Public Health, Safety & Environment Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

We cannot hear or see the council chambers.

I can't hear anything either.

Thank you for acknowledging that, Councilor Oliver.

Are you guys all set now? I can hear you, Councilor Cooper.

Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to call the meeting to order. It's Wednesday, June 10th, 2026. Sorry. All right. 6.02 PM Eastern time. This is the public health safety and environment committee subcommittee meeting in attendance. We have counselor to be them Brown counselor, Mike Oliver and Chair Todd Cooper. So we do have a quorum at this time and welcome everyone to the residents of town of Bloomfield. We're going to get started. We've had, we've had a change in the order of the presentations. And so we're going to allow the conservation energy and environment, environment committee chair, Paula Jones provide a,

Great. Good evening. And thank you for that accommodation, Chair Cooper. Just in terms of activities since our last meeting, we had our spring shred day a little later this year for a variety of reasons. It was on May 30th. But although it was a cold and stormy and rainy day, it was a very successful event. We filled the shred truck, 40 bins, about 12,000 pounds of paper at about 20 till 12. We generally make it to noon these days so we don't turn people away. I think what we need to do next year or next fall for the next event is remind people that some of the material they bring for Shred Day, they can actually put in their curbside bin. We try to ask people to limit themselves to three bags or banker's boxes. And I think if people adhere to that and really do more of the confidential type of papers, we will easily make it to noon. So we'll remind people to do that. On a really positive note, this is the highest weight that we've recorded in terms of electronics recycling since we started keeping track. 4,305 pounds. What we noticed this year, or I shouldn't say this year, this spring, is a lot of batteries being brought in. And we really tried to emphasize that because we don't want people obviously throwing batteries in the trash, discarding them in improper ways because of fire risk. So we were real pleased to see the number of batteries that came in. So we appreciate everyone's help. You know, department directors and staff volunteer their time and we couldn't do it without the town's support. So we plan to do this again in November. So stay tuned for further details. The next item is that I'm pleased to report on is since we last met, the building and land use department received official notification that Bloomfield is being awarded bronze level certification from the last round of sustainable CT certification applications. And we are one of five towns getting bronze certification. There are three towns getting silver. We're going to go for silver next year. But there will be a recognition event actually this coming Thursday. That would be tomorrow, June 11th at Hillstead. There will be a second opportunity for town. I think that would be a nice event for town officials potentially to attend in the fall because all of the communities in Connecticut being certified in 2026, there's a second certification cycle in August. So everybody in 2026 will be recognized again at a fall event and the plaques will be awarded. So we'll make sure to let people know about that. And finally, one other thing that is important, I guess, to bring up to council, if you're not already aware of it, and I'm guessing that you are, there has been a lot of community concern expressed around data centers. And it keeps coming up. People are worried about a proposed data center in North Bloomfield near Anna Grace correct school That's not happening according to the director of building and land use mr. Coleman there was a Concept floated a year ago the tea it was informational there was an informational session the plan and zoning Commission asked a ton of questions and That company has never come back. The town has not asked them. And there's nothing happening. But... There was a lot of activity very recently. I got two calls from residents or emails within the space of 24 hours. So I reached out to Mr. Coleman and he had received a number of calls as well. So TPZ made a point of addressing it directly at their May 21st meeting. And I've got a link in the report where you can go and look at the YouTube recording. It's at the 52 minute mark. where they state definitively that there's nothing going on and Chair Lester basically makes the statement that the Commission is not entertaining the notion of a data center. They have concerns about it. So, just doing some follow-up. looking into it, there are these online data center maps that I don't think are up to date. I think, I don't know if they're crowdsourced, but if you look at any one of several, there are presumably five data centers in the Hartford Metro region, which there aren't. The mayor of Hartford recently had an article in the current because they were getting the same thing in Hartford about a data center in Hartford. So I'm thinking that's the source of the angst among our residents. But they are right to be concerned about data centers and the environmental impacts. They are hogs of water usage. They use a lot of electricity. The emergency power supply for the one that had been introduced here a year ago are diesel generators. And that's kind of dirty and near a school and they're noisy. So there are lots of reasons to kind of have them on your radar. Environmental groups, advocacy groups are elevating the topic. Third Act, which is a nationwide organization of older folks, is calling for a moratoria on them until more information and more study can be done. And we have a very active Third Act group here in Bloomfield. So those are some of the folks that are paying attention. Rivers Alliance of Connecticut is more focused on the water concerns and issues. And I've got a link here, informational. When a data center is proposed in your community, what's good about it is it offers a lot of information about how some are worse in terms of high volume water consumption than others. Depends on the technique, what they're doing in terms of recycling or not recycling. So at any rate, council should be aware Here are some links, which hopefully will provide you with some useful information. And that concludes my report. I'd be happy to answer any questions if I can.

Thank you, Ms. Jones. Are there... There is. Councilor Mahan, who has joined us. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair Cooper. I'm so glad that you... Juan, thank you very much for your report. And I'm so glad that you brought up the item around the data centers, because that has been a hot button issue in our community. amongst our residents, many are very concerned about bringing the possibility of a data center into town. I'm glad you cleared up the fact that there's nothing slated at the moment. And as far as TPZ is concerned, it's not something that they're considering. But I do think that it would be prudent of us to entertain at least a moratorium. So I think a lot of residents are calling for that just so that we can give the public even more confidence that this is something that they won't see in our community, something that I don't support. I know many of my colleagues on the council don't support it. I definitely think it'd be worthwhile to entertain putting something like that forward.

Thank you, Councilor Mahan. Any other? Councilor Oliver?

Thank you, Chair Cooper. Yeah, I do appreciate your report. It was very detailed. And thank you for doing the legwork and reaching out to the right people. And I too would like to say on record that I am not a fan of having a data center in my backyard for multiple reasons. The noise, the pollution, the water consumption is going to drive everybody... Well, I don't know this to be a fact, but I hear that it will drive everybody else's electric bill up higher because it's charged by... I don't know how to say it, and I'm just going to stick to that. But what I'm also concerned about is neighboring towns... that have them because the way I see it is they use water and then they, they're going to drain the water out of the system. Cause it can't keep cooling it down with the same water and it gets redistributed. And I don't want that to be put into the river. I'm not sure the way, however it goes, but you know, it's just, to me, I don't see it being a good thing. Thank you.

And you counsel Oliver counselor to be from Brown.

Thank you. Just reiterating my other colleagues, and I know that Councilor Goodwin had brought this item up as well. So I would hope that the town council will definitely sit down and do some research and so that we can take a stand against this. I don't think any of us wants a data center in our town. We can't. dictate to other towns, but we can definitely try to protect our town. I'd also like to request some of the information that was provided as far as the links So if reports were provided electronically, I would ask that those reports are shared with the members of the committee so that we can read and peruse and we can actually go through some of the links that were provided to give us some more information on what's going on. But I do believe that the council hopefully will take a discussion on this and will take action to protect our town and our residents. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, may I just respond? Thank you for those comments, and my apologies. I was very late in getting the report out. I just did it like at 5 o'clock, and so I sent it to LaTanya, who sent it to Anatocia, and she will distribute it. My intent was to provide links and that the report be distributed to Council so people could peruse it. I will make one comment about water usage. And the Rivers Alliance link is very good for this. I mean, if you want to know about water, it's a good one to look at because their focus is water. They talk about the... kind of local control being very dependent on your circumstances. We're an MDC town. And I'm just going to say it, you know, actually, I'm not going to say it. I won't say it. But the point is, is that depend, you know, whether you have a water utility and how that water utility provides water and distributes water and whether they, you know, depending on the water, amount of water being called for, whether you need a separate diversion permit, we may have, you know, the town may have no control over that. But the water usage is obviously a concern because they use a lot of water. Some facilities apparently recycle the water. So that would, I mean, just to say it, that would reduce the amount of water that they're using if they're recirculating it. The one that was talked about once in Bloomfield last year, a concern to me personally, because I don't live very far away from it, is noise. And someone on the TPZ asked the question that if you had like a true power out, like a 10-day power outage, You know, they talked about generators providing emergency backup power. So if everything went out and you needed to rely on all of your generators, it was either 136 or 139 diesel generators. That's a lot of noise. That's a lot of pollution. So, you know, I feel like I'm singing to the choir. There's a lot to be concerned about here. And the council is raising very good questions and concerns. So hopefully the links will be helpful. And the CDC is always happy to do any additional research that we can do.

Right. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Jones. And so, you know, as chair, I just want to weigh in very quickly with what my colleagues have said. There, of course, has been resident concern about data centers and to the point that Councilor DeMethen Brown made and also pointed to Councilor Goodwin, the council does have the final say and whether these things will pass or not. And so at this point in time, I believe the sentiment doesn't reflect that this would be necessary in the town of Bloomfield, Connecticut. Sorry about that. I also want to add that there is, there is a lot of technology for these types of facilities. There's some, here's talk of nuclear reactors, micro nuclear reactors and liquid sand that can cool these facilities down and provide them with power. But those things are all in the future. And I would think, I just want people to know that until those things are perfected, I am still of a firm belief that we can wait. and that further steps in not moving towards having a facility in our town can be taken in the meantime until something is perfected. So having said all that, thank you very much. And we'll move on to the next report. I'm sorry, Chief Hammack.

Good evening, Mr. Chair. The, so we experienced a very gradual and consistent drop in crime over the past, I think it was six to seven months. My colleague, Deputy Chief Hydash reported on that last month. Unfortunately, May of 26, we seem to have broken that trend. We are up a little over 30% in the month for crime, which has risen our year to date stats as well. Almost every area, we had one robbery. We had two sexual assaults in town. One, I'm sorry, two assaults. The most problematic area or the highest concentration would be in larcenies, specifically shoplifting. We had 30 shoplifting incidents in town for the month of May. The two sexual assaults involved a domestic-related relationship that the detective unit is currently investigating. Of our larcenies, again, 30 were shoplifting. They are at our usual locations, Home Depot, Lowe's, and Stop and Shop. The other 13 of the 43 larcenies were fraud and identity theft issues that our detective unit is following up on as well. We did have one robbery in town. This was a shoplifting event at Mobile on Blue Hills Ave. The clerk attempted to stop the person who was fleeing, and they ran over his foot. But unfortunately, even though it might be a minor larceny and a shoplifting, once force is used of any type, it changes the status to a robbery. Personnel at the police department, we have three recruits that are currently in the academy, Labiche and De La Rosa, excuse me, recruits Labiche and De La Rosa are attending the Post Academy in Meriden and recruit De Pass is attending the Hartford Police Academy. We also experienced one resignation. Dispatcher Chapman, who I've worked with on and off over 37 years, resigned to take on a different position. And she'll be sorely missed. From a traffic perspective, we had 66 motor vehicle accidents on our public roads. Officers conducted 111 motor vehicle stops in May. We had two driving under the influence arrests and units conducted 96 separate traffic details throughout town. Our primary citizen traffic complaints remain Woodland Avenue for semi-truck trailers. Uh, we're working with DPW for message signage, uh, in that area and officers have been increasing their motor vehicle, motor vehicle details at my direction. Maple Avenue and Burr Road continue to be an area of citizen traffic complaints for speed, stop sign violations, and semi-trailer. I just received notice of semi-trailer activity on the street, so I've sent out an email to all officers to keep an eye on that area and keep the focus continued on Maple Avenue and Burr Road. Brown Street, we've had continued speeding issues and stop time violation at Mills Lane. Our speed shield locations, those are the devices that reflect the speed that the operators are traveling. Currently located on Maple Avenue, Brown Street, Crestview Drive, and Wintonbury Avenue. We're going to continue to move those throughout the summer season. Our mental health clinician, a service that we've enjoyed for the last few years, answered 20 calls for service, did 11 requests for medical examinations that were submitted by police officers. There were three voluntary committals. She interdicted with two juvenile issues. And that program has been a success for the last several years. Bloomfield Volunteer Ambulance, they attended the first cathedral walk or water event on the 16th of May. They also conducted training on airway management in advanced life saving. They conducted the Department of Public Works CPR recertification and state mandated stop the bleed training twice this month with 31 employees trained. Five of our police officers were additionally trained in both. And one of our retiring police officers completed her CPR instructor training requirement. She's going to help out at BVA. to stay involved with the police department after she leaves. Officer Allen's a great asset to the police department, and her retirement will be sorely, will miss her very much. And we did townwide AED and Narcan inspections, and those are all up to speed. That's the end of my report, unless anyone has any questions.

Oh, thank you, Chief. Any questions online? No? No?

I'm sorry. Was that a report that was sent in? Because I didn't see it on the screen. It wasn't sent in. Okay. Thank you.

I was tardy, so I apologize for that.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor DeMethen Brown will make sure that all the reports are sent out to everyone, including the links that you requested.

Thank you so much.

Yes, please.

Councilor Oliver. Thank you, Chair. Thanks for your report, Chief. I'm just curious, you know, I know it's starting to get warm out. Besides the people, you know, shoplifting and things like that, that is a whole separate. But for other issues, do you think that has anything to do with the summer seasons?

Typically, we do see an uptick in activity during the summer months because people are out and about, and that includes people who are up to nefarious means. So, yes, you tend to see a curve around the summer months, and then we start to wane off in the fall, and then typically we'll get some resurgence around the holidays. especially in the area of shoplifting and larcenies at the areas that I described, Capaco Plaza being the kind of the center. We do usually increase our patrol activities, which we've done for the summer months now, and we'll do that again in the fall to try and As for domestic assaults, et cetera, those are pretty typical or standard throughout the year. There's really no increase we can do to affect that. It's just investigating and trying to stop any repeat offenses is our best strategy when it comes to that.

Thank you, Chief.

Council Member Hahn.

Thank you very much, Chair Cooper. So thank you for your report, Chief. I just want to, with the, I know you said that for this month we're up 30%. Where does that put us in terms of our annual numbers? Does that throw us too far off track with the decrease? Yeah, where does that put us in terms of our annual figures?

It puts us up annually at the same number because we were flat most of the year. This increase in May put us up for the year- I apologize. I'm missing the buttons here as well. I'm losing a step. The increase in May put us up for the year 32%. Most of the areas, it was up only 1%. Let's see, robberies, we experienced one more than last year. Assaults, one more than last year. Burglary, one more than last year. The biggest increase was shoplifting. We were up 58% over the same five months from last year. That's the biggest increase followed by all larcenies, which, as I said, include our online fraud, check scams, et cetera. So that's the biggest statistical increase that we're seeing.

Thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Thank you all. We're going to move next to Fire Department Updates Center Fire District. Jim Simone joins us tonight.

Good evening, everyone. Jim Simone, Assistant Chief. I'm filling in for Chief Barnard. For the month of May, the department responded to 51 incidents. Those were fires. We had an oven fire, which was contained to the oven. Mutual aid to Blue Hills for a structure fire and mutual aid to Simsbury for a garage fire. Six motor vehicle accidents. Hazardous conditions. We had five responses. Fire alarms and false alarms were 24. Medical assistance was 11. And other incidents were downed power lines. We had two responses and we had an elevator and animal rescue. For training. We completed, for the month of May, fire ground operations, ventilation and hydrant operations, DEEP wildlife wildfire operations, and then live burn at the Connecticut Fire Academy, a recruitment and retention meeting. We had a Memorial Day preparation and monthly building and vehicle maintenance. For community outreach, department participated in the following community outreach, fallen firefighter ceremony, a touch a truck event at East Windsor Trolley and Firing Museum, the 100th anniversary golf tournament, and performed the Memorial Day ceremony service at Mount Mountain View Cemetery. Apparatus and equipment, monthly inspections completed on all frontline apparatus. and a monthly inspection completed on all our equipment. Department highlights, continued focus, firefighter safety training and operational awareness, readiness, excuse me, ongoing collaboration with municipality departments and regional partners to improve emergency response capabilities. Upcoming priorities, continue the NERRS system and report improvements, support recruitment and retention efforts, maintain apparatus and facility readiness. And just to keep everybody in the loop, the fire departments, both fire departments actually, the 100th anniversary carnival is June 18th through the 21st. It will be at First Cathedral Church, 1151 Blue Hills Ave. And the schedule for Thursday is 6 to close, which will be 10. Friday will be 4 to 10. Saturday is 2 p.m. to 10 with fireworks at 9 or 9.30. Sunday is 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. So come join the celebration, please. Thank you.

Thanks, Chief Simone.

Thank you.

Are there any questions online? Thank you so much. We'll move to Blue Hills Fire District, Chief Willie Jones.

Good evening. For the month of May, the Blue Hills Fire Department responded to 35 calls for service, with the largest incident being the structure fire that occurred May 19th at 739-741 Blue Hills Avenue, which it took myself and Engine 1 four minutes to arrive And upon arrival, we had attempted to rescue the person trapped on the second floor. With that incident, we also had two firefighters that were transported to St. Francis Hospital with heat-related issues. We also responded to a fully involved shed fire at 93 Elizabeth Avenue that was contained to the shed with no fire extension to the home. Fire marshal's office is investigating both incidents. Blue Hills Fire was requested to station covers for the Windsor Fire Department while they were fighting a structure fire. And we recall mutual aid to Windsor Fire to the scene at 555 Day Hill Road for a natural gas leak inside of a building. Blue Hills Fire also responded to a fully involved vehicle fire in the driveway of a home on Park Avenue. Majority of the other calls were accidental or unintentional fire alarm activations, motor vehicle accidents with injuries and or fluids, gas odors and outside burning calls. For our Monday night training for the month of May, we did a down firefighter rescue drill, excuse me. We had CNG come in for gas training. and we had to follow the hose line drill. Blue Hills Fire Department is also pleased to announce that five firefighters successfully completed the Firefighter One course and a graduation ceremony was held at the fire department on May 11th. For the community outreach, Board of Commissioners, in conjunction with the Bloomfield Center Fire, Board of Commissioners hosted a community awareness presentation on natural gas. Representatives from CNG spoke about gas awareness. We had approximately 55 Bloomfield residents attending this presentation in a free gas meter. Our gas detectors were given to every homeowner that attended. continuing the community outreach. Every year, the Riley Group Financial Literacy Program for the high school seniors, where they can network with career driven guests. Deputy Chief Vincent Jani was invited and he spoke about careers in fire service. Blue Hills is steadily working on our annual Juneteenth celebration. these two signature events will combine this year on Saturday, June 20th. Both the fire departments will continue to meet on the 100th anniversary celebration. I just want to ensure in closing that the residents and the public, they're very safe. The Blue Hills Fire Department answers every call and we do whatever it takes to provide excellent public safety. I just wanted to put that out there and this concludes my report.

Thank you so much, Chief Jones. I see two hands. I don't know who was up first. I was. Councilor Mahan.

Thank you, Chair Cooper. So I'm sorry, I'm traveling right now and I'm hitting some rough spots for network connection. I didn't hear for March 19th. First of all, thank you very much for your report and thank you for the great detail, especially in your coverage of the incident on the 19th. I didn't hear the response time. I just heard something, but I didn't hear what those minutes were. Do you mind reiterating that?

Right. It took four minutes for myself and Engine One to arrive on scene. And during that time, we attempted fire rescue. OK. OK.

Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a very tough situation. I know that, you know, there were some rumors in the public around response time. And, you know, I took the opportunity actually to speak to a couple other folks from the other fire stations and the greater Hartford area. And, you know, four minutes, what they described, they said four minutes is a really good response. And I said, that's a great response time, is what I was told by them. I also want to thank you for your reassurance that folks are safe. It's always... difficult anytime there is a loss or just anyone experiencing a fire of their, you know, their home, that in itself is traumatizing. But I do want to I thank Blue Hills Fire and Bloomfield Center Fire and our officers, all of our first responders, to keep as many folks as possible safe to respond to the incident. And, you know, I just want to express my gratitude to all of our first responders for your continued service. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Oliver? Thank you, Councilor Cooper. Thank you for your report, Chief, first off. Thank you. Congratulations on the graduation of the training for the firefighters. How many volunteers did we get out of that? I'm sorry. Five. Five? Okay. And how many full-time on Blue Hills? We have six full-time firefighters. Six full-time, and so it's three on, three off?

Three on the morning shift, 7.30, 3.30, and three on the evening shift. Understood. 3.30, 11.30.

Okay. And I have one more question. So when somebody calls 911, it doesn't just go straight to you, correct?

No, it goes to the police department.

Okay. So, you know, if the residents, I know that I was out there. I watched you guys do a great, amazing job. Thank you. And, you know, I, I know under, under times like that, time, time goes by. You know, I wasn't there when it started. I just was on my way home and saw the road blocked off and I, saw you guys doing your thing um but we also have to take in consideration you know and i'm not saying to vouch for anything that happened because somebody's you know what happened is is very sad and but we have to add also time to your four minutes for transition of calls, which could have, you know, possibly made it seem more than four minutes to, to other people. And, you know, I, I wasn't, that's all I'll say. So I just want to, you know, understand where you guys are coming from as well. You know, you put your life on the line for people and, and, Sometimes it's not always the safest thing for firefighters to do, so I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Oliver.

Councilor DeBeathen-Brown? Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was not going to go down that road at all, but since the door has been opened... I'm going to walk on through.

Councilor DeMethen Brown, I'm just going to ask, right? And I don't know what you're going to say.

I was about to say, you don't. So please, Mr. Chair, let me go. Let me just have my first amendment rights.

This is for the public. No, it is not towards you. It really isn't. It really isn't. It's only that... You know, if the fire and everything is still under investigation, I'm sure that if it's not that, then that's fine. I apologize.

I shouldn't have said anything. I apologize. I didn't just pick up on that.

We're good.

Guys, just let me go, please. Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Once again, I wasn't going to talk about this, but since the door has been opened, I do want to say that, and I say it quite often, firefighters are some special angels, right? Because they run towards danger while the rest of us run away. And I just want to thank you all for that. I want to thank you all for the consciousness of how you serve the residents of the town of Bloomfield. That was the door that was open, Mr. Chair, and that was the door that I was going down. I wanted to really admonish everyone to come out for the 100th celebration, the Juneteenth parade on Saturday for everyone to come out. It's usually a two-day event. The parade is going to be a one-day event because of the carnival, so hopefully our residents will remember and will come out and will support. It's a time for us as a community to celebrate, to fellowship with each other, and I'm really hoping that we can support and honor our fire departments for Juneteenth and also for their 100th anniversary. That's all I was gonna say, Mr. Chair.

Understood, ma'am. Understood. Thank you. And I'll see you on Juneteenth. Okay. I chief, I just want to say thank you again for your report. Really appreciate it. And certainly want to echo the sentiments of my fellow counselors that, you know, we know that our public safety teams, fire departments, you know, ambulance and certainly police departments do a great job here in Bloomfield. It is tragic that, you know, we have lost lives here, but that is, you know, you know, life at times, as unfortunate as it is. And we hear of tragedies all over, and the town of Bloomfield is not exceptional in the fact that, you know, it will be spared, those type of things. But we still should know that we live in one of the safest and nicest towns in the state of Connecticut, and I hope we keep it that way. Right. So it, and it sounds like we will, we've got new recruits all over the place. So that makes me happy. And I'm going to move on to, I'm sorry. Legacy and set a legacy and a counselor, Ethan Brown.

Yes. I'm so sorry. That's okay.

That's okay. We'll move on to Lou Blumenfeld and the EMS report.

Thank you. First, I will apologize for having filed no written report, but I've been an AM away and didn't get it done. The AMS committee met on May 26th. It received reports from Captain Klomberg, the BVA coordinator about BVA activities. And we were able to see the BVA is running smoothly with some changes in the personnel and several new members. The primary discussion of that meeting was about ambulances, the age and mileage of the existing ones, the imminent arrival of the one that BVA Fund ordered over two years ago, and the need to already get going on a new one, given the age and condition of the old ambulances, and the lead time and cost for a new one. We were told that the ambulance ordered by the fund is now expected to arrive in August and should be ready to be donated to the town and put online sometime in September. On the need to order a new ambulance, after some discussion, the committee agreed with the BBA fund input that it is time to create a new study committee, as has been done in the past. After receiving some volunteers from the MS Committee, I proceeded to appoint a joint subcommittee that includes members of the MS Committee, the BVA Fund, the BVA Volunteers Coordinating Committee, and Public Works, with the assistance from BVA Coordinator Captain Klomberg. It will be chaired by BVA Fund President Dan Rosenthal. The subcommittee will look into ambulance types and their suitability for BDA as well as costs and delivery times. And the goal is to try to make a recommendation by the end of 2026. With that, I believe I've finished what we accomplished and I'm done unless there are questions I need to answer and can answer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bloomfield. Um, I do have a question. You said that the, um, the, you are prepared to begin sourcing, uh, another ambulance, but there is one scheduled to be delivered. I'm sorry. I didn't quite catch that.

Uh, as has been reported in the past, um, about something over two years ago, the fund ordered an ambulance. The lead time is extensive. It is finally expected to arrive in August, will be donated to the town and should be in service or probably will be in service in September. That's the existing order. We also talked about the need to now start looking at the next ambulance. As I said, it takes two years or more sometimes to get one. And each time they... Fund is going to look at purchasing a new ambulance. We put together a committee that looks at the various options for ambulance types. The one we have is only one option. It's been done in the past and been determined that this type is the best for Bloomfield. There are others that cost a lot less and may be able to be obtained in less time. So we put together the subcommittee to start looking at the next one. And when the time, once having decided what we need, when the time is appropriate, the fund generally orders it. As you may or may not know, by the fund ordering it, it does not have the complications that public purchasing does. The fund uses the money Citizens have donated, and thus far has always donated the town ambulances. The one coming in September cost something over $300,000 that the town did not have to pay. That's been true of pretty much, I think, all of the ambulances in the past, except maybe the first one in 1977. And the plan is that the fund will purchase the next one that will probably be received in a couple of years.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks so much. Really appreciate that. I'm glad to see you. You guys are keeping it steadily rolling so that we still will have one on, you know, coming up as one wears out, but, And certainly want to thank the folks in town who contribute to that, which that is not an added expense where people are freely able to donate to it. So much appreciated.

If I could add, we also should thank Public Works, which does a great job of keeping our ambulances running well.

Oh, awesome. Well, shout out to Public Works. Thank you. We're going to move next to West Hartford Bloomfield Health District updates. Amy Krause.

Good evening. So I do want to let people know we are obviously moving into tick season. We've already been in tick season, but I like to say we're moving into it. The Health District does send ticks out to the Connecticut Agricultural Experimental Station. We do ask that the ticks, if you do find them on you, that they have to be on humans and not pets in order to be tested. We do ask that the tick remain whole. Please don't tape any ticks to paper because when they do the testing, they need the head of the tick. But we have people bring them in in old containers. We then, again, ship them out. Turnaround time right now is about a week. to a week and a half. But we do have residents also, if they are concerned, they can reach out to their primary care doctors. If they don't have a doctor, then we try to hook them up with one if there is a concern and they want to start treatment or to discuss that with a provider. So I just wanted to let you know that because not many people are aware of that service and it is free. The district does not charge for that or the agricultural station. Moving on, for the month of May, the health district led their healthy lifestyle workshop, which was led by our health educator. We also continue to offer the bone and postural class, which is presented by Christy Ross, who has been a phenomenal person to have with the district right now offering those classes. Coming up in June, June 3rd, which we're past June 3rd, but we did do a storytime collaboration event, which focused on hygiene with children, getting them to wash their hands and just reminding them just about overall hygiene. And that was well attended. June 4th, we did a fat attack workshop. We've mentioned that in the past, and that was in collaboration with the Community Health Network. And again, on June 8th, we also led that healthy lifestyle workshop again. June 9 we did tabling at our food chair, we are we are still there, providing that health education material we are promoting the mammogram van that's going to be coming up with the fair that we're coordinating. In July, so if you have anyone that's interested in that please have them reach out to the health district. And then June 20 we'll have a health education table at the bloomfield farmers market, as well as the bloomfield juneteenth celebration. And we've always are encouraging residents to reach out to us at these events or they can stop by the health district office for more information. Thank you.

Thank you, Director Krause. Are there any hands? Councillor Oliver.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Dr. Krause. I was curious, has there been a major increase in Lyme disease lately?

There has been a small increase, I should say small there has been an increase in there again I can get you that data I don't have that data in front of me this evening, but I'd be happy to circle back and share that data. and send it out to you what the actual numbers are. I believe I can get it for the state of Connecticut, but then also by town. That is for people though that have gone and gotten tested for Lyme disease. That's different than actual ticks that come in and get tested for Lyme, but I can get you that data.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Director Krause and Council Oliver. Council DeBetham-Brown?

Thank you. Thank you so much for what the West Hartford Bloomfield does for the town of Bloomfield. I might be a little bit biased, but thank you for that. I also want to thank you for your weekly Wednesday tips. that you share on Facebook. And I do try to make sure that we share with our community. So it's not just you coming out here and providing reports once a month or the clinics that you set up. And we thank you for that. But the extra tips that you give out to the community, I just want to say thank you for that as well. Question for you, which just because it's happening to some people that I know, there is this cough. that's going around that lingers. Have you heard anything in the medical world about what this might be?

So I do know about the cough, but again, everybody's different. So I can't specifically say that the cough that everybody has is the same thing. It's ranged anywhere from allergies being bad this season to people being diagnosed with pneumonia and bronchitis. Um, other people, you know, have mentioned it, um, but nothing specific to say, you know, that it's RSV or, um, pneumonia. It's, it's, again, it's varying, um, Again, I would have people reach out to their providers to see what's going on, but nothing specific.

Thank you for that. And I asked because I had this cough, like a consistent cough for like weeks. And one of my first things was, oh my goodness, I needed to get my lungs checked to make sure that it wasn't pneumonia. Yeah. that I wasn't having some infection in my lung. And they did all the tests that they had to do. And they're like, you're absolutely healthy, but it's just something in the air. And they did talk about bronchitis or something like that, mixed with allergies and sinuses and everything else like that. I just wanted to know if the health districts were seeing anything and really just echo your sentiment that if it's lingering, go see a doctor, make sure that your lungs are clear. But once again, thank you so very much for all you do for the town of Bloomfield.

Thank you. You're welcome. I'm sorry, Director Cross. Just one real quick question. You were saying about the ticks being tested. Have you received any results back? Is there anything definitive that you can provide with what might or might not have been found with the testing? Or are we asking too soon?

No. So some of the ticks do come back positive. And so it all, again, it depends on the tick. On the form, it asks residents to put the body part that the tick has been found in. It asks basically the resident's address and then where were you. So you could be a resident of Bloomfield. However, be hiking in Farmington and you're going to put Farmington down. So they have that data, but we do have ticks coming back positive. Yes. Ticks never truly, there has always been the thought that ticks die in the winter, but that's not necessarily true. They kind of go into like a hibernation mode. They're just not as active. prevalent as they are during the spring, summer, and fall months. So we ask people and part of that is the education to wear long sleeves, wear appropriate bug spray for what you like to wear, and then just you need to check your body. You need to also check your your pets because they bring them into your house after you might be outside walking or hiking or just even cutting the grass. There are certain companies I know that are treating lawns, but again, that's up to people to do that. That's their personal preference if they want to do that. So there's certain measures that you can take to try to prevent that. But again, if you see a tick, feel free to, you know, again, remove it. Try to keep the head intact and bring it into the health district and we'll get it tested. They will send us the results as well as the resident. There is a line where the resident can put their email address there. So they will get it as well as we will.

Awesome. Thank you so much for your report. We are going to move real quick into other public safety concerns, and it's an update on the Maple traffic situation, any progress, headwinds, bids. There is a report on the bid that we received from Rob Trottier in the engineering, and he says that they advertise for the bid yes of today. And they are looking for a July 8th opening of those responses for the bids. And if all goes as planned, the start date will be coordinated with the low bidder, which they anticipate will be later this summer. So the bids have gone out. That is always good news. It's just now getting them back and having our purchasing department do what they do as far as vetting those bids and then getting a contract together and having that project started. So in this subcommittee, we did say that we would try and have a monthly update for residents. And so it will always be in our minutes. It will always be televised. If you have any questions that please, you can send them to my town email tcooper at bloomfieldct.gov and I will be happy to field those questions for you. As far as the as far as the bids and where we are. I will provide progress. I am not able to provide professional advice to that, but I will provide updates to where the town is in those matters. And so if there are no questions with that, we'll move next to public comments. Are there any online? Okay. All right.

Okay, Mr. Biffer, please. Yes, James Biffer, 17 Terry Plains Road. I wanted to alert Chief Hammack to a safety concern. We just had another great accident out here just across from my house on Monday night, and it was due to speed. Someone was backing out of their driveway, and if you know Terry Plains, they're about 100 feet from the crest of the hill, which only gives them a piece of a second to get out of their driveway and into traffic anyway. A car came up, and the skid marks are 60 to 80 feet long. I didn't get out there and measure them exactly because of the traffic, but that means they were going at least 60. And that's the rule, not the exception. A lot of what you're seeing on Brown begins on Terry Plains. That light down at the junction with Tunxis may not as well be there. People blast through that, and there's going to be a massacre someday. because it's the four roads coming together. So I'm just alerting you to it. I have offered in the past when your offers do go by, they're welcome to sit in my driveway. I understand you can't plant somebody there all day, every day. But one officer a couple of years ago sat in the driveway for like a minute. My yard is surrounded by bushes, so it's a great hiding spot. They caught someone in a minute and it turned out to be a person who not only was speeding, but was unlicensed and uninsured. So you're able to get them off the road for quite some time. So between the construction out on Ryfield and just the fact that they've got that long straightaway up to the crest coming down from Duncaster, people are going at least 60 to 80 down there. and they ignore the light down at Tungstus. So I wanted to let you know about that.

Thank you. I'll follow up on that. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Biffer. Much appreciated. We're going to move on to the approval of the May 13th, 2026 meeting minutes. I'm sorry, ma'am.

Oh, from?

Laurie, okay, please go ahead. She did? Okay. Ms. Julian, is there something that you wanted to say or speak to?

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Never know if this technology is working. So I just wanted to thank the council very much for placing this on the agenda on a monthly basis. As you know, we've been working on this for over four years with delays. And I also wanted to thank the town manager, Alvin, for separating this through to get the bid out, which is a very important milestone. And I just wanted to say this is going to be huge progress in safety, speeding issues that have been on the radar for quite some time. And I think it'll help hopefully the police too, as this will hopefully, we intend that it does work in slowing, speeding down. That said, The other hazard still continues is the industrial truck traffic, which has very much increased. And we're talking about heavy hauling. This is hauling oversized machinery. Really do not believe... that our residential town collector road was meant or intended for these dangerous vehicles. So basically we are asking that the same restrictions that apply to the oversized vehicles, this is a hazard more on Maple, I'd say, because they're going very fast. We see the speed readers light up at 44, and that has been the average. That was the data collected even pre-COVID, so you can imagine post-COVID. And I just want to say that these dangerous vehicles are even worse on our street because they're going faster, so that the same oversized vehicle prohibition that exists on Gab and Burr shouldn't be expanded to Maple. So that would be our request. And as I said, we've always thought that these vehicles should be diverted to state roads, which we are surrounded by. We've said this over 178, 185, 189, 218. We're surrounded by them. They choose to take the shortcuts. And we heard about noise pollution tonight. So you can certainly understand what we go through on a daily basis. And that's all I have to say. But thank you again. I know the progress has been slow, but we do appreciate that the bid is now out. Thank you, and your monthly updates.

Thank you, Ms. Julian. Looks like we have a couple of councillors. Councillor Mahon's hand, I believe, was raised first.

Thank you very much, Councillor Cooper. And thank you very much, Ms. Julian, for always being an advocate for your neighborhood and for really getting everyone together to push this, uh, push this item through and keeping the pressure on us as counselors, as you, uh, as you go on, I greatly appreciate it. Um, there was a resident, uh, that brought up a concern about school street and the traffic on school street, uh, with, with, uh, heavy duty vehicles. I just want to know, uh, if the chief had any insight on that, if there's anything that's been, um, anything that's been noted between last month and this month's meeting? And is there anything that we can do as a council to support the efforts to try to make our residents a little bit more comfortable with the traffic that's on our roads?

I did put a directive out to the patrol officers for all seven streets that have tractor trailer restricted vehicles, as well as six streets, as well as the two streets that have weight restricted vehicles as well. So I don't have the stats on that. I can make sure that we report on that next month, though. As for what the council can do for advocacy, I'd have to give that some thought. I'm not prepared to answer that right now.

Thank you very much, Chip. I mean, we're always standing ready to support in any way that we can. And we appreciate everything that you guys do to ensure, you know, not only public safety, but overall, just like the common welfare, the peace of mind of our residents. So, you know, if you could let us know, we'd greatly appreciate it. We'll be happy to help. At least, you know, speaking for myself, I'll be happy to help. I know my colleagues will probably be happy to help as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chief, there was an accident East Wintonbury and school at the curve. And I know that we've been talking about that curve for a long time. Is there anything close to being done about that curve? Because we have the signs. Um, but it just seems like, you know, once you get to that curve where people are coming off East Winton Berry, going to school or coming off school, no one wants to wait. And it's like, everyone's playing a game of chicken. Um, the last accident that was there, I think it was sometime last week. Um, and, and one of our, our residents, um, I don't know about the other two people that were in the accident, but one of our residents was just totally shook. And I believe that one of the drivers tried to run away from the scene. But is there anything that we were thinking about on the horizon close to being happening at that corner curve? I call it a curve, not a corner.

I know that the town engineer had submitted a request for the state to do a redesign at... Winton Berry and School, one of the many streets that they've submitted. We have a local road traffic safety meeting tomorrow, so I'll have to get an update from him on that. I don't know what the update is at this time.

Okay, thank you. If you could bring that back to the next meeting, that would be greatly appreciated.

Yes, I'll be happy to.

Thank you, Councilor. Thank you. Councilor Oliver?

Thank you, Chair. This comment was just basically to, you know, tell Ms. Julian that, you know, her persistence paid off. She followed through on everything she wanted. And she's, you know, you're doing a great job. I mean, I live off of Blue Hills, and, you know, if I open my window, I hear it all the time. But I understand it's a state road. There's nothing I can do about that. And I just want to touch base on Councilwoman DeBeath and Brown's comment on School Street, East Wittenberry. There's always been accidents there randomly throughout. throughout Bloomfield for forever. Um, and we always talk about rotaries and, um, you know, you can't really put a light there. Uh, but I wonder if a rotary would be a good, good thing for that location, um, to kind of help redirect the flow because, um, there's a stop sign. It's just very confusing, especially if you're, if you're not from, from Bloomfield. Um, so I just wanted to add my two cents on that. Thank you.

Hmm. Thank you, Council Oliver. Doesn't look like we have any one else there. I'm sorry. Okay, thank you, ma'am. So we've had public comments and also our counselors weigh in. We're going to move on to the approval again of the May 13th, 2026 meeting minutes. And I will entertain a motion. So moved.

Second. Second.

Thank you, Councilor Mahan, and thank you, Councilor Beetham-Brown, for moving those minutes. All in favor? Aye. Chair votes aye. Motion passes, and those meeting minutes are now approved. And now, a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. Thank you, Councilor Beetham-Brown. Thank you, Councilor Mahan, Councilor Oliver. The meeting is adjourned. Have a good evening, everyone. Have a good night.