Board of Health: July 28, 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 Okay. It’s 7:00 on, Tuesday, the 18th of July, 2026, and we’re opening the Board of Health open meeting tonight. We’re going to interrupt the regular agenda because we have some people in the audience who have some time pressures but want to make a comment about some issues with the new trash barrels. They’ve agreed that they will be very short. I can go. Mary, please. So my name is Mary McAllister. I live at 8 Jersey Street, and I’m 77 years old, and I have replacement knees and shoulders. I spoke at the meeting maybe six weeks ago, I think, about the size of them, and since then, I had an incident. And apparently this is not an incident that is uncommon because we’ve found online, I can show you on my cellphone, a picture of somebody doing exactly the same thing I did. So to me, the negligence goes to the manufacturers of these barrels because they put a warning in tiny, tiny letters. Did any of you know that there was a warning on the barrels not to move them without closing the lids? Did you know that?

1:32 I mean, obviously we’ve looked at the barrels, but I’m not going to take anything away from you. No, I know. But I’m just saying, I didn’t know this. I- I saw. Yes. I saw it, but I’m not taking it away from you. Right. That’s fine. But most of the people I’m sure did not read that. Some people are not going to be able to read it because it’s so small. Anyway, so I moved my neighbor’s barrel because the trash men dumped it at the bottom of my driveway, and so I just was going to move it the five or six feet, and I’m moving. And the lid was towards me, it tipped towards me, I stepped down the lid and went flying into the barrel. Which sounds kind of humorous and I’m sure that the EMTs and the fire department got a big chuckle out of it later. But I, bloody nose, bang on the head, bang knee, bang hand, crushing the hand between the handle and the barrel because I am now in the barrel with this thick hand between the handle and the barrel with the full weight of the barrel and my weight on it. I couldn’t extract myself. I was fortunate to have neighbors who stopped by who tried to help me, and they did help me, and I got out. And somebody had a first aid kit. They called 911, and off I went to the hospital. Mainly because of the bump on the head, and that’s what I was more concerned about. And you can see I still have two black eyes from this. I was in the hospital. I was there for five and a half hours.

3:04 They did a head CT, they did three X-rays, hand, hand, knee. And that’s that. Okay, so moving ahead. I’m not here to put any blame on anybody here, I appreciate that you guys all work hard to support Marblehead, but the main focus is that we get the word out that these can be dangerous so this doesn’t happen to anybody else. And that is my concern, that nobody else has this happen to them. The newspaper, we have articles in the newspaper. A friend of mine is going to talk to somebody she knows at the senior center to get it out in their newsletter to seniors. But just generally, this could happen to anybody. And that’s my message. Well, I think you got it out. I mean, I think you’re doing it. So I think you succeeded. So. Okay. Yeah. So. Thank you very much. The minutes will record that. This meeting’s usually recorded, and so we’ll get it as far and as wide as we possibly can. Could we even suggest the emergency phone line, you know, when there’s a snow emergency or there’s construction, if even putting a message out for people to realize that they don’t move those barrels unless the lid is closed. I mean, as simple as that. Okay. Just something. I mean, it’s just an idea. All right. Thank you very much. And I’m so sorry this happened to you.

4:36 I’m sorry it happened to me, too. I know. But I’d rather have it happen to me than somebody who is as unfit as I am, somebody who’s less fit who really could have real serious injury. Thank you for sharing it. Great. Yeah. And I think it’s worth considering putting it on the website. It’ll help maybe you might find a video from the manufacturer or something. Are we getting that echo? It’s

5:10 just that computer. Mine’s muted. Okay. Mine’s good. Yeah. That’s okay. This is the host. But it’s- That’s muted me … worth looking into to see how we could promote this information on the website as well. That’s all I ask. Mm-hmm. Reasonably. And that I get small barrels. My name is on the list. Third. Just one more thing. I was very disappointed that I did send that email and nobody reached out to me. That was disappointing.

5:55 Another way. Well, we’ve done our five minutes. Any additional comments we can do at the end of the meeting or via some other- I promise to keep it four quick, sharp questions. I’m an advocate for Mary, and I encouraged her highly to come and speak. He’s the one that got me to come. So. And it’s because of the barrels. And it’s not an easy answer in how it’s all you’re doing, but I do have a couple basic questions because I have a couple elderly tenants and I’m concerned for their well-being. And I want to know, how many requests have we had for the smaller barrels? About 400. About 400. Yep. And how many have we been able to issue and complete? So we’re waiting on the delivery of the… So we only received 180 small barrels to begin with. And those- Okay, so we have been able to issue all 180 barrels? Approximately, yeah. Okay. So that’s good. And so when will we get the balance? So the remaining barrels will be delivered in the next couple weeks. Once we receive those, they’ll begin the distribution process. Okay. And what is the process to know? Also, I sent in an email, as was suggested to the Board of Health, for the smaller barrels on behalf of both of my tenants, and I have not received anything, and I do not know what the process is and how people will know. So you would’ve received an auto reply to that email? So it should have said, “We have received your request. We have your email. Once upon we have the delivery of all the barrels, we will contact you for

7:25 the replacement of the barrels.” I will look back and verify that, but I do not recall receiving- Okay … an email. And I think that’s one of the key things in the message here, we- What email address did you use? Communication. There’s been a few. It was a slip that was handed to me by, I’m trying, but I forget his name, in the office. He handed me the slip with the PO- It’s mostly health too, but there should be an audit behind to that. But yes. We will have all those emails, and again, we will be responding to everybody to let them know these are the dates that we’ll be changing, because we need to swap out the what– We want to take what you have- Right … and swap out what you know, what you’re requesting. And just to underscore, the communication bit is, in anything that we do, is the most difficult, the challenging things for you as well as for us, people receiving it. And I think the more you communicate, it’s over-communicating. I think one of you said early on, we can’t go back. We’re not going back. So we got to figure out what we’re going to do going forward. That’s right. And the one-size-fits-all is not the solution, and it may be years before we really have this behind us. Seriously. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, now let’s go back to our regular agenda. We’ve reached a point in the Board of Health which is an exciting moment because the work all last year as developing the CALM initiative, CALM being Creating a Healthier Marblehead. If I can show my slides, I’ll be quick.

8:56 Do you, let me…

9:05 Yeah, you should be able to share. Oh, okay.

9:16 Usually it says you can share screen. I don’t see it. So just make sure you kind of minimize the Zoom, and then it should be like at the bottom. Obviously you should be able to- That’s fine. You don’t want to be on the PowerPoint, you want to be in Zoom. Oh, okay. Who is it? It would be you. That’s something I’ve got to share. The shares report. Okay. All right. For those of you who’ve– Hopefully no one in town doesn’t know about CALM, but it basically is a four-step process. We went in and looked at… Well, the goal was to develop the profile of the wellness of the town of Marblehead. There’s a classic eight level wellness definition that looks at various aspects, physical, mental, emotional, financial- … spiritual, all of them. Very well known.

10:49 We put together a 42 question survey. It was distributed, eventually 2,553 people filled it out and we got just tons of information. So now we’re in the stage with all that information, is that we can use the results of the CALM surveys and additional work to begin to develop a set of strategic planning- … for the Board of Health and in some places, some of the assessments for wellness go clearly beyond what the Board of Health can do. And so, we will hopefully partner with our municipality partners and show how we can develop these strategic priorities. So we’re on the green circle. There are copies of these slides for those of you who don’t have them. We are in the next steps phase. And so the Board of Health and its partners are going to focus on translating these findings into meaningful action. The emphasis in my mind should be not only on reducing traditional risk factors, but on

12:24 looking at how we can actually promote conditions in the town to prevent problems and to support wellbeing across the board. So this is a major issue for us. Now, our partners in this, with a group from the University of Massachusetts in Boston, they’ve done 80 different wellness surveys in the state of Massachusetts. Closest ones were Swampscott and Salem. And Dr. Coyle presented after reviewing all of that. Her summary suggests that there were five major points that we should consider as a team, for issues for strategic priority. Stress, parenting, caregiving, pedestrian and bike safety, substance use, financial fragility, and social division. They can answer their 180 slides in her final report. I’m happy to… But we’re going to put that on our website and the Marblehead Cares website once that’s up. Now, the board has looked at most of these documents.

13:55 I have some concern about her ranking. From my- Is this the ranking or is this the kind of the top thought? Like- What she said is she saw, I think, stress because it was such a universal, and we can talk a little bit about that. But from my perspective, the term substance use is under-recognizing the comments. I believe that should be youth mental health One of which is substance abuse, and we’ll come to that. But I think that’s clearly a key issue for us. It has some opportunity, the way the board is now configured, to really make a difference. But are there any other thoughts about the seven… You’ve seen the reports. How would you rank?

15:04 Substance use has got to be higher up. Yeah. Universally, I think we all think so. Substance use or mental health, which includes substance use. Would you do them two separate things? Yes. I’d do them separately. I think they’re separate items. I think the substance use as a standalone item really stands out. It really resonates for people in this town- Mm-hmm … given everything that’s happened in the last three years or so. Yeah. Okay. Now, there are a couple things on here, mostly… Well, the first one clearly is pedestrian and bike safety. There were an enormous number of comments about sidewalks, bike traffic, parking, speeding, all of those things. But the Board of Health, we can help talk about, introduce those results to our colleagues. But there’s very little that the board itself can do. So I think we had a quick conversation. I met with Amanda and Julie the other day, and this came up in our discussion. So it was kind of relative. It was along the line of e-bikes, and the concern about safety with e-bikes. Again, more about youth using e-bikes. Yes, does pedestrian bike safety often come to the Board of Health?

16:36 No, but we should be talking about bike safety and wearing helmets, proper attire, reflective gear. I think some of those things do fall under us. And so therefore, I think it is relative. I think when we talk about stress, so mental health, we’re going to come back to pedestrian and bike safety, because those are great ways to alleviate stress. We should all be getting out there and walking every day. It really is a good way to alleviate stress. And so even though it’s not going to fall under high category, I think we’re going to come back to it often. I think there’s going to be other subjects that cover this. So I do think it’s an important piece. This is the time of changing regulations- Mm … in terms of where bikes of certain strengths can drive, like on the bike path and things. So it’s worth talking about so people are aware of the current regulations. Yeah. I see accident prevention as sort of a core public health activity. When people see that, I think they think enforcement. And that should not be our– That’s for the police or somebody else, not us. But I think, certainly education in terms of accident prevention is a core function of what we ought to be doing. And the pedestrian and bike safety is certainly right up there. I’m completely naive to e-bikes. Do they just have no rules, like a bicycle? Or is- Yeah. Right now, I don’t believe there are really any rules in Massachusetts. Or most people do not believe there are any rules to e-bikes in Massachusetts. Okay. There are two different types, type one and type

18:09 two. I believe type two can go over 25 miles an hour. Type one is below that. But then you can kind of soup your e-bike up, and you can hit some high speeds with it. So there’s no rules on the rail trail, like I can’t drive my car on it, but I could use an e-bike on it? Yes. You can definitely most definitely use it. So again, the hardest thing about some of this is new technology. We’re heading into the future. We’re looking for people to not use their car. We want people to have good transportation. You might trade your bike or your car for an e-bike. If I work in Salem, it might be the easiest way to get over there. It’s very environmental. And so yeah, you’re going to start to see what we call e-bikes on the rail trail. Sorry, is there not a speed limit of 20 miles per hour on the rail trail? I- I think it’s getting advanced in the Senate currently by Art Diana. Okay. Yeah. But of course, then enforcement’s a whole other issue. Correct. Yeah. So just for clarity, there is actually a law in Massachusetts that a e-bike that does exceed 20 miles per hour is not a bicycle, but is instead a motor bike. It falls under moped and other laws, and so should not be operated as though it is a bike. And so it’s not a bicycle and should not be used- Is that just the potential of it going over 20 miles an hour? It’s if it been- Or if it’s actually going over 20 miles … it’s if it’s capable of exceeding 20 miles per hour. Okay.

19:40 So I actually own an e-bike. I had to ensure that the kit that I, because it was actually a kit that I installed on my bike, was set to not exceed 20 miles per hour, or it was considered beyond class two, and was required- Do you have to insure it if it can go over 20 miles per hour? You’re supposed to. Supposed to. But it’s not required. You’re supposed to plate it, insure it, and it’s supposed to be required that you need to be current with them. All right. Well, I stand corrected. We’ll have- We’re talking about everything … the problem with- Yeah … from my point of view, in terms of managing all this, is if we consider all seven as equal, then we have to find worker bees who are going to do the work to both understand all the issues that are out there. How do we disseminate? How do we make sure the things get done? As we move a little bit forward, I’ll volunteer to be the head of one of those groups, but I won’t deal with- But I think the goal is when we set out to do the public health assessment and set the strategic plan, that you guys will choose the top priorities, is that this is our goal for the next five years. Mm-hmm. So we don’t have to take every one of these on right away and be done with it. This is the goal, and this is what the board should be working on for the next five years. Again, after that time, we would complete another public health assessment, see where we land, and see what we need to correct and see where we’re

21:14 falling short in those areas. But that was the idea when we started this. Okay. All right. I think financial fragility has the same sort of… But we’ll move. We’ll- Yeah … put it in our five-year plan- … and go forward. I could add the financial fragility. Obviously, it can come over many different areas. It’s a huge stressor for people. Unhoused is another stressor for people. Yeah. But financial stability, I think is a- Anyway, this next slide, for those of you who have access to the slides, but Jen, there’s a sheet if you want it here. But this is the kind of result that we got on almost all of these topics. What Caitlin, Dr. Coyle wrote is that stress is a both deeply personal and community-wide issue. And the data from the 2,553 people who finished the survey, work-life balance is the primary source of stress for three-quarters of the town under 50 years of age. Now, it’s been a long time since I’ve been under 50 years of age, but I do understand how raising children or developing careers.

22:45 So I think that we can have a really meaningful program to try to look at the stress issues. We passed around on the board, there was an article that appeared in The New York Times, three weeks ago, by a Dr. Harvey Lieberman, who is a clinical psychologist in the metropolitan New York area. The title of it is “I’m a Therapist, Not Everyone Should…” Well, “I’m a Therapist, Not Everyone Should Be in Therapy.” What he’s saying is that the world is so socially disconnected that people have real problems. People who have resources may go to see a therapist and feel better after they’ve talked about it, but it’s not the standard tool-based thing that therapists should do. He brings up in the article that both Japan and the United Kingdom have had fairly progressive programs to deal with the social disconnection of their environment. So I used to say I Googled it, now I AI’d it, and I looked at what’s out there. Multiple countries have begun to develop processes to

24:18 deal with social stress, and there are many cities and states in Massachusetts. So we will have good examples of what’s being done out there, how we can follow them, and keep on top of this and deal with this kind of pressure. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Okay. And, I think we can probably find partners, maybe from the senior center and other places who will help work on that particular issue. Okay. One of the questions that was asked in the survey was, what do you see as the major challenges faced by youth today? And,

25:21 not surprising to me, social media and screen time were the top two problem challenges that the responders believe exist, and then substance use was number three. Anxiety and depression are four, bullying is five. So we have data on where the town believes the challenges are. And, we also asked a question, how might these challenges or these health topics that are out there, how could they be better addressed? Or which ones could be better addressed? And clearly the item that got the most, almost 40% of the 2,500 people who responded, thought that raising awareness on the risks of substance use is probably the most important thing we can be doing to improve mental health. Okay. And, you shouldn’t be surprised, I guess, as a pediatrician, I’m happy to take the primary responsibility to work with the community to really do what we can to improve youth mental

26:54 health. In March, we submitted a grant to try to look at the barriers that exist in the community to having full and robust mental health in our young people. We didn’t get funded, but the original grant was announced that they had $20 million to give away. At the end when they finally announced the winners, they only had $4 million. They originally expected 50 or 100 proposals. They got 182 proposals. So it’s not surprising that we, as first responders, the first time we responded, didn’t get funded. But I think that the proposal makes a great deal of sense for Marblehead. In my humble opinion, having been here for four years now and spent 20 years in the organizational behavior subdivision of a major business school, one of the challenges in this big organization is Marblehead’s pretty silent. We really don’t talk to each other. We have our town meetings, we have open meeting laws, we don’t talk to each other.

28:27 But from my perspective, as we’re even beginning to talk about under stress, that issues like youth mental health are so big that no one municipal agency, no matter how well-intended, no matter how well-staffed they might be. So what we proposed to do in this, it was called Community Health Improvement Program Grant, we proposed to put together a coalition- … of well-thinking Marbleheaders that would meet on a regular basis, and for two years, meet to look at the problems that have occurred for youth in the town, and look at the root causes of those problems. What can we do to remove those causes, the barriers, and move forward? The goal of those grants that we applied for is to come up with a program, an initiative of what needs to be done. Once you have the plan of what needs to be done, you will then apply to the same funding agency, but

29:58 you get about $500,000 for a five-year period to be able to implement the plan. And I think we can move ahead with the coalition that we described, I think with our labor and a few grant dollars that we have. And I would propose that we do that. I submitted the grant proposal to everyone who had time to read it. Mm-hmm. But all the usual suspects were in the coalition. And in fact, there would be more suspects if I had had time to invite them. But it was obviously, well, the YMCA, the Board of Health, the police department, the public schools, Park and Rec, the library. There are 10 of them, well, including the Y. The senior center wanted to be involved. And actually, senior center, even though it’s a problem of the youth, they are very well-versed in developing programs to support certain age groups. So what Lisa Hooper knows about helping the adults, I think we can probably apply

31:32 in ways. We can use the Marblehead Cares website when it’s up and running, and I’m prepared to volunteer, and anyone who would like to help with that. I was ready to volunteer before last weekend. And so I think that what we need to do as a board is to, now that we’ve begun to look at this in a strategic way, we should be prepared each time to talk about one of the areas that deserves further study, and find a few things that might be doable in the short term with the kind of limited resource we have. From my perspective, we want to hit a few singles right out of the box. I think this youth mental health one, if we do it well, can be a home run. But we probably can find, I think getting the Marblehead Cares website up will really be a good thing. We had it up for several years. Somehow we lost it. It didn’t get hacked, but it fell into cyberspace. But we now own it again, and we’re getting it reconstituted. What we found in the survey

33:03 was when we asked people, “What do you think the town needs to do?” Everybody had a big list, and on everyone’s list, the people like Jack Etheridge and Andrew and others who know the town well, were able to say, “We have that. We do that really well.” So there’s a lot of people, there are a lot of people in town who don’t know what is actually available, where their tax dollars or their colleagues’ dollars are going. So one of the things that we’re going to do with the Marblehead Cares website is really to try to make it a navigation resource for the town people about where to get this kind of service if you want to get it. If not a home run, that should be a multi-base hit anyway, because the number of people who’ve been here for long periods of time who don’t know all the resources here, is significant. So we really need to work on that kind of thing. So my suggestion, I hope that we can have CON as part of our agenda at every meeting, and we begin to talk about

34:36 either the areas that we’re working on or the areas that we believe should be working on. For example, the youth mental health one. There’s been a major international emphasis on screens and social media. There was a big positive area, a timeframe in the early spring when Australia passed the first national limits on social media. You had to be 16 years of age to go through the process. Basically, the kids under 16 and the kids over 16 are pretty facile with the web, and many of them figured out a way to get around it. But Jonathan Haidt, the guy who wrote “The Anxious Generation,” which started much of this concern about screens, is saying that, yeah, Australia didn’t go as well as we’d like, but it was a big bite. We learned a lot of things, and things will be better because of that. So that’s the kind of thing that I try to stay up on, and I’ll try to keep us

36:08 up to speed. Any other comments from my colleagues? I have a question. Yeah. Only because I’m not at that point yet, and I only just heard this the other day. And Andrew can probably answer, you can probably answer it, and also a couple of you. In schools, is it essentially required that kids have some kind of tablet? Something like that in high school to get things done. So it goes back and forth. So again, they’re not supposed to have phones- Yeah … in the school, but then they’re supposed to be able to access information. All right, this is what I was thinking. This is what I was kind of getting to. So it’s like, you need this screen, but now we’re going to limit your screen. I think it’s in a weird, awkward space. And obviously, most of the kids all have laptops. Yeah. And that’s what they’re supposed to be using, but a lot of times they’re so much more familiar with their phones, they go to their phones quicker. Okay. Yeah. Actually, a point of, yeah, at the high school, you actually have to have a phone for work. That’s what I was hearing the other day, that it was like you have to log in to get assigned some- Yeah. No, but it’s all online. You can’t do it. There’s no way you get through high school without it. Okay. Oh, yeah. No. It’s all- We are putting screens- But no, but what most of the teachers do is they put up these caddies, various devices. A lot of them have designed them creatively to go with the theme of whatever they’re teaching, like a colosseum for the history teacher. But you stick your phone in there. The problem is, of course, that some

37:38 large number of kids have ADHD, and then wind up forgetting their phones, and this creates chaos. No, I’ve sit for long. I love Yondr bags. I don’t know if anyone’s used them going to concerts or comedy shows, but they’re awesome. Yeah. You have no choice. Right. It’s just in your pocket. Do you think that is something the school is looking at? Yeah. And so we’ll see what happens in the fall, if that’s a- There are lots of experiments nationally with that. You just need a magnet to open it, so I’m sure they’ll figure that out. Right. But it’s a… But I think they’re great. When everyone has to disconnect, it’s amazing. Right. Well, the point is, we now have data. We now have a five-member board. We now have the commitment to really develop strategic initiatives to improve the overall wellness of the town. And one last question, and I’m glad Jim’s here. How can we get people to understand what we’ve got in CALM now, and how can they know what’s in it, and how they can help us make it more robust, and where can we go? We’ve had two visits to the select board, but they were five or 10 minutes and we were talking fast. But we’ve thought about having an open town meeting to really try to get as many people to come, either in an evening or an afternoon at the community

39:11 center or something like that, to really brainstorm. But what are the thoughts of how we can introduce, in a stronger way, the strengths and potential of CALM? I don’t mean to put you on the spot, Jim. No, I don’t think it’s going to come from a presentation at the select board, because that’s broad. Yeah, but I think it’s reaching out. If my wife was here, she’s in line with Amanda on screen time and Tom on screen time, and it’s just continually having those discussions in public and reaching out to people, whatever the thing is. And it’s tough getting people’s attention unless there’s a- It’s tough, isn’t it? … crisis. Well, we learned it from how we thought we were communicating the trash recycling ban pretty broadly, and as we learned today, a lot of people hadn’t heard until they finally got the new tubs. But anyway. And I’ll just leave it at this. We have, on the trash and recycling, we have members of the media here that continuously published it, and I came to meetings and I said, “I know my plan for my oil barrels, and I do it last February.” I promoted your plan maybe five, 10 times. It’s hard. But, well, it gets back to the whole idea of stress.

40:42 If virtually everyone is at a high stress level in town, processing information is not without energy, and if you’re already stressed, you don’t want to deal with issues that aren’t relevant to you. Well- So what we really have to do is convince people that CALM is relevant. Well, right, and I think the website would be a big step in the right direction toward communication, but then you have to make people want to go there, and how do you do that? You have stuff that’s fun, that people want to do. So I’m thinking of, I know I read, it seems like we have a lot of these programs, and I don’t know who runs them or they’re not necessarily connected, but one of the big problems we talk about, just social disconnection and stress. And I know that there have been programs run by the high school, where high school kids go over to The Mariner or the senior center and play games with the elderly, and it’s good for everybody. But just interactions that are fun, I think are- Yeah … going to help a lot. All right. Well, that’s got to be one of our big picture goals. Okay. So preview of coming attractions. Right, the second item that is under my reporting today is the concept of social hosting legislation. In April,

42:14 the district attorney, Paul Tucker, John Robidoux, and Chief Dennis King did a panel at this table and talked about how public education, public safety, and public health should be working together to make the town and the children healthier. In that session, we discussed the commonwealth social hosting law, and we discussed the town bylaw, social hosting bylaw. The chief really likes having both of them. There’s no question about that. I hope to have coffee with him, try to convince him, but I think if the chief weren’t a friend, protege, and counselor to Dennis, Paul clearly sees the commonwealth, which is stronger, longer, and clearer in its action, as the better of the two. My thought was why have a weak law on the board, on the- In the town.

43:46 That if we remove the bylaw, then the stronger one would be driving the town culture. And I actually asked town council to look at the bylaw. Now, the bylaw was passed in the late 1990s or something like that. ‘95. ‘95. ‘95. And in 1995, it was approved by the attorney general as being all constitutional and other requirements. But Lisa indicated that in the past several years, there have been several jurisdictions that have used similar wording to what we have in the town bylaw. And the cases have not been successful because of that. But my sense is fine. Back to information dissemination, I’d be happy if the board were to get an article in the town meeting, and we discussed it in the town meeting. People seem to pay attention at the town meeting. And if the existing bylaw got re-voted, that’d be great. I would be fine. Dennis would be happy, and we would’ve had the discussion. It seems to me that one

45:20 of the issues, and again, going back to stress and computers and everything, how do you get information? How do you get people thinking about things like that? And, so that’s why I wanted to propose that we consider whether the Board of Health should endorse an article. I think that’s the right term, isn’t it? An article for next year’s town meeting to consider repeal of the older bylaw. So, the thing, I’m a little more blunt, obviously. The first issue is neither of them are getting enforced, which is ridiculous. King can say he likes one. He’s never enforced it. And he has Dan Fox’s full support in not… You started the select board meeting, I asked Dan Fox, “Does he support Marblehead police officers enforcing local laws?” And he refused to answer. Which is an answer all in itself. My question, though, would be, if the state law is more strict, then the town law is just supplemental. You have to enforce the state law, because it’d be like if the Massachusetts state law was that you can’t buy cigarettes at 21, unless you’re 21, and Marblehead was like, “Well, we’ll do 18.” Doesn’t matter. It’s the state law. So he has to do- Well, we can’t debate it now. And

46:55 Dennis is a well-trained, he’s a thoughtful police chief. He wants to be seen as a child-friendly police chief, and I respect that a great deal. And so I think having that debate in front of the town in town meeting would probably be good for everyone. And- No, I don’t disagree with that. I want to hammer home with what I think growing up here and being a little more, is we’re actually hitting a major tipping point right now because I brought one thing to read. It was a comment one of my friends made. And I’m going to tell you, me and him were no angels in high school, and we’re looking at everything like it’s terrifying. And so he wrote, after reading the police log, and he dropped my name in it, but it’s irrelevant. “I graduated Marblehead High School, class of 1999, and my friends were directly impacted by three drunk driving deaths between 1999 and 2003. The town saw some before and more recently. I’m not going to stand up and be a fighter on this topic. I already saw Atomic Man push as far as anyone could. So what’s the point? Now I just mentally prepare myself for a few kids I’ve seen grow up to die in the next few years. Not a bad kid, not a dumb kid, just product of our culture. Well, kids will be kids. Sure. I’m with you. I was there, too.

48:27 Do you know there’s a rock cliff on Brown’s Island? You can see it from Grace Oliver’s. We grew up with a great kid, nicest guy around, that fell off a wall at Preston and was paralyzed. He later died from complications. You may trust your kid. I trust your kid, too. Do you put it past your kid to not do something foolish after they crush eight Sun Cruisers on an empty stomach in the hot sun? If you woke up on a Saturday morning to hear, insert random kid’s name here, died last night drinking and driving, or was a passenger in an accident, would you be shocked? Don’t be shocked. Not only will I not be shocked, but I am now conditioned to expect it to happen.” Wow. And that’s kind of where we’re headed now. And like I said, no angel. Me and him, no angel growing up. And it’s getting to the tipping point, this is important that I say this, where the parents are going to start taking it into their own hands. If they have to react to protect their kids, they are. And that’s the discussions that are going on right now amongst my friends. So I think there’s two separate discussions. One is that, and I think it’s a totally worthwhile discussion, and one I absolutely want to have. The second issue is about repealing the bylaw. So speaking with my lawyer hat on, Tom’s right. You can’t create a bylaw that’s less restrictive than the state. You can only make one that’s more restrictive.

49:57 More restrictive. Now, I have to confess, I have not read the bylaw. I got to look at it. It doesn’t make any sense to have something on the books that does nothing or at worst confuses the issue. And so it might be worth having- But I understand exactly what you’re saying, is then it gets talked about in a public space. Yes. Yeah. Right. And, I totally agree. I’d love that at a town meeting. The chief believes that having two levels of discipline gives him more flexibility. But he doesn’t have that luxury. I have to say, I absolutely- Yeah. He’s not allowed that luxury … as a leading- Okay. I shouldn’t be speaking, but I think that’s what he- Okay … said to me. But anyway, we don’t want to debate the issue. Basically, I think yours is a vote yes. We should go. We should- Oh, 100% … follow it up. Yeah. You’re with- So, I’m perfectly willing to look at these, the legal stuff, and get back and say, “Should we put forward an article for the award for the next town meeting?” I’ll take that on. That’s okay. Okay. Well, I’ll send you, Lisa, the reads of Maybe add a little more juice to it, make it a little more- But also, to Tom’s other point, the issue of what are we doing about this in this town? I think we need to do something serious, I really do. Yeah. And I will just tell you, my family, we lived 10 years in the western suburbs, and we saw people getting prosecuted. A dear friend of ours, a neighbor, lost his son

51:29 in an accident, and the person who served him went to prison. So when something similar happened in this area, we thought, “Well, it’s only a matter of time before the other shoe drops,” and it never did. And our jaws are still on the floor. Yeah. It’s just, it’s shocking to me that that wasn’t- And some of the reason why, I’m sure I’m not telling Lee anything she doesn’t know, that Crocker Park was a s**t show on the 4th of July, but it wasn’t in any police logs. And it was probably worse than Browns later that night. And that’s my phone blowing up from everyone. I was at home, so then everyone is sending pictures, videos. Well, I might be the only person- For sure … on this board who had people recently in high school, I know. Yeah. No, Tom was- Right. I forgot. I forgot, yeah. You got one younger than mine. Yeah. Okay. Well, the record shows that we have a volunteer to review the issues and come and make a suggestion of whether or not it is useful for the Board of Health to move on an article. Does that- Mm-hmm. Yep. We don’t have to do that. Do that, yep. I’ll be with the vote on that. Nope. No. The article is about underage drinking? It’s like social hosting/underage drinking. Well, it’s- I read that right now … whether to put forth an article a warrant for the next town meeting about repealing the bylaw-

53:03 That’s- … about social hosting because it’s different from the state law. So they’re all in the same area if you look them up. Yeah. And they exist right now, and they haven’t been updated. So that’s the question. I don’t know the answer to that until I- Is it about updating the wording or enforcement of I suspect that the town one was written before the state one. Yes. Oh, okay. Yes, because otherwise they wouldn’t have discarded the town one. The attorney general wouldn’t have- Right … like, “This is meaningless.” But as a general principle of law, if a higher authority enacts- Right … something that’s more restrictive, then the municipality has to abide by the more restrictive. Yeah, and that’s why I think since the Attorney General has to sign off on it, at the time if the state one didn’t exist, they probably signed off on the Marblehead one. I don’t know. I just- Did Paltzer give his opinion on the bylaw when he read it? Oh, yeah. He thought it was weak. He was pretty clear about that. Yes. So that’s, again, is so difficult. All right. So I don’t want to take up any more of the board’s time with this but we’ll find an answer. We’ll decide what to do. I like the idea of proposing it for Tom. Okay. All right. So the chair’s reports are then completed. Do we have anything from the sub-chair for waste management? No, we got bills. Not again. So spill the positives. All right.

54:35 Waste Quip, they do 40-yard containers, and it’s paid for by MassDEP, right? The grant. Yep. So that’s 10,900. American Security, that’s the American flag disposal box, $951.30. Andrew Petty, some certificate. Yep. Okay. That was 100 bucks. East Coast Compactor for compactor repair, $645. RMG Enterprises, they recycled the TV monitors and such, $1,381.90. Rehig? ReRig. Oh, ReRig? Yep. That’s a weird way to spell it. Yep. Pacific Company, they do curbside collection repairs, parts for the bins, 42,548.10. Home Depot, just for miscellaneous supplies, $963.55. Marblelight Department for Electricity, $828.85. WL French Excavation, they do- Soil … excavation. Okay. Soil removal. Soil removal, $6,386.23. Partery Gardening, they handle the landfill and wetland maintenance, 15,137. Trident Environmental, they do household hazardous waste day. That’s 5,977. NE Security LLC, they do the intercom and annual service of it, 13,644. Steve Moody, he’s the inspector, so I guess it was some

56:07 miscellaneous training or something, $10.48. Yeah. Verizon for internet access, $150.67. AT&T for internet access, $65.98. Haley Ward for landfill monitoring, 26,323.54. Mead Tellerman for legal, $4,255.50. Bonsai Logic, for the license plate reader machine, $5,472.29. Michael, at the transfer station- LSV … it was a light license. What’s the cost? 1,000. Right. No. It’s Michael Luiso? No. Or Michael Bennett? Brouillette. No, that’s a licensed site professional. Oh, okay. Yeah. UTEC, they do the mattress recycling, $10,982. McKesson, they do custodial household supplies and protective gear, $855.99. WB Mason for office supplies, $184.83. Stericycle, they do the sharps collection, $625.97. Walnut Printing, printing forms, $725. Marblehead Counseling Center for psychological counseling, $6,895.38. All Column Technologies for radios for the transfer station,

57:38 $883.18. A1 Exterminators for rack and transfer station, $1,034. Recolor, they recycle latex paint for hazardous waste day, $2,576. Boston Green Fuel Co, they recycle our oil, $951.70. Black Earth Compost, they residential food composting, $5,109.76. Dynamic Waste Systems, the shrink wrap disposal, that’s $548.63. T-Mobile for the telephones, $66.10. Medugo, it’s a tire container, $5,779. Commonwealth Waste for trailer fire pickup. Oh, that’s the one that- Yep … yeah, $4,400. DeLullis Brothers for the transfer station project, $80,000.44. Republic Services for trash collection $193,738.44. Waste Management for trash disposal $83,040.95. Edward Collins for the column survey, that’s 20,000. That was all grant and stuff like that, right? So, J&L Welding. Edward Collins, huh? Yeah, I think that’s how it got billed through was through the Collins Center UMass. For welding services, 500 bucks.

59:08 If you haven’t been on the board in a little over two years, it’s the longest one in years. Yeah, well, Edward was out for a month, so I expect that’s true. All right. Community Health. Yes. Just a few brief health news updates. So for cyclosporiasis, the US is still investigating an unusually large outbreak. There’s as many as 14,000 confirmed and suspected cases, and the US typically sees about 3 to 4,000. Luckily, there hasn’t been a rise in cases in Massachusetts as of yet. There’s still been 18 cases, and the state usually reports about… Well, last year it was 74 cases. And it’s still thought to be due to iceberg lettuce, but there’s still investigations ongoing as to the source, and that seems to be one main outbreak, but there could be additional causes like parsley and cilantro are currently named as just to watch for now. But I think for now it’s probably safe to still just avoid iceberg lettuce in Massachusetts just to be safe. But I’ll keep everyone posted when there’s more information. So COVID-19, there is relatively low activity, but there always is a bit of a summer wave that we see, so cases are rising. Just a reminder for those 65 and older that it’s recommended to receive two vaccines in a year, one six months after the other. So if you’re not up to date, this is a good time to

1:00:41 get vaccinated, especially before traveling this summer. And there will be a new 26/27 vaccine coming out likely in August. I suspect it’s going to target the JN.1 XFG variant. And then measles cases keep climbing, and we’re at the highest case count that we’ve seen in 35 years in the US. There have been 2,318 cases this year and 35 outbreaks. And it’s just important to underscore the importance of high community MMR vaccination rates, and that you should have vaccinated before travel. That’s all I have. Anyone has any questions? Any questions about the health issues? Can we move to the director report? So yeah, I brought it for you guys tobacco control. So these are proposed regulations on a product called kratom. So this is both naturally occurring and synthetic. So again, these are draft regulations. Please take a look at them. We will have our attorneys, once you guys go through them, have questions. Once we get through all those questions and stuff like that, we will hand this over to our attorneys to take a look at. They’ll kind of just make it into the Marblehead format. But same idea.

1:02:13 The second page is the list of products. Again, it’s broken down into your synthetic and naturally occurring. So you will find these products in gas stations, convenience stores, and stuff like that. Any questions? I got a lot of questions on kratom. I am very naive to it. Yep. Admit that. I did find out that I have one friend from college that uses it for pain relief, swears by it. I actually have a friend in Thailand, too, where it’s heavily regulated, and I reached out to him, and it’s a non-issue. I know Massachusetts is up in the air on regulation for it. Well, there’s a big difference between the natural and the synthetic. Right. But this one’s looking at both, which is- Yes, this one’s looking at both the regulations. So you obviously know more, so maybe you can answer some questions. Well, so, there seems to be a lot more data associated with the synthetic kind. Yeah. I can see that. Yeah. And it’s marketed in ways, unsurprisingly, it’s marketed in ways that appeal to children, and adults, but also children. The street name for it, they refer to it as gas station heroin. Yes. And there are reports of kids hanging out, begging strangers to help them buy the stuff, because you have to be over 18 to buy it, but the kids- Well, they sell it online, too. Yeah. But anyway, the

1:03:43 synthetic type is highly addictive. Mm-hmm. The active substance acts on opioid receptors in the body the same way morphine and heroin does. So, it’s just not something that’s really… Well, it has the potential to cause addiction- So, yeah. So my question is, and this is what I’ve been trying to figure out, I can’t seem to figure it out. I understand having blown out a back before and I’m very lucky that I don’t have an addictive personality, but I do know that when I did it- Right … the hospital did not hesitate to give me Oxys, Percocet, Vicodin. Right. And so what I find is that some readings that people use this to get off opioid addiction. Yeah. Okay. And is that the natural or is that the synthetic or both? I can’t speak to that. I do know that I am aware that there are people who’ve used it for opioid harm reduction. But, with that being said, I don’t know how long ago you injured your back. You’ll find that that environment about giving out- Opioids … it’s like candy- Yeah … it’s very dramatically changed- Yeah … in the past several years. My only worry, so that gets to my worry. So that’s your concern is people can’t get at it. But I think we need to look at it. There’s a long list of communities. It’s not that they can’t get at it. My worry is that if a prescription ends and they still need something, are we just directing them towards straight up street Oxy- Well, that’s- … or street fentanyl or something like that? Is that the only option other than this? Is this a safer option than that?

1:05:16 That’s where the confusion lies to me. Okay, so this is a whole beyond the scope of this meeting right now. I think if a prescription ends, you go to your doctor, and you talk about what the choices are for pain management. I mean, there’s- And if there’s an issue, there’s Suboxone and there’s- There’s all kinds of- … others. Yeah. Okay. There’s all kinds of alternatives that- Yeah. Well, that’s just my worry, is if you do this, are you pointing them towards that? No. And that’s my concern. I don’t think so. I will tell you the trend is toward– One issue is, as fast as we can ban this stuff, somebody comes up with something new. You can synthesize new substances. But this is out there, and we know it. There’s a laundry list of communities in Massachusetts that have already banned it. Yeah. And- I know Salem just did. Yeah, so Salem, Peabody, Beverly. My guess is that no one in Marblehead sells it. That’s a negative. Yeah. We do not have a gas station. Yeah. Well, we don’t have any gas stations, but we tend to not have the same issues with sales, and that’s because we live in a smaller town where you will run into your neighbor if you’re seen with these things. So they don’t tend to sell dangerous stuff in town. I don’t know. Maybe we don’t need the regulation. I don’t know. I think we should look at it and think about the pros and cons of it. I will tell you, as I was discussing this with Andrew and Amanda the other day, but there’s a pretty large movement toward it. The New York State Assembly just banned it, the whole state of New York. Okay. So it’s not a trivial thing.

1:06:47 Yeah. Well, that’s why I want to know the pros and cons, and I’m not getting great information online on it. Yeah. Well, I don’t know. Did you get the thing I sent around to everyone about, there was a list of resources that the American Psychiatric Association- Yeah. But then I read one, I sent it to Tom, from the Mayo Clinic, I think it was. Which is reputable, right? Yes. And it was kind of like the opposite. So that’s why I’m like, all right, which one is right? I don’t know. Well, the APA listed a range of resources. Yeah. It wasn’t just one thing, but I don’t know. I didn’t see what you- I can forward it to you. From the Mayo. Yeah. No, it’s just something I’m very confused on. Yeah. There’s a lot of mixed information out there. And it’s not very prevalent. Like I said, I know one person. And, you know. Yeah. Things go fast. Yeah. No, I realize. Yeah. So if we think it has risks, we want to know. Yeah. Okay. Any other? Are there any- So we’ll look at this and then talk about it more at the next- Yeah, so we’ll talk about it at the next meeting. If you guys don’t have time to read it before then, we’ll bring it up, but then you can table it for a little bit. Would you want me to bring it to the attorneys, or if there’s things that you want changed on it, you guys will make a motion to make some changes. Then we’ll send it off to the attorneys to get collated into our format to meet our local regulations, because it will slide into tobacco control regulations. Okay. It does include synthetically derived cannabinoids.

1:08:19 Yes. Are there places that sell cannabis legally in Marblehead? We have two license holders. We have two license centers. But now- Marblehead is always going to come, and this is why I joked about the tattoo thing. It’s like, people do not come to Marblehead for this. You go through pass-through towns like Salem and Lynn and stuff like that, and that’s where you go. If you do it in Marblehead, you’re just not going to survive as a business. And so that’s kind of- Yeah. We will be having our first tattoo parlor as well. There’s actually one going to happen? Yep. No way. It’s an individual artist and stuff like that. But tattoo in this area has– We have incredible artists. Yeah. And so at times, they want to kind of be on the outskirts. And they have their customers, they have the people that want to come to them. So- I figured they’ll be nice … these nice boutique locations and they- And there’s a lot of vacant real estate on Atlantic right now. I didn’t see one, so- I’ll be interested to see how they do- … we’ll pop down and get two … business, how the demand will be in town. Barbara Roy, do you still have a question?

1:09:27 Yes. Hi. Thanks, I do. Thanks for everybody being here. I have a couple of questions and a couple of comments. I really want to thank Mary McAllister for coming forward to raise our awareness about the risks of the new bins. I have used my bins and labeled my bins with my address, and I did not know there was a warning. So unfortunately, it came at her expense. But she talked about raising the awareness and just, and Tom McMahon, you’ve mentioned it several times. Disseminating information, and that’s where I’m going to get to my question, is that Mary talked about maybe using that code red. We talk about street closures and street repairs. These issues about the bins are affecting every household, pretty much every household, whether they’ve opted out or not, there’s some way that they’re being affected. And it seems like a town-wide issue, much like the pandemic, affecting everyone. Okay? I don’t understand why the Facebook page is still defunct. We got a response last month, but I still don’t understand it. It seems like a very vital resource. And just to give you guys an update, I’m the one who’s been re-homing the bins with the help of many, many, many volunteers. To date, we have re-homed over 2,000 bins, barrels, recycling, and then some more bins.

1:11:00 So the recycling and trash, we’ve re-homed lots of them. I can’t see your faces because of the way this meeting’s set up. But I’ve learned a lot in doing this project. It wasn’t asked of me. I just felt compelled to do it. But I really wish there was a better way of disseminating information. I’ve already put on Facebook, and the only reason we were able to disseminate those bins is through Facebook. We put it out on Facebook Group. We started a brand-new Facebook group, and we’ve been announcing it, and we’ve been making it successful. It is a great tool. I understand there’s people present in tonight’s meeting that think it might be the bane of our existence, but Facebook is a very useful tool. And I did not know there were warnings on the bins, so I went out to my curb because it’s collection tomorrow morning, and I took pictures of the warnings and I put it on one of the pages, and I said, “Did you know there are warnings?” And somebody asked, Mary asked the board, “Did you know that there were warnings on the barrels?” Somebody could’ve mentioned that earlier. And I’ll ask you people, did you know that some residents are bringing their brand-new bins up to the town transfer station? Many people don’t know that that’s permissible, but I have witnessed people bringing their new bins that they don’t want waiting to be picked up to bring them to the transfer station. Now, if that’s a possibility, why aren’t people telling people about that?

1:12:30 So there’s one more thing. I know that we talked about we really don’t talk to each other, and I’ve been at the dump, the transfer station. We call it the dump because it’s easier, colloquialism. I’ve heard some other turns of phrases in this meeting tonight, so I call it the dump. And I’ve heard from a lot of residents, but nobody from any organization in our town has asked me, “What have you been hearing from people?” I’ve heard from hundreds of people. It just seems like there could be better communication, and that leads me to my last point. I went looking for information about tonight’s meeting, and I found the town notes because I Googled the agenda. And, I see that the address is listed on the agenda, but not the time of the meeting. And I know that there’s a– Because I’ve found it, I found it on the calendar, but- Right … I’m just asking a question. Can it be possible to add the time of the meeting to the agenda where you post the meeting location? And I hope you take my other comments into consideration and realize that people want to know. People want to know, and it’s your job as servants of our community to let people know. Yes. The table or the insert shows the day of the week, Tuesday, July 28th, 2026 at 7:00 PM. I think it’s

1:14:03 required. Yeah. It wasn’t on the picture that I saw of the agenda. Thank you. I’ll forward it to somebody.

1:14:16 Any other, uh, John, you’re in. Go ahead. No. A couple of comments. Up at the new scale house inside the granite curb, they haven’t done the final grading there. I’ve seen a couple people almost trip trying to walk to the scale house. I presume that’s happening in the relatively near future. Yeah, so landscaping will take place in the fall for the best time to put- Which is just like dirt or something’s got to go in there. Right. But that’s all it needs. So that would all be- Okay. It’s all part of it- Yeah … so it’s clean. Yeah. And as part of the, communications and getting people to use the dump transfer station better, I’m up there fairly regularly. I think it’d be a big help if we could have some sort of signage letting people know. Like right by the guard shack by the small compactors, people figure out, “Oh, that must be where the TVs go.” But there’s no big sign that tells you that. People sort of figure out, “Oh, this is where I put the mattresses,” that type of thing. And the thing that really frosts me is the amount of crap I see people throw into the metal bin that does not belong there. If we could have some big sign, it should be common sense. But gee, you don’t throw your rubbish in there. You don’t throw your wood in there. You don’t throw stuff in there you should be weighing and where Barbara was just mentioning about the trash barrels.

1:15:48 I know personally I’ve taken over 500 over to Peamy, and something that bothers me is I always take the barrels. I turn them upside down, and I empty them. And every time I do it I get one or two trash barrels full of crap that people– And some are full bags of garbage. They’re just too lazy. Monday I picked up a load, and there was bags of garbage- … a couple of TVs, a few air conditioners, a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t go in that area, but people and then just throw it in. It’s not your guys’ job to be there sorting it and picking it out. It really hurts us all. Correct. The hardest thing- Signage would help somewhat. Yeah. We have- Most of the people are terrible. Yeah. We have a lot of signs. We do feel that a lot of times people just they don’t want to read it or don’t want to pay attention to it. During our really busy season, we have 1,000 people that go through- Oh, that’s nice … the transfer station on a day. I’m not saying anything against the guys. They do a super job up there. Yeah. Kate does a wonderful job. The other thing I would- And the hardest thing is that obviously they can’t be everywhere at once. Exactly. And what happens is people are literally waiting for them to turn their back, and then they dump something then they leave. Yeah. I’m sure. The solar collector that’s up there, what’s the deal with that? It was part of the arts festival for 4th of July. It was a free demo, so we’ve been allowed to keep it up there.

1:17:18 Again, it’s kind of a little bit of an art installation. It’s a solar kinetic sculpture. Okay. I remember seeing it down in Louis’ old supermarket parking lot- Yes … by the water thing that they had there. Yeah. And the last couple of things I’m interested in for the future, I know we’re working on something for swap shed. Yes. I presume we’re doing something to better weatherize the big compactor building. Yes. The big compactor building needs to be resided, it needs a new roof on it. So that would be priority number one, and then priority number two would be the swap shed. And the last thing I think we really need to look into, we’ve got half a million, million dollars worth of equipment up there that sits outside in the weather year-round. We need some sort of pole building or something to put those in to protect our own equipment. Yeah. So one of the things that we’re looking at is so we are doing a C&D study to see how much material is coming in, construction, demolition material. Is there a market out there where we could be taking more material in? And that would then necessitate us building what we call a clear span building. Because it is a landfill, it’s a capped landfill, we really can’t penetrate that. It wasn’t designed. But we could put a clear span building that’s anchored to large blocks and stuff like that. Yeah. And so yes, that could be a dual purpose. You could do C&D sorting during the day. Ideally, it would be big enough where you could park the tractor trailer in the back. But you could put equipment underneath there. Yeah, the loaders and stuff.

1:18:49 Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Yes. Okay. Well, we have another hand back up, but let’s get to Lee and come back. Okay. Just quickly, so Crayton, can I have a copy of the stuff that you handed out? Thank you. And do we know that it’s not available in a CVS or 7-Eleven or anything in Marblehead right now? So we have tobacco control that goes through on a regular basis. Right. Again, they’re not silly. They are looking for this product, but it’s not the products that they’re going after. Right. They can’t- Yeah … because it’s legal right now in town without the rules, without the whatever you’re proposing, right? So I’d have to take a look exactly what the laws are, because, the Division of Agriculture does have some regulations on certain things. But yes, there are certain areas that you would be able to find these products. Okay. In town, those might- I do not believe so, no. Okay, great. The tattoo parlor, who’s the owner, and when’s it opening? I don’t have that information. Do you know where it’s opening? It’s off of Chestnut Street Maybe add in there that I’m three and a half years into having a tattoo removed, and I’m happy to talk anyone out of it if they’d like to. Where’d you get it done? New Hampshire, old school. There you go. Okay. It wasn’t legal in Massachusetts. So you don’t know the name of it, or? Not now. Okay. And does it have to get any approval from you guys? Yeah. Obviously, we issue a permit. We do inspections and all that. Did you do that yet? No, we have not. Okay. All right, so it’s not imminently opening. Nope. Do you have an application?

1:20:21 Yeah, of course we have an application. Okay. And then the last thing is, Tom, when you were talking about we’re hitting a tipping point, and you said something regarding youth and substance abuse, or use and abuse, and you said parents are getting close to taking things into their own hands. That’s obviously going to raise some questions. What do you- I hope it does … what do you mean by that? What would you do if some other parent was putting your kid in danger? This is getting to a point where you hope you can rely on the police, but if the chief basically says he believes in education, then he’s not even enforcing what laws we have on the books. As a parent, at some point you do have to step in. And that’s the conversations that are being had now. I don’t know what that entails. I know what I’d do. But I think that’s human nature to want to protect your own kids when no one else is protecting them. Okay. Do you want to tell us what you’d do? No. No. You wouldn’t want to know. You would just want me to not do it. Okay. Cool. Thank you. Do you want to do her first? The lady, or you want to do me first? Yeah, probably follow-up to Steve.

1:21:37 Hi. Thanks. So I think I do want to put it in the form of a question so that I can get a response. Would anybody be interested in knowing what some of the major questions are and some of the misconceptions that the public has, so that you could disseminate good information? Any interest? Okay. Well, of course. Okay. Somebody will reach out to me, or shall I reach out to someone? You could give a- Who’s interested? I’m the chair. The chair is responsible. Okay. I’ll reach out to you then. Secondly, since Andrew is on site, Andrew, can you answer this question, please? Is there a process for current residents to return the bins that they don’t want to the transfer station? And can you explain what that is? Yeah. So they can contact the health department. If you want to mute me. So yeah, if you could- Can you mute your computer? Sure. So if individuals want to contact the health department, they can send us an email. We can arrange for pickup, or we can arrange for a drop-off situation. No matter what, if you are bringing the barrels back to the transfer station, you must speak with the attendants, and the attendants will tell you what to do with the bin. But that is an option for-

1:23:07 Yeah. If you don’t want to wait for us to come and pick it up at your house, you are welcome to drop it off. But you have to meet with the attendant so we can log it in. All of them are dedicated to addresses through that QR code and SKU. What’s that? The serial number. If the address bin goes back, and the house is sold to somebody else who wants a bin- We would reissue a bin to that address. Yeah. Nobody would be penalized. Yep. Okay.

1:23:41 To Barbara’s other point, we did talk briefly at our private meeting about the possibility of reacting the Facebook account, and I think it is worth talking about altogether. Laurie Vizuela, an MPH grad, has offered to help us with this project because we are funded under Powered at the Board of Health. And so, I do think it would be a great way to get information out, maybe to limit commenting, or as a way to point people to our website for more information. But I do think it’s worth talking about. You want to maybe- I think just for a social media, but just some more social media presence I think would be really helpful- So it- … with health communication and just getting people’s information. Mm-hmm. Just getting information out there and start… I think it’ll even be helpful with starting the calm initiatives and different programs. If there’s a presence at the Board of Health online, it can reach more people, and people will have, and will know where to go to get this information, and- Yeah. So we agreed that, essentially we would take a look at across the state to see how many boards of health are using Facebook. Mm-hmm. I’m not opposed to it by any means. Okay. Again, it does take a considerable amount of time. That’s not something that we’re going to be posting on there on a regular basis. That takes time. We are very short-staffed. I don’t have a lot of time in my day. I need to be looking at everything that’s going

1:25:12 on there. At the end of the day, I’m going to take the heat for what was posted there. So we have to be careful about how we do these things. Communication is really important. We need to get it right. I don’t think any one of us should just be the- No. Just randomly- No … just on our own posting something. No. It should be something that we- Yeah … approve, that where there’s evident sources- Correct … or pointing to- Yeah … the Mass DPH site- Right … just for education. If it’s a- Right … Board of Health Facebook page, why would you get blamed? You’re not on the board. So I’m usually the one that’s… I’m the face of the board. Really? Yeah. Okay. You’re the easiest to reach. Yeah. Yeah. So I don’t think things could get posted instantaneously necessarily because, as Amanda says, anything that gets posted, it has to be the voice of the board, which means we all have to discuss it. And the only way that can happen is in meeting because of the open meetings law. So it’s not like things are going to be going up on a daily basis. Again, basic stuff like grease horrors, beach closure, stuff like that, yes. We can do communication. We want- Like mosquitoes. Just like- Yeah, and all that stuff is regularly available from Mass Department of Public Health. We can have links on our websites for these items for people that are concerned. This stuff is changed on a regular basis at the state level. Again, we have a listserv that we want people to sign up for. So when we have important information that we want to disseminate to the public, we

1:26:43 send out a mass email. We want those to go right to people’s inboxes so they can get it. We don’t want them searching on social media for information. Certain things like that, that’s how we want- That’s what I think people should sign up for more rather than using the code red. Because if you abuse the code red- Right … it’s a problem. I can tell- Right. So that was- … that was a very unfortunate situation on that. But if we mention everything on code red, people are going to be p**d and disconnect from code red Because what happens is that when I send out a Code Red, it comes from the same number every time, essentially. You start to say that, “Oh, I know what that is. I’m not going to listen anymore.” So yes, we’re always talking about being very careful about what we put out on Code Red, the importance of the information. Again, Code Red is our re– It’s now called Regroup. I was going to say, I thought Code Red was- Yeah. Yeah, totally. So Regroup is a great tool for us to use, but we don’t want to use it on a daily basis. Again, we really want people to sign up for that list serve. We’ll send out emails. This is the basic, best way to get information. We can send out tick information. Again, a lot of that stuff can be online. Again, a lot of that is just like a reconnect to the Mass Department of Public Health. They have tick information. They have mosquito information that comes out on a weekly basis to really give people an idea what’s going on in this area, what’s going on in the rest of the state. That’s really some of the best communication. Can I ask, how– When you’re saying list serve, I’m not sure what you mean. What’s- So when you go onto the website- The town’s website?

1:28:14 To the town’s website. Yeah. You can collect, at the very bottom, I want to be notified- Right … for emergencies, or I want to be notified by all these different- Click on, which ones. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So that’s… Okay, that’s not a list serve. Yep. But yeah. It works great. It’s a list serve for us, because when it creates a massive email list search, it’s- Okay … a list of everybody’s emails that have signed up for that. Okay. And then, sorry, there’s one other thing that you were just talking about. The beach stuff. The beach stuff is very hard to… I email you constantly. It’s very hard to- But it’s all on the state website. There’s a huge, mass re- Every, like- Re-test, every example … because I go there all the time. So but, wasn’t there a test on Thursday? Yep. And it wasn’t posted there on Friday. So again, so we’re dealing with two different things. So you have to understand water quality. So you have a bacterial exceedance. That’s a one-time event. And then you have a geo mean exceedance. That’s an average of five samples. Mm-hmm. Right now, we’re dealing with a geo mean exceedance. But people- But just because I get one test doesn’t necessarily change the beach opening or closing. Right. But people just want to know if it’s open or closed. It’s closed. So the- You sent something out today, so then people know. It’ll reopen till every next. So- So just re- wait and rely on that email to come out, because like people, if it, if it gets tested on Wednesday, and it fails, and you say, “We’re gonna re-test it, and within 24 hours we’ll have new results,” but then no one hears anything. Right. But again, so it takes 24 hours for the test to be completed.

1:29:46 So h- when can people, when’s the earliest the beach opens? As soon as I hear back from the lab. So I go and take the sample. I wait for a courier. Um, you know, it can be an hour wait for me to get to the courier. It goes to the lab. Depending on how many samples they have, they gotta set everything up, but it takes 24 hours for once the sample’s in process to get results. They’ll get all the results. They’ll put everything together. They will send us the results. Okay. It’s like, it’s a Mass state contract. It’s not my contract. No, I understand that. I just didn’t know, uh, so you’re posting it as soon as you get it? Yep. We’re posting as soon as we get it. Okay. Okay. And again, if we’re not at work, it’s gonna take us some time to get there and post the information. Is there a way, like, you could text? Like people just want to know on a s- nice summer be- beach weekend if guests, if, you know, Gray’s Olives is open. And whether, you know- So people should be really, look at the… So we have five bathing beaches in town. Right. Devereux, Crocker Park, Gas House- Yeah, not so much Crocker right now, but yeah. Understood. But we have five bathing beach listed. Right. We have water quality issues at Gray’s Olives and Gas House on a regular basis. Right. They should always think, hey, there’s a large rain event coming tonight. There’s a chance that Gray’s Olive is gonna be closed. And just plan on going to a different beach. Yeah. Okay. Again, we’re looking out for the public’s best interests. We want to make sure that you guys are protected and healthy. Okay.

1:31:18 And again, it doesn’t mean you can’t sit on the beach. That’s totally, always open. Right. I’m just recommending you don’t go swimming. No, it’s not that. But it’s just the question of like the police used to post it on their Facebook page, and now they don’t either. So it’s, it’s just hard for, we hear from people, “Is it open? Is it not open?” And it’s just hard- And I understand that it’s like, you know, a neighborhood beach and people love to go there. Yeah. Um, it’s definitely one of my favorite beaches to go to. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, but the sign is always at the beach, and I can’t, you know. Just because I have to remove that sign to open the beach. Got it. Mr. Jordan, your patience is over with. On the 99 bylaw, before you delete it, uh, number one is I think the police chief should be handling this. Uh, number one, I think if he says it’s, he’s deciding not to enforce it now, then I just, I think it’s more under- He’s not said that he’s not enforcing it. Well, having enforced it years, they used to call Channel 25 to come down to my house, ‘cause I know parents that had the visitors, and the cops would call Channel 25 who would come down there and be on the 10:00 news on Friday night or Saturday night. Mark that. Um, what, what I’m saying to is I think the police chief should be more involved. If he f- feels that the bylaw is obsolete, I, I would think it’s under, he should be doing something. Not just him. They, uh, they enforced it a lot after 1999, and then before

1:32:48 Dennis Hink came, he, he got lax and lax on doing it. So I think the police chief should be involved in it. And the other thing is, you had Paul Tucker in here, and if there’s a state law, I think the two of them should put their heads together with one of you people and get it, get it, uh… But, but I don’t want to get rid of one before you have a better one. So we’re not talking about getting rid of it. We’re talking about- He was saying that- No … he happened to repeal it earlier also. No. I heard him. Talking about looking at it to decide whether we as a board should refer the whole issue to the town meeting for repeal of the warrant. I think that’s the only way it can get repealed, actually. Right. But, you know, we would, we are going to arrive at a decision about whether we think that’s the right thing to do, and the way we’re gonna arrive at that decision is by reviewing the law of, in Massachusetts, reviewing the bylaw, talking to Paul Tucker, etc., etc., talking to the town attorney probably. I have never even, I have never even- You know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna put all that information together and then decide whether that’s something we want to refer to town meeting. Because anything that goes to town meeting could take a couple of years. It’s gotta go to the legislature, and then they have to accept it, and then the governor’s gotta sign it. That, that’s the way it works in Massachusetts. So you can repeal what you want and, and, and I assume they might have to sign off on it too. I don’t know. They’re the ones that sign to accept it.

1:34:19 And so they may be the ones that you go to town meeting, and then it’s gotta go back to them. But I’m just saying, in fairness, if it’s not being enforced anymore, because legal counsel and Marblehead said there’s issues with it, well, why- This police chief that’s supposed to be taking care of these situations, enforcing the law, why aren’t they coming up? I haven’t seen too many new bylaws being introduced by the police chief the last several years. So I think it’s under the police department’s jurisdiction if you want to get this thing done. I hope he’s involved in it, because you could come up with a scenario, and he may not agree with it, and we’ll be in the same boat that we’re in now. We’re not getting anything accomplished. We are already apparently have two laws, and I don’t see anything going on the environmental enforcement. Thank you. That’s the thing, we– I’d love to have him involved. Yeah. No, he should be. Is he interested? He should be invited to the next meeting, and he should- He has a standing invitation to come and discuss it. He should be. We shouldn’t be talking behind his back. We’re unsure where he is. Well, actually, he’s been emailed. Yeah. He- He’s been invited. This is not his email … he’s not interested. Oh, no, I understand that. I know he’s not. That’s what he told me. I get the same opinion. Yeah. If I was on this board, I would be telling him to come up here. Yeah. I got an idea. We’re paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and kids are dying every few years in this town. It’s been going on for 30 years, and there’s no changes, and it’s a

1:35:52 disgrace. Thank you. I agree. Yeah. It’s a disgrace. Thanks for your comments. Mine’s a little bit simpler. Well, I’m sorry. No, it’s okay. I know people that have died, so I’m a little– No, I agree with you. Can you try to complicate it? I couldn’t. So first- I– Can you stand up? I just can’t see your face, sorry. Anthony Mullen, Central Street. So the first thing is, I’m actually asking for a neighbor because she couldn’t be here. She is opting out of the barrels. Right. Which is fine. The question was, because she’s also on a fixed budget, paying her taxes and everything, since she’s long since retired, has there been any consideration to the individuals who opt out getting a transfer station sticker as part of the opt-out? Because the cost of the overall program and the cost of a transfer sticker aren’t so far apart. Because she is going to take her trash to the transfer station because she can’t deal with the big barrels. In theory, the finance department kind of recommends it, but the people that pay for stickers are paying for the transfer station. So what that person would be asking for is other transfer station users to subsidize her paying for it, which wouldn’t really be fair. Right. You know? She’s paying into taxes one way or another. Yeah, no. But that’s the same thing like with schools.

1:37:23 It’s just the way– And that’s why it was on the ballot as whether it’s part of the tax base or whether it’s subscription. Obviously, she would’ve preferred subscription, but if the town votes like that, we can’t really- No, I understand … push it on the rest of the people. Right. So I can always ask for something when I went to the town meeting next year. But it’s important to me, but it’s not my issue. If I have my barrels, I’m just going to deal with them. So getting back to, I’m sure you all know, raccoon gate. So, they did have a trapper come out and remove four raccoons. We caught them. We watched it on camera. Not very entertaining, but at least it was something. They have since put up tin on the base of the house, which is, just so you know. I was going to let you guys take these, but they have not– Well, those two are the– That’s like a regular picture from before. The second one is what the house looks like right now still. So this is this one? This is that. Current. That’s current. Well, that was actually two weeks ago. Yep. This one right here is current, which is all the little pinwheels that they stuck on the side of the house to try to scare the raccoons away and stuff way, have all fallen down and now are in the backyard. So,

1:38:53 our concern isn’t so much that they didn’t deal with the immediate raccoon problem, it’s that they haven’t really done anything to seal the house itself. The trapper actually walked them around the house and informed them of at least 10 different entry points. They sealed up the one on the back of the house. They did not seal up any of the other ones. So they essentially tried to hide the fact that this was a– But they did not follow the recommendation of the person they hired to actually abate the problem of entry into the house. Since those raccoons are gone, there’s no raccoons currently appearing in that building, but my guess is they will probably be back here next year with the same problem again because they haven’t actually sealed the house up. There are still squirrels in there. Squirrels are just part of the world. You’ve got to deal with the fact there are squirrels. But the fact there are holes that animals can get in and out of still is a problem with that house, and we’re feeling that it’s going to come back to- Yep. So we have an outstanding order with them to essentially board up the house to make it raccoon-proof and stuff like that. I will go out there with the building commissioner and the fire chief. I think the fire chief also has additional orders on the property. So we’ll work together to make sure that it’s kind of totally sealed up. Okay. Yeah. That’s all we were asking about. We appreciate the fact that this is actually moving somewhere finally. It’s been years.

1:40:24 From our point of view, we don’t understand why the buildings haven’t been sold. It’s a- It’s quite an asset … funny asset. Yeah. Because there’s three of them right in a row. It’s all owned by the same family. They were- It’s a large asset … they would offer $4 million for those three properties. It’s nuts. Which is an excessive amount of money for those three properties. And sometimes what happens is that there are trusts and estates. There’s a trust. Yeah. And so it gets bogged down, and it can’t be resolved because of other issues. Oh, we know why. Yeah. Yeah. There’s a woman, she’s in a nursing home. She is the primary on the trust, so she’s the asset holder on the trust. She is refusing to sell the properties because they’re family properties, and she doesn’t want them sold. Yeah. And the nephews who, one of them runs the trust as trustee, is not allowed to do anything until she signs off on it. And so that’s the deal. And that’s just what we deal with, so. And they’ve got junk all over the place. They just cut down materials and stored it in the corner of their property. I’m afraid it’s going to dry out eventually, and it’s going to be a fire risk at some point. Yeah. I understand. Unfortunately, we don’t have any regulations about that. We don’t have an ownership and have to keep it up to a certain level? If we were like in a condominium association or- No, we don’t have that in the state of Massachusetts of a property. So, no. As we used to say, we are not the pretty police. We don’t get to dictate- … how your property looks, what shape it’s supposed to be in. But yes, there are certain hazards that have to be mitigated

1:41:57 So if the order is out and they still don’t, is there a certain time that they have to board it up by? So there’s always a certain time. Again, we don’t have the funds to board it up for them. So we can issue citations and stuff like that, but it takes a long time to get to a point where they’re actually… Again, you can issue citations. I really need them to do the work. And if they don’t, is there a point where the town tries to- There is more of a point where the fire department sometimes steps in to board it up, but that’s boarding up the windows and stuff like that. Yeah. It becomes a little bit harder when this is a slightly different structure. I mean, that’s it. Like for as long as It- Mm-hmm … it’s just like a, I don’t know There’s actually- Because it does seem like a health risk. Isn’t there anything that- I mean, that’s going to be, I think, an animal complaint but still, it’s still just- That’s been abandoned for 34 years. Oh. They put on three, two, it’s been abandoned for 90. 90? You can look at all this stuff. We can talk, looking at other communities who’ve created regulations on this. Again, a lot of times, so you could order the house to be torn down, but you’d have to pay for it. No, I don’t think you’re wrong. The house and then- Yeah, you can, but that’s going to take, you could put a lien on the house and again, it’s still stuck in trust. So once that gets resolved, yes, you could get your money back. You would be at the top of the lien and stuff like that. You have to have the money up front to do that. Yeah. There is the possibility of a lien

1:43:28 over a tax override, which would allow you to claim the property under a lien if they don’t cover the lien. And that would allow the town to then auction the property, recover their missing funds, and give them the excess. But that is a big hairy ball of examples. I’ve done this several times already in this community, that it takes a lot of legal costs. It takes time. I mean, it’s- Yeah … it’s not going to be, it’s- A year … I was going to say, it’s years, not months. Yeah. It’s years. And again, I think at this point, our main thing was just trying to keep the pest problem- Yeah … addressed. We know that the house is going to be there for a while, until, honestly, until the woman who owns it passes away. Yeah. It’s just going to be what it is. The nephews have made statements that they want to sell, but they just don’t want to. They don’t do testing of the raccoons for rabies? No, only if there’s a reason to. Acting weird. Yeah. Yeah. And we would like to say that we believe that there was one additional raccoon that they did not trap, who’s still in the area, and we think it may have attacked a household pet last night. Oh, I see. So that pet has gone to the vet to be tested. So- Okay … in case it’s rabies or something, but- Okay … that may be something that we’ll be contacting the

1:45:01 animal control people tomorrow, if something comes out with it. That or no. They’ll get. You know. Really unfortunate that

1:45:22 we have residents that have been here and that we can’t do something. So this is not an uncommon problem. In a lot of communities, you’re always going to have this one house that’s falling down. True. That’s going to be an attractive nuisance. It is a little surprising in a community like this, where we all live so tight, that these properties sit. No. I’ve had a list of, we’ve been working through a list of 20 homes that we’ve gotten pretty far, that’s sitting here so far. This is one that’s taken a lot of time, and there’s three houses right next to each other. We don’t understand why they just continue to sit that way. But again, it takes years and years to work on this stuff. All right. Well, I think last meeting we agreed that we were going to meet on the second and fourth Monday of the month. And are we planning to do that in February? And should we post for the year and assume they’ll be- So I can’t post for the year because I have to have an agenda to post. So we can put up a schedule on our website to say this is when our meetings are going to be scheduled for. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Because Dr. Kruger had actually, the League of Women Voters, when he kind of likes to know when the meetings are and all of that. And obviously, it’s always subject to change. Yeah. Okay. So- The 10th? Yeah, so the next meeting is the 10th. So I think it’s, what, the 10th and the 28th?

1:46:53 24th, but I- 18th and 24th. On the 24th.

1:47:02 We still have the meeting at- But again, going back to houses and stuff like that, so Nantucket has a book about this big. Mm-hmm. It’s through zoning. It tells you how high your grass can be, the color of your house. Zoning can dictate everything. Health regulations are a little bit harder.

1:47:27 Yeah. Tommy? But is there anything else, otherwise motion to adjourn is appropriate. So moved. So moved. Second. So moved. All in favor? Thank you very much. Thank you for your attention and your comments