Board of Health: June 3, 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.

0:00 But I, I’m sorry that I’m late and on Zoom, but it was for the health of everybody that’s there. And I apologize for starting the meeting at 10 after seven, uh, meeting of, um, June 2nd. Uh, and I welcome everybody. So we will begin with third. Third, We’ll be, excuse me. We’ll begin with the community health update. Uh, and what, and I’m gonna interrupt you. We’re gonna give you a, a quick send off. Uh, we have a whole bunch of people in the audience. Um, so I think I’m gonna go first. So, uh, dear Elaine, on behalf of the entire community and the department, I want to extend our deepest gratitude for the 25 plus years of service on the Board of health.

0:48 Your unwavering commitment to public health, thoughtful leadership, and tireless advocacy have had a lasting impact on the wellbeing of a resident through changing times, complex challenges and evolving health needs. Your voice has been a steady and trusted presence. The work you’ve done often behind the scenes, has shaped policies, improved lives, and strengthened our community in countless ways. You are profoundly, we are profoundly grateful for your time, wisdom, and passion we’ve shared over the past two decades. Thank you for your extended extraordinary services and for setting such a high standard of integrity and dedication. Thank you. Was that all, all your words? That was all mine. Yes.

1:34 That was excellent. God, thank you so much for all that. I’ve really, truly enjoyed working with you, and these last few years we’ve really gotten to, uh, know each other more. And I consider you a friend As well. Do as I do. Uh, so I, you know, I will truly miss you and we’ll continue to see each other. Thank you very much. Uh, but I think we have some other members in the audience that would like to say a few words too. I can I wait and get my husband in here.

2:06 Wait a minute. Hold on,

2:12 Jim, they’re giving me a Come on in. Jim, Can I just sit? Oh, yeah.

2:21 She’ll be happy to say a Paul. Oh, I think he may come. I think think he will really Sit there in her seat. He, he, he may come. He’s shy, I think. Hi. Can you see your chair, Joan? Oh, Joan, why Joanne? I think, can you See your chair? I think, am I allowed to sit in your chair for a Moment? Yes. Come here, Jim. Jim’s coming in. This is so unorthodox, the whole thing, but Technology brings us all together. Jo Joanne just came in to say something, and Andrew gave beautiful, beautiful words, and I thank him for that. And Helene, I’m bringing some flowers, if I may drop these at your house, um, this evening and leave them on your doorstep.

3:07 But I wanted to come and share my gratitude to you. Um, I’d also like to share a couple words about your service. I, um, I wanna touch on the fact that serving with you, I learned the legacy of leadership and service to our town that you’ve devoted for decades. And I, I stand in awe of the work that you’ve committed to our beautiful community. Um, it’s difficult to imagine a person more engaged with care, compassion, and stewardship toward the needs of our community. Um, in the 1980s, Helene co-founded Dollars for Scholars, which provides need-based financial aid residents of Marblehead and graduates of Marblehead High School.

3:52 Uh, a few of my kids benefited from that, and I believe there’s millions of dollars that have been shared with our students and their aspirations of higher education. Um, you also were integral in finding, uh, founding making Ed’s Meet, ends Meet, which is another organization that supports people in need in our community, and has a profound effect on generations that reside in our town. Um, I deeply admire your ability to see problems and challenges in our community, and then work collaboratively to create impactful solutions. And I think, uh, dollars for scholars making its Meet

4:39 and Friends of Marblehead Public Schools, which has done tremendous impressive, important work to support enrichment programming in our schools. Uh, you were a founder of Marblehead Task Force Against Discrimination, whose aim is to ensure that Marblehead is a respectful, supportive, welcoming and inclusive community for its many diverse citizens and visitors. And I would argue that in this time, uh, in the political environment that we live in right now, having a task force in that works too with these aims is, is very important. And I’m very grateful to you for seeing that need

5:27 and helping bring that task force into our community. Um, in the seventies, Helene leveraged her background in public health by volunteering as a board member for the Marblehead Counseling Center, which is an organization very near and dear to all of our hearts. It’s, uh, historically one of the only, um, counseling centers, mental health centers that is tied to, uh, small municipality like Marblehead. And it has done and continues to do very, very important work to serve our residents. Um, she’s a lifelong volunteer, and that’s, uh, complimented by your many decades in public elected service.

6:13 Uh, I’ve long admired your leadership in these roles, where for nine years, you served, uh, the town of Marblehead, uh, as a member of our school committee. And since 1997, so going on three decades, Helene, thank you for your service as an elected member to the Marblehead Board of Health in this role. You’ve supported the public health of our community with compassion and care. Your leadership in supporting the creation of the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force during COVID was exceptional and forward thinking. And it was an organization that both Tom and I served on together, bringing much needed resources

6:58 and, uh, tools to our residents to serve them through the very difficult, uh, time of COVID and its aftermath, certainly, which continues today. And I was very grateful to serve on the Board of Health with you for three years. Helene and, uh, personally wanna thank you for your leadership. I, I have to look back on a time when we were moving towards something with the transfer station and we were getting ready to vote, and you halted it and said, I think our new member needs more information. And we, you were able to pause. And I didn’t realize that was possible at the time. And then I was able to get more information, get informed, and be able to come back and make an educated vote on something that matters to this town.

7:45 And I think that highlights the leadership that I’m here to gratefully. Um, thank you for, and, um, and I wish you all the best. Helene and I, I just thank you so much for your service.

8:01 How can I respond to that? I’m overwhelmed by your graciousness, which you always carried on the board with you. I wish I could learn a little bit more of that from you and, um, maybe today I will start that job. I need a new career graciousness.

8:23 Okay.

8:28 One more bouquet. At least one book. Yes.

8:42 You should probably frame that. Joanne, you should probably give It. Elaine, I have some flowers for you and I think you like harbor sweets, so I get you some other sweets. Appreciate all you’ve done. The person I live with seems to grab them from me, but I’ll hide them from him. Okay. Well, that’s up to you. Let your conscience be your guide. Known you for close to 40 years, I guess for quite a while. Appreciate what you’ve done in the past and I’m sure what you’ll continue to do. So wish you well and enjoy your nights off. Mr. Elliot, you haven’t, Mr. Elliot, you have not missed a meeting. And I enjoy, I enjoy your comments. Okay. And you know, we go, we go deeper than that with my dearest,

9:27 dearest longest friend that you are. They are also, that family is also your longest friend. Oh, The burgers. Yeah. And I didn’t know that you knew Max and Eva and Oh, one pick. That’s funny. One Pickwick Road Spent many a day at their house doing repairs and things over the years and just stopping by to have conversations with Max. Yeah. Super Generous person with his time. Did you do that kitchen? I enjoyed the new kitchen. No, I, um, I was busy and I couldn’t do that, but I did a bunch of other stuff work O Okay. One Pickler Road. That’s your, we’ve got great in the corner. A nice secret. Nice to see you again. Nice To see you. Thank you so much for the flowers in the nice words.

10:13 Thank you. Helene. Am am I now allowed to speak? Yeah. O okay. Thank you so much, everyone. Um, that, that is overwhelming. I didn’t realize, uh, that this was happening. You know what, sometimes I get surprised it’s caught off guard and this is one of them. But it, it is thrilling and moving. And thank you, Joanne. I know that you, uh, you’ve got lots of things going on with a new job and your family, so, and, and Andrew, that’s, I have to, I was so shocked. I have to reread it. It was, it was beautiful. Thank you so much. So, um, the next thing on the agenda, uh,

10:58 or the first thing on the agenda, um, is the Community Health Comm, uh, conversation with, um, Dr. Zaro. Um, yes. We have begun, uh, to establish regular meetings. The UMass Boston Health Assessment contract has been completely Yep. Executed, pro prosecuted. Okay, great. And, um, we have a five person, sort of organizational team that’s gonna be meeting regularly through the summer, um, to try to be ready to do the health assessment survey sort of short, shortly after Labor Day. Uh, so we’ll be working this summer to,

11:46 to do everything we can to get the highest possible response, um, for, from the town for this survey. Um, so things have gone well there in our landscaping. Uh, uh, our, our grant landscape grant, we’ve met again with, um, with, with appointment with another big pediatrics group. And we have another appointment with an obstetrics group as we, um, dig deeper into the landscape for child and maternal health in the town. So community health is moving forward. The, uh, I mentioned last time the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force, the merger with the, um,

12:34 counseling center is continuing. Small group is meeting on a regular basis to, to try to flesh out what that’ll look like. And they’ll, they’ll re-up, uh, they’ll reopen the regular meetings on a regular basis sometime in September. So things have gone on, um, uh, and gone well. And on the 24th of June, we will present a very short introduction, um, of, um, to the town by presenting to the select board. Uh, we, we agreed On the 24th. Did you say the 20, did you say the 24th? I, yeah, that’s the Wednesday, I believe. Yeah. Uh, and, um, the chair

13:21 agreed that we would just make that one a very, very brief introduction. And then when, after we’ve met all summer, when we have the mechanics of everything, much more, uh, in detail, then we’ll ask Dr. Coyle to present to the select board at that time in more detail. So the, the 24th will be brief introduction. And given everything that’s going on in town, I think the most important thing we wanna say is there will be no tax dollars associated with doing comm. So, uh, that’s the highest priority, um, to, to communicate, introduce the board members to what Con can be, and we’ll go forward from there.

14:08 Uh, one question. When you say we will meet the, uh, select board, does that mean the Board of Health? Or does, or is there a committee that you have informed? Yeah. Well, basically Andrew and I, possibly, um, Dr. Roberta, um, if Joanne’s around Joanne’s student welcome. And there’s a graduate student that’s coming from, um, UMass Boston. There’s a, there’s, uh, someone from the Collins Center at UMass Boston, as well as the Gerontological Center. So that’s the group that’s meeting regularly. Yes. But I don’t think that we’ll be a meeting of the Board of Health for a five minute introduction at the, at least we’re not talking about that, that I haven’t seen any sense, uh, in it.

14:54 Now, may I ask one question. Are are, are those interns gonna stay on, uh, as you, as you go forward,

15:04 The one intern from UMass Boston? Yes. Yeah, I believe, I believe this will be that Intern part of Her dissertation on how we move forward. How a, a study on how assessing the health in our town. Well, that’s great because you need some help.

15:25 Well, uh, the Professor Bennett is also, I’ll let her speak for herself when she’s here, but she’s away now. But she plans on, uh, doing, um, a background research study on this as well. We’re gonna really work very hard to be able to document what we’re doing and what, what positive outcomes are established, and how we can, um, how we can direct the health promotion of, of our, our term. I’m, I’m pleased you have the support. Uh, Tom McMahon, do you have any questions for, uh, Dr. Maza? No, Sounds good to me.

16:10 Andrew, anything to add? No, you know, obviously we’re looking forward to the start of this. You know, we’ve talked about this for quite some time. Tom’s done a lot of great fundraising. Um, so that is a big piece, you know, for the public to know that no public dollars are being used for this study. This will be, I think the first time of the 80 that UMass Boston has done that there’s no tax dollars driving it. So this board paying attention to where the, the town finances are ha has developed a program that should add value and won’t cost anything. Well, I think that your graduate study in, um, in fundraising is over.

16:55 I think you can be on your own. Yeah. Well, no, I still need a little more help from that. You’re the expert. Um, I, we, we would still, there still may be some extra expenses that we have to, we still haven’t figured out how to do surveys for the younger population, 18 and older. Those of us that grew up before digital became a byword, um, are happy with paper and pen, but the younger people need a digital format and integrating the two and making sure that we can guarantee privacy and confidentiality in that context is gonna be one

17:40 of the real challenges for the summer. So we, we will need yours and everyone else’s input to that kind of thought process. Well, you can’t call on me for digital, as you heard, saw it just now when we tried to get on. But, uh, you can certainly call on me to help you fundraise.

18:03 Thank you. Everybody’s gonna change their phone number now ‘cause they know when I call what it means.

18:15 All right. So, uh, I think that, uh, we’re ready to do these mini meeting minutes. We’ve got, uh, two months worth of two and a half months worth of meeting minutes. So, um, you did receive a late addition. Um, and I, I think that we can go through them. Has have the two of you had an opportunity to see the, the latest edition. They were just small corrections. Yeah. I step in for one moment. We do not need to do the executive session minutes yet. Yes. Okay, perfect. No, we won’t do that until we, we go into executive session. Fantastic, thank you. And, and, uh, I, I’ve pulled mine out, so, uh, I hope the others have done that also. You do? They have two separate packets. ‘cause we’re not gonna do the executive,

19:01 They don’t have separate, they have them all in order. That’s why I wanted to mention it first. ‘cause it’s all by date. Oh, okay. But they can easily pull them out. They’re, they’re noted. Okay. Because, um, there’s two of them. Um, yeah, I put, I can’t tell you the dates ‘cause I pulled them out. Um, alright, so we’re gonna do the first, uh, uh, I need a motion for the March 24th, uh, minutes to accept. Is there a motion to accept the March 24th meeting? Nothing to Accept. Second. All those in favor? I can’t see Tom, uh, McMahon’s hearing? Yep. Mm-hmm. Can we get his hand, please? He’s all set. Yep. All right. Um, then that passes. It’s unanimous. Um, then we go

19:46 to March 31st. Um, that was the, the meeting with the finance committee. Um, Move, accept, Move to accept. Is there a second? Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That’s unanimous. I heard the ayes just as good as a hand. Um, the, the meeting, uh, of April 8th, is there a motion We to accept? Second? Is there second? All those in favor? Aye. Okay. Okay. Um, those are unanimous also. Um, the, uh, April 14th, i, I, we just have to go and cross out the, um, executive session part.

20:34 It’s just that we opened and closed. So I don’t know if you have an, a newer form than I do. You have The new ones? Yep. You do your two separate Yep. Two separate meetings. Yeah. So I’m just interested in a motion for the, uh, meeting of April 14th, which was called to order at seven 30 and immediately adjourned to go into executive session. Is there a motion acceptance? Move Acceptance. Second. And All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Excellent. Okay. Um, I have a, a small correction, um, on the meeting of April 22nd. Marty, I think it was just a typo. Is, may I give it to you? Yeah, of course. I,

21:21 because I don’t think that, that we were gonna physically remove the assistant director. So I think we are gonna remove the position of the assistant director Because Is is that okay everybody? It Says, uh, members spoke on the position of the assistant director in the funded budget of 2026. And then the motion said to remove the assistant director, I wanna remove the position of the assistant director Re remove the funding. Oh, the funding. All right. The director says the funding. Mm-hmm. We can’t question that after he said all those nice words.

22:01 So, to remove Funding for assistant director from way salaries and move associated funding into trash collection line item? Yes, please. Does that work, Andrew?

22:15 So it’s actually move the funding from the assistant waste director from the waste salaries and move it into, uh, the commercial waste revolving funds. Move it into, Yep. The Commercial Waste Revolving Fund. Yep. Oh, I would like a motion as corrected, please.

22:41 Is there a motion as corrected? Second? Yeah. You have a, a motion and a second? I do. Okay. All those in favor? Aye. A. Aye. Okay. Now we have, um, one more. I think, uh, April 28th.

23:02 Um, that was the, the meeting, uh, that we had a zoom meeting. Uh, is there a motion to accept the minutes of April 28th? Motion.

23:21 So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Okay. Aye. That’s unanimous. Um, now the May 13th, uh, meeting, uh, I’d like a motion to accept the minutes of the May 13th meeting. Move second. Uh, I’d like a vote. All in favor? Favor. Aye. Aye.

23:50 So we are done with the minutes, is that correct? Yes. Okay. Now, um, there’s a discussion that, uh, we’re going to have about that assistant director that we, uh, put back into the budget. Um, I think Dr. Zaro, you put that on. Who, who Put that on the agenda, please. Uh, I put it on, Uh, Thomas. Yeah, No, I, uh, Tom, would you like to, uh, I think it’s appropriate to bring this back to the table and, um, now that all the union contracts have been settled, we can take a look at this. Um, and I’m in favor for it. I’ve had compelling arguments from the people at, at the transfer station that think it’s, it is needed.

24:37 Um, one key word they said is there’s being money left on the table. You know, they’re all doing, they’re all working real hard, but things slip through. And that’s like, so if you can catch that, it almost pays for itself. Um, I think it’s important to note that the money for this comes out of the Waste revolving fund, at least for the first year. But I think it’s important that you separate what benefits the transfer station as to what benefits the whole entire town. So part of this position would be, um, looking into the, uh, trash collection and such for the town. So, along the way of doing it, I think, um, you know, since you’d have to be ready for the, for the next fiscal year to do that, if we focus on, um,

25:22 the position kind of, uh, tracking time spent where it’s transfer station related and where it’s town related, so that the next year we can kind of present that and be like, here’s this, here’s this and divvy appropriately. Um, so that everything’s fair. And, uh, yeah. But I think important to note that for the first year while we figure this out, it is coming from the waste revolving fund. So there is no tax dollars, uh, from the town paying for the position. Madam Chair, we are fortunate to have the two candidates who will be rela, no one can replace you, but they will be, they will be here on the board with, with your assets. So both of them are here tonight.

26:10 So I think it’s worth asking the director or Mr. McMahon to give a little more background of how we got where we are. I can give my, what I asked some questions of Andrew. Today we are down at least one person in the transfer station. We, um, have an incredibly difficult contract structure coming up. We’ve had a 10 year trash and recycle, um, contract. Everyone expects that the, the next year in 20 for fiscal 27, we will be paying an awful lot more for trash and recycling.

26:55 So the director will be spending a, a great deal of time making certain that we’re getting the best possible contract out of a difficult environment. When this, the contract we’re going away from when we, when we, I’ve learned all of this, by the way, and this is not something I came to the table with. Um, um, we were being paid for recycling. What was it? We were paying a hundred dollars for a ton of borrowed. We, we used to make money on recycling. The recycling environment changed. We knew it was gonna change. So when we entered into this new contract, we no longer wanted to play the market game.

27:40 We said with under this new contract, the contract would own all the recycling. It was a huge benefit for us to play that card. We kind of saw where the recycling market was headed. It’s, the company is essentially losing approximately $300,000 on that move today.

28:00 It two our two, two our two potential. It’s too bad we can’t go to five and both of you would be on the board, but it, does that make sense? Please ask Andrew the questions because one of you is going to have to help the director make that decision with us. Yeah, so there’s A lot of pieces going forward with this. Waste collection contracts. So obviously you’re talking about trash and recycling, curbside collection. Currently we have some businesses that are allowed to put recycling curbside. We will need to account for all of that because going forward there would be a cost. Now that’s not something that we would want to just pick up, right? No cost. So we need to either decide.

28:45 So we’ll have to do a review of what’s out there, bring back to the board, recommended changes to the bylaws. They’re gonna say, this is what each resident’s allowed to put out. We’ll say, you know, it should be 65 gallons for trash. It should be 65 gallons for recycling. Again. We’ll, we’re gonna take a look at all that. Do an estimated cost analysis. Um, then we’ll have to try to figure out how we’re gonna deal with the businesses. Is it something that we could charge businesses? A monthly rate where they could pay to continue to put the recycling out? Um, that would be a benefit to a lot of community and maybe offset some costs for us. Um, there’s other things that this position will also do. Uh, so currently we try to provide really good customer service, um,

29:32 to our 8,000 homes where we have collection every week. Um, we work, we have a route manager currently with Republic. We get phone calls, text messages, uh, they start somewhere, sometimes at four 30 in the morning, uh, and move through the whole day. If there’s clo trash recycling that’s left behind, uh, we often get calls from residents, Hey, this was missed. Can you take a look at it? We work with the route manager. Sometimes I will go out, I would like to pass that on so I’m not going out on a daily basis to take a look at the route and see what the issue is. Again, we’re trying to provide really good customer service, so we want to know what the issue is. Um, is there bad recycling in there? So we do have tags. Um, so to try to keep the recycling and as clean and as really, um, valuable as possible.

30:21 We’re only allow residents. We follow the Recycle Smart, uh, program. So only certain items can be placed in recycling. If there are too many of those items, Republic will reject it. The resident won’t know there’s supposed to be a tag, but we go out there, we take a look at it, uh, and then we educate the customer. So we have flyers that we send out. We have tags that we leave. Um, and so we try to do a big education piece, but again, it’s all about customer service and we wanna make sure that materials pulled off the ground and it doesn’t blow around. Um, he’ll also be helping, you know, the assistant director will be helping up at the transfer station. Again, we’ve moved to a lot of technology. Um, so we have a camera system. We have, uh, license plate reading cameras that will be installed. We have a new sticker system. We’re now processing six to 7,000 stickers online.

31:10 Um, that used to be processed at either the transfer station or at the treasury office. Now that’s all going through the health department office. Um, so with all the other work that I’m doing and Marty’s doing and everybody else in the office, we now have to do all the stickers. Um, so that means I have to log onto a system and review, uh, each sticker and process the payments. Um, so again, it’s just additional help with that. Um, if we have an employee out, the, the assistant would be up at the transfer station, uh, helping with just groundwork, uh, speaking with customers, moving things mowing, all filling in on the blanks. Um, if I have somebody that calls out sick, they can fill in those areas. Again, it’s just a huge help. Um, the number of emails, the number of phone calls have drastically gone up

31:55 for the health department over the last year. Um, we try to answer all those emails every day. Um, I am receiving so many more emails than I used to, unfortunately. Um, so I get stuck, you know, with some of that stuff. Um, and again, it just, you know, it’ll be really helpful to have this assistant waste director, uh, to be out there and, and really help with the program. Um, again, I really want to get to a point where I’m doing 50 50, uh, health Department and waste department and splitting my time. Um, so that it is gonna be a huge help. So I really appreciate that. Mm-hmm. Could I ask, uh, yeah. Uh, Mr. McMahon a question? Yeah. When, when do you, uh, recommend that this hire occur? I think you can post it as soon As, yeah. So the, you know, we Able exists, so The position exists,

32:42 We able to hire July 1st. Yeah. That would be the start date after, after July one. Yeah. The start date for the position could be July one. Mm-hmm. So you could interview now for July one? That’s correct. Yep. So now the other question since, oh, I I one other, what is different now than was two months ago? The municipal contracts were settled. Yeah. Well, for me, I I, we voted against two months ago for different reasons. I don’t think it adds any value, but I, I think we’re both together that we think we ought to move forward now because of, of what has happened In the interim, I think we have understood,

33:28 yeah, the, we’ve understood some of the problems, but I’m, I’m pushing very hard for the two candidates understanding because I, I got my orientation was Andrew brought me around to see the five beaches where we do bacterial water count, count, and I got no other orientation. I’m a good student at some things, but it took a long while to understand this town and this board. So I think we’re all committed not to have, you all have the same lack of orientation that we had. So if, if one more, if you could just explain how we’re leaving money on the tables.

34:15 So the, because that has been one. Yeah, the transfer station can be a very busy place, especially, you know, on weekends and stuff like that. The original thing was for the license plate reader, and I, and I say this personally, is that, um, you know, it’s very hard when you have a sticker there to, to check everyone while you’re doing, you’re constantly multitasking and, um, people are gonna slip through the cracks. You know, you’re gonna have the issue where people hand off stickers to their friends, things like that and just not think about it. And I always say the perfect example was, you know, I, I have a house in Salem and um, when I was running, my neighbor saw the signs of my car and he was asking me about it. And I was like, oh, it’d be, you know, overseeing the transfer station in Marblehead.

35:00 And he goes, oh, I go there all the time. That’s Salem. So we’re all paying for him. So that’s the thing, like we would be subsidizing everyone from out of town that’s coming in. So moving to a license plate reader, um, will automatically, it’s, you know, it’s fairly low cost to get it going, but then you’re gonna keep those people out. And it also gives you an opportunity, you know, it’ll just open doors as being like, okay, maybe we let you in for a day and, you know, we have this rate and whatever, and whatever you can get, the more you can get it, the more you can subsidize marble headers and make the cost cheaper, um, for stickers and whatever. And, you know, you can, you can get pretty creative on the way and, you know, we’ll have other ways, you know, if we get the sorting floor going, any way you can subsidize from marble headers and make the transfer station more affordable

35:46 for everybody is, is just a benefit. But then like, so that’s one of the ways, but then, you know, I hear things, you know, just if the guys are busy there, you know, you might, people leave stuff at the swap shed, they’re not supposed to do that. And you know, those people might not want it or think it’s useful, then it gets thrown out. You, you, it’s just a lot of stuff everywhere where, you know, if we have a small, medium and large where we’re talking about if you were to leave, you know, a chair at the swap shed like, you know, you have the extra hand there. You can stop that and be like, actually it’s 10 bucks to throw it up there. You know, do you wanna do that or do you want to get home? Something like, so anything you can do, since we are connected to the general fund and at the moment to a degree, um, cost saving or capturing all the costs, you save all the marble headers money.

36:33 And, um, I would like to see, you know, I I, I, my vision is to see the transfer station, you know, kind of being almost its own entity where all the costs are contained and then, um, a sticker just covers the difference needed and, you know, hopefully subsidized by other towns by letting them come in. And, um, I think this would be a step one. Thank you for the explanation. Um, mm-hmm. Thank you for the explanation. I think we need a motion. Could, could we have a motion, uh, now for this position Can say a job description. I did not bring a job description with me, but I definitely can fry the job description to you. Okay. And, um, any requirements of the what training? Yeah, so it’s, you know, so we base the job description off

37:18 of other assistant directors across the town. Um, so it goes to the compensation commu, uh, committee. Um, you know, it’s scored, it’s rated. Um, that’s how the salary schedule is set. Um, and so, yeah, depending on what’s not the number of people you’re overseeing, your education, your responsibilities, um, that generates the, the score and essentially the title. Um, so it’s in line with other assistant directors across the town. Um, but that, that does, but we can provide you with a, a just job description. So it’s already gone through the compensation committee as being, um, approved. Um, where they look at all those, those types of things. So That’s compensation, but not the, the, the requirements of the, like what training you want them to Have? No, that’s all included when it goes. No, that’s, Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

38:03 That’s The original compensation. Well, he asked, hela asked, what’s the difference? That is my difference. Tom had a different difference. We both voted against this at one point. I was not involved in any of the decisions around the, I felt I was not involved. Uh, I had heard about this position, but I was not involved in any way about the job description or the compensation committee. I still don’t agree with the, uh, compensation committee report that was done. And Andrew and I have talked about this, and we’re going to, we’re working at it at a very different level now. But, but that is the background that the compensation committee, um,

38:48 didn’t have any board input the re the request. And that was my concern. So this, we’re gonna, I think we have to, in the future, be as open and transparent as possible. And we’ve talked all about how, how we’re we are going to, to be a model board, uh, in the future, um, in terms of openness, transparency, and, um, community. Yeah. And, and for me, I, I did see the line item when it was, I didn’t realize it was gonna get put into play so quickly, but the big thing that held me back was, um, the municipal contracts hadn’t been settled between police, fire, and municipal workers. And, uh, the optics around that, if you’re filling other positions, just, uh, just those kind

39:34 of need to be addressed first. So I wanted to wait until those were done. Unfortunately, those were wrapped up pretty quick. And so, um, even though this one was separate from where that money comes from, it, uh, I thought it was important to, for the optics for the town for that to happen. The reason I asked what the difference was is that I knew that the money was there and I felt that it was a, you know, a good thing to start because it wasn’t costing anything. But I voted, uh, with the committee. ‘cause I wanted it to be unanimous, a unanimous vote. And I think the people gracious stated that at the time. So, um, but what I do need is a motion, because I’m being told that we have our executive committee, uh, meeting in 10 minutes. I’m sure that, um, our attorney will wait and charge us.

40:21 So, um, uh, there’s no problem there. But, uh, we need a motion. I think we should move along. Yeah, You should have. That’s great. Don’t move. Second. Uh, all those in favor? Aye. A Congratulations, Andrew, for getting the job that you need. Uh, the position listed, I should say. So you’ll put that out, uh, right away? Yeah, we will post that. Uh, so that gets posted internally for a week. Uh, and if you don’t have any candidates from that, it goes externally, But if you do have candidates, you don’t have to go externally. Yeah, we would interview those candidates and then move on from there. No, I’m saying, but if you don’t, if if you do have candidates internally, you do not have to go outside. That’s correct. Okay. All right. So, um, Tom, would you like to read the bills?

41:08 Uh, You want me to put them off till next Time? Yeah, that’s fine. Yeah, just in the, yeah, In the interest of time, that would be great. So the director’s report, Uh, we had a very successful household, hazardous waste day. Uh, it was our biggest event today. Uh, we had 203, uh, cars. Um, so again, this was held on a Saturday, Saturday morning from nine to 12. Um, we had people lining up probably at seven 30 for the event. Um, we’ve talked here at the table, um, in the fall we had an event on a Wednesday evening. Um, it was four to seven, uh, we’re looking and we had very good turnout for that as well. Uh, we’re looking to duplicate that for the fall and potentially the spring. Um, currently, um, the,

41:53 so the household hazardous waste contracts, that’s a state contract with several different companies, um, that is being rebid. So we’ll have new bid numbers this summer. Um, you don’t have a choice. I mean, there’s slightly differences between the vendors, um, but whatever the number is for the setup. And then we have a fee for each car, depending on how much the jail. But again, we have a very successful event, 203 cars, um, transfer station, construction update. Um, we would like to move forward with the transfer station construction project. Um, we have a little over $2 million, um, to work with, um, because of the environment that we’re dealing with. I would like to pare it down to just construction of

42:39 the scale house and the site work. Um, once we finish all that, we’ll see what money we have left, and then we can talk about what pieces we wanna continue to move forward with. The pieces that would be left out would be, um, reconstruction of the existing compactor pit. So reshoot, you know, doing the, the siding on that, doing the roof, doing the door. Um, but you have a brand new compactor in there. You have a brand new shoot in there. Um, so that’s fully operational at this time. You have a new floor in there. Uh, the other piece to the construction project would be the swap shop in the future. Tom and I have had several conversations. The idea with that is trying to be, um, look out the finances we have and try to come up with a program, um, that gives us the most bang for a buck.

43:24 So looking at prefabs, looking at just putting a slab down like a 20 by 40 and buying a kit that we could potentially either have residents help us put together or a company come in to take a look at that and build that for us. Again, that will be further down the road. Um, but I do recommend that we move forward to do the scale house, um, and the site work for the construction. Um, so I just need a motion to move forward with that. Do you have to put out the bid or? Yep, of course. Okay. Yep. Yep. Um, Is there motion, are you wanna say something else first? I’m sorry. Yeah, So we will, a again, we have, we’re working with Winter Street architects. Um, I’ve met with Dana just the other day. Um, there is a cost for all the rebidding and pulling some of this work out. Um, so the ad services by Winter Street, um, to put this out

44:12 and everything, uh, is $26,680. Oh my God.

44:20 I, I, I’m shocked. So It’s, you know, civil engineering for 11. Um, it’s additional engineering for, uh, ad services for, uh, modifications of $5,000. Uh, there’s structural engineering for 3,850. Um, there’s a modification construction set, which is $770. Um, again, you need an estimator. Um, it needs to be re-estimate for going out to bid $660 architect fees to make sure everything’s lining up. Um, that’s a total of 15,300. Uh, so the total is $26,680, uh, that we need to pay,

45:05 which is street, uh, to put this back out to bid. And do you agree that that is fair? Yeah, those are, those are the going rates we Have, we have with this, we have to rely on you because you’ve been working with Winter Street for years. Yep. I mean, these are the same rates that they to provide with for us every time. It’s essentially time and materials. And this is the third time we’ve had to review, review, uh, this project just in a recent passing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have to put out a very large bid package. So you’re pulling things outta plans, you’re adding things on, um, you might be deleting an item, so it’s gotta be deleted off a plan. Sometimes the architect owns it, but sometimes it’s gotta go back to the engineer for approval. So, bottom line, are we saving money when we, So again, we’ve done a lot of value engineering through this whole project.

45:52 Uh, we are able to say a considerable amount of money with using, uh, going with the prefab for the control con control hu for the transaction. Hu we will continue to do that for this project, um, and try to, you know, save the, the community as much money as possible.

46:10 Mr. And then we’re, we’re, we’re always fighting time, you know, we’re potentially fighting tariffs, all these different things. So until we have the bid number, we don’t know what the true construction cost is gonna be. Yes, we have an estimate. Um, unfortunately last time we had an estimate of 1.2 and the project came in at 2.4. That was disappointing also. Uh, uh, and we had to prepare for that, uh, Dana confident that these two under, yeah. Yeah. And can you do one without the other? What do you mean? Like, if, if we’d have to, if the, No, I can’t do, I can’t, do I have to have the site work and the scale house At the same time? Yeah, yeah, that’s what I thought. Yep. So Tom Mcma, do you feel that these numbers are something

46:57 that we in the community can accept? I don’t think you have much of a choice. Yeah. So that’s, that’s what comes down to whatever they do. Yeah. Well, well now you see what we’ve been facing for the last decade. No, I mean, we’ll see what happens. And again, like, you know, we have done a lot of value engineering. We’ve did, you know, pulled a lot of pieces out of this. Um, you know, again, we still have a feasibility study going on for the construction demolition material. Mm-hmm. Um, we’re always looking at new areas to try to bring money in to support these projects. Again, a million dollars of this is being paid by commercial waste feeds. Right. So we’re not a million dollars of this is not tax dollar money.

47:44 Yeah. Okay. That’s, that’s a good explanation. Thank you. So we need a motion to accept the, what’s 26,000 what? Uh, so I need a motion to move forward with the construction project for the scale house, uh, and the site work. And then a second motion to move forward with Winter Street architects. Um, and this is called, um, at additional services 15 R one, which is 26,000, um, $680. They’re both 26 80 Together. No, the 26 80 is the, the total for the, um, the, the architects. You don’t, let’s know the cost of the construction projects. Let’s do the first motion for the, uh, for the sh

48:32 what the first motion for Is for the site work and the scale house move the scale house move forward for construction 26 60. No, it’s just, no, there’s, just to move it forward. Just To move it forward. I mean, 26, what is it, 26? That’s for the, uh, architect. That’s for the architects to do that work. Yes. That’s just Tom. So you want a motion for 26,000? No, first we want Motion 81st We want, excuse me. First we want a motion for the, uh, scale house and the preparation.

49:04 And then we Want a second motion, then we want a second motion To move forward with the construction projects of the scale house and the site mark. Okay, so moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. And Then the second motion is for the money. The money is for the Winter street architects to put forward that job out to bid 26,880 or some 600 8680. Okay. So move second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. So I’ll meet with Dana. Uh, we’ll get that going. Um, it takes, you know, obviously Paul, the paperwork is

49:50 a big part of this is gonna be discussion of when we really want construction to start. Mm-hmm. Um, so that I will come back and talk about with the board about that You’re shooting for another winter, you Think, or No, I’m not. I’m trying, we’re trying to get this done as quickly as possible. Mm-hmm. You’ve gotta get the bids too, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So does the bid process have to get approved like the last one did? Yeah, they have all the way to And that took months and months. Yeah. It’s gonna be a, a couple of months, you know, so yeah, it takes some time.

50:31 You’re gonna have a busy fall, Dr. Maro, with your calm and with this, Well, I hope it’s busy. The last time we tried to do this, we waited right? Six or eight months from to get it from, from Boston, right? No. So we’re all set with Boston. It’s more getting the bids, getting the contractors on board. Didn’t we have to wait to get permission to go out for the bids the last Time? No, we were all set. We have permits and stuff like that in hand. Okay. Yep. Now you wanted to talk about Republic. Yeah. So Republic, uh, so Republic Services is our curbside collection contract. Uh, we were notified recently of a prevailing wage rate increase, uh, we’re provi required to pay prevailing wage rates to both the driver and the laborers.

51:18 Um, so, um, Republic has notified us that we need to pay for, um, fiscal year 25. So the total cost for fiscal year 25, um, to date, um, the total cost for the year would be $74,171 and 56 cents. The costs it would, so the back pay that we have to pay is $61,814 and 63 cents. Um, and then moving forward, there’s that monthly rate. Um, and then again, an FY 26, we will see a contract increase of $74,177 and 56 cents. Again, we ha we’re required to pay, um,

52:05 prevailing wage rates. This is for the driver and the laborer. Um, and this is all called out in our contracts, but we don’t know what the prevailing wage rates as we go through the contracts. That Was, that was gonna be my question. Yeah. So, Yeah. And what’s this period for? So this is for period FY 25. Okay. And then I notify you also about FY 26. So when they do the contract, they just tell you you have to pay prevailing rates. Don’t what that could be. Yeah. Well, so we have, we have the contract At the beginning, but then you have to go Back Fiscal year 25 is just I know. Over. Yep. But you, you bill enough, 70 some odd Time. $61,814 and six. Yep. You’re gonna get both of these candidates running.

52:52 We So we have no choice. We have no choice. No run. Don’t let them run out. Uh, what do you want? One motion, two motion. How do you one motion? Uh, you could just have one motion that we will pay prevailing wage rates for the contract for public services. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.

53:16 And that’s everything I have here. Um, I, I think that, uh, that’s the end of our agenda. Uh, we’ve heard from, uh, several members of, of the audience. Uh, I would prefer us if there’s anyone that has any, uh, brief comments to state now, um, uh, Dr. Tom, do you have any questions? I know he sometimes you do about your note taking. I saw your beautiful, uh, notes in the, uh, in the paper. Thank you very much.

53:49 Just very quickly, you’re the one, you, Andrew, would be negotiating the waste contract, not the assistant director? That’s correct. Just wanted to make sure because but so just so everybody understands, there is no negotiations. It is, again, it is a, uh, major. So that’s request for proposing process one that’s handled yet, not the assistant director. That’s correct. Yeah, that’s what I Thank you. It’s not a negotiation. I,

54:18 Uh, anybody else, uh, our candidates. I wanna wish you good luck. If you have, uh, brief questions, uh, that you wanna ask now, and you know that the, the director’s available this week if you wish to, uh, make an appointment with him. Um, I’m speaking for you to Andrew. That’s fine. Um, anything that we don’t spend this Much money every week, Anything relevant to tonight that you wanna just ask a few? If, uh, if you have a quick question. The reason I’m brief is that we do have a, an attorney waiting for us. Um, so, but thank you for coming and showing your interest in a, that’s what I asked for people to do, to come and come out and, uh, and run for office. So, uh, thank you. And you see one that’s already served and she’s come back

55:06 and, uh, she, I, she just made me think She, She made me sound like a different person. I’m telling you that. But, um, before I, uh, ask for motion to adjourn, I would like to, uh, say just a brief statement, um, because I had an opportunity to do that when I, um, when I told the community that I wasn’t running, but we couldn’t just close the meeting with just me just running away. So I’d like to thank the community again for the privilege of serving and for the support that I’ve received over these past 28 years as a member, uh, of the Board of Health. Uh, uh, I wish, uh, director Andrew Petty and, uh, his staff and my colleagues on the board my best as they work together

55:51 for the good of our town’s public health. And for now, I think you’ve heard this before. In fact, I looked it up, there was even a song written about what I’m gonna say, but I wanna say goodnight, but not goodbye.

56:06 So I’d like to hear a motion to adjourn.

56:14 Is there a motion to adjourn? Move for adjournment. I need to make a motion to go into executive session. Oh, that’s right. We, I apologize. And we will not. And we will not. Yeah, it’s right on the, uh, the agenda. Are you gonna read it? I will read it right here. We’re going into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Law Chapter 30 a section 21, A two to conduct strategy sessions in preparation for negotiation with non-union personnel, uh, to conduct collective bargaining sessions, our contract negotiations with, with non-union personnel, specifically the health director employment contract. And we will not come back into open session. I apologize for not reading that. I guess my cold is gone. Really is still in my head.

57:00 I thought it was just in my throat, but it’s in my head too. Um, thank you everyone. I, we need, uh, the motion we vote on there. No, we need to vote. Yeah. Second.

57:14 Does that have to be a, a roll call vote? Yeah, it should be a roll call. Vote all. Uh, Dr. Zaro? Yes. Aye. Mr. McMahon Ayelet? Yes. Thank you everybody. Thank you for embarrassing me. Thanks. Bye. So we’ll go into, um, so I have to turn this.