Board of Health: June 23, 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.

0:08 Uh, good evening. I’m Andrew Petty. I’m the Director of Public health. I will be starting the meeting as we have reorganization. Uh, welcome Amanda. Welcome Tom. Welcome Tom. Um, so do I have a motion for chair? I’ll make a motion for Tom Massaro to be chair. Do I have a second? For motion? Second. So Tom has made a motion for Thomas to be chair. Amanda has second to that. Uh, any discussion?

0:36 Good. Good. Graciously accept. Yes, I do. Last Hearing. None. Um, all in favor? Uh, so we have the A’s and no nays. Welcome Tom, and you can continue the meeting. Okay. Well, I am very grateful. Thank you very much.

1:02 And I think this should be very important and interesting year for the Board of Health.

1:12 We we’re on our way to five, got a bump in the road for that, but it may be that we’ll have time to build a transition plan for that group of peoples so that we can make their talk, their start a little bit more efficient. Um, we have historically met on the second Tuesday and the fourth Monday. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. At seven 30 if, unless we have like an executive committee meetings. Is that a good time? Do we wanna stay at that time? Do we? Yeah, I’m good with the days. Do you wanna adjust the time

1:58 Start earlier? Yeah. Yeah. Period. Well, I, you’ve got kids and families. Yeah. Um, I prefer seven 30. She could You want seven 30 still? Yeah. Okay. That’s fine. Yeah. Okay. Or maybe we can do 1 6 31. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it is. Okay. I was just gonna throw it out there. Okay. So, Well, let’s just see how it works. We’ll do, um, the one, there was one conflict, I guess on arms to stay.

2:24 Will that be a four day weekend? Or there’s the Monday before? What the hell is No, I do not. So, okay. Well, Um, but you know, if schedules need to be adjusted, if we need to have a meeting because we can’t have one due to holiday, we can always, you know, add one back in.

2:43 Um, you all have item the agenda. The next item on the agenda is, uh,

2:53 the minutes from the June 3rd meeting.

3:00 Is there a motion to approve? Oh, there would be one thing. My name has two S’s rather than two Z’s.

3:10 Oh, I see that guess. Absolutely. I would guess that, uh, your AI jumped in. I hate spelling check. I agree. Is actually my name isn’t even on there. I mean, that, I didn’t even notice that. So, yeah.

3:32 Otherwise, notice your name should be on there as an attendee as well. Should that Marty? Yeah, it should be. Okay. I was say it never has, but I can do that.

3:49 A motion for approval of the minutes. Motion to approve Any conversation. All in favor of the motion. Okay. Motion clearly passes.

4:03 The next item is, um, the report. And I usually give for community health and for, um, the current project.

4:19 The prime project is moving along. We have a formal signed contract with UMass Boston. We have a regular by, uh, monthly meeting scheduled. Um, the first meeting is to mark, correct. And the first several meetings will be around the mechanics and the process and the questions involved in the survey. Um, as you all know, we have, we expect to submit a 45 or so question survey to everyone over 17 years of age in the town. And the question is how to get the maximum response to that.

5:08 Clearly, a survey that gets 30 to 40% of the time will be doing very well, and the, the, the decisions made or the recommendations made by the final report will have more substance to the greater the, the greater the response. So we’re gonna have to work really quite hard to make that as effective as possible. The challenge, um, is that because we’re going to the younger side of the population, um, they don’t really deal with paper and pencil nearly as much as we old timers do. And so the question will be how to, how to mesh

5:57 a digital survey with a paper survey and go from there and make sure we can guarantee absolute privacy under any circumstance. So, um,

6:11 once we get the mechanics done, we’ll work on the survey questions. The anticipation is that we will have the survey designed and architected by Labor Day, and we will have the survey back. Calin has a, a bunch of windows and the window we’re gonna sit in, be ending on November 11th. That’s, she wants to get everything done before the Thanksgiving and holiday. So that’s, that’s our goal. Um, we will be presenting Wednesday at the select board. We have, uh, 15 minutes or so.

6:58 The goal there is to get the endorsement, the blessing if possible. Um, the imprimatur of the select board having that we all believe will encourage people on the fence to, to finish the survey, uh, because it is a legitimate town sponsored, um, structure. Can ask, are, are we scheduled for that as a board or No? No, I, yeah, I was going to attend that for something unrelated. Well, we could, as long as, so you can Attend something unrelated. Okay. Yep. That’s not a problem. Yep. I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t an issue. Nope, that’s not a problem. I think it would be good if you can make it, then we can introduce you to the select board as well. Okay. Okay. And it’s be okay if I’m there? Yeah.

7:44 We’re not talking, we’re not making any decisions. We’re just attending their meeting. Presenting Okay. What it is. Um, so that’s not a, not the instrument. Great. Okay. Um, second item on my, my minutes, my agenda, um, the merger between the Marblehead Mental Health Task Force, Marblehead Cares, and the Marblehead Counseling Center is moving forward. There was a pretty healthy meeting, I think last, uh, Monday. And, um, we were discussing, discussing operational and organizational details. Um, there were five of us there.

8:31 Um, we discussed the, how the merged initiative will move forward, what we’ll do, and I think one of the things the board needs to really talk about is once that merger is complete, what’s the role of, um, the board itself in mental health of, of the town comm will certainly be asking lots of questions about health status, about, um, abuse substances, that sort of thing. And I think we, we clearly want to have a role, especially when we go to five. Um, that will be something we can do. And I think we ought to begin to put that on our agenda

9:16 next time we meet, um, and talk about the, what the board is gonna look like. And there’s a concept that I’ve been reading about called Public Mental Health that talks about what organizations like ours, government agencies, what can they do in a advocacy way to improve the mental health of the taf. So I will, I will have some information, um, uh, one or two pages and maybe some slides a about that next week if we can. We have the landscape grant where we are trying to develop a landscape of, uh, child

10:04 and maternal health in Marblehead. We had a very good meeting at the Pediatric Associates of Greater Salem. We were, it was recommended by, um, by Marblehead Pediatrics that we go there because apparently those two pediatric groups split basically all, all of the, is that right, Tom? Is that the two groups have most of the That’s what, that’s my understanding. Yeah. That’s what they told me. And that both sides, little bits here and there, but that’s what the major, the, uh, they go by. PS PAGs was an incredible, uh, uh, I, I’ve been in awful lot of hospitals that weren’t

10:51 as sophisticated as, uh, that clinic. They’ve got. Um, um, they really have a, a great facility there. They’re, we ask, when we visit either the obstetrics people or the pediatric people, what would you like the Board of Health to do to help you? And, um, and Marvel had pediatrics, the answer pretty quickly was, gee, let us know when you have anything coming that, you know, that’s going under the school. There’s a meningitis case so that we don’t have to respond to the parents. We talked about that with Andrew. Andrew’s gonna try to make that as possible as we can within the systems. Around when we asked that same question that, uh, bags,

11:39 the very quick answer was, um, teach, teach, uh, parenting classes. Okay. Um, and, uh, it was interesting. We, we brought that up at the Marblehead Cares and Counseling Center, um, uh, meeting the other day. And apparently the counseling center used to teach parenting classes. So that resource is available. They Seem very excited to take that on. Again, They seem very excited. Now, I, I think we have to be careful. Apparently there’s some very good private groups in town that do that. We always wanna support private groups in town, but we really want those, those people that can’t afford to go to a private, a private parenting group. We wanna make that resource available.

12:26 We, in fact, mark, mark Lebaum, Dr. Labone had, had found a, uh, grant opportunity with a very, very limited window. No one knew, knew in the room, knew anything about the grant, and the date was June 30th or July 1st, or something like that. But we wondered, maybe because they have had a parenting class in the past, maybe the counseling center can put it together. So when we had kids on the Cape, we were, the hospital offered parenting classes, um, child and delivery, breastfeeding. Um, is there anything offered around here? No. The only thing I know of is marveled parenting, but I don’t know if they go to that degree.

13:13 And I don’t know. It’s, It’s the extensive class, and I took it with my and second, first time, second time parents and, and it’s wonderful. Yep. There, there is a fee. So it’d be great to offer something that’s free for, well, The other question, we might see if we can find the money to pay the people to, to give scholarships to it. Okay. But Yeah, that’s another way to do it. Yeah. Um, but, but We really wanna support just patient. We talk about the same marveled parenting on Taylor Field. Yeah. Yeah. I may or may not have grown up with the owner, Say, I can always ask a favor.

13:43 So, but yeah, I think that’s something that we should take a look at. Um, if there’s not classes around, obviously we could take a look at this from a regional standpoint as well. Um, because obviously at that point, it’s not just Marblehead residents that would be interested in the class. Um, and so we could go back to the region and say, Hey, you know, is this something we can explore? Um, so That would be very relevant to our grant because our grant is to look at Marblehead in the context of the region. So, and when I did a little Googling, there are several opportunities for parenting and live, but I didn’t see any anywhere else. Okay. Okay. But that’s, that’s the,

14:29 I think we’re doing pretty well with that, with this grant. We’ve met with the obstetricians, we’ve met, we, we meet with the ambulatory obstetricians. We’ve met with the two pediatrics groups. Now we’re going to try to get into the pre-K, um, uh, early childhood, uh, effort and, uh, see how, how that’s going as well. Great. And see how that fits in Tommy, how to Just wanna say that parenting is not just newborn care. So I, I think that when people think about it, one has to think more and more. And what, what we used to do, think about, uh, uh, teaching parenting skills as the children get older,

15:15 one year olds, two year olds, three year olds, because this is a, this is as far as I can see a void. And people are learning this quote on the internet, and it is not very, uh, you have lots of opinions. That’s Exactly what we were told, that they come in saying, well, I saw this on the internet. Right. None of the pediatric, well, retention Parenting, especially hospital based, is how to take care of your baby basically for the first month. And then they’re, you know, well, what about COVID? What about, you know, that’s not talk. So just saying that it needs to be a fairly, a little bit more comprehensive than what hospitals just offer. That’s all. And the, the new parent class, it was, it was zero

16:02 to six months, and they, they did go a bit beyond talking about first feeding, choking hazards, um, car seat safety, uh, jackets and car seats, things like that. Which is better than, than going beyond just the newborn phase. But certainly it stops at six months. And it would be great to have a one. No, just, just, just as a former pediatrician, I know I shouldn’t be interrupted, but you, you touched an area that was too deep for me. No, I think contributions like that are not an interruption. I would hope that we can figure out how to bring the community much more into the debate that we have on a constant basis. So that I, I think that, that,

16:48 that should be one of our goals in, in, well, now that we have a new board and, uh, we can do things a little bit differently. I know we always do it the way we always done it in Marblehead, but we can maybe tweak it bit. Um, um, okay. Uh, and in fact, that’s my, uh, that’s my next item for Future Board of Health Agendas. Um, in my mind, in today’s world, um, one of the major responsibilities of the Board of Health should be to clarify, to explain and to educate about health related issues. And that’s why I left those two articles from the globe this morning.

17:35 The editorial page has a paragraph that talks about health insurance. 13.4% rate is unaffordable.

17:50 But the American healthcare system is incredibly complicated. I think that we can do the community a great favor by trying to explain some of the issues in back, in, back of items like this. In the same way, in another page on this morning’s paper, um, we learned that there’s a legislator who works and practices nursing in Vermont, and she’s decided to resign because of the healthcare issues in, um, Vermont, Canada has a very different healthcare system than Americans. And this is an area if, if, if you want to use the people

18:39 on the board to their experience, this is an area that I’ve done a lot of teaching in, and I would welcome the opportunity to develop at UVA. We had, uh, what we call the, uh, mini med school, but we can talk about a micro MPH or something like that to have, uh, a set of, of whether we have documents, whether we have some slides, whether we have articles for the newspaper, uh, that we try to raise the, the, the health system literacy within the community. Because clearly what we, uh, uh, at least from my perspective, what we’ve learned from, uh, the pandemic is that people really, in,

19:27 in us particularly, don’t understand what public health really is about. And we should, we should take the big picture. What’s the US healthcare system like, and where does public health fit into it? And how does public health contribute to, um, the, the larger system? Um, I mean, I would guess if you walked down the street today and asked, well, we bombed around last night. We sent a big we B two bombers with the, um, the bunker buster bombs. Um, what’s the bigger budget? The defense department or the health system?

20:16 I think probably we all know the health system by a factor of five. And everybody, um, probably who wouldn’t expect that? Uh, our colleagues who voted us in, um, were, were, are as aware of that, uh, and that we should do everything we can to explain the health insurance system to health, to explain how ours is a primarily private delivery system. And the delivery system is relatively separate, very much more separate than any other country in the world. The delivery system is separate from the public health system. Um, one of the books that I read a long time ago talked about, um, when

21:06 Lyndon Johnson made the decision to put Medicare and Medicaid into the market rather than the state run. Um, there were consolation prizes given to the public health system, and the CO two constellation prizes were the CDC and the FDA. Well, the constellation prizes cut into lots of challenges during the pandemic, and certainly, um, in the Robert F. Kennedy Junior world are, are pretty cha change driven now. And that I think we can do our, our community a favor, um, by trying to explain that if we,

21:52 if people are willing to listen. And what I’d really like to know is if people who are, who are listening, if you think that’s all a good idea, how might we do it? Should we maybe start our meetings at seven o’clock and do a half hour of conversation about the health insurance plan? So, or a conversation about where the money goes, where it comes from, how are doctors educated? What’s the difference between a nurse practitioner and a regular nurse? Those sorts of things that, um, um, are not common knowledge into the environment. And so I, I think I’ve, I’ve said it, here’s several times. One of the things I’ve learned in, in, uh, public health,

22:42 one cannot over communicate in public health. It is impossible. And we use the term transparency. I actually don’t think transparency is enough. Transparency. I think of the, their legislature sits in a room and doesn’t talk to anybody, and then maybe one day they put a glass window out there and people see the legislature making deals. I think that we really want to have an interactive practice, um, with the people who brought up, who elected us to be on this board. So you tell us what you would like to see the board of Al do.

23:28 We’re gonna, we’re gonna work to have our own agenda, but I think the ideal would be that we got a, a sense of what, what the, what the community would like if when the community thinks about the Board of health, what, what, what, what service, what additional services, uh, what, what, what explanations, what can we do, um, to make life a little simpler in the, in the health space, in, in this environment. So, um, we have an email address, right? That’s Correct. Yep. So maybe we can figure out how now we, we each have private ones. I’m certainly, I’m gonna, I got one for the board now.

24:17 You can send board notices to me, but we have one for the board. Mr. Monks sent it to us. Uh, we, I didn’t know about it, but maybe we can make sure everybody has it. And if they have ideas of how they would like, uh, how, what, what they would like the board to consider, or if they have questions or if they read something that they didn’t quite understand or they wanna know, how can you, how can you prevent, uh, a 14, 13.4 increase, uh, in your health insurance, uh, next year? Uh, it may be possible to prevent it, but at least you can understand why it’s 13.4. And most of it this year apparently is the, um, diabetes and, uh, obesity drugs.

25:03 Um, which are, uh, um, really breaking the bank of almost every provider, uh, group, uh, in, in the country, and I guess in the world. Um, so those are the kind of things that, that I think we should be talking about. Okay. And just To go along with that, we often hear about health insurance. You know, oh, you know, mental health, why isn’t my mental health added to my health insurance? Why do I have to pay out of pocket for that? Why do I have to pay to go to the dentist? Why do I have to have a separate plan? These are the questions that we get a lot of times, like, I, I can only afford one health insurance plan, but I need to do this and this. How is that even possible?

25:47 And obviously we’re, we’re not gonna have all the answers. We’re not gonna have all the answers, and we don’t even know all the Yeah. Health insurance plans. But we can start, uh, if we were to do this, I mean, the first day when I do, when I have done it, I mean, I, um, where’s the money come from and where does it go? Right. Um, we are absolutely the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Um, we will, in this year, 2025, reach the $5 trillion mark. And all of those B two bombers and bunk bunker busters only, only are a PID 1 trillion. If the American healthcare system were a company, a,

26:34 a country, it would be the fourth largest economy in the world.

26:41 It, it, it probably Germany had a, a, a little bit of a recession answer, so it’s probably the fifth largest. But, but we spend a lot of money and there there is waste. And I think public health can help understand the waste, even if we can’t do much about it.

27:04 Absolutely. We’ve talked a little bit about this, but I hope it’s okay that we think, think about this as setting a new, a new posture, um, for how the board services, the people who sent us here. Yeah. I’d love to hear from, from our community. Certainly. I, I thought mental health was, was covered, but if not letting them know the services that are available, the school is free and, and other, other services.

27:32 I, I was on a high deductible for 10 years, I can tell you about that. Wild bride. So,

27:39 Yep. Well, when you’re young and healthy, then you’re willing to, I Actually made, in theory, I made money on it, but in theory Sure. As you get older and if you’ve got some risks, it was a wild ride. A lot of questions you gotta ask when you do it, it’s, yeah. And I’m also very familiar with the Canadian healthcare system. Did you live in Canada? Uh, we spent quite a bit of time there. Yes, we did. For a teaser. Canadian healthcare system is a mono, Yeah. Not a monopoly, but a mony Wanna say what that is here, But if you need like a heart transplant, you can be waiting months. And so that means you’re sitting at home waiting

28:26 for your appointment to show up. You’re not working. So you’re also, it adds a different piece to, um, the benefits and to your role in the community. A monopoly is when the pro, there’s a single provider you have to buy your gasoline from. Standard oil in 1916 or whenever was broken up, a monopsony is when the, there’s only one purchaser. Each of the provinces in Canada have separate health insurance plans that are run by the provincial government. So each of the plans, each of the provinces have

29:12 somewhat different plans. Which one? Alberta’s got all the oil, right? Yeah. They have some things that if the price of oil goes up, they’ll open a few more hospital beds for mental health. If the price of oil goes down, they have to close those beds. Um, uh, and, and, uh, so it, it’s not a perfect system. And the big, the, the issue really is waste for technical, high, high technology service And long distance of travel as Well. Yeah. However, what is it, 80 or 90% of all Canadians live within 90 months of the border. And so those that can, can come to the United States and pay retail for the services.

29:59 Anyway, you can talk more. Yeah. And pharmaceuticals are far cheaper than ours. Yes. Including all these GLP one. Yeah. They’re so expensive here, but not there. The Netherlands and no, no cheaper to go into the Netherlands where Belgium and pay out of pocket than to come here or to Thailand. Well, more Mexico. Mexico, Mexico. There are lots of people who drove to, uh, uh, new, uh, to Mexico. Um, in any event that we’re going next, hopefully next meeting we’ll talk about, talk about our goals for the, the, the board of health. But that’s what I would really like tell people

30:45 to be thinking about, if that makes sense to talk about those kind of things here and how would we make that work. Okay. Okay. Uh, the last item I have is community health is, uh, how we set up an orientation for new members. I only had one orientation day last year, so I would like, as I read the open meeting law, we could tour the transfer station together as long as we didn’t debate about it. That’s right. Because there’s an exception. There’s an exception for site visits. Yep. Okay. Now, I think that would be fun, certainly coming those much more about the transfer station,

31:35 but we get to, we, we get to meet everybody so they would know who we are. Um, I, I’m indebted to Tom because he won at one of the meetings here, said to me, you know, get your butt up to the transfer station. You don’t know very much at all. So I walked up there and they were so happy to see somebody from the board other than Tom who’s there all the time. So I think we really ought to do that as a group to the extent that we schedule it. Yep. And we ought to have the, and, and If somebody’s not available and we can need, need to make multiple trips, we can definitely do That. And we have, I know I’m going public health nurses given notice,

32:22 but still, it’d be great to have public health nurse come to the meetings. The, the, uh, everyone who works with us, uh, who does the real work, uh, come and, and tell us, uh, how the work goes and what they need from the director and board. And I, I feel, um, pretty strongly that we ought to try to orient ourselves to the challenges out there. And then I’ll also put together kind of a schedule for the year. Um, it’s more of a budget schedule. Um, and so, you know, generally we stick to the standard budget schedule of January. Uh, we have the state of the town, um, but I’ll write that all out so people have that information.

33:08 Uh, the state of the town is exactly that, that tells the financial state, uh, at which the town is in. Um, so that’s kind of the kickoff to the budget season that will say, Hey, we need to be level funded. We need to start to make cuts. That’s where all that information comes out. After that we kind of break out into other periods. And then there’s other timelines that are associated with that. Last year, we jumped the gun a little bit. We started working on budgets at the end of the summer. Um, we haven’t had those discussions. Um, the one thing that we have talked about, a little bit about, obviously we have a large solid waste collection contract that’s coming up, uh, in EPT in September of 2026. Um, we’ve put together, um, an idea of the potential of some of those costs.

33:53 We’ll look at that cost per household. Um, we can pro, I can provide that, all that information to the board. Um, but we’ll begin to talk with the finance department. Hey, we were gonna start to gather up all these contracts across the state of Massachusetts, analyze them. It doesn’t mean those are the numbers that we’re gonna get, but it gives us an idea of where we’re headed. Yeah. And I was actually just in, uh, Saratoga talking to my in-laws about their Yeah. Trash contracts. And I mean, it’s unbelievable. They pay like 150 bucks a year to bring their trash. Correct. Come to New York or, yeah. Like, so ours would be just, I mean, we’re not even paying that right now. No. And ours is picked up. Correct. Which is, which is wild to me. Like,

34:40 But that, but that’s not Uncommon. No, I know, I know. But it, it, once it is a perspective, you know. That’s correct. It’s like, yeah. Right. Oh, speaking of that, I, at the, at the Marblehead Cares meeting, we did discuss the planned workshop or, uh, meeting that you had talked about. Could you update us? Well, they, they had something else going on. I, I wasn’t aware of this candlelight thing, so I’m not really, the only thing I read was what was came in an email. Um, so that, that wasn’t what I was working on, what I was working on. It was more of like a speaker event. And it’s kind of changed. And the, and the reason, you know, we had a working group with Mark, uh, Laney Tom Day, and it was going in a direction, and it was, it was, it was going good.

35:26 But a lot of the speakers I talked to, even some of the cops gonna come, they’re all about it. They’re all afraid of public speaking, which is stinks. So it’s, um, so that’s when I saw the opportunity when we can get the website. Yep. I decided I will teach myself how to make websites. Again, I’m not looking forward to it, but, uh, I will do it. And if we can get that addressed, I know it got pirated or whatever, but it’s, I think, you know, whenever everything’s transitions to the counseling centers off that, and then we can take it and work it. Keep that Marblehead cares. Yeah. And you know, it has, you know, across all towns, like, they kind of go off that theme. It’ll be like, you know, Winthrop cares, SAU cares. So you put them all in the same thing. And then you have resources.

36:13 And then also I think like if people are afraid to speak in public, maybe they’d sit down and write their stories and you can post ‘em on there and then they’re accessible. And then maybe that will evolve into what my original design was. You know, when it, if it picks up steam, if people really like look at it, if the school’s promoted. Something like that. So, we’ll, we’ll start small and then Yep. Build it up. That’s A great idea. Okay. Well, you’ve got the floor. Each month you provide us with a summary of the, where our money told. Yeah. Um, so we, we skipped it last time, so it’s a little longer, but I’ll try to go fast. So, um, a one exterminators for rack control at the transfer station, $975 Agri Source, which covers the grinding and compost removal, 10,400, um,

37:02 Amazon Capital for other disposal. 3 17 57, Andrew Petty for PostIt. Um, $35 43 cents. At and t for internet access, $80 Black Earth Compost, which is residential food, composting pickup, and replacement bags. Uh, $3,673 and 76 cents. Bob’s Tire for Tire Disposal, $252. Um, Boston Green Fuel Company recycles our, um, waste oil, $4,851 and 83 cents. Carlton Electric, which is, um, connecting the transaction Hu and Control booth, uh, which included, um, installing conduits, uh, 20,000 1 65 Dynamic Waste Systems,

37:49 which is the shrink wrap disposal, uh, $520 and 13 cents. F it and SR, um, word Inc. Is, uh, building repairs and placement that was just $24 79 cents Fairbanks Scales. And that’s scale, service and calibration. 1040 $1. Um, Granger, which is electrical control box for the license plate reader cameras, uh, down by the gate that was $511 and 19 cents. Haley Ward, Inc. That’s the engineering firm for the transfer station, 31,000, um, three 17 Harrington’s. Uh, we’ll talk about that one. Uh, home Depot, uh, disposal, um,

38:36 $1,109 and 59 cents. Marblehead Counseling Center for Psychological Counseling, $4,325 and 63 cents. Um, and then, uh, Marblehead Light Department for electricity. $972 and 10 cents Marblehead Water and Sewer. That’s, uh, $115 70 cents. Uh, meat to the cost are for legal $1,911. Perma Line for the, uh, signs for the transfer station, $1,737 82 cents. Printer Pro Solutions for Ink Toner for employees. Uh, $204 6 cents recolor, which is recycling Latex Paint for Hazardous Waste Day $1,868 and 50 cents.

39:22 Republic Services for Trash collection, $90,500 73 cents. RMG Enterprises, um, they recycle the TVs, monitors, laptops, 1080 $5 96 cents sl, uh, chase, I guess chess. Yep. Chase Weld it. Chase, uh, the pit structural repairs, that was $6,000 T-Mobile for telephone. Uh, $36 54 cents. US Bank National, uh, banking needs $9 and 68 cents utech with the mattress recycling. Uh, $3,948 Verizon for internet access. 1 68 99. Waste Management of Massachusetts for trash disposal, $130,702 and 40 cents. WB Mason for office supplies. $160 in 8 cents.

40:10 William Scottsman, uh, paid for the rented trailer, $651 and 58 cents Winter Street Architects, uh, the firm for the transfer station project. Uh, $9,012 and 47 cents.

40:27 Oh, we still close to, well, I guess we’re at the tail end of our budget here. We done a, we start. Okay. Yep. Okay. So if we have extra money, it goes into our rotating funds. No, it goes back to the general funds. Okay. Yeah. Um, So be out of order, but how are we doing with the license plate readers? What’s the status? So we, the license plate reader cameras have been installed. Um, we are waiting for a couple of little final pieces. Um, so an internet card. Um, so he’s coming back on Wednesday to hopefully finalize everything. Um, and they should be live. You know, I’ve had a, regarding that. I’ve had a lot of people from Swamp Scout, I should say, a lot, maybe like five or six, but it ju

41:12 but it’s a good sh that they came up to me and asked, um, ‘cause they hate their leaf, uh, waiting to leave their leaves on the side. And it was like right there. I saw like immediate opportunity this fall where you’re like, how much would one bag cost us? You know, but a little lower I on it for someone to come in and need license plate people to, they’re not there. I’m just dropping off leaves, I don’t know, five, 10 bucks a bag. Right. So you’d have to come up with a process to make sure that we had enough employees to handle all that, you know? Mm-hmm. You know, I’d have to take a look at the population of Swamp Scott and see what the potential number of cars coming through our facility would be. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I mean, we’re always, no, Just, yeah. Just things that popped up randomly with me walking around that, you know, you just see the opportunity there. The Hazardous waste day, was that only for Marblehead or

41:59 Was that, no, so that’s a combination of Marblehead and Swamp Scott. Um, so we do two events every year. Um, we pay for one setup and Swamp. Scott pays for a setup. We can do that for the leaf, give them a leaf day. Well, that’s what they wanna avoid because they, they wanna be able to do it more regularly on their time. So that’s, um, and We’d have to, we’d have to come up with a cost to it. We bring all our costs and employee time and all that stuff. Stuff. Exactly. So, and, and that the traffic. Yeah. Um, so we see about 1100 cars a day going through the transfer station during our busy season on a Saturday. It’s 1300 to 1400 cars per day. Yeah. But those guys, I think it’s small out, they like pick up like once a month or something like that.

42:45 Yeah. So even in Marble Ahead, we have six days. Six weeks that we do. Yeah. Uh, throughout the year. Yeah. So I’m sure they have a similar program. Yeah, Exactly. Um, but just to talk, continue to kind of talk about stickers, um, we’ve sold 4,047, uh, 4,047 primary stickers, 1,411 secondary transfer station permits. Um, and then 342 veteran. Uh, So we’re well on pace. We’re well on pace. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do we typically sell, We tend to sell, sell somewhere between six to seven’s, about 6,500. So we’re really on good base. Mm-hmm. When do most people buy them? So you have two big seasons. So you have January, the beginning of the summer

43:32 to grab your beach sticker and then fall leaves. Mm-hmm. Those are the three big opportunities for people. Mm-hmm. That’s what brings everybody out. Yeah. We want to continue with your report. We’ll come back. There’s a couple items here. I don’t know anything about. Um, Oh, you can go back to some and, okay, Good. Now the plaque came up. Nothing discussed on it, it was just kind of said, this is gonna go there. So We have no plans for a plaque. Okay. That’s all I wanna make sure. Yeah. So, because I’m not comfortable with the idea, you would’ve seen definitely not comfortable with my name being on it. So Originally when the, with the original transfer station project, there was a plaque that had been designed by the committee.

44:18 Yeah. Obviously that’s like final, final piece. If you ever finished everything, you might look at putting the plaque up there. Yeah. That’s the time. But it’s like we have a lot of work to do before we even Get Okay. Yeah. Caught me off guard and No problem. Him off guard. So it, yeah. Um, Well, if there’s a plaque, it should be thanking the talent Yeah. For all the money they put into it. Yeah. Patients and it is a great resource, but it’s been a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, um, the transfer station settlement explanation, so this is something that I visited a while ago, um, with Lisa need, and I did not get my ideal answer.

45:05 Um, I have always said that, you know, this is, it’s the question plaguing the town. And, um, I think Andrew did a spectacular job with the slideshow doing half of it. We put it out there, I pumped it out on social media. Um, sorry, is it available for the town? Can we put it Yeah, it is on The town website. Yeah, We put, we put it on there. I threw it on social media, like, we’ll keep it out there. It, I mean, it’s 172 slides, The Very impressive. It’s, it’s a wonderful thing To watch. No, it was, it was great. And it tells half the story, and the other half I think is easily done in two questions that are done by counsel. And I think that they are lawyers.

45:51 The settlements are written in lawyer, but these people do go to barbecues and they speak English, so they could write it down in normal English. And I think it’s just two questions. We just ask them to write something that won’t jeopardize anything. And it’s just why do you feel we needed to enter into litigation with the engineering firm over the transfer station project? And how did we, did we determine we were due the original amount of why and why did we settle for the lesser amount? That’s it. And if that is answered, I mean, the amount of trust that would flow in for the town is from the town being like, oh, they did, they, they did it. New board. We’re getting everything we need. And I think it’s just that those two answers, Steve, would you agree? Absolutely. All right. There you go. So I wanted,

46:38 I would set that as a motion. Is there a second? I’d make a motion to submit those two we Request Yeah. Council to give us an answer to those two questions. Yep. And I can submit them to you. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yep. All those in favor? Yep. Perfect. By the way, um, in, in preparing thinking, I, I might end up as chair. I did read the Little Roberts rules of order and Robert’s rule. I know we’re not a Roberts town. That’s true. But it does have a, a, a paragraph or maybe a chapter on small boards, boards of less than a dozen people. So we’re very small board and what they, what they say, two things that I,

47:25 I think we had to consider, we don’t have to do it tonight, is one that the chair can speak. Uh, uh, Elaine was really good about trying not to get engaged, but I, I will have a very hard time being quiet. And so I, if that’s all right, that we break that parliamentary procedural. And the other, which maybe we ought to talk about for just a minute, is we ought to talk about things even if there’s not emotion on the floor. I think that what you just said deserves emotion. Yeah. And, and we’ve got it. But, but we should be able to talk for a few minutes about things without it being formal and all of that. And Yeah. And as you know, I think, I think I told you,

48:13 I did reach out to the town to see, like the town has never formally adopted Robert’s rules. And I was like, and I asked also like, so as a board we can just vote to not follow ‘em. And they were like, exactly. So it was that easy. So, But I think we ought to do some, like, I’ll probably help, I like the idea of motions. I like the idea, you know, like I, I like the idea of motions being recorded, things like that. I mean, if anyone has anything else they like, you know, but it does, yeah. It, conversations are the way to go. And, and we really, really want to get as much, I, I know that it must have been very difficult during the pandemic when there were differences of opinion that people couldn’t just speak up all the time. But until we have another pandemic, we, I would certainly say, I think what I know about

49:01 my colleagues, we want to hear from the people in the audience and people in the room as much as possible. Because a hundred percent we are here. ‘cause you elected us. Yeah. How do we, if someone wanted to speak, is it clear on the, On the, no. So obviously it’s clear here. Um, it’s harder online because we are now operate in what we call webinar format. So webinar format is that the people can listen. We don’t see them. Um, we can go to a period where we ask for hands and we can take them off mute and put them up. Um, but for other reasons, we require that we had to go to webinar format to protect ourselves. And everybody in the community actually Weren’t in the room when it Happened. Exactly. Um, so that’s why we, we all now kind

49:49 of operate under the webinar webinar format, but that Would be good to have a period of time that we open it up so That Oh yeah. So you, at the end of the, at the end of the meeting, it’s always opened even now. So we can’t, we don’t have it set up that we can see people answering their ha raising their hands. It becomes a little bit more complicated, um, because yeah, you, you do have to make sure you, you kind of know who that person is and you’re willing to take them off control.

50:16 Uh, could You repeat those questions again? Yeah, they’re, I just wanted to make sure I under got them down. Yeah, Thank you. Why did we feel the need to enter into litigation with the engineering firm over the transfer station project? Yep. And how did we determine we were due the original amount, amount and why did we settle for the lesser amount?

50:43 Thank you very Much. Yeah. And that I think paired with the Andrews just puts us in a whole new, like, I really firmly believe

50:55 Who asked for the counseling? I did. Oh, Okay. So I kind of brought this up, I think two years ago they kind shut down. So, but the counseling center, they, they presented to us. I mean, they looked like they were about to be in tears asking for more money and that we can’t give them, and I’d asked them the question of being like, have you ever thought of, you know, doing, um, an article, you know, asking for some kind of debt, ex exclusion override to deal with the, um, the wait list they have. And they said they had that they didn’t think it was appropriate for them to ask. They suggested the board did. I suggested we do, it got shot down, so I’m bringing it back up again. And, but I wanted, what I wanted to do was reach out to the counseling center and have them come

51:41 and present numbers. And what I wanted to target was Marblehead children. So 21 and under, who’s on their waiting list, how much they think it would cost, and how long of a timeframe that would be. And then I’m more than happy to present that to the town as a debt exclusion override, and see if the town is willing to step up. And so just throwing the idea out there, I’ll reach out to them and have them come present to us, but I’ll tell them the parameters of it where we can try to get the kids off the wait list at minimum. So I think with that there’s, you know, kind of two-prong approach to the next budget season. Mm-hmm. Um, we had very good initial discussions with the finance committee about the additional

52:28 $60,000 Yeah. To get to the $120,000. Mm-hmm. It wasn’t until the very, very end where the town came up and said, we’re short, we need to make some cuts. You’re, I have to cut that. Yeah. The finance department was all set to say, no, we we’re, this is going forward. Mm-hmm. So I think on one side, we continue to push the, the 120,000 Yeah. In our budget. Yeah. Um, but on a second note, we continue to have that conversation Yeah. With the counseling center to say, all right, if this doesn’t happen, we want to, what’s the cost to get to that point, point 120? Also, could, you know, I’m talking about kids, so it’s like, you know, there’s the older crowd too, you know, I just want to, you know, kids, I can’t imagine anyone at town meeting like clicking. No. You know, so I think if you frame it that way, you know,

53:15 and you, and you give it and, you know, take three years some, I, I don’t know, I’m just throwing time out there. Totally. And then you, you get a dead exclusion over that time for however much it is. It, it won’t come out to be that much and it’s Marvel hits kids. So it’s, um, you know, so I, I’ll reach out to them if you guys are good with it and tell them what I’m, look what we’re looking for and if they can come present it and tell us what their numbers are, then we could get together an article. Yeah. So obviously, you know, articles are due, um, I think it’s like the third week in January. Yeah. Um, so that’s tons of time. So we have tons of time, but we always have to remember that’s our deadline and stuff like that. So we just need to have all the work done mm-hmm. To get us to that point. Well, that’s just perfect timing because last couple of weeks I’ve been writing a little paper,

54:02 actually I’ve submitted it, um, but I, I’ll bring it next time. There are two major publications that have appeared every, most people know McKenzie, sort of not, not a bleeding heart board of health type group at all, but says, um, that that global public health would save, would generate $5 trillion worth of global GDP by, um, investing in mental health for adolescents. And then there’s a working paper from the national, uh, economics board or whatever it is that actually quantifies that for the United States. And if the United States would invest in children

54:52 and adolescent mental health, the United States would be, the economy would benefit. It’s, I think it’s $168 billion. Yeah. I have no doubt. Unbelievable amount of money. So I’ll have, we’ll have that, I was writing it, that we would submit it to the fin income because that’s the kind of stuff that they read. Yeah. Uh, but we should really push that very hard. Okay. It makes great economic sense for the town, the town, and if, if that, that’s the kind of responsibility I think the board of health should Have. So you guys are good with me reaching out. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Easy enough. What we’ve gotta do to help all And, okay. No, that’s, so, we’ll, we’ll get that ball rolling. And then I know Andrew’s gonna do the director’s report,

55:38 and I wanted to see if you could add one thing into your director’s report, if you know about it. Yep. Japanese, not weed. Yeah, of course. Alright, Let’s talk about that because someone said they found a bunch of it and it has to be disposed of certain ways. Yeah. So Japanese not weed is a very prolific invasive in this area. Um, it looks kind of like Asian bamboo. Um, it tends to only be about an inch wide. Um, but it is very, very hard to eradicate. So if I chop Japanese, not weed down, and I leave anything in the soil, it’s gonna rep propagate itself. If I leave, it’s stolen. So it, it pushes out roots that go along the ground slightly underground, and all the plants pop up off out of that. If I leave a little piece of that in the ground,

56:26 the plant will regenerate and grow from that. So it’s really, really hard to get rid of. So there’s a danger also of putting it in the piles. Right. So the issue with putting it in the piles is that if I put it into the piles, um, obviously, and it gets all chopped up and made into loan, you could be pushing that material into other areas, so into other communities, into other people’s homes. So as a town, we generally, when we have, we have a company come in to try to control the Japanese knot weed on the landfill property, um, we have them cut that and we throw that in the compactor. Now we would have to deal with the customers and make sure we understood how much material was coming in at a time. Mm-hmm. But yeah, that we generally ask people

57:12 to throw it in the trash and not into the compact. Yeah. Hopefully some reporters put out there to, to normal know What it looks like. Yeah. I think, I think for, I mean, again, it’s very similar to what you think would be bamboo. Um, so you’re like, why do I have bamboo growing on my property? It’s most likely Japanese knotweed. So, um, broad leaves, I forget it’s alternate or symmetrical. Um, it does flower later in the summer. Um, it pushes out these little white flowers. Um, so in a perfect world, the plan has pushed out all the energy. You cut it. Yeah. Um, and then you do some treatment. Now, obviously, you know, but yeah. So, so it can be very hard to eradicate.

57:58 Is it along the rail trail? Yes. And do they know about it? Oh Yeah. Everybody knows about it. The cost to deal with it is very large.

58:08 Yeah. And so it’s hard because again, if you’re trying to remove every bit of it, so you’re gathering up all the soil, you’re just like, all right, this is way too much material. You know, I, I would never allow people to dump soil into the compactor. Now, some of the Es and stuff like that. But again, I have to limit how much is coming in at that time. Mm-hmm. Obviously it doesn’t burn well. There’s, you know, there’s, there’s whole other issues on the, the combustion side to things.

58:36 Is this here now And wasn’t before? No, this is here now. It’s been here for a long time. It’s not climate related. It’s not cli Well, it, it, it’s always related where as our temperatures increase, these planets thrive on the increase in temperatures and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. Um, some of the other stuff that we see, um, there’s also Japanese hops that we’re starting to see, um, that came from a bird dropping a seed that through thousands of miles. It’s not too common, but we see it a bunch of the transfer station. It just happens to be we’re on the migratory path of certain species. Um, are There pictures about this stuff? There’s always pictures online. Online. Any at the transfer Station? No, there is not. No, we should put them up.

59:22 So again, like I can only take so much. So I, I couldn’t start like gathering huge piles of this stuff and then adding into the trailer. Um, for combustion, generally it’s large projects and stuff like that that we can handle. Um, I would have to really start to talk to Waste Management to say, Hey, what am I allowed to do here? Mm-hmm. Um, now I could potentially talk to Ag Agri Source and say, Hey, what can I do with some of, you know, I’m seeing a whole lot of invasive species. That’s what we call these things. Um, what’s the best way to treat some of this stuff? And what’s the best way to handle some of this stuff? Now there is gonna be an additional costs, um, but that’s something that we can take a look at. Mm-hmm. So I guess just making people aware for now. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, um, I mean, there is a huge,

1:00:08 there’s a very large dirty dozen in Massachusetts, the plants that you shouldn’t have. Um, but that’s the way it goes. It’s always being reviewed and plants are added to it. Um, but Japanese not weed has been on that list for quite some time.

1:00:25 Okay. So we’re down to the director’s report and the Sounds good. So just some basic, a whole bunch of different things. Um, some are updates. Um, obviously it’s been a really busy tick season. Um, with all this rain, um, the ticks are out crazy. So anytime you’re walking in tall grass, there’s a whole, Massachusetts has a whole brochure and literature on mass.gov, mosquitoes and ticks. Um, I do recommend we have these brochures at the office. We recommend people pick them up. Um, there’s different treatment you can do before you go out. You can roll up your sock. There’s a whole bunch of different ideas that people do. The big thing to do is that if you are walking in tall grass, if you are going out in the woods, um, they don’t,

1:01:13 they’re gonna fall on you. They’re not gonna jump or fly onto you. When you brush past some tall grass or some brush and stuff like that, they’re gonna fall off on you. It’s recommended to do a tit check every day. Um, they like warm dark places. Um, but it’s important for parents to do this on their children as well. Um, it’s just something that we wanna remind people of during these seasons. Obviously with the, the ticks there are multiple tick-borne diseases. Um, so we wanna make sure that you’re aware of some of these things. Obviously, you have a concern, or if you start to see a rash or a bite marks, you need to speak with your pediatrician. Um, the other big pests that we see during the summer are mosquitoes. Um, Marblehead is part of the Northeast Massachusetts mosquito control program.

1:02:00 So we pay into this program. Now we are a pesticide free community. So until there’s a true threat, the board would have have to authorize blanket sprain in certain areas. That has never happened since I’ve been here. Um, but we do work with this group. They do come out and do some treatment. So they use a product. It’s, it’s a natural deterrent. It’s a biological, um, larvicide. It’s called BT and bs. And they walk around and they put these in all our catch basins across town. You can also contact them if you have a large wetland in your backyard and you need some help dealing with the mosquitoes there, they will come out and help you treat on your property as well. The other piece about mosquitoes is that to walk around always as we’ve had the last 14 weekend Saturdays

1:02:49 of rain to remember to go around and empty all your containers. If you do have a container that has been sitting there for a long time, you can take a look at it. A lot of times you will see larva swimming around in there. Um, what the BT does is that it attacks the larva in the water, and so it cannot continue on, uh, into a mosquito. But, so these are a populated thing. Um, we do sample mosquitoes on a weekly basis. Um, so there is a trap in town. And on Mondays we do get a state report, uh, it’s called the Arboviral Arbovirus Surveillance Report. Um, and so that’s looking at West Navius and Triple E. Now, 80% of the population has been, um, exposed to West Navius. Um, so that’s not as much as a threat,

1:03:35 but that is generally the threat that we’ll see around here is that we’ll have a mosquito that tested positive in Salem or Swamp Stock. And so often we might have to put out a statement to say, Hey, we have a positive mosquito, or This has been in the area. We need to make sure that people take precautions, use bone spray, go in after dart all the standard procedures with the Triple E, slightly different. Um, we tend not to how you define Triple E for, uh, eastern equine encephalitis. Um, so obviously you need a combination of a horse, the equine and the correct mosquito. Um, we have a very, you know, we have one or two horses in the community, um, but we do live other closer to other communities. Essex, Ipswich, Hamilton are big horse communities.

1:04:23 So it’s possible that we do have a Triple D threat in this area. We tend to see these threats in the fall, but again, the risk for Marblehead is very low. Um, but these resources are available and we do, um, pay into the Northeast mosquito control program. And so I just wanna make sure the board is aware of that. Mm-hmm. Um,

1:04:49 grants. So I just wanted to kind of cover some grants and we can talk about these more in depth. At other times. We do receive a public health emergency preparedness grant, um, that comes for the federal government. Uh, this came after nine 11. Um, all the communities needed to work on their public health emergency preparedness. At the time it was really dealing with anthrax, but the normal threat to us is kind of hurricanes, fires and stuff like that also go, obviously we had the pandemic. Um, so there was a lot of practice that went into that. Um, but we have established coalitions across the state of Massachusetts. We’re part of the 3D Coalition. Um, it’s 15 communities on the North Shore. It goes from Lin all the way up to Gloucester.

1:05:35 Um, we received federal funding through grants. Um, in the last year we received $145,000. Um, we have, um, we use MAPC as our grant manager. Um, so the state of Massachusetts hand some money over to MAPC and they work with planners. We have worked with, um, organizers to do trainings, and they have, the state at the beginning of the year comes up with all these ideas that, all right, these are the trainings that you need to do. MAPC. Yep, Metro Area Planning Council. Um, so they provide a planner. They provide an organizer. Um, and so we worked with them through the whole year to take a look at that. Um, unfortunately this, this is an area where funding is at question from the

1:06:22 federal government at this point. Um, so we have received the grant from the federal government. We have not received the funding from the federal government at this point, and that’s all in flux. Um, we will know more, but generally our fiscal, our fiscal year ends, uh, June 30th in our next fiscal year, July 1st. So generally the grant starts off at that point. Um, it’s a little slow in the beginning, but ramps up and stuff like that. Now, the federal government, their fiscal year is at the end of September. Um, so there’s a chance that we might see a little bit money, but it might run out by the end of September. Again, the state of Massachusetts generally receives about $16 billion from the federal government. There’s a chance that we’re only gonna receive 11 billion.

1:07:08 This is just a very small piece of that. Um, but that’s one of the grants that we do receive. Um, we’re also part of the Public Health Excellence grant. Um, we’re working with a smaller group in this area, so Swamp, Scott Lynn, Salem, Marblehead, Peabody, Danvers, and Beverly. Um, and we’re working to expand public health in these areas. Again, you’re aware of, you know, the, the lack of funding that we have in Marblehead, the state of Massachusetts essentially says you should be allocating a little over $39 per population or per resident. Um, and so we should have a, a budget roughly around $740,000, where ours is a lot less than that, about 44%. They’re trying to supplement our funding to try

1:07:55 to increase public health. Um, so that’s one of the areas that we work on as well. Um, we have a tobacco control grant. Um, we have an individual that guides us on where we should be headed for tobacco control. They also do, the big piece of it is that they do our tobacco control inspections. So twice a year, they go around to all of our establishments, um, to see if they have illegal products on the shelves or if they’re selling to underage individuals. So that’s a big piece. Um, it can be a great help. Um, we also have a grant from BS A s, so Bureau of Substance Addiction Services. Um, they’ve helped us with our YRBS survey. They’re helping us currently with other programs that we can take a look at. Um, they’re helping us form some recovery

1:08:40 coaches, potentially. Um, that’s a smaller grant. Um, but that’s made some huge inroads for us to work with the, the high school and potentially, you know, the whole s school system, um, during dealing with substance abuse. Um, but that YRBS survey, um, we will have the school come in at some point to do our YRBS survey, and that covers a huge range of questions, substance abuse, addiction, um, suicide, all these questions that the te that’s different from the one that was just posted in the current, the Yeah, I’d have to take a look at the one that was posted. No, that is, that is, I thought it was the same one that is, I just wasn’t familiar with what was there. Oh, okay. Yeah, so you get a lot of good information from that. But that all started by getting this grant from, from BS a,

1:09:26 um, we’ve talked about the Best Practices grant. So we have those two. Um, we do receive, we do apply for a Mass DEP grant. Um, it’s called Recycling Dividends Points. Um, it’s a small grant. It’s anywhere between eight to $14,000. We annually have to report all the things that we do up at the transfer station, all the quantities. Um, and we’re trying to always increase services up there by taking different items. Um, but that allows us to recover some money. And we often purchase new containers like, you know, large dumpsters and stuff like that to increase our operations signage. There’s different things that we can spend the money on. Um, we receive the Bathing Beaches Grant, so obviously we’re in bathing Beach season. The state of Massachusetts pays for a weekly sample from all

1:10:14 of our five bathing beaches. If we do have a failure or if we do need to retest, we’re responsible for those costs. So it’s kind of a share program, but they have a very robust system where they have a reporting system. They have experts online that we can call and ask advice and stuff like that. Um, and that, those are essentially, that the grants that we have at this point. Um, and again, we will continue to talk about them as our programs are coming up, um, and some of the different things that we’re doing. Um, so those are all the grants. The last big thing I had to talk to you guys about is Republic Services. So Republic Services use Teamsters for their employees for a collection. So that’s the drivers, and that’s the laborers.

1:10:59 Uh, the Teamsters and Republic are amidst negotiations for a contract. Um, that contract is scheduled to end on June 30th. Um, they have not reached an agreement at this point. Um, so that’s kind of where we are with that. Which does that mean? So potentially if negotiations have not been finalized by June 30th, there’s a, they could go on strike July 1st. Now what would that mean if Republic went on strike July 1st? We would first do delays. So just like winter weather, we would do a delay trash pickup. So we would do it a day at a time. Now there’s so many days that we can do it. So that’s one piece to it.

1:11:44 Now, Republic has also said when they run into these situations, they bring employees in from other areas to drive the trash trucks and pick up, pick up the trash. Now that’s great and all, sometimes it takes a little bit longer, the drivers aren’t used to the area. So again, I just wanna be transparent to say, this is where we are with this. We will have lots of communication as we get really close to July 1st. So if I have to delay trash on July 1st, we use the Reverse 9 1 1 system that we have in place today. So that’s Code Red. We have a huge number of people that are signed up for Code Red, but everybody, every household in Marblehead should be part of that system. So I go into the system, I record a message, I push it down

1:12:32 to all the homes that are part of that. So that’s how you would get your notification. And generally, again, it’s just like winter. We’re pushing trash back a day. So again, July 1st is on a Tuesday, so if I can’t pick, pick up on Tuesday, everything’s gonna be delayed a day. So your Tuesday collection’s gonna be pushed on to Wednesday. We’ll continue on with that. Again, we’ll be communicating out to the public using that system and our website. So everything that I push out on the, the reverse 9 1 1 system will be posted on the website. How many days can you push it out? So they, the most we’ve pushed out is tends to be two. Um, because what happens is that, you know, you’re just pushing back into Saturday. Um, now it ha like,

1:13:18 ‘cause what happens if you push it back, you can’t back yourself up into two days of collection. So if I back up so much, you’re backing up into Monday, uh, you just start to run into problems. So during 2015 when we had the, the blizzards month after month, we ran into some of these issues. Um, obviously during these times, the transfer station was open to all residents, so residents can bring their trash and recycling up there. Um, we’ve also gone out and assisted with picking up in certain locations. During the blizzard, we had streets that trash trucks couldn’t get down, and so we had to go down with heavy equipment to grab stuff. Um, slightly different during the winter than during the summer. Again, um, we will be very open and honest with everybody

1:14:04 and making sure the message gets out there. But I wanted to talk about this before anything happened. Would It make sense to submit a maybe message out there now to tell the community what you just told us? So it’s, it’s hard because we don’t have a lot of information. So obviously Republic has put it out there, or the Teamsters have really put it out there where the situation is. So again, you know, we don’t want to create an issue and create a panic. We, we kind of play the waiting game. It’s just like a winter storm where we’re like, all right, we have the threat of a winter storm. You know, people should be paying attention to that. We may need to delay trash a couple days to deal

1:14:49 with this. Maybe Tell Republic they should have their next contract end July 3rd at the end of July. So the 4th of July is avoided. Everyone’s Not trash. Yeah, I mean, the hard and the hard thing is that their contracts tend to run the exact same with our, so it’s like everything’s back together. Um, obviously nobody wants us, obviously we want all employees to have, you know, should be paid appropriately for their jobs. Um, and so that’s up to Republican, the team system to negotiate a fair contract.

1:15:27 Yeah, that’s out of our control. Yeah. Great Report. Thank you very Much. You’re welcome. Sorry.

1:15:38 And that’s everything that I have. Oh, um, just one last piece about the transfer station. We do have a couple individuals that are using the entrance of Green Street, um, to walk their dogs. We just really wanna remind everybody that it’s required that you pick up after your dog. Um, we will be an installer in the camera down that area. Um, but if we do find people, we will begin to find people down there. Fair enough.

1:16:16 Yeah. He’s not here. What,

1:16:21 what’s the status of the five member board? Shame, like last year didn’t happen. I reached out, I talked to Jenny And she said it’s, it’s on track. Yeah. So the legislature has to pass it once it’s through the legislature, then it comes back to, um, our

1:16:40 annual elections. So the, so, so what would happen is legislature passed it at the next election. Um, we would be making it five members. So you would have one member dropping off. So it would be election for three different positions. And I don’t know, we could, we need to talk to council about this. So generally right now you have one member dropping off every year. So three year term, would you stagger it or you would, you would just put it It out there and see What happens if somebody is staying on top of it? Yep. Okay. Good. Mm-hmm. And the other thing, Tom, have you thought writing a guest column in some of the local papers with some of this stuff that you it it’d be handy. Yeah. Until you started coming to meetings a couple years ago?

1:17:26 Whenever I started talking about this stuff and had no interest in my life, but it has since taken over, I said, okay. And I came for the dump. But

1:17:38 No, I would love to do that. And then I would like to have, I, oh, you know, I’m a, I’m a teacher. I mean, I, uh, I, I enjoy sharing knowledge that I, I enjoy getting. So, yes. Uh, I’ve, I’ve done I think four articles for the current in the past, But I’m thinking like on regular, oh, Well I, we will ask the, the newspapers if they’re willing to put up with it. I think I can generate, yeah, I’m happy to help you with it. Yeah. I, I think that that would be, especially I Have you. Sorry. I’d be happy to have you. Okay. Well let’s, how would it work? Would you want You ask me as a focus Same, same same article of both newspapers

1:18:26 or we go alternate every other month or week or whatever? Uh, how, uh, You can Be honest. I will be honest. ‘cause that sounds like a y’all question. We, as far as the item is concerned, we get sent things that are sent to the current all the time. Sometimes, uh, the same letter, the editor, if you will, runs in both papers. So I don’t think I have any personal qualms about that. I think that’s more so you guys trying to see how far of an audience you can reach.

1:18:55 Okay. Well, I, I have an article ready to go on, uh, public mental Health. I’ll have it, I’ll have that within a week. Sweet. Both of you. And I’ve got the one on the financing of mental health services for youth. Um, a actually, I, I sent it to, uh, Lee, but it’s probably too academic for either of the papers, but maybe I can try to sort of make it normal people language. But it, but it, it’s important to, to, to argue how, how the world will be benefited if we can get to young people. Mm-hmm. And prevent their, their mental wellness to

1:19:43 problems, suicidality, substance, loneliness, all of those.

1:19:50 Yeah. I thank you. Uh, Especially where you were talking about medical care in different parts of the country and d parts of the world. My son-in-law and his twin brother, both doctors in Geneva and the way they look at things compared to what we do here, it’s like night and day, huh. Yep. Yep. One other comment with the, uh, bills that you talked about. It’d be handy if you say, oh, this is our monthly charge, or once a year type of thing. So I don’t think people have any clue how much we really spend to get rid of our rubbish and how fortunate we are to be able to go up to the transfer station. I’ll have that Vander jump in when I do that to point it out. But it’s also like when I’m reading the bills, there’s also inflows of all, so those are all out, right? Yeah. So, so it’s like, some of it you gotta keep in mind.

1:20:37 It’s like, you know, we might be on the positive side of it. I’m just saying what we’re writing checks for, you know, so, And, and most of the stuff is a monthly reoccurring. But yeah, we can, we can kind of point out like the one-offs and stuff like that, obviously. Um, hazardous waste day was, you know, yeah, It’s twice a year, but we always see Engineering fees. They’re just occasional. Yep. Hopefully soon will be gone ‘cause we’ll be done. Oh, So you’re always gonna have, well, so architecture fees, that’s part of the projects that you’re, you know, that that should be going away. Once all the construction’s over the engineering fees will always be there. So there’s different things that we have to report on. So we always have to do environmental monitoring for the landfill. I have to do reporting for the operations

1:21:23 of the transfer station, and I have to do a couple other reporting that’s required from the state of Massachusetts, the mass DEP. That’s why we hire Hailey Ward to do all that stuff for us. You really have good crew people up there? Oh Yeah, we would Greek, yeah. The amount of grief, but they get especially started. Yeah. Yeah. No, they’re, they’re a really good group. We’re very lucky to have them. Um, for the most part, everybody really works as a team, which we, we All seem to get along. Yeah. Cover for each other. Yep. So it’s great. Every now And then I’ll bring up a bunch of em. Muffins or something. Yeah, I mean, they get along on that stuff, so they really appreciate that the, the number of people that drop off coffee and donuts and all that stuff on a regular basis is really appreciated. But I, I’m very lucky to have the crew that I’d do up there. I’m very lucky to have Marty and the people in the office.

1:22:10 Right. We, we all really care about what’s gonna happen. We all devote more time than, you know, we essentially get paid. Oh, You’re in it for the big bucks. And to depend discuss in the prior meeting, but what was the timeline like for the, the, uh, the posts and the bid? Um, so we’re looking to put the project out the bid, um, like July 16th, July 17th. Um, it’ll be out the bid for several weeks, probably about six weeks. Um, and then obviously we’re looking for construction to happen in the fall. It, it’s always tough with construction. There’s never really a good time to do it. Um, you know, sometimes I would say dead middle of the summer, like August is the great time to do it, but there’s always stuff going on up there. It’s always hard. Um, obviously the fall, you know,

1:22:56 I’m dealing with leaf season. Um, but the way we have the transfer station set up now should make it a little bit easier on construction now, there’s gonna be a couple things that are gonna disrupt operations. One being when we move the scale, so when my scale’s offline, that’s gonna cause some issues. Um, so when we work with the contractor, we’re gonna say, this is a main priority. We need to make sure that you understand that I need this back online as quickly as possible. Um, and that’s the same. So you have the compactor pit, and then where the tractor trailer sits down below that needs a concrete slab. Now the cure time for the concrete down below and the, the pit for the, the scale is gonna be the same time. So those two should be poured on the same day

1:23:43 and we should get there at the same point to be down as less as possible. Um, but those are all the little pieces. Um, you know, it just causes some issues for all of us. Some. And then once construction starts, do you know how long? Yeah. So that will all be dictated. Um, once the contractor’s on board, they present a schedule to us. The engineers take a look at that, um, ask some questions. Why is it spread out so much? Can we condense it anymore? Um, we will take a look at the, some of the major pieces that need to happen, um, and kind of discuss that and then it’ll be agreed upon.

1:24:22 So no one online that wants to say anything? No. Hands up.

1:24:29 No hands up. Nope. Motion for adjourn? Standing. Motion for adjournment? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you all.