Board of Health: May 13, 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’d like to welcome everyone to the, uh, uh, meeting of Tuesday, May 13th, board Health meeting. And, uh, thank you for coming people that are here. And I would like to, um, mention a little bit about Mental Health Month before we go to the agenda. I’d like to acknowledge that May is Mental Health Month, and, uh, I’d like to just say that we certainly feel for those people that are suffering with, uh, mental health, uh, issues. We are also fortunate that the Marble Head Counseling Center is here. Our community, there are excellent therapists there. I hope people take advantage of it. We have terrific councils at there are,

0:53 the police force are trained in Karen, and, um, we as a Board of Health are here for, to give you any, uh, recommendations. You do have a list of, don’t you, Andrew, of if people call. Yeah. So obviously through the Marlet Counseling Center, there is an additional list if they’re not, you know, yes, there can be a waiting list, the Marlet Counseling Center, but there’s also a list there of other providers to get to The Minimalist Task Force on their website. Yes, exactly. As a much robust point. That’s the list we’re Talking. Yeah. And that’s also why I didn’t mention that the Board of Health has, uh, did find, found the, um, mental Health Task force. Are they now under the counseling center, or is that still in, uh, That’s item three in my report. That’s

1:40 Still in closet. I have to, we have everybody here. It’s coming up soon here at home. You have to wait until item three on the report. Well, that’s in progress. We, you met. Um, Well, I knew it was in progress, but I didn’t know if it did completed. So, um, we will hear more about that in just a minute. So thank you all for coming and, um, I will turn this over to, um, the Community Health Persons. Give us an Update. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um, perhaps the best news, uh, we received an updated proposal from UMass Boston to support our health assessment, uh, initiative. Um, and I’d like to, and I sent copies of that to, uh, the board,

2:28 and I’d like to move that we approve that and direct the director, uh, to, uh, implement, um, that proposal. It’s very little different. In fact, it’s, there’s only one area that I think it’s a little bit different than the one we heard about last time. I thought the last time she agreed that she would do four focus groups, and this document says three. I sent her an email. We’ll ask if we can do the fourth focus group. I think we certainly have four topics that we want to cover. Um, but, um, we have, um, because of some of the, the little grants

3:14 that we were able to get and some funding from private sources within the town, we are able to afford this without, uh, a dollar of tax money going. Could you Explain to us who’s, who the donors are? Um, the Don. We, we’ve talked about the, both, both, uh, rotaries, um, female Humane Society and, um, uh, Mariner. That doesn’t mean I’m still, I’m still trying to get more people in the community involved, but, uh, just haven’t had the time to do much more. Um, I think though that there have been other people that have, have expressed an interest to, to support, um, just endorse it with a little bit of money.

4:02 Well, I think the, um, gentleman that owns the nursing home, one of the nursing homes, I, Lafayette Street might be interested. The, uh, the guy with the Mariner, Larry was it, it was who? I just know Heather Really smart. Um, he, he offered to introduce us to the, to nursing homes, but I haven’t done that. Okay. But I, because Another, I’m sure that, you know, if one nursing home does it, they like to all get on the boy. Okay. Well, I, I move that we, we approve that. Is there a second? Would approve what? Ask Andrew to move forward. Oh, okay. I second All those in favor. Does that mean to sign this document? Yeah, to approve the contract

4:48 and move forward and sign the document. We don’t need, uh, counsel to read this or anything. Um, so it’s their contract. We can have counsel to take a look at it, but it’s their contract. If we have questions and stuff like that, we can send it over to them. Um, but it’s a pretty straightforward contract from, um, UMass Boss and the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging. Okay. Um, Yeah, the, the only plus, not plus, but the addition since the first time around, uh, she has added a colleague who Andrew knows, I guess well, yep. Who was in your position in a, in province town. That’s correct. In the Cape, yep. For 10 years. So it’s PhD in public policy and a person with an MPH and,

5:34 and 10 years experience of managing a program like ours. So we have two really good people, uh, supporting this. So I see that, um, Joanne Miller’s name is on here. Is she, is she proud of the team or what? Well, that’s there because this, I first learned about the whole process of doing a health assessment from the Marblehead Mental Health Task force when Joanne was chair. Mm-hmm. So we’ve kept her involved. It is probably likely that she may not have the time to do the kind of scut work that’s gonna be necessary in the next couple of months. But, um, uh, Caitlyn has her on the mailing list. Do, do you think alphabetically and because you’re on, on the Board of Health at year 51st,

6:22 she’s called the Marblehead Board of Health also. Yeah. So, we’ll, we’ll change the client list to be, you know, Toro Marblehead, board of Health and myself as the director. And that will probably be it, because we’re the ones, Maybe Kristen Kristen’s been going to all these meetings with me. So generally you don’t have residents on it just listed because, you know, But you could have, This is a contract, and so if we don’t pay and they come searching for the money, we’re not listing Kristen or any of those people. Okay. Yeah. So you wouldn’t want Joanne on it as mental health task? No, I would take her off as well. Okay. So, um, And we do have the question of the three versus four focus groups with Kaitlyn. Yeah, I texted her Yeah, for immediately, but didn’t get here to near her. But I think that the calendar

7:09 that she shows in here is we will start meeting, um, early in June, And we June one, Well, yeah. Uh, we’ll early we’ll begin to, uh, flesh out. It’s interesting in there that this is the first time I’ve seen her say that it’s a hybrid survey, that it’s going to have digital, electronic as well as paper. So we’ve, we’ve made that pro, we made some progress. Yeah. Um, okay. So I know we’ve got lots of things to do tonight. You wanna Move on to what? The flu vaccination question? Well, Let me, let me finish though. I, I do wanna report on the, one of the smaller grants that we have on, uh, public health.

7:56 And if you remember, we committed to develop a landscape of child maternal health. Kristen, uh, professor Obta, and I met with Alex IC Wick, I hope I pronounce it correctly, chair of OB GYN at Salem State Hospital, like the pediatric, uh, sa Not, not Salem State Hospital. No, no. Salem Hospital With is, which is Master. Yeah. Yeah. Um, very, very well. All the docs I’ve met over there are really quite, quite sophisticated. But he was, he was excited. He, he’s not a, a marble header, so he didn’t know much about the Board of Health. He didn’t know our interest in, uh, expanding public health.

8:44 And certainly he was pleased to know that boards like ours are interested in partnering with the delivery system. So we talked a lot about social determinants of health and how he, like, he didn’t unders he didn’t know anything about the co counseling center and didn’t know that if he had a, was seeing a, a mom in his clinic who needed some support, that that might be the referral. So we shared that kind of thing with him. And he also has introduced us to the leadership of the ambulatory clinic, so that we’ll get to meet, um, the people who are at, in the pre-delivery stage. So we’re really making good progress, uh, on that.

9:30 What department is he, is he in O-B-G-Y-N? Uh, Michael Goldsmith introduced us when, after we talked to Michael about what he wanted to do. Um, we are working to set up a meeting with pediatric associates in Greater Salem. When we were at Marble had Pediatrics, they told us that the, the two major pediatric groups that deal with most of the kids in town, I have, I have a copy of my report, um, uh, office Rader, uh, pediatric plane, greater Salem, but actually there’s offices in Bedroom. But anyway, I’m trying to work to see him

10:16 because he does, they apparently do 50% Marblehead as well. And then finally, um, we’ve begun to look at, uh, preschool, um, schools in Marblehead, because I think it, the more we understand about development, the more if there are vulnerable children in the town, we want to know from a public health perspective what’s available to the kids as soon as they’re in the three, four, um, age. So we’re making real progress on that grant. Um, okay. So then the next issue is the letter that the board received

11:03 from a resident in town who provided a couple of copies, I think different, different pre preprint editors of a report that comes out of the Cleveland Clinic that showed that approximately 80% of the Cleveland Clinic personnel got vaccinated for, uh, influenza and about 20 had medical or faith exemptions. And the data in the Preprint shows that in fact, the vaccinated, uh, employees had a slightly higher percentage

11:48 of infection than the unvaccinated ones. Um, and so, uh, Andrew and I talked, I offered to respond to that, that pre-print at least. And the issue, the numbers for big, from my perspective, big picture, is that the influenza vaccine served those that got vaccinated very well. There was a 2% infection rate for the 40, 40 odd thousand vaccinated people. If you look at the literature, 2% infection is pretty high, even with a good vaccine.

12:36 Um, the, the statistics that, uh, the CDC gives that, that, that, um, 20 odd percent of the general population is getting, VA is getting a, an infection this year. And so if the Cleveland Clinic people, all of whom were back to the 40,000 were down to 2%, the vaccine was pretty effective. And I also, in the letter remind the, the writer that in addition to preventing, uh, the first infection in, in fact for many, particularly for seniors, the more important aspect

13:22 of vaccination is that it reduces the severity of the infection. When infection, the, the infection, the infection comes, comes up. So, um, basically, I, I quote him some studies, if you’re vaccinated, um,

13:44 you lower the risk of hospitalization when you, that 2% that is infected, a a fraction of those will end up in the hospital. And the vaccination reduces hospitalizations by 40% in kids and 80% in adults. Um, and then I also, I And those that do get infected, they know it as risky, Is it? That’s right. Well, we, and I actually didn’t know that the, it was as strong. I, I have said often that I enjoyed this kinda literature. So, um, I I was surprised. But 80%, uh, reduction in hospitalization

14:30 for vaccinated, uh, individuals who do get, who do get, uh, infected, the deaths were not quite as strong. I found, uh, I didn’t spend a lot of time on it, but I’ve found a study coming out of Taiwan that showed if you were a senior without disabilities being vaccinated got you. A 5% increase of death. Ultimately, if you were disabled, it got you an 11%. But overall, getting the vaccination was a positive. The question remains, though, why did the non-vaccinated people show

15:17 such a low number? They got infected in the Cleveland Clinic data at a, at a rate of one and a half percent of the 10,000 that didn’t get in, didn’t get vaccinated. And I, I, the only thing we have in the pre-print is, is that data. And I would SI would suggest it when I was at UVA, I know we, we, when we required vaccination, if someone had an exemption, we asked the, the exempted individual to wear a mask, and we reassigned them to a, uh,

16:02 non-public facing service. You could still be in a nursing service, you could still be working on the pediatric floor, but instead of being working at the unit clerk’s desk, you worked in the supply station or something like that. But it, it, regardless, it’s worth looking into more because it’s very interesting information. The, the other possible, uh, issue is that, um, um, that in, in that hospital, there are enough people who, who have seniors at home, high risk people at home that they take extra care of themselves, those that have that kind of exemption. So I suggest to the, the writer that, um,

16:51 we should wait to see what these are preprints. And for those of you who don’t un, if Helene and I were to write an article, uh, historically, we sent it right away to the, the real publisher, the New England Journal of Medicine, or JAMA Today, there’s an intermediate step. Um, if we were to send our article to the New England Journal, it might take several months, uh, to, to get published. And the hi, when we were doing all this work, work on research on HIV in the old days, there’s a, there’s a sense that one group got the Nobel Prize

17:39 ahead of another group because they got published, they were working one in France, one in the United States. They were working simultaneously. They shared each other’s data a little bit. But the American group got published faster than the French French group and got the Nobel Prize. And they, there were many other things. But publishing now in the biomedical world is fast. The goal is to get it fast. So there’s this intermediate, announce it to the world without peer review. Peer review means that you would have people who were in the same business. Like I used to get in the, in the old days, I would get, if a pediatric intensive care doc wrote a paper about

18:27 what happened in a picu, that I would read that kind of paper. I would write a, a letter saying, gee, publish that. Please ask the author, what about this? Those sorts of things. So we don’t know what’s gonna happen for, from at the Preprint. Lots of preprints get rejected and never make it to the legitimate, never make it to the legitimate, um, the, the New England Journal type journals. And finally, I suggested to him that, um, if he was really interested in this, we probably could try to find out what Mass General Brigham found for their employees. That public health science never depends on one hospital or one set of data.

19:15 Because in public health, we deal with populations. It’s not, you know, in chemistry, mix a little bit of this, mix a little bit of that, watch it turn blue. Well, it’s gonna turn blue once it turns blue. When you have compound A and compound B turning blue, you don’t have to do that experiment a hundred times. But when we’re, when you’re dealing with humans who are in not only individuals, they’re in populations, you have to do the studies differently. So no one would take this one paper, even if it were published in a traditional journal as public health science, until there were other places

20:02 that showed the same effect.

20:06 So I guess my question, the reason I asked it to be on the, on the is does the board want to endorse this? Say this is the, the board or just coming from the, the community health side, Endorse, endorse what? Endorse the letter to the resident. Your Comment, I think you, I think you did your research, but the one thing that I know, but I don’t know completely, is the Cleveland Clinic isn’t just in Cleveland. They’re all, I, I know they’ve Got, this was the Cleveland bat. They have several hospitals in Cleveland, and they, It’s, it’s not, but they many in Florida. It’s not Florida. It’s not Florida. And, and I, ‘cause I go to Florida and I know that they have many there. I don’t know if there are other states that they’re in, and I don’t know where the study was

20:52 or how, how vast it was. Well, the Preprint Preprint does say it’s Cleveland, That it was just in that area. Yeah. And, and 50,000 is probably, did they, they have at least eight hospitals in the Area. Did did he say why he was interested in this, or? Well, this is the guy who’s Oh, the, the resident. Yeah. I, I think he, he would prefer a world that didn’t have vaccination. So he’s just asking that He was thinking, he, he was asking us, do we know this work by requiring or recommending vaccinations? Are we putting people at greater risk than the primary infection? I trust you, you taking his, his question

21:39 and answering it, but I don’t know whether I would want to endorse it. I think this is your study, and I think you did a great job. I don’t know what Taiwan has to do with Marblehead And Well, it’s just a publication that I found. Right. I, but I don’t know whether that has any Okay. Value. So I’ll sign it as the vice chair. Good. I, I thought you gave him a very thoughtful response and you didn’t talk down to him. You know, he asked an honest question. I think you gave him an honest, thoughtful answer. I will correct you though. I actually know him. He’s not an anti-vaxxer. It was just one particular thing he was talking about. So, no, His question was, are we, are we harming people? Yeah, I think he meant specifically with this. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah.

22:25 So I don’t wanna put that across the board, you know, but, um, right. But no, I, You know, Part of the excitement of being on this board in Marblehead is you’re working with curious smart people Yeah. That ask good questions. And I, I made, I hope I made that clear that I, I I would be very happy. I appreciate the fact that you answered him and you answered him appropriately and with, with, with data and with science and with knowledge. And I think that you should send it off to him, and that would, I think that would be wonderful. Okay. ‘cause I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t do what you did. Well, there’s a lot of things I couldn’t have done in 28

23:12 years sitting in your chair, Madam Chair. So I thank you for doing that, because if he wrote the letter to me, I would have to, but you’d Have passed it in. I would have to do some research, Yes. Okay. Well, finally then, the mental health task force, a group of us met, uh, Friday at the counseling center as a sort of movement toward, um, toward that, the task force ending up in the counseling center. The, the five, let’s see, was, um, Terry, mark, the chair, uh, Dr. Leblanc, uh, Susan, um, uh,

23:57 Joanne was, um, on Zoom and I, and basically Mark wrote a note that is, is being sent out to all the members of the task force. Basically to say that, that the move to the counseling center really did make a lot of sense. They thanked the board for thinking of the idea of a task force during the pandemic. That, but that the task force moving to the counseling center, they really share a mutual commitment to addressing the mental health needs of the community. That has a, there’s a list I’ve given, um, Marty the list of the accomplishments of the Mental health task force.

24:45 They, they developed a comprehensive, uh, webpage. They’ve published numerous articles in the current, they work with us to develop, uh, the CALM Initiative. They are participating in community wellness fairs. The one we’ve sponsored here, the one that the counseling center did last year. Others run. And they’ve hosted speakers from regional health groups. So the plan is to reconvene the membership of the historic Mental health task force under the auspices of the counseling center, at the counseling center, uh, after a summer break. And between now and then, um, mostly Terry and, uh,

25:33 and, and Dr. The Bond, we’ll be working on agendas and projects that the task force, the task force members that are now gonna be working with the Counseling center will be, uh, ready, ready to reconvene and work on. I, I think it’s a, it’s a great move. Um, I think I said before, when you take a a, an infant and you bring it to fruition and pass it on, send it on to graduate school, I think that it’s a wonderful thing. So I really, uh, am impressed with the fact that they’re willing to do it, and that, that the Mental Health Task force came up with it because we, as a Board of Health, saw the need

26:20 during the covid that people were just, you know, falling apart and all the age groups. And we thought that this would be a helpful thing. And I think it was, we got that list together, uh, of services. And I think that we kept it going for the five years. And, um, I was, you Go ahead, Steve. I I think one of the important things that needs to happen with this is that we need to preserve the resource that the Mental Health Task Force created that, of the website. And that’s one thing that we should have, you know, we need to take that information and slide it over to the Marvel Head Counseling Center website. Did You get the website up?

27:06 I remember the last time I talked it, it, it, it, it had been hacked, right? The Town of Marblehead website or the Oh, the mental health website. Uh, the Mental Health Task Force website had been hacked. I don’t know where that stands. Okay. But, but the information should is all, you know, there’s still copies of all that information, so we can take that information and make sure all that information is on the Marblehead Counseling Center website. But there’s a person who helped build the website. Yes, there is. You and I talked about if he has a charge, you could use the Mental Health, little Mental Health Best Practice grant to pay for that if we have to. Yeah. So again, like thinking long term though, we would have

27:52 to continue to pay out for a website that, you know, the Marblehead Counseling Center has a website that we don’t pay for. So we shouldn’t have to pay for a website when somebody else is gonna pay for the website. So you’re in effect saying we can, we Should just be able to migrate all that information over, even If even it’s been, even if it’s been hacked. Yeah. So you should be able to take the raw data. Somebody should have that master list of all that information. No, not that I, you know what? I on data, Take all that information and bring it over, and obviously like, I’m just gonna take it out and then and insert it back in. I know Enough, I just, yeah. I’m not writing code. It’s probably not doing Okay. Well, And then obviously we want links from our website to the mental health tech, like to all that information

28:38 so people can go, That’s why 50, if it’s only a couple hundred bucks, which is what she thought it would be, you think it might be worth just to get it up running again? Yeah, we can talk about that again, long term, you know, a couple hundred bucks, you know, we, that, you know, the health department has barely any budget. Yeah. So even a couple hundred dollars is still a well, but I’m Sure we can use a little grant. Yeah. But that’s not, you know, that grant’s gonna run out in a period of time. Okay. What? No, I just, I just meant, Yeah. Yep. What Happened when it got hacked? Uh, it essentially got ransomed. Really? Yeah. Oh, so you, so there’s no control over it right Now. So I’d have to go and talk to the person that controls the website and see what’s happened to it. If, you know, if he can get back in, if, you know,

29:24 it was a tiny website that they just got attacked. Yeah. Um, so if there’s no money there, you know, the person might’ve just disappeared or they might have locked it up. Okay. It’d be good to know if, um, now Tom, what were, were you thinking that you were gonna keep the site for mental health stuff or the, the address after the information’s migrated?

29:50 N no, I, I just thought if it was very low cost, it, it seems like I, I, if I were gonna buy a car, I wouldn’t wanna buy a rec car. Yeah. No. Okay. Saying no, I wanted to make sure that No, it is definitely worth seeing if it’s, um, salvageable for, or if it’s still being held ransom and it’s what, a couple hundred bucks a year to make? I’d have to take a look at the exact cost of it. Yeah, Yeah. No, if it’s something like that, I’ll cover it and I’ll take it for, um, the, because like I said, other towns use saga cares, you know, whatever. Yeah, exactly. For, um, substance abuse stuff. Yeah. So having them all in line with other ones would be great to provide all that information on something like that. So if the information’s gonna get salvaged and moved to the counseling state Yeah. Using that site for that.

30:36 And if it, yeah, like, if it’s reasonable, I’ll come and, yeah, let Me, let me see where it stands and we can figure that out. Um, and see if it’s a viable website or, or Yeah. Where that kind of stands with him. Okay. Sneak. Um, well, that’s, that’s my, No, I can’t do it. No, no, I’m not, I’m not messing back. That’s my report. Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Very extensive report. Thank you for the work that you did on and that you’re continuing to do. Um, yeah, you got the bills. Yeah, it should be quick. Um, a one exterminators for rack control. Uh, $95, uh, in pay for postage, $9 and 68 cents. At and t for internet access. 80 bucks Black Earth compost for residential food,

31:23 composting $1,504. Um, pop Track corp. Which, uh, completed the fiber optic loop for the transfer station. $6,487 70 cents. Hart Palsley, LLC. The, uh, detail for fiber optic installation for lower gate license plate reader cameras, that’s $478 48 cents. Home Depot for disposal area maintenance supplies $61 47 cents. Jay’s automotive warehouse for auto loop grease for the loader and backhoe, $499 and 90 cents. Marvel Lake Department for electricity, $850 and 73 cents. Mead Teleman for legal. Um, $5,817. Perma line for signs for the transfer station.

32:08 1040 $9 79 cents. RMG Enterprises, uh, they recycle the TV monitors, laptops, uh, $649 35 cents SL Chase welding for the pit structure repairs. 40 2007 50 Uline Inc. Um, that’s for barrels. For school kitchens, $1,300 77 cents. Uh, United Construction for, um, r and m non-high vehicles, uh, $1,839 79 cents. US Bank for banking needs, uh, $983 98 cents, Verizon Internet access, $138 98 cents. Waste Management for trash disposal, $32,000, uh,

32:53 thousand $32 and 9 cents waste equip, which is, uh, the 40 yard container. Um, what was that for? Uh, it’s an open top container. Okay. Open top container is, uh, $7,150. And that’s covered by a grant. It’s just, yeah. Yeah. You had mentioned that one’s covered by a gram. Um, WB Mason for office supplies, $55 88 cents. And William Scottsman, uh, for the rented trailer. 6 640 $1 58 cents.

33:27 I’ve got a question one again about, uh, the attorney. Was that for the, um, for the work we’ve been doing? Yep. Recently. Yep. And also for the, um, did it include, uh, our, the, the, the work we did for the finance, for the, for the, um, town meeting? Town meeting? No, does not. So we do not have to pay for the cost for town meeting. That’s, I don’t mean town meeting, but for putting the, the changing the budget, moving it. No, there was no cost associated With that. There was not just So it was just for our work. Yep. That’s correct. And I heard a school thing. What, why do we pay for the barrel? So we, we cover a lot of the school costs. We pay for all the trash, all the recycling for the school. We often supply them with recycled bins.

34:13 We supply them with, um, black earth bins for the kitchens and all that stuff to make sure all that waste is removed outta school. And they don’t reimburse us for That. They do not reimburse us. No. Right. Well, we just heard the bins in the, in the kitchen. So the other stuff was not read at this one. That’s correct. All right, well, that’s good. So the 32,000 is that we pick up the, the one contractor picks up stuff on the curbside Yep. Then brings it to the transfer station. There’s two different trucks curbside. So you have a recycled truck and you have a trash truck. We also have a, there’s a couple small streets at the large tr trash truck can’t go down, so it covers that as well. We also do all the schools and all the town buildings, dumpsters and stuff like that.

34:59 So they, it might be a slightly different truck that’s gonna go pick up that material. So that’s just for collection. So the trash comes to the transfer station, the recycling curbside goes to their Greenworks facility, but there’s no charge for that. We have a great deal where they own the recycling. We don’t get billed or we don’t get paid for it. I thought that changed temporarily. No. Um, right now we’re paying for southern material that comes into the transfer station. Yeah. We own that. And we have to pay the, that changed. Yeah. So that’s The 32,000? Nope, that the 32 thousand’s just the collection. Oh. Um, also part of that is, so when we were closed

35:45 with the facility was closed, um, they weren’t able to bring the trash directly to us. They were bringing the trash to their facility. So there were some costs of that.

35:56 No, nothing to do with the bills. But I was downtown the other day and I saw a lot of, um, cardboard wrapped up or bundled in front of some of the, um, stores. Yep. Are we now picking that up? So we’ve always picked that up because again, you know, the, you know, before, uh, the, there was value to the recycling. And so at the very beginning of the contracts, um, we allowed certain businesses, like in certain downtown districts, um, parts of Washington Street, we allowed businesses with that out. Um, obviously when we move to the new contract, we’re gonna have to review all of that and create regulations to prohibit that or charge for that. That’s why I asked the question. ‘cause when you and I were going over the budget with the, um, liaisons that was brought up.

36:42 Correct. And I saw this and I said, is this new or is that old or, Yep. So for this next year when we have to, you know, when we’re moving into a new contract, we have to take a look at what’s placed, curbside, evaluate that and have an understanding that is there that gonna be a cost to us? Is it gonna be a cost that we wanna take on? Is there a cost that we need to push back to either the business and stuff like that? So that’s something that we need to evaluate over the next year as we get ready to put out a contract for collection. But we’re doing it free for them right now. Right. Because there’s no cost to us, because Republic owns the recycling. Okay, thank you. So we’re onto the director’s report. Yeah. Um, so household hazardous waste, um,

37:29 household hazardous waste is coming up. Um, it is Saturday, um, the 31st. Now this is a very, very busy day up at the transfer station. This will run from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM Um, this is again for household hazardous waste. So we’re talking bad fuel. We’re talking motor oil. If you’re not from Marblehead, we’re talking paints, we’re talking pesticides. This is gallons or pounds, and there is a fee for it. Um, then we do it for small, medium, and large, and it keeps going. Depending on how much material you have. We will probably see about 160 to 170 cars additional to the facility that day.

38:16 We will put reminders out, we will put notifications out. We recommend that people do not come to the transfer station in the morning unless you are attending the household hazardous waste events. What, what date is that again? It’s Saturday, May 31st. Are you gonna tell the swap shed not to open that day? Yes. I tell the swap shed not to open that deck. Yeah. So we will post it. We will send out a notification on the email blast, but it is a really busy day. And you, if, if you’re there not coming to household hazardous waste day, you will be sitting in line most likely. But it is a great way for you to recycle paint. So we do both latex and, you know, hazardous material.

39:02 So epoxy paints and all that stuff. Non latex paints. Um, the latex paints gets recycled if it’s still viable. Um, the other paint gets, you know, obviously recycled, but in a different fashion. Um, your chemicals, all your pesticides, all that stuff goes to, uh, triumphant. Um, and all that stuff is removed. Um, yes, there is a cost to this. Yes, it is a high cost. We are not, we don’t charge any extra. We’re just passing on their costs. If it, if it creates such a, a traffic jam there, why are you doing it at the transfer station? You used to do it at other sites. The, so we used to do it at Tower Way, but we outgrew Tower way a long time ago. Then you did it at the Tower Way. That’s right. Yeah. And you did it once at the, at um, at the Tower School?

39:48 No, I’ve never done it at the Tower School. No, Just tower Away. Just tower away. Yeah. Now we did, last time we did this, we did a Wednesday evening from four to seven, and that worked out really well. Um, so we will probably entertaining that, doing that again in the fall for a Wednesday evening or something like that. Um, but the hard thing about, there’s only so many vendors in Massachusetts, they only have so many days. We’re trying to serve the majority of the people. Most people have Saturdays off. And so we’re trying to get to the masses. Um, but we do understand that sometimes there is a group of people that work. And so yeah, we try to have other additional days. We used to have a really good program. Um, we used to work with a company called a CV, um,

40:35 and we would run this four times a year, and they would actually come right to your house and pick up the material. Unfortunately, a CV got bought out and that program was dissolved. We only did that once, twice, Didn’t we? Yeah. We had a year that we ran that for a almost a, a full year and stuff like that. Um, very good program. All of that is independent of the contract. That will be All that is independent of the contract. Something We run, you run on our Own. Yeah, exactly. Now, the state of Massachusetts often thought that this program would go away because they would collect all the hazardous material and there would be no more hazardous material. That’s not correct. Um, as long as Home Depot is in business, there’ll always be hazardous material.

41:20 Again, it’s pesticides, it’s herbicides, it’s paints, it’s varnishes. Um, and obviously we live in a boating community, so there’s a lot of bad fuel. There’s a lot of varnishes and stuff like that that we see.

41:35 Does Home Depot run a have They do not. No. Interesting. They’d never consider a Sunday, would they? So I have to ask the vendor if they would consider a Sunday. Um, but yeah, I mean, we, we would con that chaos at the transfer. Yeah, exactly. We, we might like, again, if the vendor would be open to it, we, we would probably, yes, there’s some additional costs to us as well. Um, but it’s something that we would consider. Mm-hmm. I mean, we even talked about, you know, is it, is it really best to run ‘em after the transfer station is over that four to seven window? Mm-hmm. Um, but again, the vendor has to be on board with that and agree to it. So it depends on what’s going on. Um, we are, this is the final year of this contract. The vendor will be negotiating with the state of Massachusetts. Um, this comes on, combines with the state contracts.

42:21 Um, so there will be new pricing going into the new year, but it’s something that we will continue to do. We always do two events every year. We do do ‘em with S Swamp Scott, um, to, to make sure that we have enough material that we’re collecting. Otherwise we’re gonna get charged no matter what. Um, but this is something that we’ll continue, which means S Swamp Scott people will come to the transfer station. Yep. Okay. Yep. You get a good percentage of S Swamp, Scott? Yeah, I do get a good percentage of Lum Sky. It’s probably pretty close to 50 50, um, landfill monitoring expense. So obviously with Ca Cat Landfill, we’re required to do, uh, long-term monitoring. So we collect water samples, we’re collect gas samples.

43:07 We use Haley Ward to do this work. Um, we have a proposal from them to do from 2025 to 2027. Um, again, we always plan this out long term. We’re required to do this. We also have to do operational inspections, some other inspections that are required for DEP. Um, but this is for, you know, landfill monitoring. Um, and again, it is for multiple years. Um, just so you have an idea of what the costs are.

43:46 Um, so it is about $26,000 for each sampling event. So there’s a spring sampling event, and there’s a fall sampling event. It’s about 51,500. This is all part of the budget that we have budgeted for. That’s the landfill monitoring expenses that we have in there. Um, so this is covered under that. Um, again, we’re just looking to have this work done and approve the budget. Um, actually through 2029, um, again, they have given me all their prices. Again, it’s the same thing. It goes up slightly in years 2028 and 2029. Um, so in 2026, the spring sampling cost will be 26,500. The fall sampling costs will be 25,000.

44:32 27 is 26 5, the fall is 25 and 28. Um, it’s 28,000 for the spring sampling. The fall sampling goes up to 26 5. Um, and 2029, uh, the spring sampling is 28,000. And the spring, I mean, in the fall is 26 5. Um, so for the 2025 to 2027, um, the, the total cost will be $128,000. The cost for 2028 and 2029, the total cost for that is $109,000. Are they the Only game in town? No. So they’re, they’re the company that we have chosen to work with long term. Mm-hmm. Um, they’re very responsive. Responsive. You want to, you wanna form a long-term relationship with them. You wanna be able to call them and,

45:19 and ask ‘em all these questions. They’re your face to match DEP for your sampling Mass. DEP requires this, but provides No, That’s correct. That is correct. That’s nice. Yeah. So Again, you’re, you know, this is, these are our responsibilities because we created the landfill and Marblehead. Mm-hmm. And yes, it wasn’t us. We, we tried to do, yeah. It wasn’t us that put that material in there, but we’re required to monitor it mm-hmm. Forever. So we’re going back and making sure that what we’ve done in the transfer station was cor was correct. And long term is that what we’re, What you’re doing is you’re collecting samples to look at the chemistry and the makeup of what was underneath the cap

46:04 of the landfill and making sure that it’s not creating other environmental issues if it’s leaching out or anything like that. So they’re monitoring the edges of the landfill to make sure that there’s no long-term impacts to the environment. There’s also a steer swamp, um, that we have to do long-term monitoring on. That’s not part of this contract. Um, but that’s something that’s required to be done every five years. We’re working on that currently. Um, but that’s an additional cost that we have to take a look at the Steer Swamp. Um, so since we have a, a stream that flows through the old landfill, it did migrate some material down into the wetland. That wetland area is in under long-term environmental

46:51 monitoring

46:58 questions. I think you’ve gotten, yeah, so we just, we grants or anything like that, there’s no grants that go from there. And obviously we’d always look for grants and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. Um, no, there, there’s only, so we do receive a small art, um, mass DEP grant. It’s a recycling de dividends, uh, grants. And we use those to buy equipment and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. I, I just need a motion to enter into the contract with Hailey Ward for the long term monitoring. Just June 29. Yeah. So it’s from 2025, the fall of 2025, um, through the fall of 2029. That motion. Make a motion. All in favor? Yeah. It’s unanimous. But yeah, we, I, you know, I worked with them quite a bit.

47:46 Um, we were headed to DEP on Thursday to do a file review, just to take a look at some information. Um, but yeah, there’s a, there’s a lot of long-term monitoring that has to be done for the landfill and other pieces of the, the property associated with the landfill.

48:03 Uh, beach testing. Uh, so we’re entering into the beach season. Um, so we have five bathing beaches at Marblehead. You have Devereux, you have Crocker Park, you have gas house, you have Grace Oliver’s and STR scheme. Those are the five public bathing beaches in Marblehead. During the Bathing Beach season. We sample these at least once a week. Generally at our sampling day is Wednesday, the 10, the sample takes 24 hours to be analyzed. We get the results back the next day. Based on the results, we might have to close that each, or we might need to take a second sample. Um, three of our beaches are under, under a certain tier that we just, if it comes up with a failure,

48:49 we would just have to re-sample two of our beaches Gas House and Grace Olivers, if we have a bad sample, the beach is closed, we grab another sample and once we have a passing result, we can open it back up. Uh, the first sample will be collected June 11th. Uh, and the last sample will be September 10th. So this is the period of time that we will be sampling the beach, you know, those five beaches in Marblehead and Will, uh, expect to be doing That. Yeah. So it’s always a combination of everybody in the office. Um, during the summer, everybody’s taking vacation. Um, and because of the time, there’s certain things and the high priority of it, it’s kinda all hands on deck. So depending on who’s around, somebody might have to go quickly change and go take a sample. So for myself, it’s really easy.

49:34 I can just run to my house, put in my bathing suit and run, take a sample. But if I’m not there, somebody else, you know, the inspector will be in responsible for doing that And, and he’ll have to show him how To do it. Yeah. So there, there will be a training process for him this spring. Um, it’s very easy. So when you’re taking a sample, we have lab bottles, so clean lab bottles that we keep in at the office, everything’s labeled. Um, we have a courier service that comes and picks up the sample when you’re taking the sample. Um, and obviously it’s a sterile bottle. You walk out waist deep and you take the sample elbow deep. So you open up the container elbow deep, grab the sample, put the top on and walk out, back out. Um, obviously it sounds very easy. For the most part, the only challenging beach for the most part is Devereux.

50:20 You just have to be paying attention to the wave action. Um, for Crocker Park, um, we actually take the sample right at the Harbor Masters dock, which is close proximity, um, to that, to Crocker Park. You don’t drive off the rock. I do not drive off the rock. Uh, for gas out gas house, same thing. It’s straight off the beach for Grace Oliver’s, um, it’s straight off the beach. And for Raki it’s stayed off the beach as well. Um, this is based on Tide cycle, so that’s why it’s not the same time every week. Um, we’re told when to essentially try to grab the sample. Um, so it’s a, you know, a realistic sample and stuff like that. Um, obviously with Grace Oliver’s, we do have a stream

51:05 that exits onto the beach, and that’s the pot, you know, potential source of some bacterial. Obviously it’s dogs that are on the beach con can contribute to bacteria. Um, the other thing that has been contributing to bacteria is the rack lining marble head. Um, so we will get some seaweed buildup that forms that rack line. It does harbor a lot of bacteria. So we always are dealing, we have a survey when we’re, um, com completing the samples or collecting the samples. How many dogs on the beach, what’s the rack line like, um, you know, high tide, all that information, number of people on the beach. Um, and that goes all into the final report. Any questions about that? They’re pretty straightforward. Mm-hmm.

51:50 Is that the end of your report? Yeah, that’s it. Well, I, I have a question. Yeah. I think we’ve done this, but I didn’t write it down. What, we aren’t gonna meet on the second normal meeting this month, right? That’s Correct, Yes. Gonna the meet on the third? I’ve got this all done Here. Oh, you gonna make that report? Mm-hmm. I, i, in a minute. Okay, fine. I usually stay over the next meetings. Uh, Okay. Uh, got a couple things. I, I, um, since I’ve been sitting on the, uh, on the board of health, we’ve been working on the transfer station, I think, since at the beginning of me sitting here. And I often at night think about this wonderful bronze

52:36 plaque that’s gonna go up there with all our names on it. So I took a shot at writing something ‘cause I thought we would get this done before I, uh, departed. But it looks like it’s gonna be a while before we finish the transfer station. So I took a, I took a, a shot at a first draft of a bronze plaque of what would go up on the transfer station. Just put that in your file and you can, um, work on it. I may even give you another one next week. But I just thinking that with all of work and time and effort that we’ve spent on this, that we should be so, we should be so noted. Yeah. If you come into my office, uh, sitting to the right of me is a large black, uh, brass plaque.

53:23 Uh, that used to be up at the transfer station on the, in incinerator building. There was always a plan when we built the new facility that at some point at the completion that you would have another brass plaque that would go up there, you know, memorializing all the different work board members that worked on it to, you know, to get, I didn’t have definition of the Transfer station. I didn’t have time to correct that one, but it, I, I just thought that I would give you a format and that hopefully we’ll have a little ribbon cutting at some point In your mind, when, what year was this ster? I thought it was, I was talking to Andrew, 1992. They started working on the closing. I

54:09 Thought it was, I thought it was 2010 and he said it was earlier than that. It was when I was in high school. Okay. So we, we I was in your 172 slides that you said that one show, But that was only that one, one we, that started on the day that we destroyed the, uh, the, the, uh, chiming. Have you ever thought of naming it? Yeah. And the leading name would be? Kay. Um, I, I think you’d probably look back at history and see, you know, who, who was really involved up there and stuff like that. Um, to try to come up. Obviously it wouldn’t be my decisions. It would be the, the, the town, you know, the board’s decisions. But yeah, we always kind of talked joked about, you know,

54:55 the so and so memorial, uh, transfer station. I haven’t thought of a name. I just thought that we should recognize the Board of Health members, but that’ll be somebody else’s decision. Case transfer station sounds good to me. What do you think, Steve? I’ve only been eight Board of health members since 1992. Yes. And I’ve been, I know you’ve been on 28. I was thinking you were amazing, but who, so David was on long time too. Well, he’s been gone a long time. Carl Goodman, uh, you know what, you know, um, Polly, uh, Whitwell might have been on N 92. I, she was definitely on it. Some one of those periods. Yeah, Because she, and that’s, uh, um, Tom’s wife

55:42 or Tom Krueger. Yeah. Oh, who comes? Sorry. If, if he were here, he could tell us. Yeah, so she, I think maybe that’ll be my job for the next month to find out the exact, the first meeting and who was on there. ‘cause we’re gonna have to add a new person in front of there. Certainly. And it might be poll on the top. Are any of these, uh, physicians, Two dentists an attorney, two public health, offic, three public health officials? Michelle and myself and Joanne? Um, the answer is no.

56:28 Oh, so do you believe? Yeah. Okay. So yeah, maybe somebody wanna donate a lot of money to be named Don make what? To Named on transfer. What are they, what are they gonna buy with the money? Well, we named medical schools and we named Well, but they build buildings, build another transportation.

56:51 Um, all right, well, we’re on tv. Somebody may wanna jump in. Um, so that, that’s for the future. And, um, I just thought that I’d like to have it in minutes that we are going to do something Of To, uh, recognize the work that’s gone in through the directors, two directors. And like you say, there’ll probably be a couple of more people out there. Um, well, there’ll definitely be one more person and maybe if we’ve gone back to poll, we’ll see about that. If she’s watching now, she might be calling writing you right now. Um, our next meeting is June 3rd. We are not having the, um, meeting

57:37 the fourth Monday because it’s, um, Memorial Day. Um, I did ask the board if they could meet, if, if this executive session is what is lengthy, if we could meet before June 3rd, we could still meet June 3rd at an executive session. Uh, if we need to, hopefully we won’t. Um, I would rather not meet on, on May 27th, which is the day after Memorial Day, since it’s my wedding anniversary. But we’ll, um, if we have to, we will. Um, so we are going to, um, close the regular session. Is

58:22 There a second meeting in June? Well, there will be, but somebody else will be se setting the date. There’ll be probably the fourth. At the fourth Monday.

58:34 Well, I’ll put it on my calendar then. It is the fourth Monday. Monday, I would imagine. Yeah. June 23rd. Well, that would be your, your, uh, second meeting. And then you’ll go into the July the second, Tuesday and July, which will be after the fourth. But, but do you plan to chair on June 3rd or, Oh, I’m chairing June 3rd. I’m on, yeah, I’m in office until the 10th. That’s what I thought. Okay. Uh, so yeah, That’s why I’m announcing the meeting. Um, oh, actually, before we go into executive session, uh, quickly, we can have, um, anybody, uh, in the audience that would like to speak. We have about two and a half minutes.

59:18 I have a couple Questions. What’s the status of the five member board? So the status, so the board has to be, the five member board has to be approved by state legislature. Once that’s approved, Who’s following up on it though? It’s been a year. Uh, so that’s being followed up by the selectman’s office.

59:39 Okay. And the other thing I noticed, the match And, um, representative arm mean is well aware of it, of the, But it just seems that we should be already having an election now for Biden. I just don’t wanna see us next year in the same spot. These Three people Sitting Here, Steve, I’m gonna be on That’s ask for this One. Yeah. So these three people here have been, the question was brought up at the Town meeting to make sure very disa, I just reiterate. Okay. And I noticed the maps going. Question, where’s the new, uh, scale gonna physically be located? So the New scale will be physically located right in front of the, the tipping floor. So when you move it away, so you’ll be able to,

1:00:26 as the commercial vehicles come around, it’s gonna be you now. Yep. It’s gonna be gr asphalt level, right. So you could drive right across it, and then when you’re backing up, you would stop on it, weigh in, dump, pull forward, weigh out, come over to pay and leave. So it’ll be similar parallel to the one that’s there now? Yeah. But closer to the existing trailer. Correct. In line with The, okay. Yep. And that allows for the resident access to be a direct access out. And so there’ll be no essential cross of traffic, um, except for the Exit essentially. Scale is now. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Yep. We’re trying, we’re always trying to alleviate that crossover of traffic. Yeah. Good.

1:01:12 Yeah, And trying to make it as easy as possible for the trucks to get on and off. Thank You’re all set. That’s it. All right. So I have one question to Yeah. Ask the director if we may go back into open session. You’re Not going back into open session. We are not, no, No, definitely, definitely. If there’s Something You this, yeah. You’re not going back until open session. Why do you say that? Because you don’t need to, To sign something. Nope. You don’t need to do, you don’t need to come back into open session. Right? That would just occur. Yep. It just occurs With no, with no open session vote. That’s correct. You do it in executive session. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um, if so, then you’ve checked that out.

1:02:00 You can talk to Alex yourself. I, I understand, but if I don’t, if I say No, you do not we, we’ve done this a a hundred times, you do not need to come back into open session to make a vote or anything. Okay. Then, um, if Once the matter is Finished, yes. The meeting minutes will become public.

1:02:21 The meeting minutes Of an executive session will become public once Everything is settled Correct. Once the contracts or whatever being happening. That’s Correct. Yep. Once those happen, it’s public and there’s no need to. That’s correct. Alright. I just didn’t wanna, I have to wait till June 3rd, but Well, we can always set a meeting if we have to Burns. Correct? Correct. I actually have highlighted May 19th or May 20th. If, if, if, if God forbid we have to meet again. So, um, those are the only Monday, Tuesdays is the license plate reader thing still on schedule? Yeah. So we installed the equipment box. Yeah, the mass is in place. Yeah. Um, the electricians coming to install the four gang in the equipment box. I had to call into, call.

1:03:08 The, um, fiber optic has to go from the street into the box itself. Um, once that’s the only piece that’s, I don’t have an exact date for. I’m really pushing that guy to put it in there. Once all that’s in there, the guy will come up and set the cameras and we’re good to go. Mm-hmm. Okay. So now, uh, we’re going exec into session. Was there any on on No, just us. We’re Oh no. Be online? No, just us. Okay. We we’re not going into executive session. Pursuant to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30 a section 21 a, a two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-union personnel, specifically the health director employment contract.

1:03:55 We will not go back into open session.