Board of Health: August 24, 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 7th of June Chanda here on the 24th of August- On the 24th of August … it’s in the year 2026 It’s in the year 2026 and we want to open the Board of Health meeting. The Board of Health Welcome members down and in the room and on the room. The board at its last meeting began some discussions about a question of whether, in order to improve youth mental health in town, we should consider bringing a motion to town meeting to repeal the bylaw that was passed in the 1990s, which hasn’t been very useful. We asked our lawyer and physician colleague to look at what Massachusetts General Law said about what is the lane, as it is, of the Board of Health. And Julie, if you’d be willing to- Sure … share your thoughts. Sure. So the first thing I want to say, because there’s been some confusion on this issue, is that Massachusetts is a bit unique among the states. It’s really the only state that, I believe, grants

1:31 regulatory authority to boards of health. And it does it in a really divided way. There are 351 towns within the Commonwealth, and the bigger cities typically have their health department run by an appointed official by the mayor. But towns that are run by select boards, like Marblehead, often have separate boards of health. And those boards of health are delegated by state law to make regulations reasonably. So literally, MGL Chapter 111, Section 31 reads in part, “Boards of health may make reasonable health regulations.” So I just want to say that about that. With that said, towns can make regulations that are more strict than the state, but not less strict. So you can’t decide that you want to have a regulation that makes something the state think should be a certain way. You can’t be more lenient than the state. You can be less lenient than the state. You can be more lenient, more restricted than the state, but not less strict. More restricted than the state. All right, so with that said, and I want to say that the other caveat is I haven’t looked at case law. I’m really just looking at the text of the statute and the text of the bylaw. The text of the statute and the text of the bylaw So the Mass General Law, Chapter 138, Section 34, states that whoever makes a sale or delivery of any alcoholic beverage to any person under

3:05 21 years of age, either for his own use or for the use of his parent or any other person, and then there’s a lot more words, shall be punishable by a fine of not more than $2,000 or imprisonment for not more than one year. And so those times and amounts are significant because the Marblehead bylaw differs from that. Bylaw differs from that. All right. So then you turn to the Marblehead bylaws. Those were passed in the mid 1990s, 1995, if I’m not mistaken. I didn’t live here then. I’m not sure what the discussion around it was. There’s a section, 9.3, which has several subparts, A through D, that make it an offense for whoever having care, custody, or control over a person under the age of 18, fails to prevent that person from being in a place where alcohol is being transported, is punishable by a fine of $25. So it took me a long time. I had to sort of stare at that and wonder about the whole transportation issue, and I finally realized that Marblehead has an issue that towns that are landlocked don’t have. So there’s partying on boats, right? So that’s really what this 9.3, I think, is driving at. And that is why the harbormaster has enforcement authority, as

4:36 well as the chief of police. So 9.3B makes it an offense for anybody who has care, custody, or control over a person under the age of 18 to prevent that person from being in a vehicle where alcohol is being transported. It goes on. They are similar. 9.3C makes it an offense for whoever having care or custody or control over a person under the age of 18 to prevent that minor from transporting alcohol. So they all revolve around the transportation of alcohol by people under 18. One of the things that’s notable about this is that the town is making a distinction between people under 18, and it doesn’t speak to the issue of people 19 or 20, which presumably it would be illegal under state law for them to engage in any of these activities as well. Engage in any of these activities as well. So it’s not consistent with the state law is the first issue. It’s not consistent with the state law is the first issue. The other thing is that the fines were written at a time, the first offense is $25, the second is 50. And these fines, I don’t know if they were significant in 1995. Certainly they’re probably not terribly significant to many people in this town now.

6:08 Um, many people in this town now.

6:16 So,

6:22 the town bylaws also specify that enforcement actions have to be recorded by the town clerk. An inquiry has been made to the office of the clerk, and that reveals that there has not been any enforcement of the bylaws recorded since 2017. Now, I just want to say a few things. The Board of Health realizes that, we do not have enforcement authority over any of this, but we also want to recognize that the bylaw really doesn’t seem to be being enforced. It certainly is not the case that there’s no underage drinking in this town. And many people have expressed concern about that in the Creating a Healthier Marblehead questionnaire about levels of risky behavior. So that leaves us with the question of what can the Board of Health do, as health officials, to address this? And what we can do is we can educate teens about the risks of danger of operating a motor vehicle or a water vehicle while intoxicated. The schools certainly took a step in that direction, and I want to recognize that, around last year’s proms. And they really stepped up their effort to make kids aware of the problems and the consequences. So we can educate everybody. We can also educate everyone about the effects of alcohol on adolescent brain development. We know that physiologically brain development is not complete until individuals reach their mid-20s. But there’s more and more data emerging that the adolescent brain is

7:53 particularly vulnerable to injury by alcohol. Dr. Massaro will have more to say about that in a few moments. We can initiate harm reduction programs such as safe rides programs. And I do wish Kristen, as she’s coming, but I wish she were here because she knows a little bit more about that. We actually used to have that, believe it or not, when I was in high school. Volunteers can sign up to be designated drivers. Philosophically, that may bother some people as sort of tacitly condoning drinking. But I think of it more as sort of a harm reduction measure in the same way that needle exchange programs. They don’t encourage anybody to use IV drugs. They seek to mitigate the harm that’s done by people who are already out there doing it. And we can try to change the culture around drinking and driving by community engagement, and certainly enforcement of social host laws would get and hold people’s attention. I will say also, I think there’s some other towns. There has been some educational effort, there certainly has, and I want to acknowledge that. In looking around, I noticed there are a lot of towns that have bold statements about the Massachusetts General Laws, either on their website or on the police department’s website. And I think other towns make it very clear that drinking and driving is not something to be trifled with. So, without further ado, I’d like Dr. Massaro to weigh in on the research about

9:25 alcohol and the adolescent brain. Well, it’s quite clear. We’ve talked about it fairly often. I thought I’d do informal conversations rather than show slides tonight. But there’s a recent article in one of the neuroscience journals that shows the impact of even modest binge drinking on the adolescent brain. And it has a graph that, we’ll maybe try to put it on the website, that shows the amount of the cortex, the cerebral cortex, where executive functions, motor function, judgment, language, all of those things are held, is virtually all impacted, and it’s reduced in depth by a couple of millimeters to more than three to five millimeters. We don’t have a good study to show exactly limiting the cerebral cortex by three millimeters will lower the IQ 10 points. But I think it would be folly to want to push on the

10:55 data at that level. We know that there are two times in the young life where alcohol is particularly toxic to the brain. I’m a neonatologist. The first is three months prior to delivery. That’s a particularly sensitive time, and I remember in the old days, before we had labels on beer bottles and alcohol about the toxicity for pregnant moms, being able to walk through a newborn nursery or a newborn ICU and be able to pick out, absolutely without question, the kids who had been exposed and were suffering from what we called fetal alcohol syndrome. The next most sensitive time is the period between 16 and about 20. The brain matures through maybe the 25th year. Maybe slower in boys than girls a little bit. But it clearly is at risk So the question is: how do we best promote a sensitivity

12:26 wisely? Last week, on the 19th, a couple days ago, there was an editorial in the Marblehead Current that when I first read, I wrote Lee Blander, whom I know, and thanked them for bringing the topic up. The editorial board thought a lot about it, and I think our goal is to educate as broadly and as deeply as possible these issues. So if we can make broad general assumptions about where to go in this area, I think it’s a benefit. I’ve been asked: what right does the Board of Health have to tell the chief of police or the select board how to operate? Well, the board’s not trying to tell anybody anything. We worked with UMass Boston, the survey group there, to develop what we called the CALM survey. We distributed postcards with QR codes to

13:58 all 8,000 homes, 16,000 residents of Marblehead, and we received 2,553 responses. Our UMass Boston colleagues said that was extraordinary for this kind of survey, and the vast majority of that group said we weren’t doing enough to deal with, inform, and shape the culture of the town. And that survey, Marbleheaders are very opinionated. Not only were they willing to answer 42 quick questions, multiple choice, they filled out about 40 pages of comments, and the comments were even stronger about this particular issue. So I don’t think the Board of Health is telling anyone what to do. I see it as a portal saying that the town needs to do better, and I think the best way that we can start doing better is having a conversation about what might work, what might not, what are the barriers to our improving the mental health of the young people in the town.

15:28 So, I proposed at the last meeting that we think about going to town meeting to do a repeal of the existing bylaw that has not been at least recorded through the town clerk since 2017. I believe that we are acting as a portal for those 2,550 people who were quite clear that they don’t think we’re doing enough. So there are issues in the editorial that I actually completely agreed with. The editorial kind of implies that there are other ways to have a debate about this. In my limited experience in Marblehead, the most robust conversations that I’ve been involved with have been in the four town meetings that I’ve gone to. Whether it be 3A, whether it was removing elected board members last year, the overrides. There is honest, open, and frank conversation. So that’s probably the place I disagreed most

17:00 with the editorial, and I certainly agreed, and I don’t know if it’s technically possible town meeting, it was done in the election around the overrides, that if we could have a three-legged town meeting, if they have three clickers, one, two, and three, maybe. You could say, “One, vote one if you want to maintain what we have. Vote two if you want to repeal it. Click three if you want improvements made on it.” So, I think this, again, the fact that the editorial board of The Marblehead Current went out of its way to say some things about this issue from my perspective is fantastic. Okay? But I would like to go forward and move. Let’s see what we can build on what they say, how it melds with what we might think is right. But we’re not saying anyone is wrong or we’re telling anyone how to do their job. We’re saying that the town as a whole absolutely needs to do more. And the- The metric has to be the outcomes, not just reduction of the tragedy that occurred, like the tragedy occurred last August, but the fact that we are raising a group of young people who are

18:31 comfortable with binge drinking and the youth risk behavior survey that was reported in the school committee, what did it say? 7% of children under 12 have been drinking alcohol in the town, and by 14, I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it’s an unbelievable- 16%. 16%. Mm-hmm. So, we need to figure out what’s the best way for the town to take this issue seriously and come together, not as a group of siloed committees or boards or commissions, but as a town, and move forward to deal with the barriers and make improvement. So I see that as the benefit of the town meeting. So that’s the position that I would make. Mr. McMahon. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that the date that came out was on the one-year anniversary of Savannah dying, which I just think was insane that that’s the editorial that comes out that

20:02 day. Also, when you bring it to town meeting, it’s the town deciding. It’s not us deciding. It’s not us dictating how it’s going to be. Everyone votes. Everyone has an opinion. As Tom was saying, our town meetings are unique. I love them. You get to hear everyone’s opinion. I think Tom thinks a little more highly of this article than I do. I did notice that it’s not getting much support online, so I think the vast majority of the town does not agree with the sentiment on it. I know the people that contact me, I get stopped everywhere, and it’s been nothing but support for things I’ve said. I did see the survey. I believe we have someone here that wants to speak on it. One thing that I’d note, so Gina Hart usually comes here. She’s done it twice, I think, while I’ve been on the board. Yeah. During the fall, like early fall. Yeah. And they’ll bring the survey down in front of us and break it down. And- It’s the YRBS survey. Yeah. Youth behavioral risk. Yeah. And so we get to ask questions, definitely poke holes in some of the survey questions. Yeah. And, so I’ve seen her presentation on it. I did think it was interesting. I thought there was a lot of key interesting points made in it and a lot to discuss on those. I know Gina’s not here anymore, which is unfortunate. So I’m not sure who will be doing that, and if it’s Julia.

21:34 I talked to John, the superintendent. He has a replacement, and he thinks she’s definitely up to that standard. Yeah. It’s unfortunate she wasn’t there for the… She probably wasn’t there for- Yeah … the conducting of the survey. No, she was not. Yeah, because one thing that I really appreciated about her doing the survey, and I don’t know how many people watched. Did you guys watch at all? She talked to the school committee about it, and one thing I like that she does is the survey is anonymous to the students. And she does say it’s a jumping-off point. She’s like, “This can’t be hard data.” She mentions it several times, being like, “You don’t know if it’s truthful or what,” but it’s a jumping-off point, which I agree on. And then what she does though, is she gives the survey results to the students, and then in her classes, she talks to them and almost re-surveys them to see what they think of the results, to see if they think the results are accurate. And I thought that was a really smart way to do it. And one thing that really stood out to me on it was that it looked like there was a downward trend in drinking, which is odd because it coincided with an upward trend in drinking and driving, which I thought was interesting. 72% of the students said they think their peers are using alcohol at a higher level than the data indicates.

23:05 72% saw the results and said this is undercutting it. And I just thought, and 63% for nicotine, 50% for pot. And I thought that said a lot right there about the survey. So I’m glad she did that. There was another key point in there that really stood out to me, and I think this pertains to social hosting. And like I said, we don’t know how accurate these are because 70%, they didn’t do the follow-up on this question, but this one stood out to me. 12.8% of people answered yes to… Let me see. The question was, would your parents or guardians be upset or give you a consequence if they knew you were using alcohol or marijuana on a regular basis? 13% said no. That’s a high number. For a regular basis of a teenager, 13% of their parents just say, “Whatever. Cool.” And the other one that really took me back, and I think this says a lot about what we’ve been talking about, is the question was, currently or previously, have any adults that you lived with used substances in front of you in a way that made you concerned? 92% said yes. So that’s what we’re doing as parents here. 92% of the kids said it was in a concerning way. Those are just a couple things

24:39 that stood out to me from that. I know Kristen wants to say something. Kristen’s raising her hand. Yeah, Kristen. She just got up a second ago. Our fourth member is on Zoom. Can you hear us, Kristen? I can hear you. Can you hear me? And we can’t hear you. We can’t hear you. I’m unmuted.

25:13 Kristen, go ahead. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Can you hear us? I can hear you perfectly. Although earlier in the call I got a weird double echo. But I’ve got you all here, and this is my wheelhouse. I’ve been doing work on adolescent behavior and underage drinking for 25 years, and I know that because we wrote the first grant to get the money when I was pregnant with my oldest. The YRBS, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, has been running for I think now 42 years in the United States. It is the most rigorously implemented and well-documented survey on this type of work that we can have that kind of time to look at the data. And I think, Tom, your points on what some of the limits of the survey are based on feedback from kids in classrooms are sort of interesting. What we have found historically is that kids who are asked, kids in the 7th to 12th grade, which is how it is administered nationally, who are asked to complete a survey where they have to fill in bubbles and where they know it is anonymous, and there’s a big procedure that we use in the classroom so that they understand that it’s really anonymous.

26:45 It is sealed in an envelope carried by a student to wherever, the guidance counselor’s office. No one ever sees any individual child, where they can attribute it to a child. They’re really good at being fairly honest. If there’s a way that they skim is kids who in trouble, we seem to under-report. So I think it’s great that Gina did that work. I’m happy to work with whoever at the Board of Ed is doing the work this year. The problem is all the data we’d really like to get has been sucked out of the survey. Our Board of Education made decisions not to include data on the four risk behaviors that about 97% of school districts in this country collect data on every year. So Marblehead’s in the bottom 3% as far as a researcher in terms of knowing the data. And if we don’t have good data on– And I’ll give you some for instances. I worked for many years in a town that looks very much like Marblehead. White, upper class groupings with parents who had to get to work in New York City, which was often an hour. Sounds familiar. It is also an old town with lots of old roads

28:16 and where you’re driving around curves at night. We saw our underage drinking rates by having our children and our parents lead us in the changes that need to be done in the community. It’s very hard to do that without good data. We can look at police reports and see that about 70% of the adult stops in our town are for drunk driving or reckless driving if they don’t breathalyze the people. We know that this is a town where drinking is a huge part of our culture and where parents who may have to commute for work, travel for work, may feel like, “Hey, I drank in high school.” The fact is that where I was drinking, I didn’t drink in high school because I was afraid I’d get kicked out, I was in boarding school, but 35 years ago, I was not worried about alcohol affecting my brain. I now understand that basically I am thinning my prefrontal cortex, disrupting my myelin formation, and it is a really good marker of long-term alcohol abuse, dependency, and gateway activities

29:48 largely to misuse of prescription drugs. So what can we do about it here? I think we’ve got to partner with our Board of Ed, with parents who are interested. There was a great group of folks, parents and kids who were interested in this. I think it was last September there was an article in “The Current.” If we can pull people together who are of like minds at the very beginning that begin to sit down and do this work with us. Tom, I don’t know if that is a subcommittee or an ad hoc committee of- … the public health board, get a couple of us on that board or on that subcommittee, and then have them work together with us, with young people who are living in this community, to talk about what they need. In Trumbull, Mass, it was really simple things. How do you have the communication with your child about where they’re going and what they’re doing that evening? We made sticky notes that went on the fridge that said, “Hey, I’m going to Suzy’s tonight. We’re going to study biology and then go over to a friend’s house to swim. And here’s what I’m going to call you and say if there’s drinking and I’m uncomfortable, or I’m worried about other kids on the site.”

31:18 And then you knew, right? The parent knew, “Hey, I got a call from Suzy that said, ‘Hey, the water’s really cold today.’” Maybe that meant she’s in trouble and she needs help. There are ways to work collaboratively with police. Our police in Trumbull used to just drive to a party, lights and sirens going. Kids knew to park two blocks away, run through the woods to get to the place where they parked their car, and hop in their car and dash home. That caused many accidents and trouble, kids fleeing parties. We taught and trained our police on how to do controlled dispersal. Every time there was a party with alcohol or drugs broken up, every child was kept at the site until they could be picked up by a parent or guardian, and that parent or guardian walked through the home and saw the damage that had been done. That was a huge eye-opener to parents who historically said to us, “I drank beer in the woods in high school, it’s fine.” When they saw what kind of damage kids were doing to property, they understand this was a bigger problem and a different kind of drinking. So we need to be using best practices here, and we need to be really moving toward, over a longer term, us getting better data and giving young people and parents the power to lead the change that we need to see to make

32:50 sure our children are safe. I hope that was helpful. Thank you. I can confirm, having worked in a couple of other states right before I came here, that we do give the least robust YRBS of any place I’ve worked. The primary survey that’s sent out to all school districts in the country has a little over 100 questions. We don’t ask anywhere close to that number because of concern about parental involvement. The parents have had some concern about even asking questions like that. So basically what we are saying, we as a community need to look at what we’ve done, how can we do better, what better outcomes are possible, and at least in what I understand, a town meeting is the best place that I know to have that kind of forum. Are there any people online that would like to comment? Nobody with raised hands at this time. Okay. Anyone in the audience?

34:22 Yeah. I’m just curious who- Can you just go up to the mic so everybody- Yep … lives on Health Avenue. It’s more so people can hear you. Okay. I just wonder who sponsored this article originally that you want to delete. Besides the Select, but I mean, who initiated this? Did the Board of Health initiate this? Let me just say, we’re not necessarily saying that we want to remove it. We’re saying, I think, that it probably needs to be modified. And what we’re really hoping for is some discussion about… Because I do think, actually, when I looked at it again, I think Section 93, the one about transportation, actually gives the police an enforcement tool that they would not otherwise have. But it’s not consistent in terms of only applying to people under the age of 18 as opposed to anyone under the age of 21, number one. And number two, it’s pretty vague in terms of the way it’s written. I think the language needs to be tweaked. It talks about whoever controls a minor and fails to prevent them from being in a transportation situation, and I’m reading this thinking, I have a 19-year-old, I can’t stop her from going on somebody’s boat where there’s alcohol. You know what I mean? I don’t necessarily know. And I try to do the right thing with my kids, but I think the way that’s written is problematic. So I think what we’re saying is we’d like to

35:52 see some type of warrant go to the town meeting so that people can talk about this. And the exact wording, I think we would really need to work with Town Council to figure out exactly what our proposal would say. That’s where I am on that. But… Right. Before it goes to Town Meeting, I would like the police chief to come in here. You people initiated it. He came from Salem. He had all kinds of programs over there, basketball, a bike patrol. I don’t know what he does in Marblehead. I don’t see any of those programs that he talked about when he got hired three or four years ago. I don’t want to fight with the guy But I would like Kim… You initiated it. You had a one-on-one conversation. I think the whole board and the public needs to hear from him what his ideas are. I want to hear what comes out of his mouth, not secondhand information. And then on top of it, I think we have deaths all the time. I think it was North Andover last night, they had a fatality with a 21-year-old kid driving and a seven-year-old girl. They actually burnt up in the car, her father and a seven-year-old girl. So this problem isn’t going away, and I don’t know how you solve it, but I’ll tell you one way you don’t solve it. You don’t pass a law and then don’t do nothing about it for a lot

37:24 of years and just let it sit there and collect dust. We need to discuss this in the public before we have the next incident in Marblehead. This is going on not just in Marblehead. Ruth- There’s 351 communities in Massachusetts, cities and towns. Okay? This isn’t just a Marblehead problem. Okay? It’s all over. It happens all over. And a thing, too, like the Buddy Program, if people do have an issue and they call the cops for help, they shouldn’t get arrested. If they overdose on heroin, they have a law that someone can call, and they won’t be prosecuted. That’s actually- That’s part of the state law … that’s actually part of it. Yeah. That’s part of the state law. So, we need… I don’t know if we have that in this now. If a kid sees something going on someplace and someone is privy to it, he doesn’t want to rat his friend out, or him or her, because they think, “I’d rather have them-“ There’s a section that specifically addresses the fact that no minor gets into trouble by virtue of seeking medical help for someone who’s in trouble. That absolves- Well, I even think if a parent comes home and doesn’t know something’s going on and they come into the situation, that it would be better to save a life. I think we want to use common sense here, and we want to save lives. I’m not interested in prosecuting people. I’m interested in waking people up- Sure we- … and letting the kids know that we’re interested, and that we’re not interested… When we go to town meeting, there used to be three or four days town

38:56 meeting. I’ve gone there since 1974. Okay? They combined it all last year. I’m going to tell you right now, at town meeting, most people won’t even want to listen to this. Well, I think- So I think you need to have a discussion before. We’re trying to get that. We’re on the same… We’re on your side. Okay. Thank you. We want people talking about this. This is the whole point. Right, and that’s why we need to bring the police chief. He’s got to be on Zoom. You got to tell people that you’re having this meeting like you had the- Hey, we’re not blaming him or anything. No, I’m not blaming the police chief, but he’s a main character in this discussion. It’s his responsibility, him and the fire chief, to protect the kids and the residents of Marblehead. Um- That’s my opinion. I’m paying plenty of money, and I don’t want to see more people drive off the causeway. Okay? Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. We don’t either. Hello, my name’s Ryan Wilson. I live at Cliffs and Heights Lane. I’ve been a coach. I’ve been the president of my neighborhood association. I’ve got two kids in the high school right now. Tom, you do need to check that presentation that you quoted, though, because it’s red and blue in here, but the coding says clearly, “Currently or previously has any adults that you’ve lived with used substances in front of you in a way that made you concerned?” It is 91.8% no, 8.2% yes. So if you’re looking at a black and white copy, it’s not going to register, but I looked at the copy that John sent me earlier. So maybe- Can I ask you a question? Because you and I have had some unpleasant back and forth. No, no. Yeah. No, I want to ask you a quick question. No, no, Tom. What’s your goal? This is my time, Tom. Yeah. I want to know what your goal is. Let him speak. It’s his space. My goal, and I think this is a very important- Give the young man a bunch of minutes. We always give people that.

40:26 So Tom, the aggressiveness is not helpful in this conversation. And I just want to say, I come here as a parent. I also come here as a professional market researcher. I think what the other board member said earlier- Christopher … we need data. We need data, and we need the best data possible. Having people in town just talking about this isn’t what’s important. What we need to do is make sure that people are aware of the data and what we’re talking about. So the article, Tom, and I do appreciate this too. You said in the past that I think our first premise should be to assume that our colleagues are well-intentioned, right? We have to assume that. So Tom, you can look at me and you can say, “What’s your angle? What are you doing?” I’m well-intentioned. I think- I think you are, Ryan. Okay. Because you said the problem is decreasing, so what would that mean? You are against us doing anything. I have data. No, no. Tom- You and Leo have had this conversation, Ryan. I’m not gonna let you lie. Oh, but let’s… Wait. You’re in the courtesy of speaking because we’ve always… That’s been the board of health- Yeah … all year round. Thank you, Tom. I have comments. I think they’re constructive. They’re not insulting. Tom, you wanted me to come out to this, and I actually commented on that article in the Marblehead Current. I thought it was interesting. I’ve seen data that shows that underage drinking in town is going down. I made that comment, and then Tom sent a note to me, said, “I’m not giving that ridiculous article the satisfaction of my comment, but your comment is beyond stupid. You’re part of the problem, not the solution. I thought you were going to come to the last meeting.” You comment on the article? Are you just going to- I said the narrative that’s being spun about Marblehead youth drinking going down

41:58 is not accurate because it’s not accurate. How’s that helpful to anything? That’s not the point. And then you said, “I gave you information about the meeting. I find your entire comment to show that you’re a f*****g moron.” I apologize for the language. That’s Tom’s, not mine. It is. And I said, “Tom, perfect. I look forward to being there.” He goes, “Bring that data you fabricated to back up your comment.” I gave him credit for name-calling and now insinuating that I was fabricating data. He said, “You did fabricate it. Until you produce it, I’m going on the assumption it’s fabricated.” And again, you’re not responsible for Tom, and I completely understand that. No, they’re not. But what I’m saying is that the narrative that has been spun in town is disingenuous because it’s not true. It’s not supported by the data. Gina Hart’s- Sorry, what’s the narrative? That Marblehead is reaching a tipping point when it comes to underage drinking When you’re talking about reaching a tipping point, you’re telling people that it’s getting worse. I think that’s one person’s comments, so- Yes, but as a member of the Board of Health, I expect him to be able to convey a narrative that is authentic to the town, because he’s supposed to be a credible member of the board, right? But what we’re seeing, and the data is very clear, Gina Hart said it as well, underage drinking in this town year over year is going down. It went from 40% to 42%, now down to 32% in the SURF data. That’s a reduction of almost 25%. That’s actually something that– And that data was taken two months after the tragedy last August. So you think kids weren’t paying attention? The data shows that… And also, it’s really important, something we’ve completely lost sight of as people

43:30 are throwing these data points around. What does 32% mean? Does that mean they drank last week? They drank last month? It’s total lifetime usage. So if you had a glass of champagne at your cousin’s wedding with your family, you’re answering yes to that question. That is total alcohol consumption lifetime. What we’re missing with the data that we’re not seeing from the SURF is the intensity of drinking, the frequency of… I reached out to Mass General Harvard Brigham, the woman, Randy, who’s running the study, because I want to see the data. I’m not interested in the emails that Tom gets. I want the data so that this issue can be sized accurately for the town. And you know what somebody said in that same article? Because I’m pushing back. I don’t care. I’m not putting up with Tom’s aggressive antics. I’m not putting up with that stuff. You know what somebody said? They said, “If underage drinking were down, it wouldn’t be a topic of discussion.” That’s the narrative. It’s fueling all these conversations, and therefore, people don’t believe the actual data that we have. That’s a disservice to the community. Is it a problem in town or not? I’m looking at data, Tom. No, I’m asking you a general– Is it a problem in town or not? I’m not going to define what a problem is or isn’t. All right then, you just- No … Just answer the question. Is it a problem in town or not? I’m going to tell you right now, it’s less of a problem than it was last year, and that’s very clear. You can’t argue that data. From 42 to 32%. I can argue it when everyone sees it at Crocker Park- Here’s- When it happens at Browns Island, two deaths in four years, I can argue it all day long. No. You- Tom, the board is going to lose credibility if we don’t let our speakers speak.

45:01 Yes. And here’s something else I want to point out, too. And I’m not condoning alcohol. Just, not to interrupt you, I just want to clarify. Kristen, who’s on Zoom, did not hear your name. Can you just repeat it for her one time? Oh, it’s Ryan Wilson. Ryan. I also go by Patrick Wilson. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. So, some other points from the data that I think for the Board of Health needs to be thinking about as you’re thinking overall about the safety. So within our high school, in the 2025/2026 data, 11% of students reported having suicidal thoughts, down from 16%. 9% had a plan to commit suicide, and 1.2% attempted suicide. 88 kids at the high school have thought about it, 72 made plans, and almost 10 tried. We have to think about that as well. It’s an issue. Another bigger issue, a much more prevalent issue, texting and driving. 60% of students reported texting while driving, 35% only when necessary, almost 10% every time I drive. Those are real issues. Any safety expert will tell you that is just as dangerous and as deadly as drinking and driving, and that’s happening all hours of the day. Most DUIs in any state, in any place, they’re done after midnight. We’re talking about behavior that’s going on from 7:00 in the morning until midnight, just as dangerous as drunk driving. If we had that many people going around drunk driving, we’d be all over it, but we’re not. Okay? And finally, for the Board of Health, something I want you all to think about. We know that we’re not going to get kids who just suddenly give up alcohol because we educate them. Things are going in the right direction. And you know what?

46:33 If you push them out of Marblehead, and imagine the scenario, you push them all out of Marblehead. No house is allowing kids to drink in Marblehead. And I’m not supporting that, and I don’t do it. Okay? Where are you pushing them to? Woods, Salem, Lynn, Children’s Island, going out on a boat. Far more dangerous places, I will tell you. They have to get in a car to get to those places. They have to get in a car to come back. Right? So even if you were ultimately successful, Tom, in teaching every parent in town a lesson, you know what? You’re actually, I would argue, putting kids much more in harm’s way because you’re pushing them out of town. I would rather have my kids at somebody’s house in their backyard with a parent who is there, who has an eye on what’s going on, and while they might be technically breaking the law, they’re actually doing a better job of protecting their kids than pushing them off to places where help can’t be rendered, where bad things can happen, and we’re going to ignore those things. Okay. No way. All right. Let’s thank him. That’s my point. Thank you very much. I’m done. Okay. Kristen, do you have any comments?

47:37 Kristen? More than I could possibly say, and I would love to have coffee with Ryan or Patrick. If he’d like to talk and if he’d like to look at the data with me, I welcome the opportunity. I think it should be a great conversation between the two of us. But our goal, at least my goal for introducing the topic last time around, was to try to get the whole town involved in that conversation. Oh. And, I would like to make one or two points. I don’t know the exact data on whether drinking is being reduced in young people. And I’m not sure that we have it, actually. Yeah. But I do know that cannabis is rising rapidly, and the likelihood that cannabis will become the substance that’s most used by young people in the next three to five years is Is likely. The town legislation has a parallel law that does the same thing for cannabis. Our bylaw says nothing. It could be one of the improvements that if we wanted to keep the bylaw and improve it, that’d be one way to go. Finally, you mentioned the YRBS,

49:08 self-harm, suicidal. The Board of Health, one of its subdivisions, two years ago invited the NAN Project to speak to the subcommittee. Then we brought the subcommittee to the board. This year, the school committee is actually contracted with them. The NAN Project, I guess it is. A family lost a daughter to suicide, and they have tried to set up peer coaching structures to help kids who are thinking those kind of things. So, the board has been as active as it can be. We’re bringing up the drinking because it’s of focus to the town and because of the way the weekend over the 4th of July was publicized in the newspaper. But you’re absolutely right. Kids are at risk in today’s world for multiple reasons, and we see the Board of Health as the home of the data collection, and I’ll come to that back in a few minutes. Data collection and distribution of the best data we can find over time.

50:29 Yeah, I just want to say, I think as a Board of Health, our goal is healthier Marblehead, healthier kids in whatever way possible, and you’re absolutely right. There are other health challenges. My youngest graduated from the high school a little over a year ago, so I know what goes on. I know what problems the kids face. In an ideal world, I would love to have the community discussions that Kristen was talking about that they had in the town where she worked prior to here. I was afraid that if we said we’re going to have community meetings about this, everybody would yawn and not turn up. The bylaw, changing the bylaw gets everybody’s attention. But maybe we don’t need guerrilla tactics. Maybe we just have meetings that people come to. I’m open to it, but I think we’re all about creating a healthier town, and that’s really what this is for. I think you’re pretty inaccurate when you say that it’s a couple kids drinking in a backyard. These are 80 to 100 kids. The parents aren’t watching. And I live next to one of these houses, I know. So I’d argue that they’re better off going to a bar in Marblehead where the bartender’s actually paying attention than they can go into one of these parties. And I can tell you as someone that did go to the woods in town when we didn’t have people dying in drunk driving, whereas we did have a fatality from someone leaving one of these social hosting houses. Hey, Tom.

52:00 When you approach people the way that you approach- I’m to the- I’m not listening to anything you have to say. Okay. Yeah, don’t. Okay. I think Kristen wanted to add something. Yeah, I want to say that I think we have sort of two avenues to pursue. First of all, if I could actually see, which I’ve never, as a non-member of the Board of Health, been able to get ahold of the full data set for the past 10 years, I’ll crank through the analysis. This is what I do for a living, and I am more than happy anywhere that one or more people are gathered, I will present the data. I will talk to them. I can make it simple, I can make it understandable, and I can answer the kind of questions that were being raised earlier about what this means. But what I’d ask is if we, as Board of Health members, begin to share information, that we’re all using the same data set, that we’re all sharing the same talking points so there’s not confusion. It’s 32%, no, it’s 78. That we are all speaking from one set of data so that we are not confusing the public. And Andrew, if you have a brilliant idea of how the Board of Ed will give me that data in raw numbers, not only in PowerPoint slides. I’d love the data before we cut all the good questions out,

53:30 too. If you’ll allow me. Go ahead. So just a quick background on the YRBS survey. The town had a period of time where they were not doing the YRBS survey. I received a grant, and part of that grant was the agreement with the education department that they would continue on with the YRBS survey. I don’t think I have data for 10 years by any means. I’m trying to think of when that actually started again. But again, yeah, let’s get all the data together. Let’s talk to the state to see if we can actually get the raw data. When we see it, it’s all been broken down, and it’s given to us at a presentation. But let’s make this available. Let’s take a look at it. There’s multiple facets to it. Yeah, suicidal thoughts. When I read the data the first time, my jaw hit the floor. I was like, “We have a problem.” And we’re not far off from national averages and stuff like that, but anytime you see one kid think about these things, it’s concerning. So yeah, we need to take a look at that. We need to take a look at the history of it. And again, this should be widely available to everybody. It shouldn’t be put together and then kind of shelved and put in somebody’s desk. This should be on the town websites. That should be everywhere where people can take a look at it and analyze the data and have good conversations around it And what we can do to just move forward. That’s a- I just want to say one thing, just a general comment.

55:01 My goal is to try to prevent tragedies and heartache in this town, and I’m using the avenues I have to do that, and I just want to make that clear. Okay. This is a perfect segue. I’d like to introduce Laurie Criscuola, who will be joining the team at the Board of Health. We’re supporting a part-time person. You can just grab a seat right there. We’re giving her the title of Public Health Information Curator. Her job will be to take every bit, every type of information that is out there. She’s a very recent graduate of the Johns Hopkins School, Bloomberg School of Public Health. Got a very interesting background, multilingual, knows Marblehead well, and she’s going to work with Peter, who’s working with us to resuscitate the Marbleheads Cares website. Historically, Cares Glouchester is the best one out there. Other Cares websites have been navigation devices. If you need

56:33 help with this, you need a therapist for that, they do that very well. What Laurie’s going to bring to Marblehead Cares, what we hope with her background and with now three physicians on the board, we will have a very robust collection of the public health science that’s out there, and we will be able to debate or at least share to the town the differences. You’re right. Most of the time, I can bore people to tears with data, but nonetheless, at the margin, every so often, even people who don’t want to hear about it will take it and go to the next step further. And I’m really pretty comfortable that working with the new website and with someone like Laurie, a young person who will understand what’s going on with kids out there. This will be a very, very valuable addition to the way the Board of Health and the town approaches youth health. No, this is extremely valuable. We’re all talking about our biggest goal with all this is communication, making sure that we have the facts out there in a correct way, that people can review them, analyze them, but making sure that we do that in a well-thought-out manner. So we are really excited to be working with you.

58:05 Thank you, guys. Thanks for- Do you want to make… Yeah. I just wanted to say thank you to the board and Tom and Amanda, who couldn’t be here, for meeting with me and coming up with this position that I can support you guys with. Thank you. Funding for this is coming from the little grant that we have on building a landscape for vulnerable children and moms in town. We got that grant 18 months ago. It paid partly for Calm, and some others. Some very generous donations for Calm. And this is a perfect way to fill out that landscape, to get to know the town and get to know the science out there, and try to get the interface that more people in town understand the science. So, we’re lucky to have Laurie, we’re lucky to have still a few dollars left in that grant, and we’re lucky to have Peter, who’ll be able to work with her to make the website as creative and eye-catching as possible. Thanks, guys. Yes, Steve. Will this be accessible through the Town Board of Health website? Which piece? The part that she’s going to be doing. So, yeah. So there’s always going to be always links from- There will be a link or something. Yeah. So, there will be a direct link from the Marblehead-

59:36 Okay … website into Marblehead Cares. That way you can always just go to the Marblehead website and find your way- Thanks … to all these different things. I believe Lee has a question.

59:52 Lee, go right ahead and ask your question. Hi, guys. Quick question, just kind of popping back to what Kristen said. The four areas or risk areas that were not addressed in the Marblehead survey, what were they?

1:00:11 Kristen? I have not seen the full data set, but as I understand it, it’s sex, alcohol, and other drug use. Yeah. But alcohol- What are the other ones? … and drug use is definitely- Missing … in the survey. I just emailed you- And we don’t ask if our kids are having sex either. And as I understand, they never added vaping when the rest of the country did. Okay. Thanks. I can send you a complete survey, Lee. Yeah, that would be great. And I just sent you our article from over the summer about the results of the most recent survey. Great. Thank you. You bet. Thank you.

1:01:04 No other comments from the- No … okay. The next item is Marblehead Parenting parent classes. And I got this note from Diana and Ella, whom I’ve been working with Sarah, who owns the Marblehead Parenting. We are planning to go live with the prenatal classes the first week of October. They will begin taking reservations for the classes sometime next week or immediately after Labor Day. But what she wrote to me, I think says everything that people, if anyone’s wondering why we’re doing this. In this program, expected parents, we hope couples will come to that, they will walk away with a postpartum preparedness plan. The plan will include personal, community, and medical resources that can provide support during the postpartum period. We find most successful

1:02:35 starts of a young life result from preparedness, education, and strong support systems. We hope that this program will help expected parents set off on the best foot as they begin their new parent journey. And that we’re happy, they’re happy as partners to be part of the new village. So for me, that’s the kind of thing we need to be doing out there. And again, while our other commenter left, but Kristen Urbeta, not Kristen on the board, but a colleague of ours from Salem State University, is going to go through their human research program and get approval to do an evaluation of how well the course that we’re developing, the free course that we’re developing, will serve the parents. So hopefully by the end of the first year, we’ll be able to say, “Boy, X moms and Y dads think their baby was better off because they learned X, Y, and Z.” And we’ll be able to compare it to the literature to say that, “Gee, that’s better than what would have occurred

1:04:08 if that class hadn’t existed.” So we’re trying to collect our own data, but Lori will be the curator to get whatever data is out there and try to bring it together. And again, all of this comes from the fact that we’re not doing, even though I think that the five of us on the board are driving this in a way, it’s really the 2,553 people who filled out the calm survey and told us what they thought about wellness in this town. And we are an activist portal to bring it to the community. Okay? Questions on that or comments on that? Finally, we began to talk last week about maybe we don’t, even though we try to be generous in this board to let public comment be as open and public as necessary to have everything said. Sometimes we have to move on with other things. We’ve decided that the board will hold office hours to open up conversations. I’ll start it as a pilot, as the chair, and maybe the director will come to some, others will come along. The first one we’re going to do after our

1:05:41 first September meeting will be that we meet on Monday evening at 10:00 the following morning. We will meet in the small conference room in the old Mary Alley building until we get thrown out, right? And we’ll do it on Zoom and in person. The goal will not be to repeat everything, but the goal will be,

1:06:08 if you look on the town report, the mission of the Board of Health is to make the town safer and healthier, and have a cleaner and more positive environment. So we would like to hear in our office hours of what the community, how the community thinks we’re going. And especially, what might we be able to do better? It doesn’t make any sense if all it is is a b***h session complaining what isn’t done. But if we can really take it and bring that conversation and the conversations we have in this meeting to be positive, I thought how we can make this better. The chief come, talk to the chief. We talk to the chief not in a negative way, but what might we work better? How might we- Might we work better? But that’s what I’m planning to do with office hours and on a regular basis. If we get a lot of people, we’ll do it after every meeting. Maybe we’ll do it for a couple of months after the first meeting of the month. We may try to do one in the late afternoon for people who are working. But I can tell you that none of us have joined the board to create personal power. We are interested, we care about the town, we want the town to prosper, and there are enormous risks

1:07:41 for all of the ages, but in my mind, for the young people most, and that’s where the board sees itself. Are there any questions or comment about that? What time are you going to have the meeting? 10:00. We’re going to start at 10:00 in the morning. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, the chair’s part of the meeting is completed. There was only one, so I didn’t bring it. I figured I’d add it to the next one. Bills? Yeah. Okay. It was only one. Well, that’s interesting. We went a whole two weeks without- Yeah … spending any money. Good work, Andrew. Well, it was a big bill, though. So I’m going to keep it with the rest. Okay. Moving on to the director’s report. All right, so a bunch of different topics, but I’m going to first start with kratom. So Department of Public Health Commissioner Robbie Goldstein, MD, PhD, has issued an emergency order, temporarily placing all forms of kratom into Schedule 1 under Massachusetts law. The order will take effect following the 14-day notice period, so his order was August 13th. The 14-day notice period will end on August 27th, and will remain in effect for up to one year. It will give local boards of health and other municipal officials additional authority to take enforcement action against retailers selling kratom products. Again, this kind of goes back to our discussion

1:09:12 about kratom, looking at regulations. Yes, we want to move forward with the regulations. This is a kind of stop-gap issue. We really want to push these on to town council, create them. Once we have these regulations in place, we do have a tobacco control official. They will be able to make site visits. So they will go out to our establishments, looking at tobacco products. They’ll also be looking for kratom products. So again, it’s great that the state did this, but we need to move forward with our kratom regulations. On the agenda, I have household hazardous waste. Our next household hazardous waste day is a Wednesday. It’s October 7th. It’s from 4:00 to 7:00. We’ve been switching back and forth between the springtime and the fall time. The springtime is a Saturday. The fall is a Wednesday, from 4:00 to 7:00. It allows people that cannot attend the Saturday to attend another day of the week, rather than a Saturday for household hazardous waste. 4:00 to 7:00? 4:00 to 7:00, yeah. Again, this is for… Latex paint is non-hazardous. It can be dried out and thrown away in your trash on a regular basis or brought to the transfer station once it’s dried out, but these are for real hazards. So oil-based paints, pesticides, items like that. Again, we really want you to be a smart consumer. Know what you’re going to use before you buy the

1:10:43 products. This is a pay event and the costs are very high. What we see all the time is that somebody bringing in a bag of fertilizer, I’m going to charge you more to get rid of it than you paid to buy it. So think about what you have to do. Read the labels. Look at your yard size. Only buy what you need to use. Otherwise, you’re going to pay a large amount of money for us to responsibly destroy the products. Same goes for pesticides. That’s the biggest one, though. We see these big bags of fertilizer come in and say, “I have no choice. I need to charge you $90 to get rid of this bag.” And people are always like, “What?” I’m like, “This is the cost to get rid of it.” Highly regulated, and this is what we have to do. So that’s just kind of my reminder for everybody. Really be a good consumer when you’re buying household hazardous products. How about mercury thermometers from the 1980s? I take mercury thermometers from 1980s on a daily basis. So I have a mercury collection program running all the time. We have a bucket in the office. You’d be surprised. Because we are a coastal community and a navigation community, I often get items where people are bringing in old weather instruments and stuff like that, that contain a lot of mercury. So it’s always a good program. You know, somebody passes away, they’re going through their parent’s stuff, and they find this huge jar

1:12:14 or huge container that contains a lot of mercury. Those things can be brought into us on a regular basis. So if you do find that, please bring that into the office. We have a collection pail all the time. Any other questions around- I have a naive question for Julie. Were those dangerous just to use or just dangerous if they broke open? Well, they’re- Not that I have any, I’m just curious … they’re dangerous if they break open. I mean, they were- Yeah … you could walk into any Walgreens and buy them in the 1980s, which is- Yeah … why I still have one, but- Yeah … but then I found one in my mother-in-law’s house and one in my parent’s house, and I have a collection now, but- Yeah … no. And some people will tell you that kids in the ’50s would break them open and play with the mercury. Really? In the ’80s. Okay. Whatever. They were- From what I know, in the ’50s. Yeah. They were more accurate Yeah. Okay. I’m sure I had them in my mouth. That might be what’s wrong. As long as it doesn’t break. Yeah. Okay. Just want to make sure. And again, we’ll go back to mercury. Fluorescent light bulbs. Fluorescent light bulbs contain mercury. Do not smash a fluorescent light bulb. That’s why we have a collection at the transfer station. We also have a collection container at the office. And yes, all those gets recycled to recapture all the mercury that’s in them. Again, it’s mercury vapor. It’s not the liquid. It’s slightly different. But it is still mercury. And so that’s why we have a lot of these collection

1:13:44 programs that we run. As far as other household hazardous waste items, we take used oil on a regular basis. We do not take gasoline, kerosene, or diesel. I only take used oil. It cannot be mixed with antifreeze. If these items are contaminated and get added to my used oil container, I have to pay a very high fee to clean that tank and get rid of it. It’s like a 500-gallon tank. The cost to clean it and get rid of it is $2,000. So yeah, please make sure that you’re just bringing me used oil and nothing else. Mosquito season. We’re kind of entering into what I call is the height of mosquito season. And the reason why it’s the height is that as the cool temperatures come, which is really enjoyable, and we all like to sit outside more, we tend to like to sit outside more in the evening time, and that is when the mosquitoes are really active. We do surveillance for West Nile and triple E, so we capture mosquitoes. Found triple E. We have not found triple E. Define it. Oh, Eastern equine encephalitis. So you need a horse and a mosquito and a person all in the region to have triple E. West Nile virus is a little bit more prevalent. So we are generally, the state of Massachusetts is on a low concern. We have moved into a moderate concern.

1:15:17 West Nile requires a special Culex pipiens mosquito, which is a salt marsh mosquito. So you need a couple things to come around. We happen to have some of those, or some of our surrounding communities have those at this time. So our concern has been moved up to a moderate concern. We want to remind people that when they are outside to use a mosquito repellent like DEET or other items. There’s a lot of information on the state website. We can also post this on our website. We also want to make sure that you walk around your property and dump any water-containing items. Buckets, all that stuff. Anything that’s trapping water. Again, it’s been a really dry summer, but that huge flood that we had on Sunday is going to create a puddle, and the mosquitoes love that. So always take a walk around your property, dump any of those items, throw those items away, and reduce the risk. But again, if you’re out in the evening time, again, the concern is as we’re moving into sports season and school season, we have a lot of adults outside in the evening time watching sports, and they need to be protected.

1:16:26 Cyanobacteria. Back to water quality, bathing beaches. We do not have any freshwater bathing beaches. We only have saltwater, so we tend not to see cyanobacteria. We do see cyanobacteria in Reds Pond. It’s not technically a recreational pond. We’re not swimming in there. But kids are there fishing or model boat club. We do have cyanobacteria. We’ve had that present there for the last couple of years. We believe it is there again currently. We do have a sign. We will be posting a little bit more of a permanent sign. I had a little bit more of a permanent sign made that I just received. That will be going up there. So if you are fishing or using a model boat up at Reds Pond, we recommend that you wash your hands after you have contact with the water. The last kind of recommendation is that we had a recall. So the Department of Public issued a public health advisory on recalled Outshine fruit bars. These are very popular products for homes, especially in communities like this. And so these are the fresh fruit bars that everybody’s kind of familiar with. These are all… But I wanted to make sure because we do have some concern that these products might be in people’s homes. So Massachusetts Department of Public Health is advising consumers and retailers about a voluntary recall of

1:17:58 select Outshine fruit bars because they may contain glass. The recalled products were distributed to retailers nationwide and may have been sold in Massachusetts. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream Inc. issued the recall after receiving consumer reports of glass in the products. No illness or injuries associated with the recalled products have been reported as of August 18th, 2026. But I have a list of the different products. Outshine strawberry fruit bars, six-count packages. And I can post this online as well. But again, this is all readily available if you go to DPH website. But that’s just something that I wanted to remind everybody of. And that’s everything I have this time. Well, one of our regular attendees is very disappointed if you don’t mention the transfers thing. Correct? I have a question. How is the swap-out barrels going? I saw a young man recently in a rental truck- Yes … doing someone Curtis Street when I was walking by. So for the last couple of days, and we’ll be going for the next couple days, we are in the process of swapping out larger barrels for smaller barrels, mainly for elderly or other people that are having a hard time with the barrels. We really want to remind everybody, yes, we’re able to do this, but we are

1:19:29 very concerned that people are taking the smaller size barrel, and there is a very high chance that we will be moving to recycling collection every other week in five years. And that you are unable to– The regulation states that all items must be in the barrel or the cart with the lid closed. It’s more concerning for the recycling because your large cardboard is hard to fold up and fit it into a 35-gallon cart. The company or republic will not, and our regulation states we will not be picking up items that are left outside of the cart. And so yes, we will be going through a process of swapping out barrels for people who do the size. But we do have a concern that not all their items will be able to fit in the barrel. So last week we started on Wednesday. We started with Wednesday’s date, and we’ve worked our all the way through. Tomorrow they’ll begin working on Monday’s collection route. Monday’s collection route, because we’re downtown, a lot of people have requested smaller barrels. More for the fact that they have a harder place storing their barrel. So for the next two days or more, we’ll be working on changing all those out. I’ve also noticed, and I walk quite a bit, people that do not evidently want the barrels, for whatever reason, they put tape on them- Yep … so you can’t use them. There’s signs. Right down near the muffin shop, there’s two giant trash barrels, two giant recycles.

1:21:00 The only people that seem to use them are people walking by throwing junk in there. Yeah. So we ask people, again, with the swap out, we’re also doing the removal of the opt-outs, or the removal of people that don’t want them or have received smaller barrels and need to get rid of the bigger ones. We do ask people to tape them shut, because people do toss items into it. Either dog waste or other trash and stuff like that. I’m sure we’ve picked a few up. Places they’re not going to call you to pick them up. They’re abandoned on the side of the road. Okay. But yes, we will be going for the next couple of days, and swapping everything out. I didn’t recognize the person. Is that somebody just temporary was helping or? No, so we contact with a national company called Re-Rigg who- Okay … who does the barrels. Similar guys that- And they’re the subcontractors for them, yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Additional comments from the room? Additional comments from the outside? A motion to adjourn is appropriate. Motion to adjourn. Second? Second. All in favor? Thank you very much for, I think, a good conversation, and we will try to continue to make this a board and a meeting where we broaden the horizon of each of us and the town. Are you going to set a date for the next meeting? We are now firmly established to be the second and the fourth Monday of the month.

1:22:33 But because we have to move to this room, this room is very well utilized. Mm-hmm. So it’s not like Mary alley where it- Not going to be used. Yeah So if we can’t make a quorum on a particular Monday, we’ll have to cancel. We won’t be able to make it on who’s there Wednesday. So you can count on it from now on. Okay? Thank you. Well, thank you all