Board of Health: April 28, 2025

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.

0:02 I’ll call the meeting to order. It’s, uh, what, 7 34? Mm-hmm. A little bit late. The Board of Health had a meeting would be, uh, with the finance committee. So, uh, we will open up the meeting and this will be, uh, first on the agenda for the, uh, public hearing. We’ll be the regulations prohibiting manufacturer sale or distribution of synthetic canon voids. Is that the pronunciation? That’s Correct. And, um, do you wanna go over it first? Uh, Mr. Penny? Well, I, you know, it’s pretty straightforward. So obviously the whole reason behind, uh, this regulation, um, so they produce synthetic cannabinoids, um,

0:48 and we often find them in tobacco establishments or establishments that also sell tobacco and have tobacco permits. Now, Massachusetts Department of Agriculture does have a regulation against them, but we continue to find them in establishments. So by passing this local regulation, our tobacco control enforcement agents can go into establishments and make sure they’re removed and not on the premises.

1:20 So where are they being sold in town at all? The, uh, Uh, so what, I mean, they’re sold in establishments, I couldn’t tell you. In town. They’re sold across Massachusetts, across, you know, the Northeast Massachusetts. Um, this is what’s recommended from our tobacco control, um, Massachusetts Tobacco Control Board. To put it in the, to put it in, yeah. To Make it a local, local regulation, which would allow them when they’re doing inspections, to make sure that these are not there. And we don’t know if anybody has been carrying That’s correct. But now we can check on That. Yeah. Now we will look for them.

1:56 So, um, any questions from the board or, I just wanna say this is, this is really important. That’s great. And very proactive. Uh, I’m not so sure about body art because we don’t do body art, but this one, I actually did some CME on this one for my last license renewal. Oh, okay. So This is well written. I couldn’t write it. I, I, if, if you’re comfortable with it. But I’m happy to do research to make sure the wording is good. If you want. It’s all been researched. This is, you know, it’s all, but, But, but the downsides of these synthetics, we, we have no idea how bad they can be, but probably there are some that, that aren’t bad. But it, it, it, this is,

2:42 this is an important proactive and the only question I would have, how can we possibly over time a, a agenda item for our board next year? Tommy has to be to sort of how, how to educate the community for why we did this. ‘cause I was, I was blown away when I did my CME Yep. To how bad some of these things are. And, and the hard thing about the synthetics is that they’re changing all the time, is that they can change one little, you know, molecule of it. Now it’s called a different structure and they can change, sell it on a different name. So we’re always kind of chasing them, trying to stay ahead of this stuff. Um, but the hard thing is that we do not know what some of these things cause and they can be very dangerous.

3:28 It can be long term. Yes. Long term. That’s the thing. Yeah. 17-year-old starts this, what’s gonna happen? 25 or she’s 27. Um, and so the hard thing is that, you know, yes, we try to reg, we will be regulating this locally. Um, the hard thing that, you know, obviously that we’re, it’s impossible to regulate is the internet and stuff like that. Yeah. So what about us? Yeah. This is a big piece of also doing, you know, by the board, creating this regulation. It does create some education, but that’s is something that we should be discussing on a annual. Is this something that’s, that’s found on the street? Not necessarily on the street, but like in a lot of, you know, it’s found in a lot of convenience stores. That’s where they’re trying to hit. You know, if you go into some of these convenience stores, gas, you’ll see Yeah. Gas stations, all these different things. You know, I don’t have That problem. We,

4:14 gas station Gas station was taken away two years ago. Oh, good. If we don’t have it, fine. But it, this is one. If we don’t have it fine. This, this one is scary. Yeah. And so the history with Marblehead and tobacco Control has been long. Uh, Marblehead has a great history of doing tobacco control. Um, obviously we also, the board decided to move forward with Tobacco 21. Um, and then obviously, so we move forward with Tobacco 21 in the North Shore. Uh, we’ve been working as a coalition again to, to deal with some of these things. And the state followed suit with our lead, and that’s how Tobacco 21 came across the whole state. Um, so obviously again, it is re regulated by the Mass Department of Agriculture, but they’re not going out looking for it.

4:59 You know, this will now have us looking for it. Do do the, uh, marijuana shops carry? No. Marijuana shops are very strict. They can only carry marijuana products. Um, and so it’s, they have a whole other set of regulations. Okay. Alright. Good thing is Matt Marblehead has what, six places to sell at least. Yeah, cigarettes. Yeah. I mean, in small town, you, everyone’s gonna hear about it if one of ‘em is doing it. So it’s probably easier to control here. Well, do you know when Joyce was inspected around here? I forget what the date was. I can go back and take a look at that. Um, generally she does a fall and a spring if they have time. But yeah, they try to come through here twice a year. It’s Our back who control. Great coordinator.

5:47 She’s very good. She does her job. She is a long, she Does her job well. Trying to be nice. It’s not, it’s just a long meeting. It, it’s important. We hadn’t seen her in two years, so. Oh, you had to Because I’ve been here. I was here for one anyway. Yes. But we hadn’t, yeah, we hadn’t seen her for two years anyway. No, I meant before that. Prior to that. So you wanna a vote for Yes, two or two accept Approved with asterisk Is, is there a second? Uh, second. All those in favor? Mm-hmm. It’s unanimous. Thank you very much, Andrew. So actually, I didn’t ask for comments from the, uh, from the audience. Is there anybody on the line other than,

6:32 uh, no comments here. I’m sorry. We voted on it, but I’ll still take comments. No, anybody I like got so excited. But we’re not doing tobacco tonight. Why? We originally had tobacco. This is the tobacco. Yeah. It falls under tobacco control. And That somehow I have a regulation of town of marble have restricting asylum tobacco products, which, Yeah. So that, that’s, so when we rewrote it to make sure it fit everything, it gets rewritten as this. But this is about nicotine in So that, so that’s some additional regulations

7:19 we can look at in the future. We wanted to make sure that the synthetics was taken care of. Oh, okay. Well, the only thing I would add to the that. Okay. But it, it, this needs to be a little updated. Yes. That needs to be updated. Correct. Yes. ‘cause it’s old. But the, some of the references are old and I would not comfortable saying this is a, that’s how, who, who updates it. So Generally, we, again, like generally we’ll work with tobacco control and look at proposed regulations. Um, so a lot of the new regulations that we’re looking at is around flavor. Um, the, the tobacco industry is being very tricky around flavors where we have outlawed menthol cigarettes, uh, but they’re now selling what they call no name,

8:05 but it’s actually a menthol cigarette. And you can, like, so you change the language to say you can distinguish this product by smell and other key factors. And so you can essentially say, no, this is a menthol cigarette because it smells like menthol, even though menthol’s not on the package name.

8:25 Um, I’m, I, I guess I’m volunteering if we ever are gonna revise this or when we think to do the reference work. Okay. I, I don’t, I defer to you Yep. About the, the regulations and the other person. But, uh, there are issues that in these references that we now know a lot more. Some Yeah. That are more emphasizing how bad things are. But some I wouldn’t want to have to defend. Okay. Yep. All right. So I can’t prepared for nothing, but Are you prepared for the other one? Yeah. No, I, this is what, this is what I do best.

9:08 No, this, I, I, I, we should be marketing positive things and everything we put out should, we should be able to defend at all levels to all people in the town and in the region. And we, yes, we do try to do that. But this one has a reference that goes back. Say for example, uh, 2010, uh, there’s been a lot of nicotine over the water since 2010. And I would guess that a lot of kids reading that would not accept that as factual. So, uh, that’s what show Me a kid that’s gonna read it. Well, that’s touche.

9:57 Alright, so to move on with the, um, Maybe their parents will read it and then they’ll, they’ll know that we’re up to date at least, and that’s what we do for our living. So, uh, second we’ll address the body art regulations. Uh, this is still the public hearing. And, um, Andrew, could you, uh, take over? Yeah. So tobacco, uh, tattooing, um, has changed quite a bit. We now really call it body art. Um, and even, you know, what can be done as tattoo has changed dramatically over the years. Um, so we’re really now into permanent makeup, which is also regulated under tattooing. Um, and so it was bringing our older regulations that I think were quite old, um, back in probably

10:45 2008 or earlier. Um, and so that was, you know, Massachusetts decided that they wanted to allow tattooing. Um, so everybody created a set of regulations. A lot of us had the very, all similar regulations. A lot of communities trying to set, um, a high body art establishment fee to try to say, Hey, this, you know, if you really want to practice here, you’re gonna have to pay this fee. Now these fees really kind of meet the standards today. Um, tattooing is very expensive. Um, but we needed to update our rules and regulations. And again, we wanted our rules and regulations to kinda outline and be similar with a lot of our neighbors. So we worked on this as a coalition as well. Um, and it, we, we spent a lot of time going through these rules and regulations, um,

11:32 for body art establishments. Um, it gets down into practitioners and assistants and an apprentices and stuff like that. Um, obviously not have a current tattoo establishment in town. We have had permanent makeup artists in town. Um, we do not, you know, you’ll find them in med spas and stuff like that. Um, but we wanted to adopt a set of rules and regulations or recommend a set of rules and regulations that essentially matches all the other communities on the North Shore. So you’re talking Salem, Lynn Swamp, Scott, uh, Dan versus Peabody Salem stuff. We have had a body art, but not as extensive. That’s correct. Regulations. Yep. So now this is just more extensive, covering more of the, uh, body art. Yeah. Really getting, you know, getting into body art,

12:19 getting into practitioners, getting into apprentices, getting into, you know, education that’s required. Um, and getting into what we call permanent makeup. Do you wanna go over the fees that you gave us? Um, so you can do ‘em two separately. I would recommend that you adopt the regulations first, and then we can talk about the, the fees. Okay. So why don’t we, um, any comments before we go for a motion as I guess good we do. Any comments? Some extras? Yeah. Yeah. Is that, yeah. This tax, right? Yep. Absolutely. I thought you’re gonna give your speech about, uh, Tattooing. Tattooing. Don’t do ‘em. Hurts to get ‘em off. Hurts to get, there you go. I said, I thought you gonna give your speech. Well, there it is. Yeah, that’s it. Don’t do it. What it seemed like it was cool when you were 16. Might not be cool when you’re 43.

13:07 You have 43 when you can say, Danny, what said They won’t see it’s gonna be gone. Okay. Um, any other comments before we get a motion move? I’m looking for a motion to accept, move the article to be accepted. Uh, second. All those in favor?

13:30 Any, any comments from the, uh, from the audience? Uh, from, from people in on our screen? Not On the screen. No, no comments. Okay. So let’s go on to the, um, the, uh, permit and application please. Uh, so the current, uh, body art establishment permit is $500. Um, the current body practitioner permit application is 200. Um, so we just, again, um, we work together, kind of set some fees in the region. Um, and so yes, the establishment plan review. So if you had a new establishment, we would do a plan review that would cost $400 the establishment permit application. So that’s your annual permit, but can sit, still stay at the $500.

14:16 Um, we added the apprentice permit application. So if you had an apprentice, wait A minute. Establishment says 750 here. Oh, sorry. Not here. I don’t have that. Mine. Yeah. So it, it should be 750. Mine, mine Is, it’s five 500. 500. Mine’s seven 50 that you gave me the But you have a, You have a different bottle on there. Yeah, That must Another is from the computer. Uh, that says something about there will be two practitioners under the practitioner. It’s not under the establishment. Well, the 500 was the same as Yeah, the 500 would be the same. So yes, you could easily go to the seven 50.

15:01 So you must have recommended if I, I have this. Yeah. Yep. So how is it that we’ve got, uh, ‘cause I made it an correction and took off some of that stuff and, and didn’t bring the correction forward. So Could you read the numbers you have there? I have the establishment plan review is 400. I’ve got the establishment permit application seven 50. And these are not my numbers. They came from the office and, uh, the apprentice permit application is 200. The practitioner, uh, without a PMU instructor. What’s PMU? Um, it’s practitioner. So you have to be, do you have to go through a whole class to become an instructor? Whole? Okay. So That’s three 50. Do you have three 50? Yeah. That must be just the only one that, uh, guest practitioners 200. And then I have one 50. Oh, so it’s 200 down there? Yes.

15:49 The last one. And then the current, we’ve got, I’ll just read the list. 400, 300, 1 25 and 100. Yeah. And that was from other communities. That’s, I Only have two numbers on that. Oh, we only have two current numbers. We only have two. Yeah. And what are those? I have five. And what are they? I mean, I don’t have the names. Body establishment, permit Practitioner and the practitioner. Okay. So we only had two numbers currently in the community. Yep. Alright, so these five would replace these two? That’s correct. I Any discussion about the, the miscommunication or about, about the ones that I have? We talked about that. Because you said seven 50 wasn’t 2 million When we I you Could make them zero.

16:35 I don’t think you’re gonna get a tattoo artist moving into Town. Well, yeah, it’s, I I, yeah, I don’t think there’s enough traffic here for the Exactly. Yeah. There’s no market. There’s, there’s no traffic. But you might get a permanent, you might get a Yeah, yeah. Stall still falls. But Even with the cost of those, I don’t Think that that’s what Might be good. A permanent makeup establishment in town, Like the, the lipstick and the eye makeup. And I Don’t have, should I be embarrassed that I don’t know any of this? No, It, it’s actually quite, it’s quite popular. Oh, well that’s, it’s very popular. Things know about A lot of people I know have a, not me. So, um, alright, so we’ve got the right, we’ve got the figures that, do you want add? I interrupted you. I’m sorry.

17:21 That’s all right. So, no, so you have establishment plan of your 400 establishment permit application, seven 50 apprentice permit application, 200 practitioner without PMU instructor designation as three 50 guest practitioner without PMU instructor designation as 200. So when would one have a guest practitioner? So in these large, really famous tattoo, um, establishments, it’s very popular for them to have these guests, um, practitioners come in. They kinda fly all over the country and come in for different festivals. So it’s very popular for Salem to have a guest practitioner during October and stuff like that. Good. I’m glad they do it. Um, and so now could we make a motion

18:07 for those, uh, numbers? I move That those five numbers be, uh, Approved. Second. All those in favor? Thanks, unanimous. Any questions from the audience or discussion? You not gonna go out and get the tattoos? Uh, any, I think I’ll let pass today. I’ll go right after you. We can get ‘em to get us. Yeah, we’ll, we’ll tie it up behind you. Okay. I, I might, uh, consider the, uh, the lips, no, I’m joking. I won’t consider it. Question. This doesn’t, it’s not like Botox or muscular things or anything. No, it’s not like Botox. Yeah. And it, and it’s, um, it’s technically semi-permanent. So, And, or any of those. Correct. Yep. So those all can only be done in a med

18:54 spa in Massachusetts. Okay. Are you ready to read your I can Please, please Have any of those in. We do, yes. So those are a doctor’s license. Okay. Yep. Mm-hmm. Was doesn’t that seaside arc? They’re Closed. Yeah. Yep. I believe they have a med stock. Yeah. Well, they’re closed now, but Yep. But they did, that’s correct. That I guess her husband was adoption guy, so that’s, he was Alright. So, um, you wanna be those? Yep. Um, a one extremities for the rack control, uh, 1008 45 Agri Source, which covers the grinding compost removal, $2,400 American Security. That’s the American flag disposal box. It was $890 30 cents. Is That, should that come on?

19:40 Isn’t that from the bes? No, they have their own, but Yeah. But it’s in addition Because the one out, out here or is that Yeah. So we have a huge number of people that go through the transfer station. We’re trying to, you know, be a one stop. Yeah. Um, so it’s, we do collect quite a few flags up there at this point. Yeah. Um, so it’s so much easier when people are coming in through to throw out their trash mm-hmm. That they can dispose of their flag in a, the proper way. Ours is more prominent too. People. Yes. See it. So, yep. Um, at and t for internet access, $80. Uh, black earth compost for residential food, composting pick up and replacement bags. Uh, 4,000 55 76. Bob Tapas, welding. Welding services, $1,435. Bob Tires. That’s for tire disposal.

20:26 Three $99 Dynamic Waste Systems. Shrink wrap disposal, $2,463 75 cents East Coast compactor. That’s for compact for repair. Um, 70,700 Home Depot commercial for disposal area maintenance supplies, $249 35 cents. Marblehead, uh, light department for electricity, $1,730 and 8 cents. McKeen, custodial and House supplies, $45 69 cents. Uh, meat Tellerman and Costa Legal $1,491. Um, the dates In For me. Teleman. Yeah. Uh, February 14th. That was it. That was, yeah.

21:11 No, you still have additional legal bills. Um, and then there’s, uh, for Mike at the transfer station employee, I guess a hundred dollars. That’s, uh, I don’t know, Shoe, shoe allowance. Oh, okay. Shoe allowance. Yeah. Um, and next gen, uh, custodial supplies, uh, three $4 basic cents. Pete’s Tire Barn. And that’s tire replacement. Um, $5,421 60 cents. Uh, printer Pro Solutions for Ink Toner for employees. Uh, $117 for public services for trash collection. $292,189 26 cents. RMG Enterprise, LLC. That’s for, uh, they recycled a TV monitors, things like that.

21:57 A hundred or a thousand dollars, $1,004 and 90 cents SL chest welding, uh, for the pit structural repairs, 40 2007 50 T-Mobile for telephone. Um, $69 52 cents. Uline, uh, for the barrels, for the school kitchens, $2,304 and 8 cents. United Construction, r and m, uh, non-high vehicles, $4,613 and 11 cents. Us, uh, bank National for Banking needs $138 38 cents utech, which is the Mattress Recycling Company, $4,644. Verizon for internet access. 1 68 99.

22:43 A Waste Management of Massachusetts for trash disposal. $10,897 and 99 cents. And then WB Mason for office supplies. $986 and 64 cents. That’s it. Could you go back? What’s the shrink wrap one? Uh, for boats, they put the shrink wrap over them in the Winter. Oh, this is not stuff I’m wrapping my vegetables. No, no, no, no, no. White boat wrap. A lot of money. We got a few boats in town. I don’t know if you No. Since you moved here, but Thank you for that. Um, next on the agenda, um, our legal counsel looked over the, uh, frozen duties, go along with the mission statement. And, um, Andrew sent it out on Friday

23:29 before his vacation, and he wasn’t able to put it on the agenda until this morning. So, um, if, if you don’t have a copy, I have it. I have it all. The sticky note here. Take this. The,

23:46 You have one as well.

23:50 Um, He have one too. So, legal counsel looked this all over, redlined it. And I think the reason that I thought it was appropriate to have it before our next, um, contract meeting, I think it would help us to go more forward. And if you have read it or have any questions, I, I would bring it up for discussion now. Uh, I didn’t have a problem with it, except when you get down to this section right here, which I think Tom has brought up quite a bit, I would just not do those Red crossouts, Which With the ones, uh, what, What services the Board of Health

24:36 provide in their community. Is that the one Yeah, I would leave the parts that are crossed out in red That, that whole paragraph Basically. So why don’t, oh, here Maybe, what were we talking About here? He, he doesn’t wanna cross up that phrase or this phrase.

24:55 Well, I don’t mind the Board of Health through the health department, but, but, uh, I, It’s kind of what you’ve been saying the whole time, Tom, is that, you know, There’s, We’re not doing inspection services. The health department is so Well, but they’re doing it on our behalf. Yeah, no, that’s why I say big issue. It says the Board of Health through the Health department, which I think should have been left in. And wait A minute, uh, if you take that part out, it just says the Board of Health provides inspection services, which we don’t do.

25:28 All right. And what about, and, and do you, what about the, uh, the health department where he wrote the Board of Health prepares and trains? That’s correct. The, Uh, I don’t train anyone. Well, but you oversee the book, the Health Department. But you, you want both of those that are stricken to be back in. Yeah. Why don’t I ask Council if that’s okay? I think it just makes more sense. Well, But why does council matter? Yeah. I wouldn’t even, I kind of agree with you, Council. You don’t need to go to council, just do It to do this. His comments. And the one I saw where he didn’t want us to say environmental health because it wasn’t under one. Uh, general laws 1 1 1. But I think we as a Board of health are allowed to define

26:15 what our mission is. Mm-hmm. As long as we don’t go against 1 1 1. If we add on top of 1 1 1, I think we’re, we’re we’re doing the right thing for I think he’s just, I think he’s just

26:30 The one I had there. Was he he you crossed that environmental. I didn’t, I didn’t cross. Yeah. He crossed this one out and I had a little box over here with his initials.

26:42 You, you have a box. I don’t mean box. Yeah. I thought I brought it with me, but I No, I, oh yeah, that’s, it’s exactly what You The rest one. So that, that, yeah. Who writes those? Pardon? My recent write those Con Yeah. Alex wrote those comments. Oh, This is a bit broad. I stick within the confines of chapter. I think, See, my whole argument is we wanna be more than we’ve been historically because public health has been under supported in town, and we wanna figure out how to get bigger and better. And so if we go beyond 1, 1 1, we should, we should be proud of that.

27:29 And that’s my concern about this whole thing. Um, So he wants to take the word environmental out. Yeah. And you wanna keep it in, is that what you’re saying? Well, I’m saying broad more broadly. I think it would’ve been better if the board did this. This did that itself. Because with all intent, this is written like a lawyer. This is boring. Well, this is a document though. But We, but our mission, we would like to, to be seen as an exciting place to work and run it. Run four, we’re gonna add two new people next year. We have two good candidates this year. I think that’s a positive for

28:15 what the board has done this year. And if we could have more people say, Hey, the Board of Health really is interested, they pay attention to what’s going on in the community, and they’re going forward beyond the minimums. That’s a plus. I don’t get any of that now. I brought, I apologize. I, at the end of the day, I always get disorganized after I prepare. But we wrote a much more positive, uh, commentary about the Board of Health in the Town report, which hasn’t been submitted yet. It’s gonna be handed, it’s, it’s already been printed. Well, When it, when it’s printed, it has, there are three things

29:00 that the board, how the Board of Health serves the community in the broad sense. But that’s a more didactic thing. This is, this is a, a, a, uh, this is a mission statement and powers and duties. It’s a, it’s a different kind of commentary. This is a boring piece of literature. Well, it’s done well then. So, But don’t, every time we go out, we should be trying to convince, This is a guideline for us to go by and for the town to know our, our duties and responsibilities. That’s exactly what they say. Powers, he says Powers and duties. That’s how it was written. We can say powers and responsibilities, if you wish. But I think that, um,

29:47 having him book it over is helpful to make for a boring and, and direct mission statement in powers and do well. But, okay. Well then I don’t get to details. It, it, it, it plays a little bit on what the, the health department does, but it under, under reports on the, on the waste department here, we’ve spent, we, we’ve battled over the last couple of weeks about the waste department, how important it is. We’re not battling how important it is, but how to provide for that importance. And yet it’s under underserved in this, because the waste department is not covered under 1 1, 1 I This, this board does two things. There are only, I don’t know how many transfer stations in the state,

30:35 but the, the other 350 boards of health don’t have transfer stations. So we should be saying to the community that we do more than the average Joe Board of Health. And why, why put out something that underplays our, our added value.

30:55 I, I guess what I’m saying, may I have a Yeah. This, this isn’t, this is one of the absolute worst things about the three person board. We can’t talk to each other. Um, but you can talk to each other, but you have to do it here. Yeah. Or, but we don’t plan. We, we don’t have preparation to plan. I will volunteer. Our next meeting is the second Tuesday of May. It’s the only meeting we have in May. May I, We may have to have another special meeting if we need to finish the contract. No, may, but we have one special, special, we have one regular meeting. We canceled the second one. ‘cause it’s on Memorial. Yes. Okay. But I would volunteer to try to put a little punch to that. Do the same thing that you’re, you you wanna do. But where does this sit? Helene,

31:41 It sits when somebody goes and says, what is your mission statements and what are the powers of duties? Yeah. Then, then Tom’s right. It definitely should be a lot more about the transfer station. Especially if we’re talking about how much is expanding and needing help and stuff like that. Then selling that to the town is, is critical. You know, we obviously had what happened last week and that’s because the town’s kind of blindsided and Yeah. Everyone knows what about the transfer station? They know the work there. Maybe they don’t know the in-depth portion of it. And doing something like that helps to provide the show the need for additional help to, so I think he’s right. Yeah. You know, change some of the wording, but definitely put in, you know, I, I over, you know, I didn’t think of that initially, but I think You’re, this is the document you’re working from. Okay. All and Did anytime forward, Hopefully, that we can get this approved next time.

32:28 Because I think it will be helpful to go forward with, um, with the contract and with, with others. I’m, we’ve got a public system. I’m not, I don’t intend in, in any way to be obstructionist. I just think We’ve got, we’ve got a public health nurse that’s given notice. So we’re gonna be hiring and we need to show the people this kind of a document. If they come in, they just don’t wanna see a job description. They wanna see what, what makes us work. See What, with all due respect, I think the better thing, if we have a new person out there coming in, we can tell that person that we have two bright young, uh, candidates to be on the Board of Health next year. And that’s a positive. And we’re gonna work very hard to have five people for two people or three next

33:16 Year. Well, we have to cross this out that it would, this, when we saw this document first, well consistent There. It’s, we have five People. Yeah. Yeah. And now we Document. I just think we have to, What it was for what it is at currently. I mean, The, the town is a mixed bag. Some people don’t care what we do. And the other people underestimate what we do. And some people don’t. And I say, we, I’m, I’m, I inherited this. I have done nothing. I, I’m learning. But, but, but the place go, this place goes well and it does useful things. And let’s say that it’s not just like, That’s not the kind of document it, this is a formal document, not that we do useful things. Tell me how you use a formal document like that. How do you use chapter, uh, one 11? Well,

34:03 I think Thomas’s right? I mean, whatever the lawyers are, I care What I’m saying. Is that, is that an exciting document? No, let’s make it exciting. Who says we, who says we don’t have to? So, alright, well do your, why don’t you work at it based on this? Yeah, I’ll, I’ll get it out. And I don’t, we we, we got a, we got an, uh, we’ve got an agreement from counsel that I, we, I, but certainly I’m the one who wants to do it. I I’m gonna take a crack it too. I’m no, that, I don’t mean that. I, council told us that what, how I read the attorney general’s, uh, open meeting law directions are valid and we can submit things like that to each other before the meeting.

34:49 As long as we don’t debate them. If Well, you’re can send it through the director and then we can all get it. But, but you can’t have a conversation between me. Well, we can’t have a conversation anyway. Right. But you Can, he can if you’re prefer him sending it directly to us. So he, He’s, So he’s Saying that he can share a document once, but you can’t comment on that document back. It just gives you something to think about. Okay. So you can just put it out there and be like, Hey, this is what I wrote. We can discuss it at the, at the meeting. This is, this is almost like a first round. Here It is. And it’s been updated by our, our council. I, I trust. And I like what you’ve said that you found two things. So let’s, um, bring, have it on the agenda

35:34 for our 13th, May 13th. We, I think it’d be helpful with our, um, further discussions with the contract, But No, if you wanna write something where you think and send it out, it sounds like that’s fine. I’ll read it. I might write my own and send it out. No, You’re allowed to send it out too. Yeah, Exactly. And then we, as long, As, long as you don’t say, or I don’t, there’s no response, no respect. You, you send out two documents. One is white, one is black. You can say that. But if somebody says, I like black better than white, then it’s a violation of the law. Right. Okay. So we don’t say, so we Agree that if you want to take a crack at it and send it to the group, don’t respond. Read it and don’t respond. Right. But, but, but come to the meeting. Yes. We’ve already, so you come to the meeting,

36:20 thought about it. That’s the problem. I, I, um, Yeah. So while we’re on the next meeting, um, before we go the director’s report, um, I’ve spoken to legal counsel, he’s available seventh floor on May 13th for us to have an executive session. Is that okay with you for the seven o’clock? Yeah, That’s fine. Okay. Because we need to, uh, get some closure on that.

36:46 And again, you brought that up about a contract. So I think that we should, uh, continue those discussions

36:54 On the agreement that we will follow a normal parliamentary procedure.

37:00 A a motion to table is non debatable. We didn’t debate it. We had a motion. You didn’t debate it. You ran against all parliamentary procedures. You, you, you, we took the chair’s prerogative. We can talk about this now. What happened in executive session? Well, What, what happens then? She’s trying to set the, I mean, I’m trying to set the agenda. It’s either not to set the agenda, set the style in which we treated each other. Oh, that’s, that was There. You can’t talk about, I just thought you guys were trying to Set executive session for May 13th at 7:00 PM Oh, yeah. But if we do that, well, I, I don’t wanna participate in an executive session where you think you’re the only one who can define parliamentary procedure.

37:48 You, you went against everything I can find. We are not Robert’s rules. I I still don’t think that this should be discussed. Executive session. Well, Unfortunately. ‘cause you’re embarrassed by what you did. I, why don’t we discuss it at the meeting?

38:06 Well, I,

38:13 the meeting has to have ground rules. Why don’t I, why don’t you talk about executive session just in general. I mean about, uh, about tabling in general.

38:24 Tabling is a non debatable item. It’s in Roberts in every other Absolutely. Published. Okay. Okay. And academically, if a chair says, no, I don’t want to tolerate that, I will move forward regardless of having a, uh, a motion and a second the chair is out of line. And I don’t wanna participate in meetings like that.

38:52 That’s, that’s an academic conversation In, in general, a person can turn to the person that tabled these, the question and ask them to withdraw it. And that’s what occurred.

39:08 Only out of politeness and respect for, it Wasn’t very debated in that. Yeah. I asked for it to be withdrawn. So I, I think there’s a difference in, in, um, the way one interprets it. So, to move on, because I feel that that was not quite in order. Um, we can go on to the director’s report. So, town meeting, um, so obviously we’ll be giving, Helene will be giving the town report at the very beginning, um, and telling the community where we are with the transfer station project. Um, so obviously we’ll be highlighting the, the accomplishments that we’ve done this year, the new compactor being installed, the new compactor chute, the new tipping floor, the new transaction hu the new control booth.

39:55 Obviously we’ll be talking about the work that we’ll be trying to achieve in, in the next fiscal year. Um, building the scale, house, moving the scale. So that’s what’s planned for town meeting. Obviously you heard the discussion tonight between myself and the chair of the finance committee. Um, they will, he’s really gonna do a couple different things. So the finance does do a written report. And so when you walk into town meeting, you receive a written report. And in that report he’ll talk about, um, that this is the end of the trash collection contract. Uh, and this is the last year of it. And so in FY 20, uh, 27, um, we will have a new contract. Um, he will also make those comments on town meeting floor. Um, I’ll work with him this week.

40:40 Um, so you and I don’t need to make those comments. If there’s questions and stuff like that, you know, Alex and I will work this week to make sure he covers everything about that. Mm-hmm. Um, but again, just so everybody understands, we will need to do a lot of work. That’s gonna be a huge contract for the town. That’s gonna be a, you know, a huge budget change. We will need to work with the finance committee to, to discuss these finances of it. How the best way to approach this. Um, I know you have a, a solid idea, um, putting this forward as, you know, kind of a, um, an override for that contract. So everybody understands that. It’s just that, that they’re voting on, I’d say, for the Difference, you know, for the Yeah, totally. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, so we’ll have a lot of those discussions moving forward,

41:28 working with finance committee for them to advise us how they feel about the finances of it, um, and make sure we’re all in the same, you know, field, working into town meeting for, uh, next year. Um, some of the big changes obviously is that we have to analyze what’s putting out curbside currently. So you have all your trash, you have all your recycling. Currently curbside, we limit trash to 65 gallons per household. We do not limit recycling. That’s something that we’re gonna have to take a look at. We also have some businesses that are putting material out curbside. Mm-hmm. We need to identify that and how we move forward with that. I I, I do think it’s fine to add the fee for, um, commercial.

42:13 I think we just need to make sure we distinguish between, you know, like I say, like I have, I have apartments, you know, in, they’re technically commercial, but they’re not, you know what I mean? So the rent section, So you’re gonna call out, you know, yes. We do collection from, um, single family homes all the way up to four, you know. Yeah. Um, buildings that, you know, have four apartment units in them. Yeah. And that’s not considered commercial. Anything above that. Yeah. I think if we distinguish that, that’s, that’s fine. Because otherwise we’re double charging people that are already, that’s Current. Um, but that’s, so that’s how our bylaws are written currently. Yep. Um, but if we need to take a look at that, we’ll need to do that next year as well. Mm-hmm. Again, that we can bring that back to the board. We can do that here, um, through a meeting. It does not have to be done at town, at town meeting, um,

43:00 just like you had a public hearing here. Um, we’ll have to analyze amount of material that’s being placed at recycling. We’re gonna have to limit that. Um, so there’s a lot of things that we’re gonna have to look at next year. Um, and so that, that’s one of the biggest things that we’ll be really taking a look at for next year, as well as operating the transfer station construction and all that stuff.

43:25 Mechanics of Trump meeting tone, reading. Yeah. Do we, are we, do we post that meeting for us? Or do we not sit to We don’t talk to each other? No. So you can, you can sit to what do we do? You can, it does not need to be posted. The only time it needs to be posted. If you were gonna have a discussion and had to make a decision to be put forward at town meeting, like The finance committee talked about, they’re gonna make some decisions at, at town meeting, Before town meeting, essentially. So they sit at the lower table, um, just below, um, the town moderator. And they will hold a public meeting for themselves before town meeting. Sometimes during town meeting. They will deliberate a little bit and then push a, you know, forward an a recommendation and stuff like that. So they post it. We do, we do not need to.

44:11 You can sit together. Um, you can sit apart. The board used to always sit together and so if there was a question that came up, somebody would go up and answer that question. We always sit together on the left side about, Yeah. Quarter of the way back. Yeah. I remember where you sat last year. Yep. I don’t remember where You were. I sit with, I sit with my mom and a couple of my friends, so That’s Alright. I mean, everybody kind of has their traditions and stuff like that. You Don’t wanna sit with it, go away. They ask me questions during it. So, I mean, we’re, I don’t think we should be discussing during town meeting anyway, so it’s, I think it’s fine that I sit with my other That’s fine. I mean, we’re not, we No, Helene is speaking. You’re speaking, you’re Speaking. No, Helene will be speaking at the very beginning.

44:58 I do not believe I will be speaking. I believe Alec Goolsby will be speaking from the finance as the finance chair. Some Questions that need to be clarified. You’ll speak, I’m sure. Yes. Anytime during the town meeting. Um, citizens can ask questions and we need to res, you know, provide a response to that, that that’s, so generally I will be trying to be as prepared as possible to answer this. The one thing that’s important is that people don’t, people on any board don’t give personal thoughts and comments. I think it’s comes from what the boards Yeah. Board members need to remember that they’re no longer an individual, that they’re a board member regardless if they’re sitting here at the table or out in the public, they’re still a board member.

45:40 Yeah. I think I’ve learned that, that charter committee individuals don’t matter only boards, including matter, but individual then can’t speak or you’re not speaking. You, you can’t say, you can’t say I’m speaking by myself. You, you can’t dis You, you can’t distinguish it. That’s the hardest piece is that. So, you know, I don’t think we’re trying to take away freedom of speech. Yeah. But it’s very, I have no intention of speaking at all. Yeah. But it’s very hard. Um, you know, but it can be kind of a, a a, a tough situation at times. Yeah. And I’ve had a certain, it’s my own, my own bias.

46:28 I’ve had a certain feeling that if something comes up on another topic, I really would rather not, when I’m representing a board, I would rather not come up, go up to the mic and speak on that article. I just feel that, that I am at town meeting to rep when I’m on the board of health to represent the board. But That’s my own. But yeah, we don’t, you know, we don’t, we try not to take away personal rights and stuff like that. No, I wasn’t accusing anybody. No. What I think it’s a shame though, that you, you withhold your 28 years of experience and wisdom for the rest of the town. If you think you have something to add.

47:11 Well, maybe I’ve never had an opportunity where it’s been that Okay. Dramatic That I had to do. But I, I think in the past where it was an issue is that the board had voted one way and there were a unanimous vote, and then later on a time meeting an individual spoke differently. Well, no, I’m still learning. I don’t, it would’ve, I have absolutely no intent speak. Well, we don’t wanna hold you back. I’m happy to sit. Well, I don’t have anything to add. You don’t know yours like you. No, I’m, I don’t feel held back on that. I feel play it by you a lot, but, uh, uh, of other things, you know, writing stuff and all that.

47:57 But, uh, no, this, I, I, I, I think it’s fascinating. Open town meeting is a, is a wonderful, uh, opportunity. Say whatever you want, Tom. Just don’t throw the microphone. We had people for dinner last two nights ago and they talked about they know the guy.

48:18 Um, so the last piece is that we had put forward a vehicle for, uh, our department at, you know, we had, you know, we had thought that we were beginning another assistant, uh, director. That person would need a vehicle. Um, so that will still be on town meeting, um, that will move forward. That does not mean that we need to purchase the vehicle right away, or we could choose not to purchase the vehicle. But it’s in the budget. But it is it, it is in the, um, the capital budget. Yes. What’s the vehicle? Uh, it’s an F-150. Okay. I was gonna say The thing. No, yeah, Yeah. Uh, but the idea is, so it would’ve been, uh, my vehicle, uh, my truck would’ve been passed on to, uh, the assistant, um, waste department and that, so the assistant could help plow. Gotcha. Um, they could go, you know, continue

49:04 to do help with curbside. Um, the FF one 50 is both good for the health and waste department. Um, it’s a crew cab. So if we had to, um, you know, set up a flu clinic, I can move people, I can move equipment, I can also help with curbside collection issues and any of that stuff. Yeah. Gotcha. And then just talking about the assistant. So we will be short staffed. Um, Mondays and Saturdays are generally our hardest days. Um, so if we do have employees that call out sick or on vacation, um, this, this is when we will be the most short staffed. Yeah. No, Hopefully we can deal with this as soon as possible. You know, everything in town gets dealt with and then it can be first on our agenda at the next

49:51 meeting to talk about it. Well, the money’s there. So whenever you Well, can I ask a somewhat theoretical question? Yeah. I, the revolving fund. Yep. Do, do you or we have discretion to use that, or even though it’s revolving fund, which is kind of like a rainy day bank account, could we spend that, say, say in the middle of middle of, uh, August a perfect, um, assistant came in and we, those of us that had some challenges were converted? Yes. Um, could we do that? Yep.

50:36 So you, you can apply. So it’s a waste revolving account. The letter that I wrote covers employee costs mm-hmm. Vehicles disposal costs for solid waste and recycling. So the waste revolving account, the money is generated through commercial waste disposal. Right. And so when we look at the commercial waste disposal, we try to find items that are associated with that essentially. Mm-hmm. But yes, you could, you could fund, um, the assistant director position for the waste. And again, we had talked before at, um, the finance committee meeting about analyzing costs at the transfer station and potentially trying to use the waste revolving account, not differently,

51:24 but more strategically. So you can align more costs associated with the commercial waste side and remove costs that are being paid for by the town. I wouldn’t look at it as a rainy day fund. Yeah. I’d look at it as an operational. Correct. Correct. And that it should focus Well, that’s what I’ve learned. Yeah. Yeah. See rainy day fund in Virginia, it was only for like if you get a hurricane or something like That. No, it’s not. I, I’ve learned that. You know, It’s, and, and I think that, which, you know, I’ve discussed with Andrew is like, you know, for the assistant director, given they’d been, they’d be taking part in both the transfer station as well as local town stuff, you find that percentage of each one time spent. And that’s like, you know, if, if,

52:10 if the whole town is benefiting from that position, that portion, that percentage of that their time is the general and then whatever’s focused directly on the transfer station, that portion would be the um, revolving fund. Right. And what would I had said to the FinCon was that, you know, this is what I had put for this year in this next coming year. If they had funded that position, we would analyze the costs and come back with the different, you know, proportions of all the employees that are coming out of the wastes revolving account. The equipment is being used for that. All those items. I think the sooner you can get to it, like an exact cost of that, of the, of the operation of the transfer station,

52:57 it’s much easier to set prices, including stickers and things like that to cover costs without you, without leaning on the rest of the town who might not use it, but still does trash disposal And things like that. And, and we track all the costs up there. So when we’re talking about allocating trash disposal for the town versus for commercial, we know the exact number on an annual basis that the town so curbside and what residential stickers material is being thrown away. And we have a dollar amount for that this year when we got limited to the 7 25 and then that actually got cut, that was not gonna, that would just barely cover the cost of the town track disposal.

53:44 So you’re technically using the waste revolving account to cover town expenses. Okay. If we can talk about more, we can understanding it more and explaining to people where it all comes from is a lot e better way to sell a position that is needed and have the talent understand why it’s needed and where the money’s coming From. And it’s not taking work away from me. It’s, it’s allowing me to do my job so I don’t have to do I I understand. Yeah. And so again, we, if money’s there, we put the money right back into, I mean it Money change. Okay. What, what is the proper envi uh, context to have that conversation? Do we need to go the executive session? There’s five different, no, You can do that in public session.

54:29 Do that in public session. Yep. Okay. Well, I I have a one-on-one with you in sometime I’ll go over my concerns of what was done. Yep. And if we can get past that, then we, I’ll be happy to bring it to this. Yeah. So the board is supposed to be responsible for regulations and policy and, and, and put essentially pushing a budget towards, See, I see the board is policy and strategy. Yep. The, I see the department departments as operation implementation. Correct. Okay. And it, with all gurus with not debating it here, but I, I will sit down, we go over I, I’ll tell you exactly what my cons, I went on, by the way, to the, uh,

55:14 I took me a lot of work, but I eventually got the YouTube of the FinCon, um, on March 31st. And that, that position was discussed for 15 seconds. That’s Correct. ‘cause we’ve already had a preliminary meeting To that. Okay. But it wasn’t like the conversation. Oh, if we had been there, we would’ve known so much more about it. Right. So the co the comment was, we are planning to, and we may move to, so our uncertainty about when it was gonna be done, what would’ve been legitimate even in that context. So again, so the way the, so, and, and I’ll make sure as we have new members,

56:02 I will map out the financial, uh, calendar for the year for the board so they can understand all the processes to that. Before we met with finance, before the finance committee, we have our own liaisons and we have a liaison meeting where we meet for hours and discuss all of that stuff. That the charter committee last time, two, maybe two times ago, Thatcher said that town council goes to every board and committee for new members and orients them to things like that. I never had that orientation. That’s not correct. I forgot that. So maybe that could be true for Thatchers For the, no, no.

56:48 ‘cause I specifically said I didn’t get it in the board of Health and he said he’d get, he’d look to see where Tom Councilman in any event where, so, so that’s All the, so all board members should be going to the Massachusetts of health Association board members and getting that education just like we had Cheryl here. Mm-hmm. There’s, there’s an action that Used. You tell us about FinCon. No. And then you have to understand the processes in marblehead of the financial calendars, the, you know, the rules of board members and all those things. You’re technically, because we are a board of health, you’re also supposed to have completed emergency preparedness training. Well, but those are the things that I, I came to the table with. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah.

57:34 So, so, and you know, and, and all of that, it’s the, it’s the marblehead stuff that I don’t know. Correct. And, and so the, the inference that because we voted that out, that there will be a shortage in the, um, in, in the delay today, uh, at the, at the transfer station is not quite accurate. But it is. But it Is. No. So how is it Not, we didn’t do it. We, we all agree, every one of us agrees that we need help in the transfer station, but it was the process and the, the application, we’ll talk about it, But again, you’re supposed to be rules, regulations on day-to-day operations.

58:21 But that’s part of the reason. And Why would you punish the, the entire community, uh, by not having this, uh, position? Well, because you didn’t hear the right things or didn’t get the right information? Well, Well, I, I tell you my view is there’s two, there’s a policy issue and there’s a strategic issue. I believe if we had done what was sent to the compensation committee, we would’ve been hindering the long-term health of this department or this Board. But, so I do those pieces. So I’m the one that brings, I’m the one that creates the job. I’m the one that brings No, You don’t If it, if you report to us. Right. So again, I’m, so, I’m responsible for day-to-day operations.

59:07 How many hours have you, day-to-day Operation is not defining another director or an associate assistant director that takes away your job. You have a job that we, we histo and I say we, the histo that you have had. I disagree with the job description that you had because it was done eight years ago and you were the only one who did, has done it. But I, I, that is one of the issues. You, you believe that you have a right to make the job description for that person without going to the board as All the other departments in this town do I doubt? I Thatcher does not.

59:52 If, if the, if the select board agreed to have, uh, an assistant to Thatcher, that Thatcher would not go out and hire that person without going to the select board. Or at least that’s my impression. But if So, the superintendent of the schools would not, if they had a assistant superintendent, that person would not go out and hire on their own without running to the, going to the board. Board happened. When we hired Andrew, we had a, a, a representative from this. We had two people from to interview Andrew and brought it back to the committee. We had a huge group that interviewed us. We Had Yeah, One person, uh, two people from our committee, I forget. Right. But then you had a huge

1:00:37 board that we interview people with. Then they Brought back to the Highway department. All the other departments besides those high level officials create and hire and go to the Compensation Compensation committee for anybody, assistant director and below.

1:01:01 I will, I will pose that as long as I’m on the board. So you, you’ll report to the board when you change your job. You have to come to the board to talk about that. I understand. But if I left tomorrow, do you know what I do?

1:01:19 No. Okay.

1:01:22 We, but I can write a generic job description and interview people who would be, who would be experienced in that. But you don’t know what I do on a day-to-day basis and what it takes to run the department. I, I think we just, I think we should just cool it on this. There, there was a miscommunication. I, I should have looked into it more. I think it should have been discussed here. I don’t care who’s to blame. I really don’t. I just wanna get past it and move forward and, and we can discuss it without pointing fingers right now. Well, I, we’ll, we’ll point fingers at all of us as far as I Well, I Think we’re all to blame. Absolutely. And I, I, that’s why I went ahead and tried to find that, that, uh, what the fin income knew about at the beginning, that,

1:02:09 that whole meeting talked about other things. So, We’ll all, we’ll all just do better the next time and we’ll have more communication on it. The meeting, and then that’s good. You’re talking about the fin income meeting AB at hall, right? At the articles? I don’t know where it was. Just here. No, you’re talking about the meeting that we had here, because the two, March 31st, I, I, was that here or was that Abbott Hall? I got look at my camera. See, I don’t know. Yeah, I think he was, I only was paying attention to what you were saying. He’s, but I think you were sitting right there. Yeah, No, then I in, Yeah, because we did speak to, uh, we sat, we went up there, the two of us and the two people, two liaisons spoke in depth about our needs, about the, uh, but This particular, uh, assistant director

1:02:57 for 15 seconds. That’s correct. That’s correct. Because it’s the big finance committee meeting. We’ve already had in-depth hours with them. Not We big, we a liaison committee meeting that only one individual goes to, and two, and I went to it. Yeah. And I also went to it one, I was the assistant, uh, chairperson or whatever it’s called, because, um, the other, the, the chairperson worked at out of town and couldn’t make it. So it’s usually one person and the director. Then we had the FinCon meeting of our particular department, and we came up there and sat there like we did this evening. And the two people that our liaison spoke in depth about our needs, and they were,

1:03:44 they reported it very well. We filled in whatever they, well, really, they covered it all. We just added to it. And that must have been 15, 20 minutes. I’m trying to put it forward, a budget and everything. That’s the best for my department, the best for the health department, the waste department. I’m looking for that support. I get it. I, and I think you had this in depth conversation As chair We’re asking, your board brought It here To give you feedback for all of Us. But that’s, but so you’re, but you guys need to believe in me. I’m the one that knows what the job is gonna to I believe in you. I believe in you. I’m just saying, I think as chair, if you said you had these in-depth conversations, you should have brought it here. Well, They, they, No, no, no. I’m saying you should have as, as your

1:04:30 thinking person should have been. Like, there’s two other people on my board. I had these in-depth conversations. I make the agenda. I’m gonna put this on the agenda to share what I spoke with these other people board, you know, Most of the things we talked to them about were mainly, mainly was about the 2026 and what’s gonna happen. Okay. But Put on the agenda. You make the agenda. We’ve talked that, no, There were a lot, there were a lot more conversations about that. Actually, there was a, a real, actually, a very interesting one. He said to you that the fin com did not cut the money for, um, the counseling center. And he pol I didn’t understand it. So the, yeah. This guy Over here, correct? Yes. The town cut the, the money for the, Okay, well help me with that. I thought

1:05:15 They gave everybody, so We had, yeah, we had gone to FinCon. We had proposed a budget. They were all set with it. The finance department came back back and said, we need to make cuts. We need to cut $1.7 million. And they gave Andrew, I need you to cut out of your waste department and I need you to cut outta your, uh, health department budget. But, and, and that was non-negotiable. It’s non-negotiable. So there’s two levels Yep. Of approval. Yep. And then the third one, and then the fourth one tonight, And then the final one at town meeting five. Because even at town meeting things could, you know, people can say, I want to talk about this. I don’t think that’s generally not done because it’s the recommendation of the finance committee. But yes,

1:06:03 Somebody might get up and say they wanna reinstate position of admit of fee, administrative assistant. What is, that’s the title. Well, I was taken aback because the way you would, well, you, you just repeated it. It’s, so why do, why does the town have two budgetary oversights? So The two budgetary oversights work together. So obviously at the very beginning, at the very beginning of this whole process, we were told, okay, we have plenty of money. Go and set your budget. Um, it’s not necessarily a level funded year. You can ask for additional requests. Mm-hmm. Or they can see, hey, you’re really short staffed. You need to add some staffing in there. If you get hit by a train tomorrow, who’s gonna cover all the work that you’re doing?

1:06:49 You know that, that’s one of the always big questions. So put forward a budget that’s gonna work for you so we can keep this moving forward. Time went by, the town may went into negotiations. The town had an issue with the cost of health insurance. The town had to make some cuts. So the finance department said, Hey, when You say town, who is it? This is the chief financial officer. Yeah. The person who was sitting there to, is that Elisa? That’s Alicia. Yep. Okay, Alicia, we need to make some cuts. Andrew, I need, you know, at first she came to me, she’s like, I need you to cut. I’m like, no, I can’t cut $400,000 outta my waste department budget. You’re gonna cripple us. So I said, all right. You know, gimme a bottom number bottom. I will take that out of my trash disposal line item,

1:07:34 and I can cover that costs with my waste revolving account. Mm-hmm. But don’t, doesn’t somebody think that the board of health, if what I heard from the fin income was taking the money from the counseling center was not their deal? That’s correct. It implied to me, and you’re saying it isn’t true that we had, we could negotiate that we could say to them, or we could say to you, Andrew, you just gave up the, the counseling center. Give up Something else. Right. But you don’t have anything else to give up. There’s Nothing else to give up on that spreadsheet. So if you wanted to give up Employees and you saying you can’t transfer money from Wasted Health. No. And you couldn’t. You, and that was the,

1:08:20 that was the new item that was in there. But the, the finance committee, we essentially made a, an agreement that I could come back next year and push that back up to the one 20. And that would work really hard with me to try to keep it, to get that There. That’s what said to you too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Now, I’d like to just clarify one thing as far as what, what, what I did when, when Andrew showed me the budget at a meeting that I would had with, before we brought the budget here, Andrew had salaries, uh, and director. And in it was the assistant director within the, within the salaries. I said, don’t you think we should pull that out so people can see it? So I need to defend myself to say that I did something for you gentlemen to see that. And Andrew agreed. He said, that’s, we’ll do that.

1:09:05 We’ll take that number and split it to what the numbers were. You saw it plain as day on the Thing. I’m saying that, I’m not saying that, that we saw plain as day. I’ve owned it since day one. I saw plain as day. I’m saying, if you had all these conversations, these indepth conversations, you, you gotta take the L on this one, Helene. You gotta sit there and say, you know what? I should have brought it here and talk to everybody. It must, Here I brought It in. No, you, you didn’t. You gotta take the loss on it. Just own it. Like, you just have to say it. You know what? I talked about it with everyone. I’m the chair. I gotta do better the next time to bring everything and make sure everyone’s on the same page. That’s it. That’s all you gotta say. Unfortunate. It’s not gonna be a next time. Well, Well, you know, it’s really hard to swallow pride. I went online and swallowed a big bowl of it,

1:09:51 saying that this was my fault. You can’t do it right here to just the two of us. I swallowed it to the whole damn town. And We don’t need to argue yourself. It was, it was, it was eight 15 while we were to close. Some of us, some of us said bigger than others, I guess. Well, I think for me, uh, the learner of the group, um, the, the, the rookie, the not just we’re all learners. I, I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate the integrity of, no one saw me as angry or mean or anything else, but I, I, we, we got ourselves into an uncomfortable situation. But ethically, I’m still comfortable with what I did. And I’ll share with you why, and we can bring it back here. So these Conversations should occur here, not in Friday.

1:10:38 Well,

1:10:45 Me, I agree completely. They haven’t, it, it’s just what Donnie was just saying. If we had been reminded by the way I have this budget item, and, and Helene gone in either direction and say, Hey, rookie on the right hand side, think about this. These are not equal lines in this equal columns. That line that says new person was, was a big deal. Boards help the people who work for the boards and the, they help the people who work for the boards do their job. The, the, the hostility that’s been, he, not hostility,

1:11:33 but the separation here is what is indefensible

1:11:38 you are we, this has not been a transparent process. So the board’s the one that has to be transparent. Yeah, a hundred Percent. A hundred percent. I’m saying I agree. I can talk to the board. A hundred percent. Yeah. We have to be, because if you, if we don’t do this openly, honestly, so you write about it. You write about it. How the hell is anyone gonna know in town? And then they’re gonna be like, what, what, where did this come from? You know, I want to talk to everyone about it, but if I, if we’re not talking in depth about it, and you know, it’s my fault for not asking questions. It’s also hela, you’re the chair. Put it on the agenda if you have the conversations. But, and we need to do better the next time. Dumb Enough to not even know what the questions were Right. To ask. Because I assumed that fin comes, puts the dead thin deal.

1:12:25 So let’s do better the next Time. Well, And then we’ll continue to talk about this more. Okay, Well, I think I just heard that we don’t even have to wait till next year. We don’t. No, we don’t. Oh, okay. So we can discuss it In the future. All Right. Here, look at this. I’m gonna show you something you’re Missing. I, I Saw It. No, you I see it. No, I’m not. This isn’t what I’m showing you. This was my notes after I got this. Should we skip this? But it, it doesn’t matter. It Doesn’t mean anything. I don’t underst He agrees he saw it. He, he just didn’t think it was gonna, and then he a totally different perspective about This, John. No, you didn’t. You could keep saying you did, but you didn’t. And that’s the problem. This is what I felt I did. It was all department head. And I said, I, I see what you’re showing me

1:13:11 and you’re not listening to what I’m telling you. But I did what I thought was right. Yeah. And you were wrong. Sometimes we’re wrong. I got forward. That’s all I can tell you. Yeah. And you should have put it as an agenda item for a big conversation. That’s your job as chair. If you talked about with Andrew, you should have brought here, if you talked about everyone else, it’s not his job. If you talked about it as chair, you make the agenda that your name is right there is making the agenda. Alright. If you don’t wanna take it, like, I, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what else I could have done, but, but You could have put it on the agenda. Right? But so, so again, and say to both of us, look, did you guys see this? Right? It was in B Did I ask you, did you see sick? Oh my God. 25 lines, 20 lines

1:13:57 On each page. Vacation. Oh, did, I mean, did I go over Right? So in the future, when I hand you guys a budget. Yes. Hundred percent. Yes. I do something. I will go line by line. Okay. When I hand you guys a budget, line By line is not the issue. Put asterisk by the important thing. Put buy what? How Much? No, I’m gonna catch it next time and I’m gonna make sure there’s a conversation. So I did see it. I should ask Here is important. There we are so stretched to the, to the margin that every item on here is important. Yes. Otherwise, I’m not saying important, unimportant str that was a strategic and a policy issue that the board should have been involved with.

1:14:44 And you know it, I really don’t care what the highway people do it. If it, if, if, if you think I, I would, this conversation’s important because we, I have two more years from the board and unless we agree, Not gonna agree on this. Okay, well then we are gonna, we’re gonna have these kind of conversations on a regular basis and we’ll learn to read a little more. Um, I’m gonna, I’m gonna ask the question next time because I did see it. I should asked, I should have had, I should have asked for a more in depth conversation on it. We, you and I, we had a discussion about it. Yes. Then Dr. Senior, I said, should you split that makes the hope. Then it’s down here. This Is is the only One you Yeah.

1:15:30 To I would really like to understand. Can can we walk through the whole chronology of this when this first came up? Because I think that, Yeah. So it first came back up in September when I gave them a, the full budget. Yeah. Okay. It was, it was on the budget then. So it went from September to when Through the whole budget season. March until March. March when they got the final budget, which is broken out into line items. They approved the final line item budget. They meaning pin Cut. They, they, they, yep. Yep. And then after that, when I went to compensate, so the board approved the budget. Right. I now have to create the job. Helene, you’re missing the point. You can point as I know to and it doesn’t meet reader. Put

1:16:16 Them in a conversation. I don’t care about the notes on your paper. I wanna see it on the agenda. That’s what you’re missing. Anything you have in this binder, we’ve never discussed it. It’s your notes. What I have in here, we don’t discuss. But you are the chair. You put it on the agenda to talk about it. I thought I corrected it. I don’t care about your notes that you didn’t correct it. It’s So then, so then you went To the compensation committee. I have to create a, a job description that can be scored and meet the grade level for the compensation. Right. And I walked into the compensation committee be just because I had seen, I, I knew nothing about it. This is,

1:17:02 But when is this that you Would, so, so generally it has to be done before town meeting so it can get voted on a town meeting. I’m just wondering, is it two weeks? Did This or No, it was two weeks ago. Two weeks. It was April. Yep. April eight I think or something like that. Yeah. And then, and then you happened to walk in on the meeting? Yeah. Okay. And, and I was asked a actually by median people, what do you know about that? And I said, gee, I didn’t know about anything. I had talked to Andrew, my, on our one-on-one. And what I thought was a hypothetical long-term, and in fact your wording that day wa at FinCon on the 31st of March was this is what we’re planning to do. We may do this. It wasn’t, I’m gonna go to the compensation committee the minute

1:17:48 you guys have approved this. It was At, at, at at least A Hu it it was least uncertain. So just so you understand, so before Thatcher got here, the only way you could have a job approved is have it also approved at town meeting. Mm-hmm. So it has to be graded and scored and goes to town meeting for them approved. Mm-hmm. So that’s why the budget gets approved. I had a short period of time to make sure that was done before town meeting.

1:18:19 Got it. That’s very helpful to me. Thank you. Yeah.

1:18:31 I think we all learned Yes. And won’t happen again. Yes. But part, part of it obviously is the pressure to get this all done. Correct. Quickly. I think from, from just as a somebody in the audience, that’s what seems to have created so much of this. ‘cause it has. Yeah. There’s there’s A lot. No doubt there’s A lot. There’s, there’s a lot that’s caused the frustration on the Yes, yes. It is accentuated by the open meeting law that we can’t easily call. I I understand that. It’s very disappointing that we didn’t get the five member board for this year Because, and obviously very Hard for that. The Additional complications of this is that we had union groups that had not received Right. New, new compensation contracts.

1:19:17 You know, we all, I have always fought for my employees to make sure they, they’re being benefit and get the benefits that they deserve and should be paid what they deserve. And yes, again, the town hadn’t reached all those agreements and so there was some concern about, you know, were there gonna be layoffs what was gonna happen? And so Tom was say, Hey, you know, the question was asked, how can you move forward with this job when there’s other contracts that are not finished? And I think that’s fair. Yeah. It’s a fair question. Yeah, it’s a fair question. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Except it didn’t, it didn’t change our bottom Line. That’s correct. But the principle but the Principle behind it is Yes, principle. I, I totally, yeah. ‘cause you’re not, you’re not your own universe. Exactly. Again, so what, you know, he was playing his role.

1:20:03 My role is to try to, you know, put forward what I think is best for my department. Right, right, right. Thank you. That, I mean it made, it makes it much clearer to me. And, And Matt, the only questions I have, I was gonna wait for after the meeting ‘cause it’s not about this. Okay. Okay. Um, We’re close to adjourning I think Though I was a close journey at, at eight 15. But I hope that the meeting that I hope the discussion was fruitful. Oh, I, I feel it was really great. Um, okay. I, I appreciate I uh, Alright so, um, any other comments from the audience? Uh, yes. Couple of things. Um, now

1:20:50 that we’ve had the new traffic patent for a little while and I’ve been here numerous times, seems be really working great. Yeah. And we have some new signs obviously, so I need to put, yeah. So, um, obviously I think I’m gonna need a do not inters sign up at the top by the scale. Right. Um, but yes, we have, I received a whole bunch of signs today. I’m still waiting for, um, what they kind of mount on for the landfill itself. Um, but I’m hopeful that those will also increase the traffic flow pattern as well. And I wasn’t sure if when the conversation, I get lost a little bit there at town meeting, are you going to say something about the condition of the dump now, the improvements or is that gonna be at a different time? No, so Helene will be making, um, an update

1:21:36 of the new projects that have been completed at the transfer station. It’s Really nice if you could have some pictures. Pictures mean a lot to, So we get limited by time. So yeah, generally we’re not allowed to Have a very poor perception from 95% of the town. Understood. They have no clue. And anytime something comes up like this assistant director, oh those are the same people that screwed up the whole previous projects and we wanna go forward. Uh, I would guess that maybe only 10, 12% of the people in town ever actually go to the dome. Ah, it’s actually thousand a day. This Is a lot of repeat. There’s a lot of repeat. Um, we do sell between six to 7,000 states and Some of those are just for people going to the beach.

1:22:23 Not, you don’t get a lot of beach traffic. Yeah. Think You, you’d be surprised but just myself going up there at different days and stuff. So you got a super product up there, you gotta sell it. Yeah. You have a gorgeous facility. You a crappy job selling ‘em. Just telling you Too. I’m gonna take some pictures, go up there, you’re gonna be my model in front of them

1:22:45 compactor. Which piece? Well you’ve got the pictures from beginning to end. Yeah. But I think he talking about some of the new chuck, like, you know, People here, they say all of, uh, transaction s**t, they have no clue what it is. Yeah. That type of thing where they have no clue that you can actually go up there and get rid of old books, which is a really good thing today. I got five bags of shoes and clothes up there. It’s a real good thing. So yeah, I mean we try to, that’s good stuff. We try to highlight a lot of that stuff. So in the annual report you’ll see the list of all the items that we dispose of. So we do list out, you know, the pounds of clothes that we recycle. Uh, we don’t do the books because they get lumped in with the paper and stuff like that.

1:23:32 Um, but yeah, we’re always trying to push out some of those numbers. Some people like numbers, some people don’t. I don’t believe the, uh, they pass up the town reports. Remember when they used to do that? They’re at town, they go door to door. Like No they don’t. They don’t.

1:23:47 So a lot of people don’t really Used to get the, we used to get the town meeting with all the articles delivered to the door. You gotta take and, you know, blow your own horn if you’re gonna get anything going for you, I’ll do My list, you know, I’ll get it out there. But public health has never done a good job of it. And something I noticed was different tonight. You el you actually had a point where you would, at each point in the meeting, are there any comments? And usually you hold all that to the end. I was kind of surprised. Oh, so it’s a public hearings required But normally you don’t. That’s correct. It’s not generally a public hearing. Okay. Yeah. Alright. I always ask the board. Yeah. They can discuss stuff, but no, They have anything more to say before we go on. But we’ve tried this year to bring the

1:24:35 audience into things. We’ve handed out things more. We, we’ve worked at that. You don’t think we’ve done it. Even you today was really good. But we’ve, I think we’ve tried to work bringing you all into the conversation more At the end. Well, but even sometimes. Yeah, Sometimes. No. We were talking about, uh, measles the other day. Uh, we, we had a, you you are Dr. K, you’re gracious at that point. Dr. Dr. Kruger speaks A pediatrician. You gotta listen.

1:25:18 Adur. Uh, anyone else? I thought you had a question for. I was late. Yeah, I um, ask for motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion to adjourn. I’ll second. Eight. 8 58. Is that what is Yeah, you, thank you.

1:25:37 Sure. Thank you. You’re welcome. I’m glad we found Was that you wanna Shoot? It was, yeah. Okay.