the health department provides inspection services aimed at protecting the public and environmental health. So we work in tandem, Right? So originally you have, you know, so master law says the Board of Health must oversee all these different operations. So we, we went through that last meeting. Now obviously board members are not working day-to-Day on all these issues. So all those responsibilities, you know, essentially delegated to the department. Now, if there’s certain inspection, so, you know, if a housing inspection is conducted. So if somebody calls me to say I’m having a housing issue, I want you to come in and do an inspection that falls under the rules and regulations of the state of Massachusetts.

12:39 We go out, conduct the inspection. I send out an enforcement order. If the owner of the property wants to challenge the enforcement order, he is the right to a hearing. That hearing would first be before the Board of Health. Um, so you know, the owner, and we’ve had, yes, the owner of the property could state his side. I can state my findings, and the board would ultimately decide which way they would, you know, decide on the decision of that. If you chose to, you know, if the owner of the property wants to challenge that, then it goes to mass court. Um, but that’s kind of the procedure that’s in place, um, for certain inspections. But, but that all of that is how we run the operation. Yep. I would like to define, find

13:27 the relationship between the board and the department in terms of on one hand, strategy and policy. And on the other hand, operations, it is exactly what the charter committee is gonna do with the select board and the, uh, town administrator. The town administrator is the day-to-day operational person, person who manages the long-term goals of the select board. I believe, just for an example, uh, uh, you have quoted to me off or many of us that even for size, we are one of the least well supported departments of health in the States. Right. Okay.

14:12 I would think that the board, because Andrew is a town or I think you’re a town employee or department of health. Yeah. Andrew can’t say what I think we should say. I’ve got that as one of my, my Yeah, we should be. So I can obviously say that, you know, we’re, we’re grossly underfunded. I do say that, that during our FinCon meetings, um, obviously I have to make sure that we meet statu, you know, state mandates, you know, certain inspections are done. And then yes, the board could say, these are the areas that I want to expand public health. These are the things that are missing. Um, and obviously, we’ll, we’ll talk a little bit that about that later. Um, but these are the things in The directions that we think we should, you know, be dealing with. So I think that the statement that I read initially, the first para first sentence was the Board

14:59 of Health and Health Department. Two distinct, but kinetic connected entities. That’s the first sentence. I think Tom’s just expanding on that Basically. No, he’s separating it. Yeah. I would say the distinction is that our role is long-term strategy and policy. And the department’s role is day-to-Day operational implementation. And we both work in tandem. And it, it does not say that anywhere. Yeah. That’s, and anything official of this, of this town, just expanding that. We may write that in the book, but we could write the, that in the book that I could run a marathon tomorrow and it wouldn’t matter. It only matters if it goes through the town. Look, I’m new here, but that’s certainly what I am when I are seeing it differently.

15:45 One other thing, I, as I pointed out to Andrew when I went into his office the other day, you walk on in the upstairs in the corridor and there’s a shingle outside of the office. What does it say? Board of Health. Board of Health. Yeah. And that’s, what does it say? That’s the hi in my mind, the hypocrisy of it all, we don’t do that. Yeah. This board is an advisory board to Andrew’s office, and he Has a sign, but behind his head that says Board of Health, But he could put a, he could put a, he gotta make firewood. He could put a Trump sign up behind his, he could do any number of other things. The the town runs on bylaws. None of this is in a bylaw. Okay. But this is what’s been written and that how we have been operating.

16:31 And if we wanna, if you wanna change the way we operate or the way that the, uh, the board is constructed or the way the department is constructed, you’re gonna have to present that to us. Well, I just said that I have set up an i we, we canceled it. Andrew’s not me though. I mean Well, but we’ll bring it to you. But before we’ll bring it to the board. Let’s bring it to you before 22nd. Sorry. No, this has nothing to do with the charter. It it, it is the, the conversation has been triggered by what the town is learning about the charter committee. From the charter committee. The town is learning that there is absolutely no legal structure that guides anything. We do. That’s why they’re probably doing a charter

17:18 among other things that I know what, what started the, the discussion. But it had to do with some of the election procedures. So I, I am quite prepared to, unfortunately we can’t see you and I can’t sit and talk, but Andrew and I can sit and talk. I would only change some of the stuff that you’ve read. But I think the distinction that is nowhere in anything that you’ve said, nor is it anything that I can see and either the bylaws or the state government that this board, because we are elected by the people, we have the responsibility for the long-term policy, uh, and strategy. Do you, Do you consider that that office, that something

18:04 that you oversee the health depart? Yeah. So, so if you oversee it there, there’s a, but What, show me where it says then the bylaws. I Don’t think there’s anything wrong with the policy. He’s just saying, put it in writing, signed. We, We Sign there, we signed their, uh, paycheck. What’s the harm in the Joke? What’s The harm in putting it in the bylaws? The Harm in putting the bylaws. It’s two separate distinct groups. ‘cause it’s not in my eyes. Okay. So you just don’t agree that they’re two separate and distinct groups, but you’re not enforcing anything, which is kind of what Tom’s saying. Like Don’t, but he’s, he, it’s not, he hasn’t been enforced by anyone. But I have language that I would rather present than what Okay. Well That’s let’s is to have a, you know, to continue this long discussion. Yeah. And, and look at the organization as a whole

18:51 and start to try to capture, you know, what occurs, how it works. You know, we need to start looking at long-term planning, like Right. And, and so, you know, should the document say, you know, we will be looking at long-term planning every three years. You, you, you wanna start to capture some of the stuff. Or, you know, maybe there’s a calendar that’s associated with it that matches some of the stuff. Again, if we were all to disappear and this organization needs to continue, right. How would those people do it? They documents, would they pick up? Take a look at it. All right. This, this is kind of our blueprint to this department. Yeah. And, and the, and the board itself. So If you two have different views on it, why don’t you just each write one out Yeah. Long term conversation. Yeah. And the other thing that just to, you know,

19:39 I’ve worked in boards of health, you’ve run a board of health and it’s our health department. I dunno what you call yours, but I would, I worked, no, I was the chief medical officer. What? That’s a technocrat of the Department of Health, state Department Health. I was, I worked for the Board of Health as, but, uh, as a health educator. So, but the thing is, is that we, uh, we have little different opinion. If We probably don’t have a opinion about where we wanna end up, you think we’re already there. I just think we need a step to define what, how we’ve been operating. If We’re gonna be separate and he’s the Department of Health and we’re the Board of health, you’re Always separate. We, but we have no, right. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t wanna sit behind your desk. I don’t have the time. Um, I, uh, I I think that,

20:27 um, we have no Right. Signing his paycheck. We don’t oversee him. But that’s just a procedural thing. And, and some of that stuff can be looked at as well. Um, you know, because that, that’s a finance procedural piece that ha that’s in place. Um, and, and you know, if there’s questions about that, ask the questions, let’s look into it and see why it’s done that way. And We, and we hired him. Right. But we have, But you, yeah. So you hire me, but you don’t hire the rest of, you know, the department, But, but you hire the rest of him, which means that it falls on our Yep. And we sign the, the whole Paper. But, but when you look at the, in Marblehead as an organization, you know, if I look at, you know, I’m gonna say the, the fire department, you know, who signs the fire chief’s paycheck? Who signs The select board? I’m not so sure about that. Yeah. So ultimately, yeah, when the select board is signs the ultimate warrant

21:12 for the paychecks for the payroll, yeah. They’re signing off on that. Um, the fire chief signs on for all of his employees, but he doesn’t have anybody else that’s signing on for all of his employees like you do for us. So those things should be looked at. Why, why are we doing some of this stuff? It, it doesn’t always make, make sense. So we, because We’ve been autonomous and we, that’s Honestly, this is the way it’s been so that the way it gets done, it’s been, it, it doesn’t mean that it’s correct. It doesn’t mean it’s right or wrong. Right. I, I think all the Tom’s suggestion is, you know, let’s take a look at all this stuff. Alright, let’s make sure our operations, I have no problem taking a look at it, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Yeah. We probably have a different view of what, how along the broken access it might be.

21:58 I do not see this as a policy setting board. I’ve been on lots of policy setting boards, and this is not one of them. Uh, uh, I’m sorry. But we, we, we don’t see budget at the end of the meeting. Last time Andrew handed us the, the, the projected budget for we had nothing. No three, none of the three of us had anything to do with creating that. This is in no way a criticism. And we are lucky we have Andrew make it. That’s clearly true. But just because Andrew is as good at his job as he is, doesn’t mean we have a right to say we’re a policy making. We divide By line in fact and f*****g, and we now have to promote at, at the, uh, charter meeting that we need more staff

22:44 that we’re totally, totally understaffed. And my sense is we have never said that to this community other than our small meeting. I’ve been saying Since Okay. O Obviously like, you know, we pick and choose our times to make those statements. We’re not standing up at town, at town meeting after we’ve gone through the whole financial budgeting program and, and po you know, um, And voted and agreed. Yeah. And voted in decreed. We’re not standing up at town, at town meeting saying, you know, finance departments underfunding us. You know, we made an agreement that that’s the budget that we’re presenting. Mm-Hmm. Now, during our hearings or during those meetings, we will definitely say, you do understand the state of Massachusetts has looked at budgets for health departments.

23:30 This is how they recommend you as, you know, come to a budget for the health department. And we are woefully underfunded by 43. You know, we’re only 43% of what the state of Massachusetts says we really should have. Now the town is in a financial, you know, pitfall. And sometimes we have to live within The, the only concern I have about that is I, I don’t think we fight this battle on dollars and cents. I think that the group, the three of us, or next, uh, next year, the five of us decide what we would like the public health services of the town of Marblehead to be like in five years. We present that to the finance board and they will say, that’s fundamentally different than what we do now.

24:16 Therefore, let’s figure out how to get them the money. I think we convince them what we can do. So Understand they’ll give us the Money. So obviously you have state mandates of these are the things that you have to hit on. So you have to have minimum staff to do that and then to reach those, you know, additional goals or levels. Yes. The board can present a budget of this is what we want. This is where we didn’t wanna be. Um, I, I have a suggestion. Yeah. Could we have a subcommittee of Dr. Zaro and myself to knock out this stuff? You, so, and we Okay. Andrew ought to be in every Andrew. Yeah. See, see, you can but you, so every time you meet has to, you might, you might

25:02 as well just have it do it here. It’s Like, well, you should post it and, but we could do it in the morning and whoever wants to show up in the morning. Right. So, so this goes to the other piece, because we are so woefully underfunded, I am sure staffed. And anytime we meet, you’re taking me away from something else. So you just have to remember that We could meet once with you and then go up on another meeting and by two meetings we could get it done. But yeah, we, we can definitely do it. Well, we Can each take a cut and a draft. That’s What I think you should do. And Sharon, I mean, we don’t have to meet the two. I think the town needs to see personally, the town needs three. The needs to see that the three of us are working together with a common respectful, uh, vision of where we’re going.

25:49 And, and I think that we ought to do it right. Like we’re doing it now. Now hopefully next month we’re, we’re tied up. But we’ve always set up a separate meeting to do that. And we, we brainstorm around If you wanna have a, if you wanna have an a, a a, an appointed meeting, public meeting to do something and get something that we both agree on to present on October 22nd, I am available.

26:16 Wait, but like, well, two, two separate things. Yeah. That’s a, yeah. So a, the October 22nd is the charter. Right. But I think if, if, if Tom’s gonna bring something up that’s, that I feel differently about or that he Oh, at the charter committee? Yeah. No, this is, No, I’m not gonna bring anything up to charter committee. Oh, you’re not? No, no. I’ll go through the four questions now. I expect that you will be the chair, you’ll be speaking, and then the way it’s done so far, then they will ask the committee members, do you agree or disagree? I will probably disagree with you on several things, respectfully, courteously. Right. And you know that, but I’m not gonna, I I am certainly not gonna make, You don’t think we should go in there as a united group. That’s No, I I don’t think that’s the idea. It’s not the idea. I think the idea is

27:02 that get everybody’s opinion. Say this is the way I like government to be working. I think it’s working well this way, or I, I don’t think this is working. We need to figure something out. You know? Okay. So why don’t We, the two questions Go ahead. I was gonna say one, don’t we move on. Well, two questions that I think we might wanna be together on. Um, and I, I’m prepared to say that I would defer to Andrew because we will be asked whether the transfer station should sit sitting in another department. And Well, when I first came here and before I was on the board, I would’ve agreed wholeheartedly that that’s the way it should be. I have learned from in, in his orientation of

27:51 Meri driving Ryan and all that stuff, that there is value in the way we do it. It also gives a mass association of, it’s also in the, in the, the Texas in mass general law. Yeah. Yeah. No Wellesley, it isn’t, It’s still Mass general law. So the Wellesley Board of Health still oversees the transfer station. It’s just not under them.

28:14 Okay. Yeah. Yep. Okay. That’s one. And the second one is, uh, and I, I have to say this sounds self-serving, but I don’t mean it to be. But in many of the charters and bylaws we see they require a professional level training at least one member of the board, either as a physician or a public health professional or something like that. I think that’s a question we Always had. The public health professional not always had a physician, But, but, but not anywhere written. It doesn’t, we could have three strangers come in in the middle of the night. The, the question is whether you would wanna do that. And I don’t even have, I don’t, in the current anti-elitist mindset of the society, I think that’s a risk.

29:04 I think in general, the town will benefit because the town has so damn many smart people who have done really good things. We ought to be able to find public health professionals or physicians or nurses, you know, master’s level nurses, those sorts of people. Um, but the question is whether we should say that that’s, that’s, those are the two questions. Well, I think it should, we should be a little more, more global. You don’t, you don’t have to have an mph. HI mean, I don’t have an MPHI, I have a bachelor’s in public health, but, but, um, Well, whatever, whatever. Should, should we just say David Becker has an MPH. Sorry, David Becker has an MPH. Jeff, you have a md. So we’ve always been c covered,

29:49 But it doesn’t say that anywhere. Right? Yeah. But, But I think it’s better to be a little loose on that. Because what if one year you don’t, so One of the, one of the charter committee questions, Somebody say Being loose is just not having it. That’s fine David And you, but that’s the year you, David, and you lost the ballot. So what do we do then? We, we go and Well, but you, if you, if you, if the who has it? I think it’s swamp. Scott. I think that the physician is appointed to an elected board. Mm-Hmm. It, it can be, if you wanted a professional on the board that that’s, that’s the level of conversation I think we need to have. We don’t have to have it. They’ll ask. We certainly, I know I can, I I can guess which one

30:37 of my colleagues on the charter committee is gonna ask whether we think the transfer station should be somewhere else. And we know now that it can’t be. ‘cause it’s in the, Well it can be. But you still have to oversee, there still has to be inspections done by the board or the department. And who Saw these decisions that you, you’ve been making for the last 12 years? Well, you know, it would be a depart like another department head. But again, there’s still certain things that I would have to go in and inspect to make sure that work is being conducted. It’ll Be another department in running there. Yeah. It could, you know, if that’s the direction the town chose to be in. Um, but yes, there’s some, you know, there’s always concerns about that. But that’s, you know, Well, it sounds like we, the three of us is kind of an agreement. It’s not perfect, but the transfer station benefits from being in the Department of Health. Yeah.

31:24 And once this big project gets done, which has been going on for 15 years, we’ll, We’ll move on to the next project.

31:34 There’s gonna be an next one. There’s, there’s gonna be next one. It’s just like your house. But I think one, one of the questions with the charter committee can be, you know, for your boards, you know, is it elected or is it an appointed? You know, or, or is it a combination of those two? And so some of those, you know, um, you know, if, if you are trying to make sure that there’s a doctor on there, um, does there need to be an appointed doctor? Or h how do you make sure that the makeup is consistent with You do a, a check for us to see how many boards on the offshore are elected and appointed. I Most of them are elected. Most of them elected. Yeah. And so that, so that sort of speaks to that. I mean, we don’t have to be, but it seems that that’s the way they’re going.

32:21 Well, so it is now five F eight. Okay. And we’ve spent 35 minutes on this. So well See. But I think that’s what a board as well, debating policy and strategy. And that’s what we’ve just done. Yeah. Did we come to a conclusion? We don’t have to come to No, We, I think I, I am better prepared and hopefully Tommy is too. We understand your position a little bit stronger, and hopefully you understand ours a little bit better. That’s why that’s if all, a lot of the stuff that I find difficult would go away immediately if we didn’t have the open meeting law. Right. Well, And the, the idea with the open, Well, that’s gonna change in in June. No, it’s not gonna change. Well,

33:07 No, no. But they be an open meeting. But there’s five people, so Least, but the idea with the open meeting law is that they get to hear these unique conversations between the board. Mm-Hmm. And so it, you know, it’s not, oh, Tom and I have discussed behind the scenes, and this is no, they get to hear every, every piece of it. It’s the organicness of it. It’s, you know, it’s us having a meeting and the audience gets to enjoy Which folks around it.

33:36 No, I, I think that, that we are in the same situation that the, the vice president is, is in. She has to say now, gee, uh, uh, I’ve learned over the past four years, and some things I said in 19, in 2020 are aren’t as important as 2020. And, and if we can’t learn together from each other, that’s a real deficit. Right. And I think, I personally think this is why we should be here. We, this, we get elected to have this kind of debate. Andrew gets paid to run the department as efficiently as possible and Show up here every morning at seven 30. Yeah. And come in and like, like we have to figure out a way. He has to come in la He had to come in last night to take the mental health task force.

34:22 I mean, he’s the head of the department. One of, in my mind, there are three departments that are meaningful in, in town government. There’s public safety, there’s public education, and there’s public health. He’s the head of the public health department. And we have him coming in at night tinkering to make sure we can do this. That’s, that’s a, you say we’re not a business, but we have to be businesslike enough not to run like that.

34:50 Well, if we, if neither you nor I could come in that you No. If, if we were flush, we would have a, a custodian here every night to do, do this and, and That, you know, obviously we do all the name of public health. So it’s, you know, but yes, it’s a valid point.

35:08 All right. So are We very, I’m sorry. It’s, was you, I don’t, I don’t think this discussion is wasted. It’s never Wasted. But, um, the, uh, board of health meeting calendar, uh, I’ll just go over a few things. But next week, uh, next month, I mean it on November 12th, Dr. Coyle will be coming. Is she okay to Yeah, I believe so. So I will double check with her. Um, I believe at least if, if she’s not able to, there might be another re representative from the Collins Center. But I, I think we want her, because you’ve had multiple discussions with her And you’ve talked to the Collins Center. I have talked to the Collins Center. Yeah. We’ll talk about that later on, Uh, at your time. Uh, during, um, the community health update. Okay. And, um, uh, the other, uh, meeting calendar that I wanted

35:57 to say is that I spoke with, um, Cheryl Sbarro today. She is the, uh, what’s her title? She’s legal counsel for Mass Health Boards. She’s the legal counsel. She, I thought she was employed by them. It’s a volunteer position, is that correct? Well, so for attorneys, they have to do community service. And so I think that’s her And that’s hers. Yeah. Because it, she’s had to, to reach ‘cause she’s doing other things. She’s very busy. Yeah. Yeah. She’s very busy. So I did, uh, hear from her today. And, um, she said that, um, the two training sessions, uh, for, for new people, if you, you haven’t had a training session. Have you gone to Boards of Health training? Board of Health training? No, Not the, not the questionnaire on The Yeah. And not the ethics. This is like a boards

36:44 specific board of Health training. Go to a training session. It’s in, they have it in Marlborough at the, at the Marriott, or they go different place. She’s willing to come here to us. ‘cause ‘cause they’re not until May, April and May. There’s two of them. One in April, one in May. She is willing to come to us at our regular meeting. And she said she would, she can take an hour and go over the, the legal questions and some other things. I, um, am asking this committee if, if I thought that maybe I wrote to her. She did this, she wrote to me four times back and forth, but this is the last one she did not answer. I said, maybe we have someone coming November, possibly December. And, um, I said, I thought it would be good where she lives on the South Shore or something

37:30 before the snow starts to fly. That was my reason. And, um, I didn’t hear back from her, but it would be like what we did with the, um, with the session last year, we had, um, the woman from Beverly, Heather. I think it’d be very different than that. It won’t be that kind of a, but it, but it’d be somebody coming in, doing a train Yep. Talking to us. And, um, hopefully, So we’re talking about adding a different meeting other than we could, or would, would this be, She, I would like to suggest that we might start at seven o’clock a half hour earlier, do it from seven to eight and do our business after that. Listen with, so that we wouldn’t have to, that we wouldn’t have to do another meeting. That’s fine. So, um, although Trauma’s gonna talk tonight about having additional

38:17 meetings, um, but she only wants, this particular person only wants an hour. So, um, for this meeting with her, we don’t have to, I don’t think we need a special meeting for one hour unless he piggybacked it with something else. So I, there’s got gonna be more to come whether she can make it in December. And I, I told it was that the date was, um, it’s the, it’s also the 12th, um,

38:49 December 10th. I’m sorry that that date is December 10th. And, um, so I just wanted to tell you that. And, and as far as, uh, well, I’ll, I’ll hold off on that. And I gave you a sheet last meeting of all the meetings. And I’m sorry to say that I have a family situation that I, I’m asking the board if they could meet on March 4th instead of March 11th.

39:24 That’s fine with you. I Mean, fine with me, but I don’t, Yes. Yeah. So yeah, I mean, I know that I’ve got a wedding, but, um, that weekend in between, you know, out of state.

39:40 So if you wanna change your calendar Mm-Hmm. If you did put those dates down, I’d like to respectfully request the match full. So, um, anything else I most on Calendarizing? I think that was a, so we’ve got a November 12th date. We’ve got a pending on, on December 10th. And we have, um, a, uh, change of one of the regular meetings. Um, I’m waiting for approval from the high school on the drug story theory, uh, theater, that one that I was trying to get here. And, um, we have to put that before the, um, principal and the, and the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, they wanna discuss it with you. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t have anything on that yet.

40:29 So let’s go on to, uh, the wellness fair. I, I think there’s additional things that another member wants to talk about during the calendar. We, uh, yeah. The chair mentioned that. I, I think we should meet more often, but why don’t I present my report? ‘cause I think there’s, if this report is, is acceptable, I think we’re gonna be a whole lot busier than we have been in the past, and that we will require extra meetings or we will require a different way of functioning. Um, but look, Right, you wanna wait for your report? Yeah, Sure. Whatever. Because then you could Yeah. Then you’ll have the floor. I think that’ll be instead of jumping around. Right.

41:15 Um, the, uh, the well fair is supposed to be, uh, January 18th. Is that No, We have a date for January 18th. Mm-Hmm. Have secured the, I was the community center. I know that’s what they call this senior center, but it’s the community center. Um, so we have the building from eight to four. Um, I believe we talked about doing the event from 10 to two. Yeah. So four hours. Yep. That allows us for two hours to set up and two hours to clean up. Mm-Hmm. Um, we need to talk about costs. So obviously to, to rent the building, it costs $200. Um, so that we’ll be using obviously budget, uh, to cover that costs. Um, there will be an additional cleaning service fee that we’re, we don’t know the total cost for yet.

42:00 Okay. Um, but obviously we’ll have to, you know, deal with that cost as well. How many then we have to get into like the vendor pieces and the vendors are the people that will be coming to Yeah. I started, I’ve started talking to some, there’s a lot of enthusiasm. So, um, my question is gonna be, uh, the only question I was gonna really have was tables. Yeah. So we just did a sustainable, you know, sustainable marblehead set up a community event last weekend, weekends, um, at the Brown school, and then it was in the gym, and they provided each organization a table. So there was four rows and stuff like that. It worked out very well. Mm-Hmm. I assume that we would set something up in a similar fashion. Um, I think they charged about $25 a table to set up.

42:48 Um, then it’s just a matter of, you know, so we could have that fee and then it’s a matter of who we would allow to be part of this. Okay. Or, you know, I, I think we just have to define that a little bit better. Yeah. I have a good list going. I just Wanted to make sure that you have all phases of health, not just, um, I’m not really focused on all phases of health. This is, well This, this is not just, um, exercise and whatever, If that’s primarily what this is set up for. That’s the, It’s a wellness fair. I think we could do two different ones and you could do a cosmetic, dental, hand care, whatever. I don’t think you’re gonna get high attendance to that because you’re talking about things that no one’s gonna stop at a table to talk to a dentist.

43:33 I’m not asking or to talk to a salon owner, dentist. I’m talking About Well, that’s what you mentioned last time. No, I, I talked about nutrition. I talked about Yep. I’m talking to all those people. But I mean, what’s, what do you mean by all? Well, sustainable had, uh, people, they had people on re recycling. That was, That’s not what I’m gonna do. But, And and you were there longer than I was. Uh, there was a table from the y there was a table from the JCC. Yep. The Y is Involved. There was, there was is the JCCI Reached out to ‘em. They even called me back. So waited. You state Too. I didn’t, I had to leave a paper. I’m gonna get them. Don’t worry. Don’t be there.

44:14 There was, uh, a lot of things for kids. There was some, uh, from the boating people, boating community, that for kids, there was, uh, what some other things for kids. Um, Yeah. I didn’t see all the craft. There was a whole craft room and stuff like that. Obviously That’s what you saying by the whole gauntlet of health is what I’m, can you define that? Medical? Uh, no. See medical that doesn’t, it’s not necessary for some, no one’s gonna talk to a doctor that’s sitting there, A doctor. It’s talking about, um, healthcare, about, Well, what’s healthcare Vaccinations? Uh uh, No one’s gonna stop and talk to those people. That’s, it’s just because that’s not what this is. It’s a health it mental to get people help. Yeah. I’m gonna invite the counseling center. I I think I’ll write you a list and give it to you.

44:59 I I mean, it’s, it’s not, it’s this Is, but I’m not, I’m not necessarily You understand you’re the chair, but it’s not, it’s not Helene’s way, the highway. It’s, this is something that I came up with, I set up and you’re almost trying to hijack it, saying to say what it’s going to be. It’s a board of health, wellness Fair. Yeah. It’s not board health. And I’m doing all the work, exercise. This was my idea. And I’m telling you what I envisioned on this. And you hijacking it. I’m not hijacking expanded. Yeah. And I’m saying what do, What are you talking about? I’m, I’m talking about other phases. Nutrition, which is very important. Yes. Nutrition. Yeah. Now what else? But the town has several models for this. We had exactly a great one at the counseling center. Joanne and I just participated one at the y the, the usual suspects skit the same tables all the time.

45:46 Yeah. So I don’t think we have to work. I I mean this, the, the community does this very well. Yes. And you know, we, we will, if someone else were sponsoring it, we’d be there. We were at the y uh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, we have one other that we’re gonna go, we’re gonna go to that breakfast. The of the place that you knew about Suzanne. Yeah. I mean, we’re gonna show the flag and other people will show our flag that the senior center has the, the community center has done center. Yeah. We, we participated there last year. It, it, I think you’re splitting hairs. Well, I think we’re okay When I’m talking about health and physical health and stuff like that, which I say is connected to mental health. I’ll just read this real quick.

46:33 So in the adult population, 80% is overweight, obese or severe. Obese. That’s 31.6% overweight, 40% obese, 7.7. Severe obesity, 80%. And that has to do with nutrition. And I told you nutrition will be there. Child population, 41%. These are insane numbers. And we are 10% higher than the next highest developed country. CO 80% of the hospitalizations were people that were overweight. I believe it was obese. So I think that now we’re talking about the health risks of obesity by the NIH. These are the health risks of ob, obesity, cardiovascular heart disease. That’s the number one cause of death in the us. That’s where you’re gonna have cancer.

47:17 I don’t think you understand what’s happening here. I do understand if you’re gonna talk about cardiovascular, you should have something for them That’s not No, I’m relating it to obesity. Cardiovascular, these are health risks of obesity. Cardiovascular health disease number one, cause of death in America, cancer. Number two, high blood pressure. Number five, breathing problems. Number six, diabetes. Number eight, mental illness, 50,000 suicides a year. These are all, what they say are health risks of obesity. So Now you need to have somebody there, there to take blood pressures and things like that. That’s where it stands. Yeah. No, you’re, no, you’re going too far, Helene. No, you’re really, you’re hijacking it. I listen, I get it. I like your terminology. Just Y you are. And that’s, that’s just the problem. If you wanna set something up like that, I, I I support you.

48:06 Do it. Let’s work together. Talk about working together. We can’t talk about this at the same time, but this is a thing I’m talking that I came up with. By the way, I’m gonna front the cost for the tables, so I’m only even gonna charge these people. So I’m not gonna have anything silly. That’s not gonna be, that’s just gonna cost me money for this. I’m trying to get people healthy, Not taking people’s blood pressure help. Yes. I call that silly and a wellness event. Yes. I do not. Okay.

48:31 This, this may be my bias. Yeah. Um, in a a context like this, I would like to have e either our table or a separate table. The country isn’t about to go bankrupt for obesity drugs. Yes. We don’t know the long-term side effects of any of these. A hundred percent. I think we, we, and this is the kind of place where maybe having a doctor on the board is not a bad idea. We ought to talk about and have a summary of the literature, what we know about these, um, GLP type drugs that are gonna be billions of dollars. And I’m happy to give Tom a table if people wanna talk to ‘em about it. That’s great. There’s a guy Yeah.

49:17 That ‘cause Ozempic, Ozempic is 66% of the sales are in the us. This is a Danish company. We wavy, whatever you pronounce it, 90% in the us. So saying that, like me focusing on obesity is not really explained. It really is. It’s, this is a focus that should be focused on, I wanna get people finding different activities We want with courage. Non-pharmacological. Yes. Obesity treatment first. Yes. And and if there are reasons ultimately that you have to, because, uh, what, as a pediatrician, I understand that now kids are asking for this stuff. Yes. And, and it’s, it’s incredibly expensive. And we don’t have good data. There have not been studies to show

50:02 that if you really work at non-pharmacological interventions, you can prevent things. Now. It, most of us try to be on diets and never’s worked. So, uh, we understand the negativity. But this is the kind of this debate. No, and this is, And that’s exactly what I’m trying to set up is because I’m trying to find a variety of different activities to get people moving. Kids, adults, everything. Yeah. Because not everyone likes everything. Elaine, You handed this out. Yeah. You, we learned about this last night. That, that there’s a group that meets every morning at 6, 6 30. Six 30. No, got it. Just Mondays. Just Mondays. So yeah. Just Mondays. Oh, I thought you said that. Every day, Every Monday. Okay. But in any event, if it works, she’d like to go every day, I think. But, but what is the exercise? We have the, in my mind, one

50:47 of the absolute world class YMCAs. Yes. I’m there three or four days a week. It’s unbelievable. Mm-Hmm. They have more five pound weights than we have people in Marblehead. Uh, and this is the kind of thing that a board of health sponsored wellness program should be talking about wellness and not making wellness in a medical model necessarily. Mm-Hmm. But I think as a board of health, that we can expand it without making, without, what was the word? You saw me. I forget. You’ve been very aggressive towards this whole thing from the get go. And so I’m just telling you like, I, I mean, I see it and I think Tom sees it, I think at night. I don’t wanna speak for him, but like I’m, I’m setting, I’m, I’ve set this up. I came up with this idea. You’ve been on the

51:33 board for 20 something years. Right. How many of these have you done? Let, let, let’s, let’s, I’m just, it’s been, we have a Responsibility. The community that elected us to meet did work respectfully. No. And honestly, this was a position. Tom will tell you, this is a position I ran on. And as he pointed out, people supported it. It was a real thing. People are good. Let’s expanded. So it be comes aboard activity and not Tom McMahon’s activity. Well, what are, what keeps saying nutrition? And I said, yes. And now you’re read. And I said, I did. You mean a blood pressure thing? And now you’re talking about diabetes. You should have someone there about diabetes. I mean, you’re just gonna tell these people all these things and then No, I’m going, I’m giving them experts in town. Resources. We have in town of people. They can talk to people.

52:20 They will get them finding activities that they wanna, like Those people would be there. Who Someone that can talk on, on, on You. You have to this, you have to realize this is not a stage where people are presenting. No. I You’ve have people wanting to stop talk. I Don’t want clinics than you ever thought of. So don’t, Okay. Well, you are wrong on this one. Helene. You are wrong. And you are trying to hijack it. You’re trying to hijack some of his stuff too. It’s kind of getting old.

52:47 Let’s see what you, what You ready? It’s, it’s making all the boards. I mean, it’s the board program and we’ll make it, uh, uh, It’s gonna be good. But you’re coming at me aggressively when it before I even told you who was there. Yep. You’re coming at me Right off the bat. As you name the list, we can expand it, not just have people You write down and you submit to me what you wanna see. And then I’ll, and then I’ll, Everyone will What? Who You will decide. It’s not your event. Elaine. You’ve done nothing for this. He’s done more than you have. He’s gotten problem. Of course he’s gotten it. And it was supposed to be more on you. He, I assume Again, again, you assume I haven’t gone around and talked to 20 Vendors. We need to be working together. Yeah, I agree. This is the whole idea. We’re representing the community.

53:33 Yes. Working together to better the community. Mm-Hmm. So let’s work together. Mm-Hmm. The idea is to have a wellness fair. Yeah. Let’s set some parameters of who we want there. We’re not going out to handpick these people. We’re gonna tell the community that we would like Marblehead businesses to come to this event. This is the day of the event. This is what we’re looking for. And let’s see who signs up. Yes. That would be fine. Tables will be $25 a piece. We should try to cover our costs. Mm-Hmm. We have the se you know, the senior center rental. We have cleaning fees that we need to cover. Nothing crazy. Nothing. Very basic. Yeah. People will get a table and they get to stand at their table

54:20 and pitch their ideas. Mm-Hmm. And people can come through and find all the different things that all the Marblehead community has to offer regarding you. Copy that. Of what? Of the, what You are reading This. Yeah. But we need to work together. What I read, this is not interesting. This is, Oh, you said has all the names and all the No. That cardiovascular and all that On there, what of health risks of obesity. Yeah. I mean you can just add it’s, it’s all online. Wait on Online obesity For everyone to See. Well, why is this yours? Or, or Yeah, I just wrote that. Oh, where, where do you post it? No worries. What do you mean? You said it’s online for everybody to c Yeah. The internet. But you, if this is your,

55:05 your particular what, what Do you, what do you think is in front of you right now? I think this is something you’ve developed. Yeah. So where could I pick it up myself? You have a thing. I just gave It to you. Then. I don’t have to have, thank you. Okay, good. I’ll now suggest some of these things to you as I did right here. Alright. So should we move on to the next, So we’ll create like a kind of a signup sheet? Yep. Um, those will be available at the health department. Obviously we’ll post this on the website. Um, so as a central location for people to go to Mm-Hmm. Um, and have some basic information of what we’re trying to do. Um, any questions that I get, you know, obviously I’ll, you know, go back to the board. Um, but, you know, we can try to figure out

55:51 how many different tables we’ll have there. But, um, I obviously this is middle of winter. This is gonna be something that a lot of people are looking to come to. Yeah. And yes, it’s gonna be very, you know, I’m not gonna say it’s similar to the Y event or the MCC event. Um, I think it’s gonna be, you know, hopefully there’s gonna be a lot of people that represent all the different organizations of Marblehead around. What? That’s good. That makes me feel better. Well, it’s the way the, Yeah. Conflict center was, that’s the way the wine was two weeks ago. I mean, it’s, this Is funny. I didn’t even hear about the Y Yeah, there was a 5K in the morning and then we showed up after the 5K. It was in the back parking lot

56:37 and it was a safe, they didn’t have horses like the counseling center did, and it wasn’t as good free, free ice cream. But Yeah, It’s the same thing. We, we, and we did the same thing in the, in the center last year. Jenny Armini was there. It was a, a physician and a naturalist who gave a panel, uh, in, in the smaller room up front for people who went. Not very many people went to that, but it was, it was, uh, um, All, uh, It, it was good Marblehead stuff. Well, that’s great. I’m pretty sure that we could probably get one of our elected people to come.

57:22 I’m sure we can. Yeah. Well, Jenny shows up at everything. She was at the, uh, sustainability. Yep. Yeah. And I have told all the ones I’ve talked to that I’m gonna put a raffle at the end of it and so be donating. Yep. Some personal training sessions, one month membership, whatever. And it’s just contingent on showing up.

57:46 That sounds like it’ll attract people. So, um, and that dates, uh, again, ‘cause January 18th. January 18th. Yep. It’s a Saturday at the, um, community center. The doctor could be confused with the co the, uh, counseling center, um, with the JCC. It’s the one on street. Um, and there’ll be more, we’ll hear more about that as it gets closer. Um, the Marblehead mental health, uh, 5K that, what’s next? That’s right. So this is the third year of the Marblehead, uh, mental health 5K. Um, I did it last year. Uh, the, it’s good because, uh, so the proceeds of the event allow, uh, the Rotary Club to support some projects.

58:32 One of the projects is we provide mindfulness program called Inner Explore to all the schools in Marblehead. The program teaches kids a set of life skills to deal with anxiety, stress, and depression. And the program is used in over 500 school districts in the country. The event is, uh, November 3rd, I think this is the third one of ‘em. Um, I did it last year. I’m not gonna be here this year. So I signed up as a spirit runner. ‘cause you can do that if you don’t wanna run. And it’s basically like a donation. But I do, I do have, uh, Do you have applications? No. You do it online. So, um, they have signs all over town. There’s signs on the treadmills at the YMCA.

59:18 And since I’m not gonna be there, I figured I’d spice it up a little bit, where if anyone that runs this year can beat my time from last year, I’ll donate an additional 20 bucks for each person up to 500. And I think Seth Moulton’s affiliated with this, or at least he was in the past. If he beats my time, I’ll put in 500. And who’s sponsoring that? The, uh, rotary Club. The, the afternoon one or, Mm-Hmm.

59:52 So it’s the Rotary Club.

59:56 So This is Saturday, or so, sorry, Sunday, November 3rd. Yeah. And where, where you show up at the, uh, at d just Remember it’s daylight. Satan’s time. You show up at D No, this one’s at the Boston Yacht Club. Start and finish At the, at daylight c

1:00:19 That’s what they need.

1:00:23 All right. Very good. Um, now the substance abuse programming, is that fabulous? I don’t think so. That’s fine. Um, so we’re, I talked, I met with Mark Lavonne. I’m gonna be meeting with him a lot more and I think teaming up with him on it. So we’re gonna push it out to hopefully, I think we are looking at February, March. Yep. Did you talk to them at all about that? Do you want I haven’t gone back to the school, you know. Alright. Um, I can definitely go back and get dates. Obviously we have President’s Week in there, which is school vacation. Yeah. So it wouldn’t be there. Um, which is, tends to be the third, uh, week in February. But yeah. Um, I can explore dates at this time. Probably March would be okay. Yeah. So I’ll meet with him. So you’re looking at March for that?

1:01:16 No, that’s the program that you’re gonna have a panel. A What? A panel discussion? No, it’s, uh, speakers.

1:01:26 So they’re not sitting in a panel. They’re each individual coming up, or That’s the plan right now. But me and LA are gonna talk more about it. The four minutes. Yeah. And you’re planning to have buddy school? Mm-Hmm. During the day or the evening? Evening. It’s not during school time. No. That’s correct. Okay. So that’s good. Meanwhile, while we’re talking about programming, what’s coming up and what’s, what is happening, and you talked about the why I went to the sustainability, uh, fair last week. And it was, uh, it wasn’t this past Saturday. It was the Saturday before. Um, it was very, very well received. It was, I thought it was outstanding the way it was

1:02:11 presented and done. People were very excited. A lot of talk. I couldn’t even get to Andrew’s desk to talk to Andrew. He had so many people coming up to him, talking to him, and I think they were genuinely interested. They weren’t just people coming up to schoo. They would, they would really wanted to Talk about, yeah, I mean, obviously we, we were focused on recycling, um, household hazard space, but it was focused on recycling. And, and did you gain any people, uh, that joined For We didn’t gain any recycling committee members. No. Uh, what about two? We’re essentially using sustainable marble ahead of our recycling committee at this point. Okay. I didn’t know if you sold any, uh, black Earth, uh, kitchen. We did not sell any Black Earth. I mean, obviously, you know, we have all the information there.

1:02:57 I’m sure we sold some, you know, days afterwards. Um, we wanna make sure people recognize what they could buy and stuff like that, and know that we’re the cheapest place around to buy That stuff. But it ran the gamut from solar heating to gardening, planting. If, if you’re in the market for an electric car, that that is the event to go to because you can drive all the stuff that’s there. That was amazing. So that was, I think that’s one of the greatest things. I I, it was just advertised. I didn’t understand. It was Advertised through Sustainable Marblehead. It was the big Advertiser. We advertised for three months here at the table. Yeah. You could drive a car. All the car dealers shipped with Yeah, all the car. And I walked by, I had parked my car in that area along the fence, but in the parking lot. And I’m walking by and I’m saying, wonder

1:03:43 how many are gonna stop this older woman? Not a one. Not a one at all. So I wasn’t very pleased about that.

1:03:57 Anyhow, I had a good time. I picked up a lot of stuff. I really did things on even voting.

1:04:09 And I wrote her note congratulating her. Thank you. What she did, Elaine, she was excellent. And, uh, um, your colleague from, from the paper was there all day

1:04:25 at the Sustainability Affair. Yeah. Yeah. I was there all day too. Oh, you, I did. I see you right? Uh oh. Yes. You were Will and I and Cheryl were there. Will I saw what you and I were talking to the soap woman. Yes, yes, yes. She was making soap or made soap. Yeah, that was good. So it was, it, it was great. Fair. I I suggest everybody look for it again next year. Um, alright. So we are up to the community health updated. You ready? Right. I distributed to the board and to the audience. Uh, the chair thinks I’ve wasted a half hour at the beginning, so I’ll try to catch up some time. Yeah. Say you wasted it. I said 35 minutes and you end up, it’s like with the, with the tobacco lady. I tell her three times. Yeah.

1:05:11 Right. You were, you were kinder nerd. I wasn’t as successful With her as I was with you though. Right. I treat you respectfully. She just kept right on going. She was convinced that, well, she knows me better.

1:05:30 Any event. Uh, marble had Mental Health Task Force met last night. Um, the, the first sentence is the important one because I think it’s the strategic intent of this group. The Marvel Head Mental Health Task Force would really like to be the coordinating body that somehow relates to all of the, all of the behavioral and mental health, uh, activities in the community. It doesn’t do them all, but it’s a resource for the community. It sounds like It’s exactly what the Sustaina Sustainability Group is with Big Picture. And you, you bring in all the cars. And the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force would like to have access to everyone out there that has

1:06:15 some perspective and some interface on, uh, uh, on mental health or behavioral health in a, particularly in a prevention public health perspective. Uh, it’s good that you’ve met with Mark. He’s really great. I think, uh, and he mentioned it last night that he, he had worked with, begun to work with you in your program, so that’s terrific. He brought in three guests last night. Lisa Sugarman, uh, I think the chair passed out and had a handout that, that she distributed. Uh, she’s an author called us in Suicide Prevention Advocate. Uh, I, is it ska? How do you I pronounce It sk, but I think it’s, but it, it’s region Pretty much a Scandinavian last name.

1:07:01 So some, anyway, she, she’s a health and Weld educator, and she owns, uh, the, the mindfulness firm, I think called, is it Still Water or Still Waters. And the third person was a, uh, a younger graduate student from BU who’s in the seminary program who has taken a position as youth pastor in the North Shore Youth Ministry. There are four, uh, uh, community, uh, facilities of faith that have put in, I think, 20, $20,000 a year for this. Um, uh, north Shore Youth Ministry. They are old North St. Andrews, Clifton Lutheran, first Church of Swamps, Scott.

1:07:49 They hope to get more, and they are focusing on the positive aspects of, of development in the mid and high school age group. She’s a charming, uh, energetic person. And, um, she started out, I I go to one of those churches and she, she, uh, is, is making inroads and I think it’ll be a very valuable thing to the, uh, to the town. And she’s going to contribute to the board as well. And then I think a really good thing occurred last night that we, we heard, and we gave congratulations to Terry McDonough, who’s really a champion of the, of the counseling center that she’s been awarded full scholarship to attend a week long executive education program

1:08:36 on mental health leadership at the Harvard School of Public Health. Um, uh, which is, you know, 1, 2, 3, somewhere in public health schools in the country. Um, and she, she will add great value to, to that program. And ultimately, the town will benefit a great deal, uh, with her leadership. So we all congratulated her for that. I think that’s wonderful. Before you leave the mental health, um, task force, can I just make two comments? Of course. You’re the chair. Well, And we treat you with the difference and respect. Right. Sometimes we, but, but you have the floor, so I have to ask permission. Um, Lisa, uh,

1:09:23 it’s program is called Walk Talk Collective. And I think it’s been, it’s been written up in the, uh, current this week. And it’s Monday, one, just Mondays at 6:30 AM Sign up. You can sign up at the rec and park. Now it’s, that’s new because they’ve had five or six meetings already. Not meetings, but GA gatherings I would call them. And, um, they meet on the sidewalk, uh, on the road going to, toward the high school. But by the tennis courts. If people know where the entrance to the tennis courts are, they meet right there. So I just wanted to let people out, uh, listening, watching, uh, know exactly where they can go. ‘cause I did pass out a few forms,

1:10:08 but I, um, can’t pass them out unless you can show it online, but it’s really too small to even read. But, um, it’s six 30 Monday and sign up at the, at the rec and park and they’ll be happy. And if you show up without signing up, there’s, there’s no fee. Just you can show up. The other thing I’d like to say is that I’m, even though I was one of the founders of and naming off the Mac Marblehead Mental Health Task Force, um, during the pandemic, I really feel that, I’d like to say that the incidence of citizen suffering for mental health issue issues, uh, is still a very, very big concern. And especially with the current political climate. I don’t know if you’ve talked about that.

1:10:53 And with the war in the Middle East, and that’s affected a lot of people, uh, in the country on the college campus. And we have kids that come home here from college campuses. And, um, it, it’s better than it was in the spring, but it’s not much better. I’ve heard of two incidents at one of my family’s universities at University of Michigan just this week. And we’ve got kids that go there, kid from this town. Uh, I don’t have a student there right now, but I’ve had them one graduated two years ago. It’s many, many, many members of our family went there, including two children and a husband. But it’s, um, I think that people are feeling

1:11:39 that on both sides, on all sides. The faculty, the student body, the Palestinians, the Israelis, it’s very bad. And I think that that all ties into mental health. And we have to be prepared to take these kids in our arms when they come home for a break or for Thanksgiving.

1:12:02 Yeah. We’ll come back to that, uh, on the, the best practice. I think that’ll be one of the very active elements of what we do with that, with that best practice proposal. Well, good. Um, All right. Okay. Uh, the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force began negotiations with Dr. Coyle at UMass Boston. Uh, well over a year ago, they had asked her, uh, to do a survey, uh, for mental health alone. And that was a little bit different than what she normally does. So she was kind of pleased when I called her and said, gee, can you expand it to the entire population of, of, of the entire health status, uh, situation?

1:12:51 And she said, of course. That’s what we usually do. Uh, I talked to the people in Swamp, Scott, they did this a couple years ago, and they were very satisfied with what the, what, uh, how they got the help and what the community benefited a great deal from it. And, uh, I believe that the, uh, we have invited, uh, Dr. Coyle for the meeting, uh, the 12th of November. And that will be very important that we all to together, uh, it, listen to the concerns that the community may have about a health survey. People are very sensitive about sharing health information. This will be protected. It will, there will not be a, there will no way

1:13:36 that you can, individuals will be identified. And in the long run, uh, uh, I’m quite certain that the community will benefit significantly, but we we’re, we as a board working together and with the department are, I think are gonna ha have to sell this. Uh, and, uh, it should benefit us a great deal. Um, well, I look forward to hearing you. Yeah. The I’ll, I, I’ll, I’ll give you the name of the person in Swamp, Scott, who really was great, went to talk to who about how they get Heidi, I forgot Heidi’s last name, but she in the senior center in Okay. And then, um,

1:14:23 we found out through actually Dr. Coyle, that there was this competition, or at least this, this program that was available to provide some resources to the town to improve, uh, general government practice. And we chose, uh, one public health practice and one mental health practice to, to apply for. Um, the, the process of the situation was, is that the, the initial invitation goes to the town administrator. Uh, the town administrator then submits the application. The town’s allowed to submit two proposals,

1:15:10 but they have to come in together. There were no other departments that were ready to submit. So we got the ability to, to submit to, we got to, and Andrew got a letter from the town administrator that we were awarded that, uh, those two, that’s about all I know. Maybe Andrew knows more. Sure. Um, so yeah, we did apply for, to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, uh, for what’s called the Best Practices Grant. Um, we were to awarded two best practices, um, and the, that we had in was a total of $90,000. Uh, the total of $90,000 has to be spent over the next two years. Um, so best practice number one, uh, conduct a maternal

1:15:57 and child health landscape assessment to identify and understand the community strengths and gaps in improving the health and wellbeing of the birthing people, infants, children, and youth with special needs, uh, special health needs and their families, including public health infrastructure and staff capacity, develop shared public health services with contiguous municipalities. Um, best practice number two, strengthen partnership between public safety, social services, healthcare providers and local public and private schools to establish systems and protocols for assessing and identifying children and young adults who present risks to themselves or to others in order to ensure effective and proactive response that can prevent violence and provide timely support to individuals in need.

1:16:45 Um, so it’s really interesting because obviously we were kinda, or the mental health task force was made aware about this through the Collin Center. Um, the Collin Center reached back out to me to say, Hey, I want to talk to you about these two grants you replied to. Do you know that you’ve been awarded them? I’m like, no. So, so, you know, they have that kind of the insight. So I did have a conversation with the Collin Center, um, who is potentially w wants to work with us on this. Um, but we also talked about the public health assessment for the community. Their recommendation is to try to conduct the public health assessment for the community first, see what the, the answers are, you know, all the information comes back. And then once we have that information work on the two best practices,

1:17:33 the Collin Center is also gonna reach out to a couple other organizations, um, to see if there’s potential funding sources to complete that public health assessment. Um, so hopefully I’ll have another call with the Collin Center before they come, obviously. And then once the call center is here, we can have further discussions. Really, I think kind of around what swamps Scott did, how it was conducted, how, you know, what are the best practices that go along with that public health assessment. How long Does this health assessment take? I don’t know. It, it, it, it was originally scheduled for us about 10 to 12 months. Because what they have to do, they, they submit survey requests to get people to answer them. And they, they have to do that several times. So is that gonna give

1:18:19 You enough time if, if the grants run up? I think so. I, I think what Andrew just said, I hadn’t heard this, but if we had had the ability to plan it that way, that’s certainly what we would’ve liked to do first. So since we have two years to spend the money, yeah. Uh, I think we should work very hard and we should try to get whatever we, if we should try to get the Collin Center, uh, to start as quickly as possible. Um, and, and hopefully, uh, see if we can get some private money or some other way of funding. Maybe the, maybe the select board has a few dollars in, in Swamp Scott, the select board paid for it. Yep. Okay. Um, and obviously, you know, I think you said, you know, the budget that I heard for that was $35,000.

1:19:04 Yeah. Um, I think, you know, I, I need to check in with the Collin Center to see if that was the appropriate amount of money that we would potentially need. Um, some of the other organizations that I think the Collin Center are gonna speak to, and a PC, um, but there is a lot of public health grant money out there currently. Um, I think the other piece is that when Dr. Massaro and I talked about this, we talked about hiring another employee that would be essentially in charge of this grant, it’s potential that we could just hire the Collin Center, um, to conduct this work as well. Um, so a lot will come. Yeah. So a lot will come forward in the next couple of months to see which direction is really the best. See the problem, I I, I’m certainly open. Yeah. And, and, and, and this is, this is why I think we need

1:19:50 to be working together to figure out how to do this kind of thing. Um, I just think that Marblehead, is it, the, the granularity of having someone on the ground will customize it to Marblehead. Um, and, and the Collin Center is managing the charter committee, and they’re doing a great job from 30,000 feet, but they’re not here every day, and they have to collect their fees out of our $90,000. Given that Mark Labon and Dr. Labon and I are prepared to manage that person or those issues, I think we’re cheaper than the college center.

1:20:36 And unless the College College Center has someone that’s got the skills that Labon has and the background that I have, I’d be biased toward staying here. But, but we should be open. Yep. If we, I don’t think you’re, I didn’t know that you had offered to, to oversee this. I thought we would’ve to hire someone. So this makes it point. No, I’m well, mark, mark, mark and I agreed to oversee the person we’re hiring. We’re gonna hire a person. We Mark’s term, which I think is a great one, is ambassador. Mm-Hmm. We’re gonna hire someone who, who is public health oriented prevention oriented, but could be a public health person, could be a social worker, could be a nurse, could a, a science teacher in a high school, anybody like that,

1:21:25 who at what we need the most. And it may be the hardest thing to find in today’s market is someone who likes people and can go out there and talk and given those Fields People and talk to people and ask questions and say, gee, are you having trouble finding a, a provider? Um, and so, uh, we let, let’s just see what happens. Uh, I think that’s great that the Cullin Center has reached out the one of the goals why I wanted to do this this year, because we wanna give sig I think we ought to wanna give signals to the community that one way or the other, we’re gonna finish the transfer station and we’re gonna emphasize public health from the board. And so I think that this is great.

1:22:11 Um, uh, I’d like to have a little extra sentence though. Uh, maybe the, everyone won’t agree with me, but the, uh, Andrew read the official, the official public health description, and we’ll do that whole thing. We’ll develop a landscape. What I said in the proposal was that we’re gonna look at two things that I think put the public health at risk. And one of the things potentially that I’m pretty sure puts the public health at risk nationally is workforce, uh, uh, questions. Now, I don’t know enough about Marblehead and the environment to know whether we have, uh,

1:22:58 we have enough obstetricians, whether we have enough pediatricians, whether we have nurses. What we’re gonna try to figure out with the dec with the burnout that, that the health providers are, are living with from the pandemic. It may be that communities like ours will be short of providers over time. I don’t know that, but that’s part of the landscape that I wanna try to look at. And the second issue is, in my mind, vaccine hesitancy. We, the, we did not have, we, the science of the, the mRNA vaccines is Nobel Prize level, but the way we implemented wasn’t as good as the science was.

1:23:45 And there is a, as a concern in the community about vaccines, and that could in the long run, be a real public health problem if, if, if kids families don’t have measles and mumps and those sorts of immunizations. Now, and we know nationally that those levels are less than they used to be. And you don’t need Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Telling us that it’s out there. It’s real. And it, it may be that some of the concerns are, are legitimate, and a group like ours, a community like ours, a board can put things out in a way that, that, that the community will listen to us. So those are the two things that I would like to emphasize in that landscape that we’re gonna be providing.

1:24:32 So one thing I have a question about, I heard $95,000 and I heard $35,000, Two Different pieces. So I’m gonna call it a, would be public health assessment for the community. Um, we do not have funding for that currently. B part B would be the second piece of that. I mean, you can work on ‘em, you know, if you, you could start that right away. But we wanted to do, potentially do a little research to see what some of the needs are, and it might kind of drive some of the conversations or the questions for the Part B. Um, but the Part B is we, we were awarded $90,000 for those two grants for the two to be Yep. To be spent over the next two years. But the A that you’re looking for 35,000 to, to do the, The assessment Feasibility. The assessment, yeah. The feasibility of the assessment.

1:25:18 Yeah. Yes. It’s called the public health assessment. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Uh, but so, uh, you’re gonna oversee that part of it. You offered to oversee it with Mark. Mark and I are, I, I’m gonna do the public health best practice, and he’s gonna do the strengthening partnerships and the money we get on the, but, but the mental health task force has been, has been in favor of bringing in the co the, the UMass Boston people from the very beginning. We just got on that. You’ve brought that in before you got the grants. Yeah. Again, we would’ve preferred to do that first, but the, what the, the person who was managing the grant for the Lieutenant Governor’s office said last year,

1:26:05 they ran outta money in October. Okay. It goes really quick. So we, we had, we wanted to get in, if we were gonna get a chance to Get it. I think you put it in on the 29th of September. Oh, yeah. We, yeah, We, we, we were one of the last awards. And you got it. Well, in fact, she told me, I think I told you, she told me they ran out of time the Friday before we submitted, but she got a little extra money to be able to, to, to cover the ones that came in that week if we went in today. That’s why we pushed it. You know, we had the, we had the presidential debate the last meeting. We didn’t talk about it to the extent it was necessary. But I think that if we, we work together as a board head of department, we can show this community,

1:26:51 number one, that we want to move public health to the priority it deserves in the community deserves. Uh, but two, we have the people in this, in this org in this town that we, one of the reasons I’m concerned about, you’re going to the, that board, that you go to them about how boards and departments work. That’s what everybody else does. I think Marblehead should be a leader. This is a creative town. The people are entrepreneurs that they, they are energetic that we, we should try to figure out what public health will be like in the next five to 10 years. Rather than saying that one document that Andrew sent

1:27:38 to us was written in 1996 or something like that with the a, a a, an upgrade on it in the, in 2020. But, you know, public health has changed a great deal, and we should try to be, uh, an innovative leader in that. That’s Why I liked that long range plan, uh, project you’ve talked about. Well, this is a way to support it. Yeah. That, that long range planning is really, this is where it starts to come in. Um, so the local hospital does do a community health assessment every three years. Um, but that’s for the broader community of the North Shore, what We’re looking for. But they don’t talk a lot about public health. ‘cause Um, what we’re looking for is really to hone into Marble Ed and look at the public health of that.

1:28:24 So I do wanna congratulate you personally because you are the grant writer, and I know you asked, we Are doing it together. I, You asked me not to say that, and I’m a technocrat for you. You, you and you and Tommy both have basis in this town that benefit. I, I couldn’t do any of this without working with you guys. Again, we’re a team of people that have space. I have to thank the grant writer because I know that it takes time. You’re, you’re, your technocrat says you’re, you’re welcome. Thank you very much. And Natalie congratulate you for writing it. I congratulate you for receiving it. Well, it, the, the fascinating thing, it was perfect. And, and I did not prime him for this, but last night, the first thing outta Mark’s mouth

1:29:10 was, well, we got this. Once you have a grant, you look better to go for the next one. And he already has one at SAMHSA that he wants to submit in January. So You, you gave him a, you gave him an an entree. He, he, we, the board has an entree now. We will go after the money that’s out there. I think the board has to go to the finance committee and say that we’re worth a lot more, the programs are worth a lot more than we get now, but we can’t expect them to give everything we need to be as good as we can be. So we have to get money externally. That’s, and Mark and I both have a fair amount of experience in doing that. That’s not Gonna give us full-time staff, which we need desperately

1:29:57 Sometimes, but I don’t know if this will work, but sometimes you, if you get a grant, say for three years, your, your town will say, okay, if you meet certain criteria in the end of those three years, we’ll incorporate somebody who was paid for by grant money into permanent. We might be able to see that’s where, that’s where the kind of thing that I think the board should be doing that he, he, he maybe do it subtly, but we can do it publicly. And if we can say, we’re gonna get this $90,000, we’re gonna show you and, and we’re gonna spend the 35 for the, for the assessment at, at, at the end of that $125,000 expenditure. This is what the town has a right to expect from us.

1:30:46 It sounds like, by the way, back to the other conversation, which I think we ended up in positive, right? Is it we should use the strengthening partnerships for mental health to support the, your program taking a couple hundred dollars out of that. Mm-Hmm. That’s, you’re building partnerships in this town to support mental health and wellness and, and at the end of the day, listing things like that, in addition to having a, a person, an expensive person, person, that that’s the way to do it. And, and that’s, um, a bill was proposed in the state legislature to put real money into public health.

1:31:31 It didn’t get out, but we should be pushing on our legislators to, to be supportive. Neither one of our legislators were, were, uh, endorsed that Bill. Uh, I met with them and they said they didn’t know enough to know whether that was something they wanted to put in. But that’s the kind of thing I think the board should be out there doing. And I know you do a lot of that, you know, everybody. Um, so we, we should be able to make public health, um, bringing public health to where deserves to be. Last year we had Jenny, Jenny here, and we suggested that, you know, we liked where she was going with some of the bills and we supported her in that. Yeah, she’s good. She’s great. Thank I. And anyway, we should have her. That’s, that’s

1:32:17 Alright. So, um, are we ready? You don’t need to have her again. You need to use her. So if there’s things that you wanna push or things out there that you want money for, oh, I Mean, I think we should go To her. We should say, Hey Jenny, can you find this money for me?

1:32:31 I could speak to her about that. I just was, uh, at, yeah, have a meeting with her last week over at Swamps. Got high school. We were over there. Um, all right. So do you wanna go onto the bills? Sure. I have a question about you. You don’t go through all the bills. You, you I go through all of them. Oh, I thought you just sort of cherry pick some of them. No, no. Every single one Let Look. A one extremities where I control $1,090 Agri Source grinding and compost removal. Um, 5,280 all com Technologies. Radios for the transfer station. That’s 8 93 36. Amazon Capital Services, uh, for eight. Compost bins for classrooms. 2 23 92 at and t Mobility.

1:33:19 Um, internet access, 80 bucks. Black Earth Compost. Uh, 1,120. Now this one changed because I didn’t know what it was, so I asked CD Baby is not So CD Baby is not, that’s not the Yeah, well what’s it? It’s Model Head all It’s Massachusetts Health Boards Association. Okay. So that was like certificate? No, the CB BABY was a, a wrong assignment. No. What is the mat? What did we get for service from that? Uh, so you guys are members, so the board is a member, so you get their members of cash. Okay. That was 225 bucks. Yeah. Um, Chris Mohan for licenses and permits, $79 East Coast compactor for Compact Repair and Maintenance. 15,000 170 30 5G and L Lab Testing Services, three 80, um,

1:34:06 LERs uniforms 703 0 8. Gilbert and Cole for repairs and maintenance supplies. 150 Spot 56 Hawk Healing and Abuse. Domestic abuse, uh, 4,000 Home Depot disposal items $11 40 cents. John Deere Financial Nest to lease to own the loader. 26,078 net Spot, nine one. Um, and MA Health Officers Association. That’s for advertising. Promotional $75. Marblehead Counseling, psychological Counseling, that’s 4,038 Spot. Six six, um, Marblehead Light Department, 7 35 28. Marblehead Park and Rec for Supplies, $200. Mayor Tree Service, grinding Compost removal, 27,500. Printer Solutions for advertising Office supplies

1:34:54 E 36 15, um, Republic Services Trash Collection, 79,908 Spot, 33 RMG Enterprises. That’s, uh, the company that recycles TVs, monitors and all that. Uh, 1,340 Spot 22 Stericycle. They pick up the, uh, sharps collection Medical Waste 6 22 53 UTECH Inc. Mattress Recycling Company, that’s 4,860. And then Uline for barrels for the school. Kitchens 4 22 79 Unlimited Auto and Truck Auto parts, uh, 35 bucks postage, uh, $20 95 cents Verizon for internet access. 1 69 61. Waste Management of Massachusetts Trash Disposal,

1:35:40 111,213. About 47 WV Mason for office supplies and printing forms, $97 and 43 cents. And Williams Scottsman Inc. Pay, uh, pay for the rented trailer. 6 47 16.

1:35:59 Thank you very much. Well, we just got a DocuSign. It was I think $137,000. Mm-Hmm. That scares the hell out of me signing The big ones are for trash Collection. Yeah. So that’s, that’s where it is. 79,000 for the public collection and then disposal. Okay. Yeah. And what it says on the DocuSign is that I’m willing to certify that you have done this meeting all Massachusetts regulations. Correct. How do I know that? So you, there’s multiple, I mean, I trust you guys. Yes. Don’t get me wrong. So There’s multiple layers of protection. So obviously when we’re hiring the companies, we have to go through a procurement process to hire them.

1:36:46 And then when we’re paying the out for them, um, so obviously we’re making sure that if companies are doing work, everything’s done at prevailing wage rates. Um, so somebody’s collecting prevailing wage rates, sheets. It’s also be looking, being looked at by the finance department to make sure everything’s being met as well. So if they have concerns before the bill is paid, they ask us to make sure that we can find any documents to satisfy all theirs. Once all that’s done, the warrant’s prepared, um, and it gets sent out. And that’s what you’re signing. And obviously you’re, you’re verifying that the funds are there as well.

1:37:24 So the checks and balances, It’s really the fine committee that looks it over with the fine tooth comb.

1:37:31 It’s the finance department. The finance department, not committee. Yeah, I’m Sorry. Because if they don’t like it, they’ll send it back.

1:37:43 But obviously there’s, there’s multiple. They Don’t see the finance department, department on this DocuSign. That’s correct. They not Supervised it. They supervise it.

1:37:54 Once it’s signed, it goes to their department before it’s paid and they look it all over, even their paycheck. Yeah. Okay. So we’re not the final No. Somebody’s backing us up. Correct. You’re saying it’s okay for them to check to finalize it. Oh, okay. I, I withdraw. Yeah, Yeah. No, but fine. Yeah, We’re going through the procurement process. So there’s Masteral Law about procurement, how we can do procurement. Um, the waste department is a little bit unique than other things, but there is masteral Law about how you can do procurement and obviously we have to make sure we follow all those rules and regulations. As long as there’s someone Yes. Looking at it. Yeah. The department. Yep. Okay. So, um, are we ready as you’re speaking, you’re ready

1:38:41 with your director’s report? Uh, yeah. So transfer station update. Um, so we are looking to go out to bid for our projects. Um, we’re hoping if as long as we’re on the right track and which we are, um, advertising would take place. October 17th, um, everything would be posted to Project Dog, so out to bid on October 22nd. Now we’ve removed the, um, the two us, like kind of a accessory buildings to it. So we do not have in this package the control room for the main compactor that’s gonna be done by others. Um, there’s a couple different ways we’re gonna do that. We are looking at, um, the shipping containers, but it might be a, you know, something of that pre preassembled, pre-PA uh, building to go there.

1:39:28 We’re getting away from the high estimates that we saw of like the $150,000 for the control room and the transaction that we’re trying to reduce costs for that. So those two buildings will not be part of it. The swap shed will also not be part of it. Um, we had removed the swap shed itself. It was just gonna be the slab, the very end that the structural engineer said, I’m very concerned about putting a structured concrete pad out there and I don’t know what the building’s gonna be. So what the idea is that the best idea to do this is to put the scale house, the compactor building, obviously the installation of the compactor, all the site work, everything. And then we get our number for the, build all that work,

1:40:15 see where we are and see if we can start to add things back in the swap shop. You know, the pad and then the building. There’s some savings by looking at those items. Obviously we squared up the pad, um, you know, potentially having just the pad done and then building that building litter. There are some savings with that. There’s different ways it can do that construction to also have some savings. But we need to move forward with the main project. So this is really the best way to do it. Um, so really that’s what’s going into this bid package scale, house, site work, the compactor building, all the work associated with that. The pads below for the, the, uh, the big trash trucks, the wing walls, all that’s gonna be part of this. Um, the signs. So any of the, um, the big signs that we be placed for,

1:41:05 you know, you’re now entering, entering the Marblehead transfer station that’s out of that. We can do that privately. We have a sign company that we work with on a regular basis. The architect has a signed package that he’s put together. We’ll take that signed package and bring it to, um, the company that makes all of our assign. And there is a cost savings to do that. But this will go out to bid at the end of October. Obviously it’s gonna take some time to evaluate bids. We give them a bidding period of time to get all their documents together, submit stuff, we review, review it, and then award the project. We anticipate we’re looking at, want them to provide a schedule for the construction period. We believe that if everything goes smoothly, the construction period for those major pieces is essentially eight weeks.

1:41:52 Um, now obviously we need the, the big pieces that go into that. So you have the commercial activities, which is commercial activities to me, or is the way and pay piece there is gonna be disruption of that service. We will essentially, you know, we will pri try to provide service for the residential area during this whole time during construction. We might have a few days where we need to move the current scale out of the way, but try to, to limit the amount of disturbance to any of the residential areas. Um, so that will always, you know, you’ll always have access to the yard lease area. Also with that is that once we begin this project, we will be opening up Green Street entrance

1:42:38 and rerouting traffic and this is the, the traffic flow that will be for the final plan. So traffic we’ll enter in for, and this is residence landscapers that use the facility. Currently. We’ll enter in Green Street, go around and then exit out Woodfin Terrace. I’m gonna stop their questions. The October 17th, what was that? Oh, so that’s just the advertising date. Okay. So that goes in the central registry, stuff like that. And you go up to bid on the 22nd. Yeah. Then it goes into Project Dog on the 22nd. So we have a list of 22 contractors that we’ve contacted. You know, obviously, you know, people should try to share this information out with everybody. Um, but is it different from the list before? If the list before, ‘cause you didn’t have much luck.

1:43:23 Yeah, it’s new list. We didn’t have a list before we generated this list. You didn’t have very good luck with the list you had before. I didn’t have a list before. It just went out to bid and was on Project Dog. Ah-Huh. That’s why we generated the lists. Okay. We wanted to make sure we’re hitting contractors. Yeah. Oh, is the list all general contractors? No, so the, the list is DA certified contractors of a certain value in the North Shore essentially, but, so they have to be DCA certified. Yeah, but my limited experience in remodeling house here is that the general contractor wants to work with their subs. So don’t we put ourselves into a bind if We don’t have a choice. This is master general law that dictates how of construction has to occur.

1:44:12 You said it’s still on Project Dog? Yeah, everything will be on Project Dog. Yep. So Project Dog is just kind of a warehouse where people go Mm-Hmm. Uh, they get all the bid documents, they get all the plan specs, all that stuff that comes off of big dogs, what I’m guessing dogs and acronym for? So no, no, the site’s just called Project Dog. Yeah. Okay. It, it might be called, it might be an acronym for something, but Yeah. But yeah, this is the process that might, uh, Massachusetts outlines for a threshold of a certain dollar amount. Companies have to be DKM certified subs have to be DKM certified and go from there. It’s obviously a prevailing wage job. So a general contractor can’t give you a price

1:44:59 for everything that she will do. So in the, the way it gets bid, so you can choose to bid at different ways. So unit prices, that’s up to the engineers and architects to decide how the best way to bid this project out. There will be some discussion on that, but generally it is general contractor and then sub bids and sub bid categories. There generally is a limited number of sub categories, but it’s generally plumbing, electrical, stuff like that.

1:45:31 And so the sub bidders submit their bids and then the general contractors take those and use those numbers.

1:45:41 It and they do it in series? They do it in series. Yes.

1:45:47 So the subs bid first and the generals take the subs. So in the end, when you get a bid from the general, you’ll know what sub that general is including, or He doesn’t have to use that sub, but he has to be using those dollar amounts essentially. Oh, he can say my plumber can work, can beat the price of the same price. Yeah. As long as they’re decamp. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a, there’s a whole, obviously there’s a lot of, uh, legal that goes into qualifications and all that stuff. Um, that is not my expertise. That’s what we have the attorneys for and all that stuff.

1:46:28 Um, but again, yeah, so you know, the idea is that this is potentially being an eight week projects. Um, this is hopefully gonna occur during our slower periods of time. Um, but there is gonna be some impact to that commercial side. Again, our idea is that to make sure that the residential is up and running, uh, for as many days as possible, possible, we only anticipate a few down days for that residential side, and that will happen close to the beginning of the year. I don’t have a start date, so I, I can’t even comment. When you say the lowest period, that’s the lowest period is say. Yeah, so the low period generally is, uh, mid-December through until February. Uh, those are our, that’s our least busy time. Our low time Christmas is not busy, so you get picks and flows.

1:47:15 So like, you know, obviously Christmas after the holidays can be busy for Christmas tree drop off, but it doesn’t mean there’s a lot of commercial tonnage coming in. What percentage of a commercial business happens during that time? I’d have to take a look at the numbers to tell you the truth. I couldn’t. So we’re gonna have an impact with that, so it’ll definitely be an impact. Yep. So, and, and that impact is to your waste revolving account, right? Yep. That’s why I picked that time is the minimal amount. Yeah. Yeah.

1:47:48 Well, I see you docs get paid, don’t worry about things going bad.

1:47:56 Sounds you some experience, I’m sorry to say, It seems like we have a lot of opportunity that things might go bad again. So Obviously the big case And don’t nobody’s fault, it’s No. So like this is, you know, this is general master of law. This is the way it is. You know, you’re wording for the lowest bidder at times, but we wanna make sure it’s the lowest qualified bidder. We want a schedule to come with that bid. We don’t want a contractor that says, I’m gonna do the lowest bid and he is gonna be on the job and it’s gonna take him a year. Like, no, no, no, no, this, this is not gonna work out where you’re, you’re coming in, you’re demoing this, and then we don’t see you again for weeks on weeks. We wanna make sure you’re coordinated. And so when you’re demoing and you’re moving things around, that is the least amount of impact, obviously to the whole facility in general.

1:48:44 But our main focus really is to residents and then commercial. But I want that commercial to be up and running as quickly as possible. Does the Massachusetts law and the culture allow you to put penalties in? If yes, if you say you want the job to be done in eight weeks and if it goes over 16 weeks, do you get a penalty or do You Yeah, so, so there’s, there are ways. So yes, you can implement penalties that can also be a cost for that. Yeah, sure. But there’ll be a cost if you, if it’s extends a year. Correct. Yep. So the, the schedule is gonna be a big piece to make sure that, you know, the, the contractor that, you know, was qualified with a low price, but a schedule that fits our needs is really the biggest

1:49:31 piece and, and they’re big enough to, if something comes up that they can pivot and make sure that they can handle everything that’s gonna, now this is different than some the last project that we’re encountering, but this is more a, what we call vertical construction and not necessarily, um, underground construction

1:49:52 When we had lots of surprises Yeah. When we had acres and acres underground that we didn’t know was there. Oh yeah, no, I I mean your slideshow. Yeah, I I’ve followed that. Yeah.

1:50:05 Um, but also this will also include, um, you know, the moving of the, you know, redoing the pit, moving the scale, you know, redoing all the asphalt up front, redoing the fence along some of the ways and replacing the main front gate. That’s also all included in this project.

1:50:23 But no, we, we need to be down as for as little time as possible. Mm-Hmm. Trying to get that commercial backup. And obviously the way we have the current trailer, a trailer does, we put that in a very specific place. So it does not need to be moved for construction. You can keep it there. You can continue to operate as long as the other pieces, as long as that compact is running, I can run that scale house, um, and continue operations.

1:50:56 Anything else? Um,

1:51:02 just, you know, obviously the, again, we’ll try to post everything once we enter construction. We’ll continue to talk about this stuff. We’ll be entering in from Green Street for the residential areas for the landscaping. Um, but we, you know, we will try to do as much advertising about this as possible, working with the newspapers, putting stuff online. Um, you know, this, this really, you know, people will know when we’re going into construction when things are gonna about to change. Um, with that, again, we will be looking, starting to look at, um, implementing the license plate reader cameras. Um, so the other piece of that is the fiber optics. So the town has a contract for fiber optics in the community. Um, one of the pieces of that fiber optics is to do that loop for us that would allow us to connect our cameras,

1:51:49 um, to this loop. So we can operate a camera down on the Green Street entrance, but we can read it up in the residential area where we can have our transaction cut and take a look at that stuff. One more year of stickers. So we’re, we are gonna purchase stickers this year. Mm-Hmm. Um, and hopefully with the idea that there’s a chance that we can transition over to l the all the LPR stuff. Oh, okay. There was a place for the license plate to be on there. Yeah. There is a place. So it’s gonna be the exact same sticker last year, so it’ll get written on there. Mm-Hmm. Um, but we will try to keep as much information as possible and so we can transition over to that L LPR system. I mean, that’s the idea. Mm-Hmm. Um, we we’re excited about that LPR system. Yeah. Um, or moving in that direction. Um, so we want to try to phase that in

1:52:35 as quickly as possible. I know your workers are excited about it, Bobby. It, it should benefit everybody. Yeah. It can that Be used. Will that be able to use at, at, So Yeah, so if you were interested in, so keep, so if you were interested in having it for a beach sticker, you’re gonna request a sticker so you, you know, and you can, it can be mailed to you. You can put on your car that’s not, you know, but you’re not gonna be, once the license plate reader cameras we’re up and running. That’s not gonna be the main piece that we’re looking for. It’s gonna be the cameras looking at your car for your license plate and telling that the employees that car is all set, they’re not gonna be eyeballing stickers up there, but they’re not, is there gonna be a camera de or are you just gonna use the stickers? No, they would just be using the stickers. Yeah. So there’s, there’s gonna be have to be a combo until everybody kind of figures out, I don’t know

1:53:22 what the percentage, it’s a small percentage of sticker holders that use it to go to the beach at Dera.

1:53:29 Um, again, once we kinda get through some of the major pieces of this, um, we’ll come back and begin to talk about that feasibility study for doing the construction demolition waste up in that yard waste area. Um, so again, um, Haward will provide us with a scope of services, um, and we’ll come back and make sure that that fits what our needs are. Um, but looking at placing, you know, doing construction demolition material recovery up at the trench up in that guard waste stereo, um, what kind of cost it would be to, to build that facility type of equipment you would need, what type of, how many employees you would need to run that and potential income of all that. Mm-Hmm. Um, and, and the different types of material that we should be looking at bringing in, stuff like that. Mm-Hmm. Um, the other piece is that

1:54:15 going into kind of the maintenance for the landfill itself. Um, we need to, so currently, uh, watermark does our landfill monitoring and inspections. Uh, that con contract is up. Uh, we need to award this contract to Haley Ward. Um, Haley is the, the company that, the engineering firm that we’ve been currently working for the, with the transfer station now. Um, and we’ll just continue to work with them in the future. Um, so, so the landfill monitoring, um, this is a post closure required monitoring done by the state of Massachusetts. We do, we hire a company to do all the monitoring. They submit all the data, we have to answer any questions. Um, we’ve always carried a budget for this. Um, the number

1:55:00 for this is a little bit higher than in the past. The total contract price for, um, the next year is gonna be $49,750. Uh, and this is for spring sampling and fall sampling. Um, what was the previous one? So the previous one was only $26,000. Um, but this is, you know, we carry close to, you know, we’re carrying the $50,000 for this. We’re just happen to have a good contract right now. Mm-Hmm. Now there has been some current concerns and not everything has been sampled for during the current contract. So there has to be some conversations with Mass DEP to make sure that they’ve received everything they’re looking for. We haven’t had any issues, um, but we just wanna make sure that we’re, what we’re sampling is a robust, um,

1:55:46 and fits the requirements of the, of the d you know, the agreement between mass DEP and the town of Marble Line. Yeah. So will, will this affect the bottom line? It does not affect the bottom line. No, it does not change the budget. Oh, it Doesn’t? No. It was enough to, yep, yep. No, and, and you’re gonna carry, um, ward on, right? Yeah, we would like to c So, um, yes, I want to continue to work with, have you know, uh, Haley and Ward Haley? Yeah. Um, we were working with them for the development for transfer station project right now. Um, we’d like to continue to work with them, uh, for the long term environmental monitoring for the landfill itself. Uh, and then obviously we’ll be working with them for the feasibility.

1:56:33 And is, is that, has that been approved by, so Engineering services, we can pick and choose so different procurement requirements for, uh, engineering.

1:56:46 Um, but no, it, it would be good, obviously. Again, um, I mean the, the, we can choose to go out to bid for the environmental monitoring. Um, but that means you’re just essentially you’re gonna be awarding it to those, You’re working with these people and you’re like them. Yeah. So why wouldn’t you stay with them? Right. Um, so the water and sewer department also works with this company.

1:57:09 So I need a motion to award the contract for vi post closure environmentally monitoring to Haing award for the total of $49,750. Motion for a motion for the awarding the contract to 49,752. Haley and Ward Voting Motion to award second. All those in favor? Aye. It the votes, but Union unanimous.

1:57:36 Did you get that one? Mm-Hmm. Um, I just wanna remind everybody that we have household hazardous waste coming up next week. Um, this is different than we’ve done in the past. Um, it’s, so during covid we offered a collection service. You paid the company came to your house. Unfortunately, that’s not available anymore. So we’ve been doing it at the transfer station. Uh, it had been a Saturday. Um, I know it doesn’t fit everybody, so this time we’re trying it on a Wes Wednesday evening. Um, so this is gonna be, uh, Wednesday, October 16th from four to seven. The transfer station will only be open for household hazardous waste. This is a pay event. Um, the costs are online.

1:58:21 Um, we will be taking household hazardous waste paints and varnishes. We’ll also take gas drill and propane tanks. Um, but that’s it. We will not be taking anything else during that time. We’re not gonna be taking computers and monitors. Um, we’re not gonna be taking other electronics. You can do those during the day all the time. At the transfer station. This is just for household hazard access waste. And it’s on the website. It’s on the website and All these things listed here under what you can do All these things here. We will be taking latex paint at this event, but it is at a pay event. Um, the cost is, uh, for zero to three gallons or pounds is $30 for three to 10 gallons or pounds. It’s $40 for 10 to 25 gallons or pounds.

1:59:07 It’s 16 and it continues to go up. But you did say that like latex can be put in the, so You can dry out latex paint, it’s non-hazardous. It can go go in your household dry. It has to be dry. Yeah. Yep. Okay.

1:59:25 Yeah, you can all, yeah, I send brief. Okay. Okay. Do you wanna, oh, you want mention about, um, the new employee, the inspector? I, I have replaced Bobby Cody. I have a new inspector that will be coming on October 23rd, which is a Wednesday. Um, really looking forward to having him on board. We’re very lucky that we have a, a, you know, north Shore Coalition with the training hub. So I’ll be able to use the training hub, which will great assistance to us. Um, so obviously, you know, we’ll be working on food inspections, housing inspections, pool inspections, beach, uh, inspections, all that stuff, uh, complaints. Uh, so yeah, we’re really excited to have, uh, the new individual coming on board. What’s the background of the new individual?

2:00:11 Uh, he has a, so environmental science, uh, in college, he already has his registered sanitarian license as well. Oh, Does he have a name? Yeah, His name is Steve Moody. Okay. Um, and unfortunately I have one of my heavy equipment operators, uh, that just gave their notice. So I will be posting another job for Heavy Equipment operator, CDL driver, uh, for the transfer station. Has he given you any time? Uh, he’s given me his two weeks. Which one? Uh, Luke. Luke? Yeah. So, you know, he’s been a great employee, uh, really conscious employee. He’s a really good CDL driver. Um, always goes above and beyond. He will be a big loss. Um, but I understand.

2:00:57 Do you know he is getting something better Or? I, he doesn’t have a community anymore, so currently he’s driving an hour each way. Really? Yep. And so to do this? Yeah. Oh boy. And so, yeah, he, he’s found him more local job. That’s Wonderful. Happy. So we wish him all The best, but happy for him. Wish him good luck. Um, one of my concerns in principle is if we have a lot of required overtime, do the employees like the required overtime or would, should we, the board encourage people to, to get a, a regular 40 hour week. And we have enough people to do that, So we do not have enough people to do that. And so you operate we’re, we operate the transfer station six days a week. Um, so because of that, your two options are is

2:01:45 to hire more people and have less overtime. Or have more overtime. It’s fiscally more responsible to have more overtime than hire individuals? Well, you don’t have to pay health insurance. There’s a whole bunch of things that go into it. So obviously I have a minimum number of employees that I have to have onsite to operate the facility. And so no matter what you, you’d have this huge overlap. You know, so that’s, that’s always the hard thing when you’re operating 60 days a week, you’re always gonna have this extra day. Um, we try to split it up as much as possible having guys run, you know, Tuesday through Saturday or Monday through Friday. Um, but a lot of times you just need additional

2:02:32 people on both days. So a lot of times, you know, Luke is a Tuesday through Saturday employee, but I need to him to drive and run trash after the weekend for all those recycling and stuff like that. So he often comes in on Mondays to do all that stuff. Anytime you have employees taking vacation, that obviously expands over time as well. Um, when we look at hours of operation, we are like to the tee as far as hours go. Um, my guys come in at seven o’clock and they leave at three 30. We’re open from seven, uh, from seven 30 to 12, one to three 30. Anytime anybody’s a little bit late, I’m paying overtime.

2:03:25 Yeah. I mean I know hospitals and nurses and all that. The same. Yeah. 24 times seven, but Okay. You can’t dock them for being late. No. So if somebody stays at the facility longer Residents. Residents not. Yeah. Well I thought you had to. If the work, it comes in late. No. So if a resident stays at the facility longer, I, you know, I’m paying overtime on that. But obviously that’s the way it’s set up. Um, we want to, you know, those are the times that we wanna afford to the residents of Marette to give them time to the facility. Um, and we have to do that. Well, They’re hourly and not salary. That’s the only, that’s the reason.

2:04:04 But even with, even with salary, you’re still only paying me for 40 hours a week. That doesn’t give you unlimited time. And I know we said, well, You make it up. Is that what you do? Right. So Yeah. I I have to come in later. I have to leave early. Yeah. Or I just work more hours and I go, don’t get paid for it. I wanna clarify real quick. We said seven 30 to to 12 and then one to three 30 for the transfer station. That is not the trailer. Right. The trailer closes at quarter of 12 till one and three 15 for the day. I wanna make sure that’s clear. ‘cause there has been a question about that. The transfer station itself is open for residents a little later, but the trailer itself needs to shut down so that they can finish and leave and not be there. Yeah. So at lunchtime they have to count all their money. They’re also making a bank deposit

2:04:50 and you know, potentially getting cash They can do with 15 minutes. Correct. That’s, that’s the hard piece. You know, we, we are very tight with the time and we, you know, we give that flexibility of the Yeah, there’s big days you’re gonna be over, it’s gonna, you know, or something didn’t come out right on the registry. You’re sitting there trying to figure it out. Uh, and so it’s gonna take you a few extra minutes. Right. So we wanna hear from the, uh, from the public. Nope. And I’m telling you that it’s time to, I can see, I’m looking at the time, um, anybody from the public. Yes. Two the questions. What’s the total, um, amount for the transfer station project right now? I don’t know. No, but I mean, what is it budgeted for? I, I have over $1.5 million. 1.5 million.

2:05:37 Yeah, I think it’s like 1.55. Okay. And then, um, dealing with the $90,000 grant, um, can any of that money be used towards the 35,000? The $3,500? Um, or 35,000? That Was not the intention of it, no. Okay. So you, There there was a a totally separate Right. Best practice that we could have chosen For that, but Okay. I don’t think we could go back now and ask for that. Right. So where, and you don’t have the $35,000, um, budgeted. So you’re meeting with the Collin Center, but you have no way to fund survey at this point? Correct. Okay.

2:06:18 Any ideas on how that’ll work? Yeah, there’s some, there’s some additional grant money out there. Okay. Okay. Thank you much. The, the marble had mental health that forth I think has some money and we, we, we are gonna try to get some members in the community. Uh, mark, because he has the practice, knows a lot of people he was going to think about asking for people to, might wanna support it. Okay. You’re asking for community donations? Yeah. Well, I I think we will. You, we’ll, we’ll talk about it and strategize and stuff like that. I think that it’s easier to see what kind of grant money’s out there and if we need to come back

2:07:03 to the community and ask for that, I think we will.

2:07:09 W when would, if we wanted to, when would we go to the, because, because Swamp Scott went to select board. Could we go to the select board now and ask for that? Or w it would be, we should wait. We so generally go, so generally we don’t go to the select board and ask for money generally, you know, we were asked generally directly to town meeting for town funds. Um, so they operate on a different, you know, I, I don’t know how their operations and their financials work. Um, but generally we’re not going to the, the slide board and asking them for funds.

2:07:52 You’re better off asking businesses that would be affected by it. I assume We can have discussions about that And the, that’s the part. Anybody else not line all? Thank you very much. The next meeting is November 12th and uh, we need your adjourning at, uh, nine 40. Is that right? 9 37. 9 37.

2:08:20 Uh, did we motion? Oh, I thought we did. I just adjourned. Are you on a motion standing voter, but.