Board of Health: May 26, 2026

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 Initially. Yeah. Good evening. Good evening.

0:07 It’s 7:00 on the 26th of May, and I’m happy to open the Board of Health meeting for the evening. There has been a request that we flip the agenda and allow the director to introduce his comments and some guests for consideration. So first I want to introduce Gretchen. So Gretchen, you want to come up here? And everybody, you can come with if you want. It’s just me. Yeah. So Gretchen runs the swap shop at the Marblehead Transfer Station. We are truly grateful to her and her crew. They do a tremendous job. They have a huge following. But they do

0:53 a tremendous amount of work with recycling, and really, when you talk about recycling, the first word in recycling the three Rs is reuse. So that’s why we have a swap shop. Gretchen runs it. It’s open on Saturdays. It’s open some during the winter, weather permitting, stuff like that. But again, we want to thank you for all your tremendous amount of work. We want to say that no matter what, we still have not forgotten the promise that we owe you a nice swap shed. I know it’s been a long time working out of those two cans, and we will continue to work to get you a true swap shed. That would make us very happy. It is very exhausting for us every week to have to empty out those containers and to put them

1:40 back in. Put them back in at the end of the day. Yeah. It’s what drives some of my volunteers away because they’re so tired of doing it. Right. My own husband, who has been beside me all the time, is, “You know what? I think I’d rather play pickleball than go every single day and load other people’s furniture.” So yeah, it would be very, very nice to have a shed again. And just so the board kind of understands the number of people that go there on a Saturday. So we’ve done traffic surveys up at the transfer station. Towards our busy season, we see 1,100 cars a day during the week. We see 13 to 1,400 cars on a Saturday. So you know those people obviously are using the facility, but a large majority of them are going to the swap shed.

2:26 Yeah. Um- We haven’t kept track of numbers coming in. Yeah. It just gets too crazy to do it, but yeah. The whole parking area when we’re open is full, and plenty of illegal parking and three deep parking craziness that goes on there. So one of the things that we are trying to work in now, and we will be doing this shortly, is adding additional parking spaces. So because we have finished the work up front, part of it is striping. As you exit the facility, what used to be the entrance row will now be a considerable amount of new parking. There will be a painted walkway over from those spaces over towards the swap shed as well. Okay. That’s-

3:11 And that is coming in the next couple of weeks. I have for you guys, these are the pounds, the weights, and then some ideas of things we would be looking at.

3:28 Quick question, do we have electricity up there? No. No, not… No. I mean, is it- Oh … capable? Yeah, it is capable of having electricity. Yes. The conduit is in place and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That’s good to know.

3:44 Again, when we designed the facility, again, it’s kind of marrying the old one, a little bit of a garage style. But the architect had done a tremendous amount of work to try to build these big rolling units that can be pulled out rather than lugging everything out, and then pushed back in at the end of the day. Mm-hmm. So you can display items and then push it back in under the cover. Yeah. A lot of our tables are quite heavy. When we opened the new swap shed, we didn’t have any equipment. So I work for the schools as well, I work in the technology department for the schools. Mm-hmm. So I begged and borrowed from… “Well, you guys aren’t using that, right? Could you give out that? Could I have that shelf?” Anything that we were surplus-ing, I brought over to the swap shed and hooked up.

4:30 But there was a reason they were getting rid of the tables like this that weigh a lot. And we’ve got shelves that belong in people’s houses, and we’ve got a whole variety of, well, throwaways, of swap items holding up our swap shed right now. So we would love to have some good shelves, some space that we can work. Right now if it rains, there’s no possibility that’s going to open because in order to open the swap shop, we have to take everything out for people to be able to get into the swap shed. So you can’t take anything out if it’s even misting out because we don’t want to put away damp things, because we’ll just end up with mold. Mm-hmm. So we’re really hoping to have some more space.

5:17 We were able to open up more when we had the old building, because it was protected, and we also didn’t have the volume. You can see from the pounds, the numbers. Over the past few years, we’ve just been going up year over year. It’s crazy.

5:38 Again, it works. We’re a victim of our success. Yeah, exactly. It works. So yeah. I know I have the old plan. I don’t know if this is still in effect. This was the old plan. So the idea is in effect. Okay. I think I would change up some of the diameters to it- Yep … to make it a little bit more of a basic construction. Yep But the idea with that is that the same area for placement and stuff like that, the same kind of footprint, same area, how we would view out, which would give you that space to the right of you guys now. Yep. So it’d give you some more area. Yep. But some of this is great because those two containers would be left

6:24 over. Yep. So yes, you could probably repurpose them for either use for storage. Yeah. So I think that, no, all this is- Yeah. We had said we had a couple shipping containers that we use- Yep … for the furniture, because the furniture is probably our biggest problem. Okay. That’s what I end up having to throw out most at the end of a day because we just don’t have enough. I have to go around and make the hard choices of, “This is good, but I have to throw it away because I can’t fit it in the container.” And it’s very sad and very frustrating sometimes. Yeah. But we are to the doors every single day we’re closed. Somehow we get it all in. Don’t know how. I’ve got about 14 very dedicated

7:11 volunteers. I’ve got a few people that pass in and out, that help here and there. I have a couple that go off to Edinburgh and then come back and help when they come back, so we get them at the end of the season.

7:26 Wow. But they’re great, but it’s very difficult. Some of them are in their 70s and 80s. We don’t want to have them lugging around lots of stuff back and forth all the time. I was unaware that you actually had a previous drawing, so that makes things a lot easier. Oh, yeah. I don’t even remember- Yeah … it was from Andrew many years ago at this point. Yeah, that’s kind of the current drawing, but again, because of some of the angles- Yeah … it increases cost and construction. Yeah. It was very stylish. It is very stylish. We don’t need style. Yeah. I need function more than anything. But some of the ideas in there are just really what we want to continue with. So like barn-style doors? Is that- It has garage-style doors- Garage … and stuff like that. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. Do you want to see them, Tom? I’m sure it’s still on our website and stuff like that.

8:13 Yeah. Let’s take a quick look in a second.

8:17 Well, in the best of all possible worlds, when will we have enough money to do something like that? So one of the hardest things is that this past town meeting, there was kind of a promise that we wouldn’t go back to the town for any additional requests for the next three years. Yeah. So that is something that is going to have to come into play. But this is our next big piece that we want to do. Again, we’re looking at a feasibility study up in the yard waste area for construction demolition material. We have to do some work to the compactor building, as far as siding goes. But the swap shed is the next real big piece that we really need to tackle.

9:00 So when you say we can’t go back to the town for money, can we do this with profits from commercial or- Yeah, it’s potentially that we could do it with profits- Okay … from commercial and stuff like that. Yeah. I was fishing around with companies trying to get prices. I don’t know if you’ve done that a little bit. Yeah. So one of the things we’ve been trying to look for is a prefab. Yeah. So something that’s built off-site, brought in, all done. There are not a lot of prefabs in Massachusetts. I think there’s one or two. So it’s talking to them, trying to get them to do it. There’s also some other companies that do aluminum or steel frame structure buildings, kind of barn style. Maybe not quite the style we’re looking for. Mm-hmm. But yeah, we’re looking right now to get some pricing together-

9:47 Yeah … to try to figure out what kind of budget we would need. Yeah. I don’t know how realistic it is for this situation, but you saved a lot of money if you did it yourself. They bring you these kits and basically- Right … put it together. But it’s like one of those things, can we work with Essex Aggie- Right … and buy the kit and then have them put it together? Yeah. So, they’re a great resource for free labor. Is that something that we can work with them and try to get done? Mm-hmm. That would be a great project for everybody to kind of- Yeah … put forth. Yeah. I’d agree. And there was solar in the plan. Was that just part of the original plan or was that- No, the idea with all our buildings is that we’re solar ready. So that way, if there is an opportunity for us to get solar panels- Yeah … everything can still be installed.

10:34 I have a contact with a solar company and they reached out the other day. So we might have a trial this summer of something. Yeah. But I need to figure out the electricity for it. But again- That could be an advertisement. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So we’re trying to figure all that stuff out. So yeah, it would be great. Again, it is wired. We do have conduit in the ground to bring power out there. Yeah. But are there other ways to make it a little bit less expensive? Okay. We really do appreciate all the hard work. Thank you. And the footprint, the max footprint was, what was it, 40 something? Is that- Yeah. I think what’s that 40 by… It’s like 40 by 30, 40 by 20.

11:20 It’s pretty large. Yeah, that’s pretty big. Yeah. Yeah. What are your interests? Well, just clarify- What would be your guess- Is it 990? … on the timetable? I would really like to get this done in two years, would be a great timetable. Yeah. Again, we’ve been trying to push this project along for a long time now, and we are making good progress and stuff like that as we were just kind of finishing this last project. Mm-hmm. But this is the next big one that we really want to do. Okay. Can you hold out how long that it’s the next big project? Well, I was really hoping it was going to be this fall that it would be happening.

11:58 Krista- Yep … has there ever been a social media site where you can post- I do have one. Yeah, she is. Yep. There’s a Marblehead Swap Shed Facebook group. Okay. And- And posting what went over and- Yes. I’ve been posting things during the-Day of the swap shed less because it’s so busy that once I’m there, it’s just constant people calling my name. Mm-hmm. So I don’t get to post a lot. Whenever we’re closed, I make sure I post there. And then if I’m trying to focus on something that I really want to get rid of that day, I’ll throw it up there. Because sometimes I’ll accept something that’s bigger if I really think it’s going to go. Because I’ve been doing this since 2013,

12:45 I’m very familiar with what goes and what doesn’t. And I can usually pick out, “Yes, nobody’s going to take that. You can just throw it away,” and what we’re going to take. There’s some things that fly off the shelves. There are absolutely plenty of things that fly off the shelves. Like planters and things like that, those will just go.

13:10 It really depends, though.

13:13 We get almost anything you could think of comes into the swap shed. Wow. I know when we had the old shed, I think we got a hot tub at one point. I got a rabbit hutch. We definitely get kayaks and canoes come in,

13:34 stand-up paddleboards, those things. And then if it gets crazy, we would do a drawing for it. If we’ve got a lot of people that want it, then we would do a drawing for it. We really haven’t had to do that much. People have been pretty good about, “I saw it first.” Mm-hmm. And then we’ll weigh it on the way out. So, yeah. So you’ve got the numbers for our- Yeah, that’s incredible. Yeah, it’s incredible. It’s been, aside from the trash strike, which is understandable why- Yes … there’s a drop- Yes … on a linear pattern. Yeah. That was very hard for us- Yeah … during the trash strike, because our clientele really wanted to keep on going. Right. It was trash season. Yes, but the traffic up there was just too much, and we cause enough- Yeah … I mean, we’d cause a problem obviously.

14:21 The biggest thing I tell people when they talk about the next trash contract and they’re like, “Oh, it was so fun going to the transfer station.” I’m like, “You realize the swap shed was closed?” Yeah. Right? So yeah, it would be nuts. Yeah. Are there things, I know you’re better at this than anyone, like grants or say someone did a GoFundMe to raise money to expedite things. I know you- So there are some small MassDEP grants- Yeah … that now, after this next fiscal year, we will be eligible for again- Mm … because of 3A and stuff like that. But you tend to be talking small dollar amounts for those. Yeah. $1,200, $1,400. It is something that we can keep an eye out for.

15:06 Do they allow GoFundMes and stuff like that? I know some things get tricky around that. I think we’d have to really look into that to see what the legally opinion is on that. Okay. But- What’s a rough cost of the swap shed? I would have to take a look at some of the estimates we had for that drawing. Mm. You’d be surprised what some of the costs are. I looked at the ones I saw for a kit, which is basically they send you the structure and you put it all together and stuff like that, and it was around 40. Yeah, that’s correct. Those are some of the prices that the kits that we’re looking at. That doesn’t include electricity? Doesn’t include labor. No, you don’t. You just do everything. Yeah, yeah. So like- But would it be wired for you? Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It’s just you have to do everything, and that means like windows and stuff. You have to do all of it, but they send you the structure.

15:53 Yeah. And you- But in addition to grants, if we actually had a 501 [c] [3] , the nonprofit that we would call either the Friends of Public Health or the Friends of the Swap Shed- Mm … or whatever, enough people have lived in Marblehead and have felt good about that

16:14 place and how it works. This is a generous town when- Yeah … the triggers are activated. So is it, would you like a motion to endorse? Or this is just for our information? This is really just for information. Yeah. Obviously, this is a long-term plan of ours to make sure we complete. Yeah, no, I think you could get a lot of donations in town. I just don’t know. I know there’s always some weird legal- Yeah. Again, like Tom said, the Friends of- Yeah … would need to be established and then yes, that’s the quickest way to do that. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So you’re already thinking about trying to set that up anyway, so that’s… Okay. Yeah. As soon as we get through the town- Maybe it gets expedited. Yeah. With the town being open.

17:01 Yeah. Then we need to find an inexpensive lawyer to help us put together. They have to be separate from us, but they’ll be friends. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. So we’ll try to see if we can do that. Yeah. Sooner rather than later would be great. Yes. Yeah. Because we are very tired. Mm-hmm. It’s very difficult to do that every single Saturday, especially during when it’s really hot. Yeah. When it’s in the 80s and you’re doing that, you pretty much, you’re done for the day. You’re going home and going to sleep because you’re exhausted. Yeah. So, not having to move all that stuff would be fantastic. Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay. So yeah, I would just ask if, when we have drawings or

17:47 plans or things like that, if I could just see- Yeah … what’s going on and- Yep … give some input and show my team. Yep. You know? That would be great. Yeah. We can do that. Yeah. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh. Gretchen and her team do a fabulous job up there. I don’t think a lot of people understand they save the town thousands of dollars every year, because if it didn’t go to the swap shed, it would be hauled out on a turret and we’d be paying 100 and something a ton for itA lot of people go there as a social club. Mm-hmm. Very much so. They get there early and they’re there late, packing everything away. If you imagine trying to pack your whole house into a space from over there to that wall, they do amazing job putting everything in there the way they do it. I get a lot of stuff.

18:35 It’s very good too. My grandkids come from Switzerland. I get stuff when I’m done and bring it back type of thing, and there’s some really good treasures up there. So whatever we can do to help them along better. If you haven’t been there yet, Mandy, you should look. Yes, you should. You should. To see what’s going on. We get up there at 8:00. Without the enormous publicity of what a good job they do. Tons of kids toys. Yeah. I have a lot of stuff of mine. Yeah. We get up there at 8:00. We start at 9:00. We close at 11:30, and then we’re usually there from 11:30 to 12:30 or 1:00, packing up. Yeah. So it’s a long- Long day … it’s a long day. Mm-hmm. Are there… I wonder if there’s any volunteer programs with high school students. We had tried high school students. Yeah. It hasn’t worked particularly well. Mm-hmm. We tend to end up with students wandering around, not knowing what to do,

19:24 and because it’s so crazy trying to mentor them and- Coach them … it, yes, it’s difficult. Once they’re along, once they get the hang of it, then they’re good. Yes. Yes. Yeah, we’ve tried Scouts. We’ve tried a few things, but the, our best volunteers are in their 70s because they know what to do. They just do it all. Mm-hmm. But we do have some new, younger members, which is great because they’re the ones who can lift all the stuff. Mm-hmm. And it’s been nice. But we’re trying to get, we always try and get more people when we see someone come a few times. I mean, all it took for me was, I saw a box of books sitting there in front of the shelf. I put the books on the shelf, and I brought it to the woman up front

20:10 and said, “Oh, I shelved these for you. Oh, would you like to do this, too?” And I just got sucked in. That’s how it happened with me. So anytime we see someone being helpful, I’m, “Come here.” Come on. You also weigh everything that goes out. Yes. You keep rec- I don’t know if they gave you those figures. I gave you them. Yeah. It’s amazing how much stuff goes in and out of there. Yes. Yes. Yeah, so any other questions for me? Thank you for all you’re doing. No, thanks. We’ll- Yeah … do our best. Yes, just let me know- Yes … if I didn’t. I’ll talk to Andrew then. I wanted to say that when I moved to Marblehead, my neighbors all said, “You’ve got to go to the Swap Shop. It is the happening place.” I don’t think people in this town realize the hardships you feel or

20:57 experience or what you go through. Right. And the work involved, just setting it up and then taking it in, and what if it happens to rain in the middle of that time period? Yep. But I almost feel like the Festival of Arts is coming up. Why can’t there be simple, five-and-a-half by eight-and-a-half bill flyers, stacks of them in all those stores? Awareness. Mm-hmm. Talk about the Swap Shop and the hardships and what you’re looking to accomplish because truly, this town does not know what you go through. They love being there. Yeah. It is such a, like you said- Yeah … people have the best time. It’s a happening- It’s a social outing. And you, it’s like a self-esteem buildup. Every, it’s like- It is. I’ve got all my regulars … everybody’s your best friend. I know their name. I give them hugs. It is, some people it is their one day out.

21:42 So I think it’s awareness. Yeah. And just simple flyers, and let those stores and the town just help promote the hardships. Yeah. We also haven’t done anything with The Current or anything like that. Mm-hmm. No. Since the beginning of Current, we haven’t done anything. So we could probably do a better job at getting some public- Have them discover Marblehead. Oh. They put out a big deal every week. That’s a good idea. There’s, you could have a spotlight. They can- Go for it. Go for it. They can interview you- Yeah … and explain it to people. James Moroney might know. Oh, yeah, I know James very- Mm-hmm. This- Someplace for a source of funds perhaps is the- Yeah … Carol and Elizabeth Shattuck Fund. Oh, yeah. Since that’s been going on, a lot of people don’t realize that the only money that can be passed out is the interest and the income it generates.

22:28 They’ve already given out over $12 million from this elderly couple, some neighbors of mine, that people would never know that they’ve done that. But it’s a potential source for some funding there.

22:41 Next time you’re up at the shed, let’s talk about that. See you Saturday. All right. All right. Well, thank you. Yeah. You can move me up to the top. Yeah. Thank you. Just a quick update on the bathing beaches. So we will begin sampling next week, next Wednesday. Again, we would anticipate having passing results. Beaches open on Friday. They’ll run through the summer. We will sample on a weekly basis, always Wednesdays. It tends, it’s generally an hour before or after high tide. And they will run all the way to September 13th, so that Wednesday before, with the beaches technically closing September 13th. And again-

23:29 I saw a fire truck going up the other way. Yeah. Private. Nice work. Somebody’s opened a new one. They shouldn’t have. Oh, they went through the school apparently. Yeah. DeGaulville or something. Yeah. They got a-

23:43 You’ve never been to the Swap Shop, have you, like? No. You’ve been to the Swap Shop. Once. Right. Yeah, it was amazing. Get up there, young lady. A few Sundays I’ve tried, and it was closed. I think I have to join that Facebook group, and- When the new board’s here, the new people. Probably. I know. We will all have to do a field trip up there. So yeah, we’ll, testing runs through beginning September, with the bathing beach closing on September 13th. We do understand that people generally swim year-round here and stuff like that. This is the time of year, generally testing occurs during high-temperature time, when we, the possibility of having bacterial exceedance increases. Mm-hmm.Curbside collection update. We will be distributing bins next week.

24:30 So Green Ray will be coming in beginning on Monday, June 1st, and we will be distributing the 16,000 bins all of next week. We have a meeting with them tomorrow to go over their schedule. We’ll have deliveries essentially every day. Deliveries come in and then bins go out. And where– Do we have an area? I don’t have a map. We will be discussing- Oh, no, no. I mean at the transfer station, because you know you’re going to get… Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the majority of the area where I’ll have to store some stuff will be up in the yard waste area. Yeah. Okay. Yep. And again, you’re talking tractor trailer loads of new. What about if people delivering their old bins? I know we’re- That’s- So we’re not at that point yet. So yeah, once

25:16 we distribute all the bins, we will have a dumpster up there. We do have a dumpster up there already on a daily basis. It’s called the bulky rigid plastic bin. Mm-hmm. Again, we know we’ll be taking a lot more in. What we’re looking to do is trying to break down the bins a little bit so they’re not taking up as much space. So we’re looking to pull wheels off, remove lids. You kind of stack them together a little bit better, and then those will be going away, get disposed of.

25:46 So I think you people might want to- I do. Are there any comments? I know you want to talk. Are there any comments? Yeah.

25:55 So sure, I’ll start. I wrote it down so I could– We’re all sort of here for the same reason. Marblehead is a unique town. It would be great if you introduced yourself. Oh, sorry. I’m Karen Page. I live at 75 Elm Street, Bradford Court in Marblehead.

26:13 It’s a unique town. It’s not a one-size-fits-all type of town. Many homes are attached with little or no yard. Some have no parking. With this new system being proposed, homes that don’t have space for these trash and recycle bins have no other option than to opt out and be responsible for their own trash and recycle by taking it to the transfer station. Why does this have to be their only option? Why can’t homeowners in Old Town have a choice, continue trash and recycling as it currently is, or go to the new system? Why can’t the person who has to move the bins to the back of the truck, for the smaller trucks in Old Town, why can’t the person who has to move those bins to the back of the truck,

26:59 throw plastic bags into the back of the truck so that people could continue? Also, why couldn’t a group of homes, if that can’t work, why couldn’t a group of homes say, “We’re sort of an association,” why couldn’t an association get, say, three bins? Say we could put all of our trash in three bins. We don’t need 23 bins. Has that been considered or thought about? And especially with condo buildings and apartment buildings. I mean, Old Town, we’re going to look like a trash heap. I mean, we’re just going to have bins everywhere. It’s going to be very unsightly, in my opinion. And then, also, a lot of people are not aware that these bins are all of a

27:48 sudden going to show up at their house. They will be. They will be. They will be. And then, I understand that if they opt out, then they are also then responsible for getting those bins back to the transfer station. It just, in my opinion, does not seem like the best plan. And is there any remedies, anything we can do about it? So again, a couple things. So this is industry driven, so when we put everything out to bid, companies will no longer bid on regular collection. They will only bid on automated collection. We understand in the downtown area, that is challenging with parked cars and stuff like that. So the contractor that we’ve hired is going to be collecting the downtown

28:34 area just like they do today. So the change is that we need to regulate, as we have regulations now, how much trash can be put out and how it’s put out. What we deal with now is that, so we currently have rules and regulations that all trash being put out has to be in a barrel with a tight-fitting lid. That does not occur, and so we deal with rodent issues, we deal with blowing trash, and we deal with other issues like that. We’re trying to do the same thing for recycling. Everything has to be in a bin with a tight-fitting lid, so the recycling’s not blowing down the street. We very often have calls to say, “Hey, it’s windy outside. My recycling’s blowing down the street. You going to come and clean this up?” The answer is no.

29:19 We don’t have the capacity. That’s not our job. The bins are the same size as most people actually buy. Yes, the recycling is a 95-gallon tote, but it’s got the same footprint as a 65-gallon barrel. So we have tried to think of everything possible, and we don’t think it’s really going to be that much of a change. Some of us don’t even have bins, though. That’s what I’m trying to say. We don’t have anywhere to even keep a bin. And so- Right. So technically that’s against the rules today. Marblehead. So there are trash solid waste regulations in the town of Marblehead. They just haven’t always enforced them. Okay. Yeah. And it is like the places that were

30:05 willing to do it were far more expensive in their mom and pop shops. And you know how this type of thing goes, when the industry moves in one direction, like they’re going to be there eventually. So even if we paid more, you’re kicking the can down the road for five years- Yeah … six years, and then you’re in the same spot. The one thing I’m wonderingAnd I don’t think this works with subscription, because- Right … when you’re subscription, it’s just like a magazine. You can’t be like, “I only want these articles, and my neighbor only wants these.” You’ll have to be individual or something. But if it’s in the override, I’m sure neighbors could probably work something out where it’s like, “I keep mine

30:52 in my basement, in the corner,” something like that. Or, “I keep it in a storage unit that I have somewhere, a few of them, and we all share these ones here.” You know what I mean? Yeah. Two things. So for instance, 1 Green Street has six condos in it, so that means they’re going to get 12- They don’t apply. Yeah. So it’s only for units that are- Okay … apartments that are four units or less. Okay. So we’re considered single family homes, but we have 23 units. Mm-hmm. I’m in a middle unit. Mm-hmm. I don’t have any place to put a trash barrel. Yeah. And this is- Any trash barrel … this is kind of why I’m saying, and it’s hard to say because I don’t want to tell anyone how to vote, you vote on the best.

31:39 But if it’s in a subscription, there’s nothing really. It’s set to every house. My suggestion is that you have people opt in, not opt out. Because you’re going to start delivering these things next week, and people are going to get them on their driveway, and they’re like, “What am I supposed to do with this?” Well, it’s kind of like what you pointed out. A lot of people, we’ve been talking about it for months at our meetings. It’s been in all the papers. I put it all over social media, and as you said, people still don’t know. Yeah. So if we make it and you opt in, then one day you just keep putting your trash out and you’re like, “Why is no one picking up my trash?” And because you- But then they have to opt in if that’s what they want But how would they even know if they don’t know already? They just sit there and leave their trash out for days, and they’re calling the

32:25 health department being like, “Why has no one picked up my trash?” It’s like, “Well, have you read the papers?” And since all the t- Then it puts it back on them, though. It doesn’t put it on you. It puts the responsibility back on them to either take it to the transfer station, or to opt in and get these barrels. But right now, we don’t have room for, what is it? 46 barrels. Yes. Yeah. So the amount of options- It would take up our whole, I mean, the whole street. It’ll be a mess. It looks like the projects. No, I agree. And I think it’s going to be hectic at the beginning. And I lived in Salem where they have this exact policy, and they do have some roads like this where things do get complicated. But I lived in two different areas there, both in historic

33:11 areas, and it works. And I didn’t think it would work when I first moved there. I’m like, “Oh, Jesus, look at the size of this thing.” And then it’s like, it’s not a big deal- And on the- … when I got to it … I walked down Pine Street today, the day, we had trash day today. Yeah. And there was really nice trash barrels in everybody’s driveway or in front of their homes. Mm-hmm. And now those are going to trash? Correct. Recycle. So again, some of the issues that we have right now is that we have regulations that say you can only have a 65-gallon trash can. We have cans out that are as big as 95. So when I’m trying to get a bid for trash collection and it’s all over the place, even though we have these regulations, the numbers go up. We’re trying to deal with

33:58 fiscal constraint. We’re trying to get the best numbers. The town is in a financial situation. So when we write these proposals and these regulations, we’re trying to think of everything to try to bring in the best price for the community. By doing the 65, having these regulations, and everybody gets the same barrels, everybody’s treated equally. Again, they’re not your barrels. The town owns the barrels. So any time there’s a damage to the barrel, the town will come out and fix that. It prevents some of these ongoing issues of, “The trash guys are throwing my barrel, it’s broken, somebody needs to fix this.” We have a very small department that actually runs the waste department. There’s essentially two and a half people that answer all the phone calls, all the emails.

34:45 If we had 8,000 homes emailing me on a daily, or trying to opt in, we would be so swamped we wouldn’t be able to get to that. What if we eliminated trash pickup altogether, like some towns do, and we were responsible- I think there’s actually somebody upstairs. I think. Yeah, there’s nobody up. What’s going on, Officer Nixon? They’re taking it to the- Thanks. What if we eliminated it entirely? That would be a major change. But we also just, remember the swap shed talk right there? So that was- People wouldn’t all go at the same time. They’d all go Saturday. People who want to take their trash or couldn’t take their trash could pay a private contractor to come and

35:34 pick it up. That’s what happens in lots of towns. So if you- People who can’t come … Yeah. No. So you can do that right now. You can vote no, put it to a subscription, opt out, and you can do exactly what you’re saying. Or even if it’s part of the override, and it goes back into the tax base, you can opt out and do your own thing. You don’t get a tax relief or anything like that, but you can opt out and do your own thing. But- And then the barrels would not be dropped off at your house. They’d be dropped off there, but then they’d just be taken back. So it’d be a minor inconvenience. Who’s going to take them back? For you four? I’m taking them back. Okay. Again, so there’s- There you go … so there’s like, if you’re opting out and the barrels don’t get delivered- Tell you what, for your entire court, if you opt out, I will take them all back. But- And Ms. Paige has my phone number, and she can hold me to it.

36:22 Yeah. So yes, we could- Have you ever considered eliminating trash pickup? Yeah, it was going to be considered a public health threat if we did that. Yeah. Or have less times too. West Babylon and Carlisle, that have much huge, much larger areas of township, have been doing it for years. That’s right. And successfully. And the shop- They set it up differently to- Well- … optimize the traffic flow, and they have longer hours, and they have some times on Sundays, but they accommodate the traffic- So this is one thing I’ve been telling people. I changed a law before I got here. Took me 10 signatures. This contract is five years, so you have four opportunities at town meeting to change it for the next contract. And anyone can do that.

37:07 Anyone. But I just thought- So you have to sell it to the community. But the S- And that’s the thing … the prototype, I thought it worked, the strike for those many, many weeks. No, it did not work. But people- Yeah … the hang of it and slowly buying- No, no, it- … and going up … but it did not work. Trash collection never stopped. It never stopped. We didn’t have trash collection. Yes, we did. We all did. We all had trash collection. We had it. People forget, recycling stopped, trash collection did not stop. Ah. And it was- It was uneven, though. Yeah. It was uneven. It wasn’t per- it wasn’t perfect. It came four days later. Yeah, no, it absolutely wasn’t perfect, and then they were getting the hang of it and everything, but the recycling, the transfer station cannot handle the capacity of recycling for this. Well, it has to change its protocol. That’s what I’m saying.

37:54 It’s probably cheaper to revamp, to make it work with the other towns, than it is to change everyone’s life. But we can’t handle the capacity. Well, you got the space. It just has to change. No, we don’t. We don’t. It’s all this open ground. I drive up there all the time, and it just, a lot of… I mean, you go to Weston- Change the traffic flow. That’s our biggest issue. Yeah. I mean, and the- Yeah. Weston looks just like it. What if we wanted to assign- Portsmouth looks just like it … different districts- Who does the population that comes Monday? One district comes Monday, one district comes Tuesday. I think the population’s less than this. But what would you do? So you’d have to say if you assign different- Okay … if you assign different districts, what do I do? I work Monday through Friday in Boston, so when do I go? Right. So everyone has time constraints. But that’s the same as 按 摩 . They have to work.

38:39 Well, open up a Sunday. Other towns have accommodated the traffic flow to make it more possible. But then you have to ask, where do we get the money to do that? It’s probably cheaper than having this new thing that you want to set up. So if you didn’t pick the trash up, it would be- No … cheaper to almost- It has to be cheaper than what’s going on. Well, you say it has to be cheaper. The money doesn’t exist right now. It’s zero. The town kicked it completely out of the budget, so there is no money to change anything, and that’s a big aspect of this. That was discussed at the town meeting. Yeah. Yeah. On June 9th on the- Now, I don’t agree with what the selectboard did, but that’s what they did. Right. They reallocated it and said, “You guys, nothing.” The meeting somebody worked that out. Yeah. So- That it used to be in our property taxes, and now

39:26 they’ve made it a line item, isn’t it? Yeah. There was no good discussion at town meeting. I talked to myself. Exactly. And- I didn’t say there was discussion. It was more like a baby sit. I didn’t say there was discussion. I said- Yeah … it was mentioned at the town meeting. Yeah, no, it was mentioned, and I don’t agree with the selectboard on this. And maybe I’ll just say this right now, I plan on introducing an article next year that would, if this override passes, that would earmark that 2.3 million for trash forever, where it can’t be reallocated for anything else. Any additional overrides would be the difference between this contract and the next contract. And if the town voted that down, it would trigger an underride to remove all of it and give it back to the taxpayers because that’s what they should have done, and they didn’t. They’re being completely irresponsible with the way they did it. They did it after warrants closed, so no one could change it.

40:12 The selectboard really what is at fault for this, for waiting as long as they did, and now we have to clean up a mess that they created willfully. They waited. We all knew this was coming. I stood at town meeting two, three years ago, and the finance committee said they knew it was coming, they were ready for it and everything, and then they just did that. Everyone should be pretty damn mad at the selectboard for this. But they’re going to be mad when they get these barrels in their- Yeah, no, they are. They are. And like I said, it’s going to be imperfect. But what was the other way is what I say. Sounds terrible once that roll out. I think there’d be a lot of people, we’re going to have a lot of people that’d be mad about the barrels. How many people would be mad if we just told them, “Hey, guys, you’re on your own. Figure it out”? There’d be a lot more people mad about that.

40:58 And I have property in the historic district. I grew up in the historic district. My mom lives there. She has no room. One thing I look at, and I’m going to have to hold it myself on this, is I’m a DIY guy, and one thing I look at all the time is whenever I do a project, I watch five– I’m pretty good at it, and I watch five different people do the same thing so I can see their nuances. My dad was an accountant, and he built this, next to my mom’s house for her and the neighbor. Well, for them and the neighbor, this structure for bins. It’s not going to work anymore. That’s one of the last things I get to see of my dad. Because he’s not alive anymore. That’s not going to exist, and I have to accept that because I think it’s for the greater good of the town, and this is the best option. And it breaks my heart.

41:43 I’m sure it hurts my mom. I’ve never asked her about it. But all of us have to understand that there is no ideal solution, so we have to try to find the best way we can to move forward. And this is the direction the industry’s going in. We can drag and hold back. It’s coming. And this is the best way to do it. Like I said, in Salem, it does work. I’ve lived it. I still live in Salem. I have property over there, and I have to do it with my tenants. But yeah. Another question. What happens to people, there are a lot of owners that live out of town. Yeah. And what about the people that are renting How do I know that they are aware of anything? That’s the biggest thing. It’s like there’s no way– We can only make everyone as

42:30 aware as possible. So, when you have months of meetings, you put it in all the papers- So, I mean, I’m- No, and it’s on social media. It’s like, what more can we do? Yeah. It’s like, I can’t knock on everyone’s door. Yeah. So you hope word of mouth gets out. You hope people, and as you know, I’ve been fielding questions from everyone. Oh, I know. Yeah. And I’ll take them. It’s fine. Yeah. And trying to help out the best I can. I’ve said since day one the historic district’s going to be an issue because I lived there my whole life. Right. Yeah. So I get it. It’s not going to be fun. It’s not going to be ideal. But wasn’t the historic district considered to be waived at one point, too? That they weren’t going to do it in the historic district? Because I- No, it’s just that they have a different truck. So they have a smaller truck that loads from the rear.

43:17 And a lot of these things, too, which one thing people don’t realize, too, is a lot of these companies, one of the reasons is obviously they save money moving to automation, but they also save injuries. Lifting up trash barrels. Yeah. I mean, I have a bad back. I’m 44. I could not do that job. Like, so- Yeah. It’s bad when- So when you put them on the back of the– When they load from the rear, there is a hook back there that lifts it in the back of the truck. Okay. So that’s what those guys are doing, hopefully moving fast along, doing it. But they’re not lifting them. I don’t begrudge the- Yeah … trashmen whatsoever- Mm-hmm … in the way that it’s- No, I know. Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like the District 1 should’ve been waived from these trash people. Well, this is why the-

44:03 Unless somebody wants to opt in. Well, the way– So it’s kind of hard if you move to a subscription, because then you’re trying to guesstimate the amount that people, to put the price at and things like that. But like I said, whether it’s a general override or whether it’s a subscription, you can opt out. And you brought up a good point when you said the people that are snowbirds. They’re not just in the historic district, and how would they even know? Unless they just show up one day and there’s trash barrels and they’re like, “What’s going on here?” So, and the bills have to get paid. If it had always been in the general, it wouldn’t be as big of an issue as it is now. But the subscription, now you got to consider if it goes to subscription,

44:50 how you pay the bill. It’s not like, oh, if this many people opt in, the company’s like, “Oh, yeah, reduce it this much.” They’ll be like, “Nope, it’s 2.2 million no matter what, whether you have one person or 8,000.” So- Mm … that’s the contract that you get. When did they come up with the price, then, for the subscription? Two meetings ago. Yeah. Yeah. And so- I mean, more people, like you assume maybe so many people aren’t going to, they will opt out. So, in similar towns, the opt-out rate was 3%, and I’d asked specifically, do they have transfer stations? Basically, do they have options? And it was no. So, we doubled it to 6%. I personally, I’m telling my mindset here, I wanted

45:38 to keep that number lower than what I think the actual opt-out rate will be. And I did that intentionally because the difference would be made up through the waste revolving fund. If it was less people that opted out, the town would keep that money and just spend it on whatever they feel like, doing whatever town stuff. They never saw a dollar they didn’t want to spend. So I don’t want to give them that opportunity and I want to make sure we save as much as taxpayers as we can. So, we went 6%, which I think will be lower than the opt-out rate if there’s a subscription, but based on other towns.

46:18 And if we don’t agree with this, we go for option four? No, so option four is right now there’s absolutely nothing. So option four is the general override to put it back in the tax space. Okay. And this is what you want to think about with that one is that, for those people that do want to opt in, it goes based on the average cost per house would be $260. So the average household, I think, is 1.2 million- Yeah … value. So, when it’s part of your property taxes, it goes with– If you have just a single family, like a condo or something and you’re at 500,000, you’re paying less than the 260. If you live out on the neck in a giant mansion, you’re

47:07 paying more. It moves like that. When you go to subscription, it’s the same price for everybody. So, I have a three-family in the historic district. The price is 290, so it was 260 if it was all 8,000, we had to estimate, or 270. We had to estimate what it would be if people opted out, which brought it to 290 for subscription. Now, I have a three-family in the historic district. That means each unit would pay 290, rather than the entire house paying 270. So it gets really- So you’re opting in or you’re opting out, because now I’m confused. Yeah. I mean, so number four- I’d say the most financially responsible thing for my tenants would be it goes

47:56 into the general, the override passes, and then they pay a smaller proportion because they just have an apartment. Okay. You know? That’s- Yeah. Yeah. But you said rents will go up for people. Yeah. Well- Exactly, because- We- … you’d all be paying the same amount with a subscription regardless of the size of your house. So that’s what you should know when you weigh in to vote. And I’m not telling anyone how to vote. There are advantages. Obviously, you might prefer a subscription if you live on the neck in a $10 million house and you’re paying as much as someone that lives in an apartment. But, so everyone’s got to look what’s best for them and then vote accordingly there. But-If I was to say

48:41 your situation, where you guys all live in that court, and say the override passes and it becomes part of the tax base, you’re all in. I would say,

48:54 find a place where you can stash some of the barrels and consolidate down to however many you think is appropriate. You mentioned at this meet before you can’t share barrels. That’s if you were in a subscription. If you’re a part of the tax base, you’re all

49:10 in. Everyone’s in. But if you’re in a subscription, then you definitely can’t. But then you attract the raccoons. No, these things are- They are good … they’re legit. Like I said, I have them in Salem. It’s never been an issue. I have them too. It’d be way less of an issue than what we have now for barrels. Because you look, and people have bags on the outside and stuff. These, not an issue with anything. We’d have to have them in our front yards in the middle of a circle. That’s pretty ugly. Yeah. It’s not going to be ideal. It destroys the value- Tom’s going to come and take them all … of our property. I told you I would. If whoever wants to opt out or- Of these four, right? Is that what you’re saying? No, I’ll do their whole court. I got his phone number wrong. I’ll do the whole court. If you guys opt out,

49:57 and you don’t want the barrels, you opt out- Yeah … I will personally come and for your whole thing. It actually might be cheaper for that number of units to get a dumpster. I’ll be here. Yeah, no, it’s true. We don’t have the space. Or you can have someone pick it up. You could have someone else pick it up. We just don’t have space. Cheaper than paying 20 bucks. That’s the old town, has no space. Yeah. I know. But mostly, we don’t have a choice. Yeah. Our present contract for 10 years, it’s been a real good deal. It was a very good deal. Yeah. Pick up the recycle, get rid of it. Zippo. Yeah. It was nothing. Nothing. The company’s been doing it. We’ve just been paying for the rubbish. Yeah, and as Andrew said, they turned a blind eye to things being next to the barrels and things like that. That’s just not going to happen.

50:42 Yeah. The town gave me a box, an open box, 30 years ago. You people gave it to me. Yeah. And now you’re telling me it’s illegal. So I live alone in a house. I don’t want 96 gallons picked up. I don’t want it either, but I’m going to do it. Yeah. If we opt out, does that mean we do not get the barrels delivered, or do we- They’re going to be delivered, but I told you, you guys are all set. They’re coming regardless. Because I will come and take them. So before the barrels get delivered, you’re saying- When you have that many barrels, it’s going to be a little heavy We also don’t know yet if it’s part of an override or if it’s part of a subscription. We just don’t know. Well, it doesn’t really matter because we don’t have the space for it. I mean, we’re going to have 46 barrels. We’re one of many in that-

51:28 There’s 23 units … frosty ring-around-the- There are groups of threes … circle. I live in the middle. Yeah. I don’t have anything on the side. I don’t have anything in the front, unless I want to look like the projects. Yeah. And I don’t want to look like the projects. Yeah. You’ve kept your- Where do you put the rubbish now? I’m curious. I- Like when I lived down here- I walk- … we had little bins for the paper There are 12 of us who are on the inside- Yeah … of the circle. It was the first group of homes built in those townhouse configurations. And in their ignorance, they built it so that half the houses face Elm Street, and half the houses plus one face into the courtyard. Mm-hmm. So all of us in the courtyard who face into the courtyard, on trash day-

52:13 Mm-hmm … nobody takes it out the night before because we know about raccoons and animals getting into them. Even the goats. We walk it out every Monday morning. Yeah, the bags. We walk down. Yeah, so bags aren’t going to be a thing. Well, we walk it out, or we take it to the trash. We, most of us- Most of us go to the trash … have- So what we’re looking at right now is, what I’d say, and Andrew, correct me if I’m wrong on this, when’s the election? A week. A week and a half, two weeks? Tonight. Tonight. June 9th. Tonight? Yeah. So you’d have to deal with, depending when it got delivered to your house, a week? Yeah. You’d have to deal with it? We can all do that, right? Yeah. We- Well, I think it’s going to actually be probably a good thing just for some people who are not sure, when they see- Yeah … when, just driving into the courtyard- Yeah … you could see all those trash bags.

53:01 No, see, so- In the wintertime, you barely make it from our house to the entrance. Mm-hmm. The snow builds up so badly. It’s as high as a 5’2” person. Yeah. Last winter was- Yeah. It was crazy. And five years ago, every winter is a hard one, but this one was even worse. So we have winter to worry about when you’re talking- Yep … about the style of- I lived it, 43 years. So, yeah. Salem is a lot more open- No, no, no. Marblehead. But- Marblehead. 3 Street. But Salem being a successful area. Yeah. Marblehead is the teeny weeny streets and- Yep … there’s no place to put anything anyway. Yeah. And nobody wants to walk down a cute historic town looking at huge garbage bins. That’s unsightly. No, agreed. It destroys the beauty of this 1600-year-old town.

53:49 I agree, and it’s not ideal. That never will I say that this is great and we should all be super excited. You’re not going to hear those words out of my mouth. But it’s not ideal, but the options just aren’t there. Keeping things the way they are now, it’s way more expensive, and you’re only going to get it for five more years. So let’s figure it out. Let’s make it work. Well, maybe you’re talking about five more years if it continues the way it is. Five more years- No, five years closed … opening. I, oh. Look, the last landfill in Massachusetts is supposed, scheduled to close 2030, but five years is the contract right now. Okay. And the next contract, so right now you do have mom and pop shops bidding on this.

54:34 Mm-hmm. But the big guys are getting the contracts. So what happens to mom and pop shops when Walmart moves to a town? Mm-hmm. The mom and pops close down. So in five years, when you’re going for bids-You ain’t going to have those ones for the option at any price. So you got to kind of…

54:56 I wanted to ask you also, there was some discussion on social media, and you answered a couple of the questions- Yeah … about people from Swampscott coming over and using the transfer station. So we have a license plate reader now there, and it’s actually very cool. So what it does is, there’s a booth at the top of the transfer station. You ever seen that? Just a really small booth. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a computer in there, and down at the entrance is a camera. And on the computer, it shows a picture of the license plate when they come in, and the border is green if they’ve paid, and it’s red if they haven’t. And the really cool thing, I think, because a lot of times you’ll get it when it’s red and they’ll be like, “Oh, I just forgot this time,” da, da, da. Which you can turn on, be like, “Okay,

55:42 well do it next time.” It tells you how many times that person tried it. Oh, gee. So it removes the excuse, and that’s huge. Because yeah, I always tell the story, I have a multifamily in Salem and I was living there for a little while, and actually, I was living there when I was first running for the Board of Health, so I had the sign on the side of my car. Well, no, I wasn’t living there. I was taking care of the tenant stuff when they saw it. And, I had the sign on the side of my car and he’s like, “Oh, what’s that?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m running for Marblehead Board of Health.” He’s like, “What’s that?” And I go, “Oh, it’d be running the transfer station.” I tried to say the easiest thing. He goes, “Oh, I love that place. I go there all the time.” So it’s like now he can’t. Well, what happens? What happens to that person? We stop them. You turn around. Yeah, you just point to the exit, get them out.

56:29 Or they- Or go to weigh and pay. Up- Where’s the person who’s stopping them? Because- He’s in the booth and he’s watching the computer. Sometimes he comes out and helps people. They tend to know. You can see the license plate after, you can see the make of the car. And is anybody monitoring how many times somebody has been in? Yeah, that’s what they do. Right. Yeah. Is there anybody a step above that saying, “Oh, this person has been here 10 times, and they’re from Swampscott”? Andrew could probably answer that better, but it is very new. This is a very new system. I know, yeah. And I envision that eventually you just say, you’re saying to someone like, “Hey, at this point you’re trespassing and we’re just going to call the cops.” And now- But there was just these people in Swampscott were saying, “Well, oh, I love to go

57:17 to the Marblehead Transfer Station.” That was in Salem. That was four years ago.

57:23 But Swampscott, yeah. And I monitor that, and Andrew knows I’ve sent a bunch of him messages being like, “Hey, look out for this guy.” Where I’ll catch them sometimes on social media. And what about if you get people from Marblehead who are going through there and don’t have a transfer? It tells you, because it reads their license plate. Right. Yeah. Shows up red. Yeah. Mm-hmm. All right. Yeah. And that is one thing to consider too, is right now it’s a little funky how this sticker works because it’s connected to the beach. It all goes in the town general fund, and the finance department kind of recommends what to charge as a sticker price. But they’re basing that based on the cost of running the transfer station and the beach.

58:09 So if you overload the transfer station, you increase the volume, and you increase the work up there. Then the next year, that sticker price, it has to go up. Right. So it’s always something to consider when you’re voting, too, because a lot of people are casually being like, “Oh, I’ll just go to the transfer station. It’s only 100 bucks.” Right now it is. But if you have 8,000 homes using it, it’s not going to be 100 bucks. Well, you better be cautious. Yeah, no. But when you- And that’s why I tried to put out, you’ve read my social media novels. I try to put all this information out there so people really know there’s a lot to this. There’s a lot to consider. Just to let you know, there are Lowell and Swampscott, Salem, Beverly, anyone, 351 communities, can come to

58:56 Marblehead and pay to dump up in Marblehead. Yeah. So don’t think people are coming from out of town- Yeah … dumping. A lot of times people do, when I’ve read it where they do say, “Yeah, you go there and you just weigh, and you pay,” I’ve seen those. Totally fine, and actually kind of encouraged. The town makes money on it. Yeah, we profit off that. So eventually, I’ve always said over and over again, right now, as we were saying with the swap shed, you’re kind of using the commercial profits to pay for the rest of the construction so you don’t go back to the town for any override money, like for the previous construction. But when that’s done, then you’re starting to have profits that just exist as part of the revolving fund. If you can separate the transfer station from the beach, you could use those profits to lower

59:42 and really capture your costs and how much money you’re making. Then you could determine the sticker price. And in a way, like in a perfect world, you could have towns like Swampscott and Salem coming and weighing and paying and subsidizing all of Marblehead. If you got lucky to that level. I don’t know what it’s at. It’s hard to tell. Right. We could probably go on and on, but you should know that we tried. We have tried, we’ve continually tried to look at what’s the ideal situation for the maximum people, given the technology that’s out there. Mm-hmm. Right. And I think we’re going to have to pay attention to these first couple of weeks to see what we learn. And you are always welcome to come back to the next Board of Health meeting and tell us your

1:00:30 thoughts. And for any reporters watching, I’m not volunteering for the entire town. I’m volunteering for their quart to take their If those prices feel too hefty, 95 and 65, you can down- Yeah. Let’s talk into the camera. And we only have so many, but yes, you need to- And we can’t order more. No. Right, because you’re paying for 2 cents a bag then. Mm-hmm. Okay. The downtown will put recycle up. Not anymore. Can’t do that When we got it for free, they could do it. But now they- Yeah … have to pay a fee. Like your friend, Gene, asks lots of times. Right. So he’ll make it. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Especially during right now’s financial situation, it’s really like you got to look at everything to get it, the costs down as much as we can. It can- Facing- Yeah … an override that’s in the, just minimize it- Can’t … one tier.

1:01:15 Yeah. Tier three, that’s 19%. Not going to pick up anything on the ground. Say that again. No bags. Tier three is 19% on its own. 19.5%. Yeah. Yeah. Increase in your taxes. Wow. I don’t know if people know that. Right. So it’s like,

1:01:29 you got to find… And that’s not including trash. So it’s like you really got to find any way. If you bundle everything up, tier three, the 2.5% overrides. If trash was to pass as an override, in three years you’re looking at almost 30% increase in your property taxes. That’s the financial situation that the town’s in right now. So you got to try to find everything to try to make it work for people. Mr. Director, are there any further from the- That’s everything that I have. It’s fine. Good, guys? Yeah, no. Thank you. We’re all still friends? Stay that. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Well, that’s cute. Definitely. All right. But you’re going to be coming over- I told you I would. Karen’s got my number. I know. Just you guys, though. Don’t tell everyone else. We’ll have dinner.

1:02:16 We appreciate all the information. Yeah. Honestly. Thank you for taking our questions. Yeah. It’ll be helpful. It’s going to be a learning experience. It’s going to be rough. I’m not looking- It’s going to be rough. Yeah. Really rough, I know that. But again- But most people don’t- We’re all going to get through Yes, I know. No one on the board is thrilled about this. No. Yeah. I can tell. I know. Yeah. And like I said, being a historic district resident my whole life, my mom’s going to have to deal with this. Not going to want to come to the home- She’s part- … once all these things- … for me to deliver … get delivered. So. Well, are people going to be able to change out, what are you going to be giving everybody, 65 gallons? So everyone starts with a 95-gallon recycling and a 65-gallon trash for good reason. In that, that’s the exact size Salem has right now, if you look. But because there was an option on the table to do

1:03:03 recycling every other week, and we had an open forum with the town and just everyone was against it. They wanted recycling every week. But those trash barrels last minimum 10 years. I think they will last a hell of a lot longer, and the contract’s only five years. So maybe the next contract there is more of an appetite to go every other year. But if you have the smaller barrel, you’re kind of stuck. Yeah. So you’re kind of preparing for potential future changes, but also everything has to be in the barrels. There’s nothing left outside and stuff like that. And think about all the Amazon boxes. Right. Yeah. Those all have to be broken down and put in the barrels. Struggles of their own neighbors who can’t break- Yeah … the boxes. Yeah. Okay. So the two sizes of trash barrels- So you can, if– And I gave Karen all this information, where you can send an email and say,

1:03:51 our… We have 180 pairs to start. Yeah. Where you’d, instead of 95/65, you’d start with 65/35. Okay, because that’s the number I already have. Yeah. Like- Yeah. So there’s 180 to start with there, but Andrew knows better than I do, the company that does it, they want everyone to start with 95/65. And they say in their experience, most people kind of adapt to it and then end up liking it. But, so they want you to do a six-week trial of it, and then after six weeks, if you’re like, “This is just too much,” they’ll swap it out, and that’s everyone can do that, right? Like- Yeah. I mean, again, we’re aiming towards the downtown district- Yeah … where we’re concentrating on- No, I mean, everyone can do the swap out after six weeks. So again, no, not everybody can do it now.

1:04:38 So- Have the barrels? Yeah, because you’d be paying twice the money. Yeah, all right. So just the downtown district, then. Because you don’t want to have to buy the barrels now and then in five years we switch over- Yeah … and now we’re buying barrels again. Okay. So the downtown district is the ones that can switch. I may have said that- But what- … I don’t know … our circle, half of it is considered the historic, but the other part that’s on Pond Street is not. It considered you the downtown. You’re- Yeah. Yes. Yeah. In some way. And the Monday trash collection is kind of our downtown district. Is everyone comfortable we’ve had a reasonable discussion? Yes. I think we should talk for another minute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we want you to know that we have paid attention to this issue. Mm-hmm. We’re paying attention to you now, and we’ll continue to pay attention as

1:05:24 we move forward. Yeah. And I would suggest we continue to pay attention to the agenda. Yeah. That’s fine. And like I said, Karen has my number. She does. Yeah. Is the meeting finished for tonight? Yeah. Can I ask you something else? There are a lot of them. Yeah. If it’s for something else- Sunday night … just tell us. Thank you. Grace? Oh, my God. Steps. No. You know that? Definitely. Watching barrels. Where are you going to put them again? Do you want me to do your bills or do you want to- Yeah, I can do them. So why don’t we go with the logo? We got A1 Exterminators for rat control at the transfer station, $875. Bob’s Tire Company for tire disposal, $619.50.

1:06:10 Boston Green Fuel Co., they recycle the waste oil, $801.76. I’ll never pronounce these guys right, DeLullius, DeLullis Brothers? The transfer state, right? Yeah. DeLullis? Yeah. They got to do it better. I realize it’s one of their last names, but come on. DeLullis Brothers, $142,322.28. Dynamic Waste Systems for shrink wrap disposal- That’s all … $551. Yeah. NE Security LLC, that’s the intercom annual service, the $13,644. Gemlers for uniforms, $321.27. Haley Ward Inc., engineering firm for the transfer station, $47.50.

1:06:57 Health training for the AED, $2,950. Is that right? Yep. That’s for the AEDs themselves. Yeah. Oh. For the AEDs themselves. Home Depot for disposal area maintenance, come on in. All of it historic?Yeah, we just talked about it for a very long time. I’m sorry? We just talked about it for a very long time. Well, isn’t this the open- No, this is the- No, no. That’s at admin hall. Well, it’s not. It’s all locked up. Oh, really? Maybe they didn’t do it because of the League of Women’s Voters. Do they not like being in the little gym because it’s rental? No, that’s not our voice. So you don’t know where they meet or- All I know is they usually have it at the Spirit of 76 or Madame Hall. I’ve just seen an absolutely long- Um… Okay. Sorry.

1:07:43 Sorry about that.

1:07:46 Home Depot for disposal maintenance supplies. You can’t go out there. Oh, you- Yeah, you can. They can. You, you’re fine. Yeah. Yeah. The whole trip, there’s a step there that is. $275.01. Now, this one I don’t know what it is. The MA Health Office for MHOA quarterly meeting? Yeah, so Mass Health Officers Association is our trainings. Oh, okay. 75 bucks. Yeah. Marblehead Counseling Center for psychological counseling, $6,788.12. Marblehead Light Department for electricity, $300.78. Marblehead News Group for advertising and promotional, $250. Mead Tellerman, for legal, $1,268.50.

1:08:34 Madugo LLC. Is that what it is? Madugo? I think that this one- Tire container? Oh, yeah. So we just got that new shipping, used shipping container for our used tires. Okay, Madugo, I’m going with. $5,779. Partery Gardening, they handle the landfill and the wetland maintenance, $3,524.

1:09:00 These are names today. It’s like Garrick, but it’s not. Like Re- Re- Re- Reeking? Re-rig. Re-rig? All right. That’s the company, yeah. Pacific Company. Pacific Company, curbside collection, repair parts for bins, 7,900. Republic Services for trash collection, $112,220.77. RMG Enterprises, they do TV recycling, monitors and such, $628.94. T-Mobile for telephone, $33.05. EuTech for mattress recycling company, $6,270. Waste Management for trash disposal, $45,618.81. WV Mason for office supplies and printing forms,

1:09:45 $39.17. That’s it. Okay. You want to go next? No, I don’t have anything. Okay. From the chair, tomorrow we’re going to meet here at 3:00, and get the first batch of the final report for the CALM initiative. We haven’t talked about it much recently, but remember we did that great survey. We got to 2,553 people that responded, which was well above average. We did some focus groups. We’ve done a great deal of demographic stuff. The state of Massachusetts has an awful lot of particular data, health data, relative to individuals in towns.

1:10:34 So we’re going to have the first meeting to see the full report. Remember, the whole purpose of doing CALM was to establish a set of priorities for the town as it strengthens its public health initiative. I don’t think anyone would doubt that when Tom first got on the board, or I first started coming, the public health content of what was happening in Marblehead was limited. It’s financial, it’s everything else. We have worked very hard. I think this board has worked together as well as we can, and we’ve begun to make progress. So I’m excited that tomorrow we’ll begin to put the report

1:11:22 together. And then we hope sometime middle of June we will make the first public presentation to the town, and hopefully if we begin to… I think what we’re going to end up with maybe five or six priorities of improving wellness in the town over the next several years. Obviously, we’re going to have to deal with low-hanging fruit this year that doesn’t have a lot of money, but that’s a real positive. And before we close, we’ll talk about a schedule for the rest of the summer and the board, but that’s what’s happening for the CALM upgrade.

1:12:07 Also, I talked a little bit last time that we used to have a Marblehead Cares website, which died for a couple of good, reasonable reasons. We are resuscitating that website, and I would like to move that Andrew be allowed to enter into a contract with Flat Rock Creative, which is Peter Shellac’s

1:12:39 graphic design approach, that he has found the old website for Marblehead Cares. We have the archives. We’ll start from that, and we’ll make it stronger and better. And this is not my strength, but Peter knows what he’s doing, and with a couple thousand dollars that’s not out of town money, it’s grant money that we have for improving public mental health in town, if we can spend that money, I think it’s very worthwhile. And over summer, you’ll see the website of the Marblehead Cares get a whole lot better. So if I could have a motion? I’ll make a motion Linda second. Is there any opposition? All in favor?

1:13:27 A-Andrew, any questions about what the- No, so the contract line would be not to exceed 3,000 $3,000. Or,

1:13:37 even if you find out at the beginning it needs a little bit more, we do have some funds. Yep. Okay. I think the final thing before we close, we would normally meet on the second Tuesday of the month. That’s the election day this in June, so we can’t meet on the 9th. When do we want to meet following the election?

1:14:07 It’s up to you guys.

1:14:10 The next 16th. You’ve got to know how the override goes. Yeah. They’re going to have to start getting cracking. Should we do that one via Zoom? I don’t want to get killed. It’s a lot of work if all that don’t go through. Yeah. Well, but we can begin to work without having a board meeting. You think we want to have a board meeting on the 10th? Do you want to get input from, there’s going to be at least two new people. Yeah, they have to- They start right- But they have to be sworn in … away. They have to get sworn in first. That’s why the 16th is a good idea. The 16th. Yeah. The third Tuesday. That’s good. I think July 1st, you guys are going to have a lot of calls and emails. Oh, brother, there’s no question about that.

1:14:58 Yeah. No matter what way it goes. Yeah. Okay. Sooners are better, in my opinion. So, it’ll- I’m on their side of the table. If we find a reason that we need to meet together before then, but at least my memory is it took some of us at least a little while to get sworn in. Mm. So anyway, let’s plan on the next meeting being June 16th, and we’ll go from there. Okay. And by that time, we’ll know what the overrides have done. We’ll know the all other, and we’ll begin to think about what meeting– We’ll know the new people, what their schedules are like, what nights they can meet, all of that. Mm. So we’ll go from there. And so on the 16th, we’ll introduce the new

1:15:45 board, we’ll introduce the new members. We’ll try to develop a schedule for the rest of the summer for the implementation.

1:15:55 So yeah, when the barrels get delivered, just so everybody’s aware, they will, for each pair, there’s going to be a packet that comes with them- Oh … in a plastic bag- Mm-hmm … that has the regulations, the introduction to the barrels, explaining the two different votes, the override versus the fee-based. Great. Mm-hmm. Just kind of how that’s going to work. Very, very brief. Obviously- And these are absolutely coming before the vote? Yep. Okay. These are coming before the… Well, for them, yeah. It’s all in that first week next week. Okay. Unless there’s a delay for some reason. But it outlines the two different options. There’s a flyer for the 4th of July fireworks. But all the stuff will be there available to everybody. Okay. You know? How, like the regulations, and how you’re supposed to label the barrel, how the

1:16:43 trash should be going in it, how the recycling should be going in, and all that stuff spelled out for each home. Mm-hmm. Is there any digital public comment? Now, what are we going to do, like for the houses, like you say, again, in the historic district. So the ones that don’t have driveways or anything, the barrel’s just going to be dropped right in front? Yeah, right by the front door. Okay. Yep.

1:17:07 No. Is anyone on at all? Yep, I have three people on. I have nobody raising their hands. Okay. I have a public comment. Is Amanda going to talk about that race car driver? I’m just curious that type of death that he had. It’s a little scary to me that he was in this country. He had pneumonia. Yeah. Oh, I haven’t heard about this. Pneumonia with sepsis or something. What do you have? He got old, he died. I mean, the guy was in perfect health, ran a big race the week before and passed on at 41 years after getting up in the morning and spitting up some blood, unfortunately, and died- Ooh … a short time later. Okay. Boy. There was a thing on public radio, Boston Public Radio, about that today. Stock car racing, apparently they’re in 140-degree

1:17:54 temperatures, and an infection, that could’ve been controlled differently, just got totally out of hand, and he went into multiple organ failure, and it was irreversible. There was nothing that the sportswriter for Channel 10 was on Boston Public Radio today, and there’s no sign of anything inappropriate that happened. This was just a very unfortunate biological situation in a hypersensitive guy to a very

1:18:40 high-temperature environment. So it’s not like contagious down to people that were around him or anything like that? It’s not like a- Generally, pneumonia’s not contagious. Okay. It’s the right bacteria settling in the right spot and the inflammatory process that- We hear all these cruise ship things going. Oh. This happened in this country, so. Well, that’s a little different, the cruise ship. Yeah. We talked about that last- Yeah … week. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay, hearing none. Oh. Okay, a couple of things. Again, I want to thank Andrew for all the work you’ve done. You’re going to get so much grief in the next few weeks, but I appreciate what you did, and I hope you get a big box of a Sedgwick or something. Thank you. Something I noticed tonight, I went to check it out. A few years ago, we voted, or you guys voted, to put the little

1:19:28 Narcan box up by the entrance door. How come we don’t have some sort of signage on that? Most people going there would look like it’s just a mailbox. I thought we had a little sign there. There’s a public health sign on it. So the Narcan, so there was a public health sign on it. Let me look at it tomorrow. So a lot of times, one of these things is that you’re trying to play both sides of making it discreet, so when somebody goes there and they’re pulling something out of the box, the neighbor’s not going, “Oh, I know what you’re doing.” Yeah. Yeah. But also- It’s kind of hidden where it is anyway. Yeah, it is kind of hidden where it is. And again, the idea is to let the public know that it’s there and it’s available to everybody, but not drawing attention to it. Yeah. But it is a higher than anything else-

1:20:14 I think it’s just way up personally to the… I keep my eye on it, and I said, “I thought we had a sign there one time.” Okay. That was about it and… Move to adjourn. Move to adjourn. All in favor, standing vote. Standing vote of adjournment. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you