Board of Health - Regular Meeting

We're going to call the meeting of the Board of Health to order. If we'd all want to rise and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance the flag of

The United States Of America

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. On roll call, Doctor. Vogel is excused. We expect Emma Cain. She's probably a little delayed. I heard some Oh, she's there. Where is she?

Oh,

I'm sorry. I didn't have that. Okay. Never mind. Welcome, Emma. So we're all here except for Doctor. Vogel's excused. 20. I'm seeking a motion to approve the minutes for the October 8 Board of Health meeting.

Move to approve. Jones?

Second. Second by Worth. Are there any comments, questions, changes? Okay. All in favor say aye or thumbs up.

Aye. All

opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. We have no public hearings or appearances. Our action items are 20 five-thirteen-seventy two, approve succession of delegation of authority policy. No changes have been made since the last approval. Is there a motion to approve to get it on the table?

Move to approve.

Second. Second by Worth. Doctor. Siepress.

Yeah. As you stated, Chair, there's been no changes. What this policy does is dictate a delegation of authority in a succession planning context. So if something were to happen to the health officer or something were to happen to the deputy director. So that's basically the gist of this policy.

Okay. Any comments or questions? All in favor say aye or thumbs up. Aye. Opposed? Abstentions? Passes unanimously. Information items twenty fivethirteenseventy one, the Q3 twenty twenty five Health Department Quarterly Report. Doctor. Sievers.

Right. Yeah, just a few things to highlight. The environmental public health section, you can see a large increase in inspections in 2025 over 2024. This is largely due to the new TRH program sorry, the Torres Framingham House short term rental program. And then we've also begun to and we'll talk about this a little bit later but do a sort of annual chicken keeping license as well.

So more inspections and that's kind of what you're seeing there in the data section. So just a few things from the health officer, a report I would highlight. So we've been at the new Torres Framinghams project now for just about a year. And so going into this would have been July 2024. We had a total of 76 licenses.

We are now up to 127. Just about caught up, I would say. There are a few sort of use cases that are pending that we're working through due to zoning issues or use case issues, fire code, that kind of thing. And so those are a few that we're working through. But also we saw about 48 non compliant short term rentals actually go back to the local housing market.

So those are short term rentals that opted to do long term renting only or sale of the home rather than to proceed with short term rentals. We had led the installation of two oak boxes which are oak stands for four overdose aid kits. One was installed in City Hall on the 1st Floor and the other is on the 2nd Floor of the library. These are largely naloxone kits, but there's also test strips in the packets. So a risk reduction model evidence based there.

And then as I mentioned, the annual chicken keeping license. Sorry, When when the the annual annual chicken keeping license was brought on by the city of Appleton, the intent was always to do an annual regular inspection. We have not had the staff until 2024 to really kind of get that in line. So with that, we've folded that into our daily operations. And then I'll note that the July point of time count had occurred here in Q3, July.

And we did see a slight increase in those experiencing homelessness. So in 2025, so that's January and July, we saw two forty nine people. That's up from a total of 183 people that were counted in 2024. I'll say that as we're going into the 2025 annual report, now that we've got three years of data after the new sort of methodology, we'll be able to track trends a little bit more accurately than what we were able to when we had a process change and we saw a large increase. Those are the things that I would call out.

Are there any questions? First, Aldersperson Jones.

Not so much a question but a comment. I had the opportunity to do a job shadow with Todd for the tourist rooming houses. There was an inspection in my district that needed to be done. And it was a really great opportunity to see how he did his job, what was required, but also to learn from the residents about why they do it, what's important to them. Overall, just a really great opportunity, and you've got a really great team. Todd's just another part of that really great team. So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. And Alderson Wolf.

Thank you, Chair. So my question is about, the point or the count number. So, the school district, this past year came out and said that there are six thirty eight students in our, school district that are either facing homelessness or near that. How can our number, for homelessness be in the 200s and their number in the mid 600s?

Yep. That's a great question. So the point in time count, the methodology for that is that is a physical count of those that are sleeping in places not meant for human habitation. So this is cars. These are parks. This kind of thing. In order for them to be counted, they have to physically be seen, right? And so that a methodology that has limitations. But that is the process in which HUD needs us to follow in order to base their funding on. It's proxy measure.

I mean, no one is of the understanding that we're going to count every single homeless person one night out of that month or that week. So as the ASD numbers are looking at a particular portion of that population, that's probably a little bit more accurate in terms of those that are experiencing the homeless context from that particular definition.

Chair, would just add to that point. School district numbers also reflect those students and families who are experiencing housing instability. And so they may be staying with other people, moving from house to house, and that is a common occurrence in the community, not just among AASD students and families. So, while they are likely staying in places that are at least shelter and intended for human habitation, they're not necessarily housed. And so there's a distinction with the school district numbers that I think is worth noting.

And the point in time count does not count sheltered individuals either.

It does.

Oh, it does. It does include

So those that are staying shelter are counted as part of Okay.

Okay. But the school district's data includes the knowledge that they have of the individual circumstances and situations of their students which based on the HUD methodology is not captured in the point right. Of

And that's an important point, Mayor, that the doubled up category a homelessness count. It does not fall under the point in time count. So if you're staying with a relative or something like that, you are homeless, but you would not be captured in the HUD count.

Any other comments or questions? I just have a couple. On the first page, I see food, waterborne illness. There is no dynamic there for 2024 or 2025. I wonder if that's like, an error. No? We've had none in both years?

We've had none in both years. I'm trying to think. I don't recall I don't recall if

No E. Coli? No. Really? Okay. I'm just curious.

And that would be reported or where the health department is notified of an Right. Issue,

It's the address of the person gets ill. That's correct.

Okay. And then I have another question regarding the Oaks. Do we have AEDs near there?

There are There's an AED on the 1st Floor by the Oak Box.

Okay.

I cannot speak to the library, but I believe so. I mean, that was

Library has, I believe, multiple AEDs.

Okay, good. Just curious. Then rabies. We haven't had one of those for a while. Do you want to talk about that, or do you want to wait? Yeah.

Yep. I can certainly talk about that. Yeah, luckily we've not had any confirmed rabies infections, right? But we have this situation where we work very closely with Appleton PD and we've been working to refine the methodologies in which those cases get sent to us in real time sort of context, right? So we're monitoring that very closely.

It has been a very quiet rabies year, right? So we've not had a whole lot of specimens. And that's been good. Usually what you end up seeing is in the fall, early fall, bats and that kind of thing are a little bit more rampant. I think maybe with the warmer temperatures that's been less of an issue. So it's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly what environmental factors may be leading to lower numbers of animals that for rabies. But we'll welcome that for sure.

Okay. Any other comments or questions? All right. Twenty fivethirteenseventy five, Respiratory Virus Surveillance and Waste Water Report. Doctor. Sievers.

Yeah, nothing really to call out here. This is just a nice dashboard as we're in cold and flu season just to kind of see what our respiratory illness levels are overall. Low activity for the Northeast Region. So that's COVID influenza RSV. And then the wastewater and this is COVID only yet.

The dashboards are still not up. The monitoring has happened for measles. And yeah, so that dashboard, the measles dashboard is not yet up. This is COVID only. And so you can see statewide COVID is rather low at the moment, but certainly in the city of Appleton.

Excellent. Any comments or questions?

Just to note, these data and reports are generated by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services?

That is correct.

Okay. Thank you.

All right. Moving on then, twenty five-eleven forty seven, dangerous animal declaration. Doctor. Siepers.

Yeah. And so there were two dangerous animal declarations in Q3. Neither one were challenged and brought to this body.

Okay. Any comments or questions? All right. Hey, we may beat our record. 20Fivethirteen74, noise variances. Are there any questions? Alderperson Jones.

Maybe that it's not appropriate for here, maybe offline. I thought with the fee

Mhmm.

We were kind of able to clear out the unnecessary noise variance opportunities. And I know that Area 509 has a lot of music, not always live music. Mhmm. So are they spending unnecessary money getting these noise variances? Variances?

No. And we've been in close contact with them. Even if it's not live music, if it's amplified sound and it does sort of reach noise level that would breach fee noise ordinance, they would get a noise.

Good question. All right. Any other questions? I'm looking to the all right. Health department twenty five-thirteen-seventy three, health department newsletter, another beautiful one again.

Yeah. And this is a really interesting issue and one that there are services that we don't typically think of. So VOAD, Ares, RACI's, sort of our emergency comms in the event of internet being down, that kind of thing. So this is a ham radio network that allows first responders to be and out of an area. And so Stan has been doing this for a long time and has been integral to Ares RACI in Fox Cities, Fox Valley area for quite a few number of years.

That was an excellent read. That's why it was really cool. Any comments, questions? Person Jones.

So because you're going to hear all the negative comments, I have to keep giving positive comments. Not necessarily listed in the newsletter but listed elsewhere is the restarting of the Age Friendly Appleton Project. And I've had the honor of being asked to be a part of that. And I just needed to publicly say how together and with it your team is. Brianna is kind of leading that, and then Cassidy is a part of it.

And normally when you go to a meeting I'm just gonna throw my pen, you show up and they say, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna do this? And I showed up to the meeting, everything was laid out, the design was all done. It was really just us going, getting information, and plugging it in, and they have made it one of the easiest projects I've been a part of. So whatever you're doing, please keep doing that.

There is an excellent team there as well as throughout the whole community, and they kind of lead that. So any other comments or questions? Alright. I seek a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Worth? Second? All in favor, aye.

Aye.

Opposed? We are done. Thank you all for your time.