Public Health, Safety & Environment Subcommittee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Can anyone hear me?

Yes, I can hear you.

Thank you so much. Please. I just want Mr. Chair to know that I am on the road. You can see that I'm driving, so I'm going to be off camera and I'm trying to get home as soon as possible so that i can um fully engage i'm not i'm actually in the same exact boat or i shouldn't say boat the same car as you so i understand okay so so i'm hoping that they're hearing me in um council chamber i'm not quite sure that they are but i just wanted to um just put that out there so just for some reason if he does come on and i'm not able to click back on just let him know for me please we'll do but i have i am trying to make it home

Okay, counselors, we can hear you. Oh, okay. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. Welcome to the Bloomfield Town Council Public Health and Safety Environment Subcommittee meeting. It is Wednesday, July 8th, and the time is 6.02 p.m., and the meeting is being called to order. I will take a roll call of counselors. Counselor Oliver. I'm present. Counselor DeBethan-Browne. Councilor DeBethan-Brown?

Councilor DeBethan-Brown was here. I think she said give her a moment or a second ago before the meeting started.

The chair is here. Councilor Mahon is not online as of yet, but we will begin. we'll wait for council to be from Brown to join us. So, um, we're going to start today with, uh, captain Klamberg who has graced us with his present for the little field police department updates.

All right. Uh, good evening chair members of the, of the committee, uh, in Bloomfield town residents as well. My name is captain Zachary Klamberg, and I will be. Before I begin, I'd like to, on behalf of Chief Hammock and the police department, thank the members of the committee for your continued work and partnership on public safety. Before we get into the crime stats and some of the other items within the presentation, it's my honor and pleasure to introduce our newest member of the Bloomfield Police Department, K-9 Luna, and her handler, who's not new, but new handler, Officer Moise, one of our community service officers. K-9 Luna has recently graduated from the training program to become an emotional support animal and is now formally certified. Officer Moise has created social media accounts for the program, has acquired some ESA-themed branded materials such as patches, stickers to give out at community events, baseball cards, and other items. And I'd like to turn it over to Officer Moise for just a couple minutes to introduce Luna and explain a little bit more about the ESA program and how it benefits the police department and the community.

As you turn on the mic, just tap

Good evening council. Um, thank you for having me here. Thank you. Captain Clumberg for inviting me. Um, so this is canine, this is canine Luna. Uh, she is a year and a half years old. She's an English black lab. Um, she was generously donated to us, uh, in part by the hometown foundation and, uh, the forever, my heart foundation, uh, the tower in Rocky hill, the forever. My heart foundation is the organization that, um, did most of the training with us and, uh, they actually bred her. provided her to us and has been the organization that has been in support with us from pretty much the time she was born to the time we started training with her approximately eight months ago up until I started having her full-time in April. Luna is a full-time, she just graduated in about two weeks ago. So she's a full-time service dog, fully certified. So her main components that she does are um she helps uh students um that have emotional uh irregularities so um we go to the schools for mental health crises where um you know part of what she does is she can just be a friendly face um and where we can sit down talk we can pet her and we can talk about what's going on she's also here for the police department as well. So obviously, as you guys may know, we see a lot of traumas on a daily basis. So a lot of what she does is honestly just being herself at work. So whether she's running up and down the halls, people come into my office, whether I'm busy or not, just coming to pet her. That's part of the program where you're taking time out of your day to pet her for even a couple seconds. You're not thinking about what's stressing you out, what the anxiety that you have going on, whether in your work life, personal life is going on. That's what she's doing. She's taking that away from you. So she's been a great asset to us for the last couple of months. She's been a hit at just about every single event everywhere I've gone. Everybody wants to talk to her. Everybody wants to pet her. Recently at the carnival, I mean, I couldn't even sit down to eat for two seconds without people asking me to pet her where she I'm like, you know, she's getting the break. She's in the car. She's taking a nap. But everybody wants to see everybody wants to pet her. So she's been a great asset to us. And I look forward to doing a lot more things with her.

Great. Thank you, Officer Moyes. And thank you, Luna.

You know, I'm a council member, so she has patches. Oh, thank you. And she has her greeting cards. So it just has her picture on it. And on the

Awesome. Thank you so much. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. I'm dog sitting, dog sitting starting tonight, but next week, man, if you can, she can come hang at my house.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Okay.

I think you have to get through my son first. He's probably like, he's jealous right now knowing that Luna's here and he's not getting to hang out with her.

Wow. Wow. Excellent. Thank you.

All right, so moving on to our stats for the month of June. All right, so there we see the month-over-month and year-over-year stats. A few areas that I wanted to drill down on just to provide some context and clarity. So when we look at the burglary cases for the month, we're showing four burglaries, which is, you know, on paper looks to be a pretty significant increase there versus last year. This time there were none. you know, current year to date seven, previous year to date two. So to provide some context for that in June, breaking down some of these cases, one of those was a residential burglary where forced entry was made through pushing in an air conditioning unit AND SOME ITEMS WERE TAKEN. SO FOR THAT CASE, SCENE PROCESSING WAS DONE AND WE ARE AWAITING DNA LAB ANALYSIS RECORDS TO COME BACK TO CONTINUE THE INVESTIGATION. TWO OF THOSE CASES WERE ACTUALLY CARS THAT WERE BROKEN INTO. SO THEY WEREN'T RESIDENTIAL OR COMMERCIAL BURGLARS TO A BUILDING, JUST THE WAY THAT CONNECTICUT GENERAL STATUTES ARE WRITTEN TO FIT THE APPROPRIATE CHARGING, IT'S CLASSIFIED AS A BURGLAR. Both those cases with the car breaks, arrests were made on site. So those were resolved as soon as possible. And the fourth one was a break into a shed on the grounds of the Wittenberry School on 44 Brown Street. So there is video surveillance of that and investigation is ongoing to try to identify a group of what looks to be juvenile suspects that were involved in breaking into the shed. And then the other number I wanted to address when we look at last month's statistics, we see one robbery there and last year zero and about average from last year, year to date. But again, just to provide some context and clarity for that robbery case, because robbery, a lot of things come to mind when we use that term. So this was a, bike that was stolen at the Shell gas station on Blue Hills Avenue. And in the commission of the bike being stolen, the suspect made a threat to use a firearm and made reference to one. So based on statutes and how appropriate charges would be filed, we classify that as a robbery. And that's an active investigation that's still going on to pursue an arrest warrant. And that's all I have for the stats, unless there's any questions from the committee before we move on. Sure, all right. Personnel report. We have a few different recruits in various phases at the police department. Recruit Labiche recently graduated from the Connecticut Post-Police Academy down at Meriden. He's currently in field training phase, or FTO as we call it. RECRUIT DELA ROSA IS ATTENDING THE POLICE ACADEMY. RECRUIT TO PASS IS ATTENDING THE HARFORD POLICE ACADEMY. AND I LEFT IT OUT OF THE SLIDE, BUT WE HAVE ONE MORE RECRUIT, CREW MOREL, WHO WILL BE ATTENDING POST VERY SOON. SO A FEW DIFFERENT RECRUITS IN DIFFERENT VARIOUS PHASES OF TRAINING. THERE'S THE DISPATCH VACANCY THAT WAS CREATED FROM DISPATCHER CHAPMAN'S RESIGNATION. THAT'S IN THE PROCESS OF BEING FILLED. our officers are working with human resources on the most current round of oral board interviews for recruit applicants to establish a new hiring list to start working off of traffic statistics are listed there and then the citizen traffic complaints that we have received for the month that are going to be addressed for motor vehicle details and enforcement action you can see listed there as well This is a list of our speed shield locations in town. And so we use these speed shields, one for awareness and deterrence for speeding because they display the speed. But the real goal for especially the movable ones is to be able to gather and aggregate data of volume of traffic and speed of traffic so we can best direct traffic enforcement resources to problem areas and make good data informed decisions about how to deploy our traffic enforcement resources most effectively. Those are the call stats for June for our mental health clinician. And then for Bloomfield Volunteer Ambulance, a division that's near and dear to my heart, I'm the current EMS division commander overseeing BVA. So for last month, we completed a CPR and stop the bleed training for our town's leisure services and Parks and Recreation Department. And so that stop the bleed training is actually going to be rolled out to other town departments as well. We have two dates scheduled for town hall employees and are going to be moving on to library and other town departments as well because over the next month or so, we're going to be installing stop the bleed kits to go along with all the AEDs in town buildings as well. And these are kits that contain bandages, tourniquets, medical equipment to stop bleeding. But the goal being just like with AEDs and CPR, it's recognition and a quick response to help someone who suffers from a cardiac arrest. We recognize now that severe bleeding also You know, everyday citizens can make a huge impact and potentially save a life by taking quick action during a time when someone's injured and is severely bleeding. So having those kits with those essential pieces of equipment and having the training to use them is invaluable and is going to be deployed throughout the town. We also covered the Wintonbury School Safety Day event with a volunteer ambulance crew, provided medical coverage to the fire department's 100th anniversary carnival. Our last training last month was a OB-GYN review and a review of the state's Orange bracelet program, which is a specific initiative used to identify postpartum patients who may need some very specific medical care. And on the emergency management side of the EMS division, our emergency management performance grant, which I had addressed council about a month or two ago, was awarded and the sub-grant was sent back to the state with the town manager's signature. So we have around $11,000 allocated to us as part of that grant to use for emergency management training, equipment, supplies, things of that nature.

and that concludes my presentation and happy and welcome to answer any questions from committee or residents all right um councilor bethen brown um i see you've joined us thank you i was i was here it's just really hard trying to navigate and drive don't don't put that down in the notes um sir um question for you Yes. Question. I know that there's a lot of things that used to be done that's not done anymore. And I'm trying to figure out, is there a way that even the stop the bleed training or CPR training that we can offer to our residents for a nominal fee? And I don't know, and you can definitely tell me if this is something that we need to discuss offline, but trying to figure out how we can provide some of these services to our residents, number one. Number two, I'd like to know how the block watch meetings, if you know how they're going and what the attendance is like, and if the attendance needs to be beefed up, how we can probably help with that.

All right, well, first of all, to address the CPR part of the question. So we are continuing to offer community-based CPR classes. We have one scheduled in July and one scheduled in August as well for community members. And I do recognize that that comes at a cost because right now it is $75 per student to receive their certification. And that includes a textbook, a pocket face mask, and helps cover some of the instruction fees for the students who are teaching the class and then also a fee from the American Heart Association for issuing the CPR cards. So the money isn't There to try to earn a profit or to try to make money off of the cpr classes, the intent of charging that fee is to make the program self fundable and to be able to buy more books. textbooks and the pocket face masks for future classes as well, because the books. you know, the prices did go up and there is cost and fees associated with running a CPR training program. So we're not charging anything in addition to the stop the bleed classes. So like the ones being put on by the town, we're not charging for. And my idea is to start connecting the stop the bleed classes to the CPR classes. So like if we have a community group that comes in or we have a community CPR class that's put on during a month, we can add that on to the end of the class. It only takes another hour, hour and a half at most of instruction and to build that in as an extra part of the class. I'm certainly happy to discuss further offline, and I can break down the specific numbers and what that looks like. And I'm always happy to strategize on the best way to get the most number of people trained in our town as possible, because I agree it's a very important cause, and we're committed to doing so. And then for Block Watch, I... don't have exact numbers for attendance i'd be happy to to get those for you and send them tomorrow i know that the block watch has been advertised through the department's social media channels and have been attended by our community service officers and the sergeant that oversees them as well so i can follow up on that and get you the specific answers you're looking for

I would appreciate that because what I would like to do is to make sure that we get the community involvement. But if there's any way that we as a council can encourage more of community support, I think that would be great. And I do, yes, I really do want us to have a conversation in regards to the classes, the CPR and the Stop the Bleed to see how we can offer it to more of our residents so we can take that offline. But thank you so very much.

Thank you, counselor. I do want to add to that, Capcomber. If we have a list of where those block watches are in the town of Bloomfield?

The beatings are held at the police department, I believe.

For block watch. So it's not different areas in the town of Bloomfield, correct?

No, I'm not familiar with the specifics of the block watch program. But I can, I will talk with the support services division commander and the community services sergeant and get that all that information for you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Are there any other counselors online? Any other questions? Yes.

Well, I have a question. I just have a statement. You know, your report was very detailed and touched a lot of subjects. i'm also interested in hearing more about uh the cpr training that you guys are offering i think that is amazing um i was curious is there a certain number of mannequins that you have oh we have we have quite a number we can we can put on fairly large classes okay that's great to hear um yeah that's all i have i appreciate it thank you for your uh report and even if there are um you know

there are certain instructor to student ratios that per AHA guidelines that we have to follow. So we can accommodate with our instructor staff fairly large classes. But if the need were to rise to that we needed more mannequins or other equipment, there is regional equipment that's available for for those classes that we can tap into as well. So never an issue of not having the training equipment not to have the classes put on.

Understood. So if you were to GAME VOLUNTEERS THAT WERE CERTIFIED TO TEACH, WOULD THAT HELP OR WOULD THAT NOT HELP?

YEAH, WE'RE ALWAYS LOOKING TO BOOST OUR INSTRUCTOR NUMBERS. THERE IS A CPR INSTRUCTOR CLASS THAT IS TAKING PLACE IN AUGUST, SO I WILL BE RECRUITING FROM OUR CURRENT BVA VOLUNTEER STAFF FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO BECOME A CPR INSTRUCTOR TO TEACH ON BEHALF OF BVA AND FOR THE TOWN TO BECOME A NEW INSTRUCTOR.

THAT'S GREAT. Was wondering, is there one person per building of Bloomfield buildings that has that certification? Is that something maybe we could ask? Uh, well, we'll talk offline about that, but thank you.

Yep.

Yep.

Thank you. Council. Uh, no more questions. We're going to move to, um, the next, uh, fire department updates, uh, center of, uh, fire department chief, uh, for now.

Good evening, everyone.

Can you hear me all right? Yes, we can.

Okay. All right. So for the month of June, we had 45 total calls for service. We had three open burns, 17 false alarms, three CO calls, six calls for power lines down, four motor vehicle accidents, three hazardous materials calls, three electrical problems, one water problem, and two medical assists. We responded to the Blue Hills District three different times in June for a dual response. On the 22nd, we went to 41 School Street for reported oven fire, but we were dismissed beforehand. On the 24th, we responded to 103 Ellsworth Drive for smoke in the basement, which we were also dismissed before our arrival. And on the 26th, we responded to 26 Joy Street for smoke coming from the roof, and we were also dismissed before arrival. As far as our maintenance in June, we have completed our annual hose and nozzle testing. Our annual apparatus pump testing has all been completed, and we continue to have our regular maintenance going on at all three of the firehouses. As far as community outreach, the town of Bloomfield presented us with a 100th anniversary proclamation, which was a very nice gesture and was very much appreciated by all our members. On the 9th, we participated in a public safety day at the Wintonbury School. On the 11th, we had a parking lot cleanup at the First Cathedral Church to prepare for the 100th anniversary carnival slash food truck slash fireworks event. On the 27th, we had members attended the Windsor Locks Fire Department Parade. on the 18th through the 21st both fire departments held the 100th anniversary parade carnival fireworks which was attended by the bloomfield voluntary ambulance uh the bloomfield police department provided traffic and security and i just want to say it was it was a pleasure to work closely with both entities and we really want to say thank you to the ambulance and the police department for everything they did we thought the event went very well and it was very well attended Also on the 20th, we participated in the annual Juneteenth parade with the Blue Hills Fire, which was a fantastic event. As far as training, on the 2nd, we had our quarterly department and company meeting. On the 9th, we had our annual hazardous materials training. On the 16th, we had our hazardous materials practical. And on the 23rd, we had a training on the self-contained breathing apparatus. And then the 30th, which is typically the last Tuesday of the month, we always have what we call an in-house maintenance, where we check over the trucks and clean the firehouses, et cetera. And that concludes the report for the Center Fire Department. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief. Are there any questions from our counselors online? No. I do want to say thank you for that report, and certainly I want to thank you for the participation and all the events that happened, the fun events that happened here in Bloomfield. You know, we can have some stresses sometimes, but to go back and to think about the parades and the carnival and those things that, you know, take your mind off of the everyday stressors, but, you know, where you have fun with your neighbors, residents, and friends is a great thing. And once again, congrats on the 100 years of service. to the town of Bloomfield.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that.

Absolutely. Absolutely. We'll move next to Blue Hills Fire District.

Good evening. For the month of June, the Blue Hills Fire Department responded to 44 calls for service with a total combined hour spent at the incidents, 20 hours and seven minutes. There were no major incidents for the month of June. We did have two vehicle fires that were fully involved, a passenger vehicle on Gorham Avenue and a dump truck fire on Owens Road. No injuries were reported for either of these incidents. Most of the other calls for the period were accidents involving injuries and or fluids, false smoke detector and CO detector activations that were unintentional or activations due to malfunctions. There were no dual responses into the Bloomfield Center Fire District for the month of June. We did have one mutual aid call to Center Fire during the period. Windsor Fire had requested Blue Hills Fire to stand by at their station while they were working at a motor vehicle accident on I-91. For the Monday night training sessions, we critiqued the fire at Blue Hills and Darby. We worked with the Hump Operations deck gun operations and pumping water into our tower ladder four. Also pleased to announce that we've had several new applicants to sign up to volunteer. They're going through our recruiting process and will hopefully become full-fledged members thereafter. Getting down to the community outreach, we had a very successful Juneteenth celebration. Turnout was great for the parade, as well as the the craft Expo blue hills would like to thank the police department public works in the town for their continuous support. As a part of our 100th year anniversary celebration, both Blue Hills and Center Fire Departments together put on a four-day carnival, which started on Thursday, June 18th, and went through Sunday, June 21st, in the rear parking lot of the First Cathedral Church. fireworks were held on the uh 20th of saturday night of june bringing the residents of bloomfield out to see a spectacular event and socialize together we're continuing to meet to plan our 100th combined anniversary celebration parade and banquet will's fire also participated in the strawberry festival held over at the Methodist Church on School Street on June 27th. The event went from 12 noon to 7 p.m. This was another great event with a large community turnout. And that pretty much concludes my report for Blue Hills Fire.

Thank you, Chief Jones. Any questions from our counselors online? Counselor DeBetham-Browne?

Thank you so much. And once again, I'm just so sorry that I am traveling. But I wanted to say thank you to both fire departments for the effort that they did put in for the 100th anniversary. Thank you. And I do believe that the fireworks was just like the icing on top of the cake. So thank you. It's always wonderful when we can celebrate together and show the best of Bloomfield. So I just wanted to put that out there to both fire departments. And thank you to the police department that also provided support. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, counselor, uh, council Oliver.

Thank you, chair. Yeah. I just want to let you know, I enjoyed it and it was glad. I was glad to see the fireworks as well. Uh, not just to see the fireworks. We had our own little grand finale, which really topped it off. So, uh, big, big shout out to you all as a team. And, uh, I want to tell you, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Oliver. And I'm just going to quickly add in too for the Blue Hills Fire District. Just awesome. Awesome. And the Juneteenth celebration, as always, ever since I've been here in Bloomfield, love doing that. And so again, these are meaningful events and You know, folks, if you know about it or hear about it, I would tell you to come out and participate. It is a worthwhile time to take yourself away from some of the everyday things, but also for your family and yourself to enjoy. So thank you to everyone, everyone involved. Thank you, Dad. Really. We're going to move on next to our EMS report.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, just one moment, Mr. Milnefeld. Councillor Oliver, is that a legacy hand? Sorry. It's okay.

Okay. Well, unlike the BVA that Captain Klomper reported on, the EMS Committee did not meet last uh this past month and have been very not busy so i really have nothing to report thank you thank you mr bloomfeld uh do you have a question how's the ambulance coming along fundraising now the ambulance doesn't really do fundraising it has fun drives generally during the the year that's done by the bloomfield volunteer ambulance fund incorporated i right now i have no idea how their fun drive is doing it's certainly an ongoing effort in the sense that people often having had family members or themselves use the ambulance

will be inclined to send in money um i don't know if captain klomberg has any more current information as coordinator he might so i'll pass to him if he's got anything to add yes thank you for the uh for the new ambulance so there is a new ambulance that was purchased generously by the bva fund incorporated uh that is in its second stage of production and IS SCHEDULED TO BE READY TO INSPECT AND PUT ONLINE, I'M TOLD, FROM MY LAST CONVERSATIONS WITH THE FUND, POSSIBLY AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER. SO FINGERS CROSSED, EVERYTHING MOVED SMOOTHLY AND QUICKLY WITH THAT, AND THERE AREN'T DELAYS, BUT SOMETIME END OF THE SUMMER early fall, we'll be looking to get our new ambulance online, which will replace our oldest ambulance in the fleet. And when it comes to fundraising, from the last fund meeting that I attended, the feedback that I got about their fundraising efforts were that their year-over-year large donations from companies and larger entities in town is actually up. So they're seeing an increase in larger donations and there has been a push for smaller individual donations through a QR code you can scan on your phone or you can go to the BVA Fund website and They accept credit card payments now for small fundraising, and those, while they are getting donations from those methods, the large donations from entities in town are really what seems to be carrying the majority of donations, and those have increased.

Thank you. Thank you very much. That's great news. There are no other questions. We're going to move next to Conservation Energy and Environment Committee updates. Paula Jones.

Thank you, Chair. We, too, have not met since the last Public Health Safety and Environment Committee meeting. We're meeting tomorrow. So I anticipate that I'll have a much more robust report next month for the subcommittee. There are a couple of topics that have been brought to us by residents though, so I want to make the council aware. to pesticide use in town uh questions and concerns have been raised um particularly by Seabury residents um both around you know they're they have concern around what they're um what they're seeing at Seabury and they had some questions about what's going on you know with town use of pesticides and um you know the big concern is near nicotine We're planting all these pollinator gardens, but then we're spraying with neonicotinoids, I can usually pronounce that, which is not good, obviously, for bees and other pollinators. So we will look more into that. We have gotten prompt information and responses back from the Department of Public Works. They, I think, are doing what they think is the right thing to do, and they're obviously using with um contractors who are appropriately credentialed by deep and so forth when they do spray but people have a lot of angst about it and understandably because we're seeing insect populations crash the other thing that um is um been brought up and we will be hearing more about it is waste reduction initiatives, in particular, how might Bloomfield reduce single use plastics? Plastics, obviously, a lot of a lot of what is used doesn't get recycled, even though people think it does. So one thing we can be more diligent about and more thoughtful about is what simple measures can we take to reduce plastics? um we do have on our town website a calendar a july calendar in terms of a once a day kind of um think simple action that you can do in terms of reducing plastic use and I think that actually was included in this week in Bloomfield this past week so we'll try to push that out maybe get it into the messenger it will live on the CC website going forward and again these are simple things that people can do you know to help make an impact the other thing that came up and again waste reduction I got an inquiry from Leah Chase, former Bloomfield resident. She is now part of Windsor's Conservation Commission, and she's real interested in what we've been doing with textile recycling in Bloomfield. So I forwarded her inquiry to Blaine Garrity, who's the interim public works director, got a very prompt response back, and it's in the report, but I will read it. Paula, we have seen great success with the textile recycling program. We currently have recycling bins stationed at Town Hall, 330 Park Avenue, and Wittenberry Library. Bay State Textiles administers the program and the town receives revenue from the recycled materials. The May report from Bay State is attached and there's a link about the company. So I did provide a copy of what Glen, Mr. Garrity had forwarded in terms of the report. and i will say this the um the revenue is not impressive because they they do i think monthly pickups at all three sites um the revenue that the town has gotten is 137.40 for may But it's over a ton of material that they have, you know, they're recycling and pulling away. And that is keeping that material out of the waste stream. So if you think about tipping fees, you know, cost to the town in terms of trash collection. The impact is a cost avoidance impact. It's not just the revenue side of things. So Leo was very happy to get that. He's going to pass it on. There were real concerns about, you know, they were going to be, you know, are they going to be rodents? So they're going to be, you know, issues with trash, all of that. you have this outside contractor who services the area it's working really well for the town there are no problems so i did want to share that information that dpw had shared and i think that concludes my report unless people have questions thank you uh thank you uh miss jones um you see council oliver thank you chair

Uh, I just wanted to say, uh, that was, that's pretty cool. I mean, we're, we're, we're in the green. I know it's only a hundred bucks, but if, uh, if it's better for the environment, I don't see why we would stop, stop doing it unless it goes negative and creates a cost of money. Um, that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Oliver. Um, I don't have anything to say about that, but I will say I'm a little surprised that, you know, for a ton of textiles, unless there's other things that are mixed in with it, you know, where you wouldn't get.

I think there potentially is material sorted in. If you look at the website, and I provided the link, I encourage you to do so because it's very interesting. They talk about the sorting that they go through in terms of how some of the material is good enough material to be shipped to other countries, for example. Some of it really needs to be recycled and used in other material. Again, there's no cost to us because they're providing the service. We're getting a little bit of revenue. And I think what's unspoken is the fact that ultimately it's cost avoidance for the town because we're paying less ultimately at the end of the day for our trash pickup. absolutely yeah absolutely i mean for the time yeah so i was real impressed with um just learning more about it because i'd never asked the question so i was glad our neighbor from windsor did thank you thank you so much we have any other hands or oh

Okay, thank you. So we're going to move on next to West Hartford Bloomfield public health updates. Director Krause is unable to make it tonight. So I do have some notes here from her and I'll just read over them very quickly. The support that the health district continues to provide to the community through regular outreach efforts are to the Bloomfield Food Pantry, which they go to every other week and they provide public health information and resource materials to residents. In addition, the public health nurse meets weekly with residents at the community center and conducts wellness screenings and provide a public health guidance. Uh, and as a reminder, residents who find ticks attached to humans may submit them through the health district for testing by the Connecticut agricultural experiment station. Uh, say that again, if you find ticks, they can test them for you. Uh, if you find them on a person. So, um, during June, the district hosted, uh, the following programs, um, uh, June 3rd, a story time with McMahon Wittenberry library focused on hand washing and germs for children. Awesome. June 4th, Fat Attack Program with the Community Health Network. June 8th, Healthy Lifestyle Workshop Senior Center. June 9th, Conducting Community Outreach at Bloomfield Food Pantry. On the 20th, at the Bloomfield Farmers Market. Also on the 20th, at the Bloomfield Juneteenth Celebration. And on the 23rd, the Community Outreach at the Bloomfield Food Pantry. And coming up in July, the Health District will continue its community outreach and educational program. The 13th of July, with the Healthy Lifestyle Workshop at the Senior Center. 21st, a Cancer and Chronic Disease Prevention Fair at the Senior Center. And then on the 30th, they will be conducting wellness screenings at the West Indian Celebration. So I encourage you to take advantage of the wellness screenings that West Hartford Bloomfield Health District is providing to our residents. If there are any questions, if none, thank them. We're going to move to other public safety concerns. So we were scheduled to have an update on the Maple traffic situation, progress, headwinds and bids. That was not received. I think with staff turnover and I will take the blame. I should have reached out to ensure that that was going to be part of this meeting and it was not. And I had planned on not holding public health meetings through the summer, but we will conduct one in August. It is the second Wednesday of each month at 6 o'clock. So I don't know what that exact date is, but next in August, the second Wednesday at 6 p.m., we will have that. We will have also more information. Are you tonight? the 12th, so I mean, August 12th will be the meeting. It will also have some information on data centers here in the town of Bloomfield. And so instead of canceling, I think these things are important and I will endeavor to ensure that this information gets out to us and it's very important, okay? Uh, next, um, we're going to move in to public comments. Uh, we'll do public comments in the room first. If you would please state your name, your address.

Hello, I'm Brad Huskinson, 45 Burr Road. I'm an ally of the CEC and a speaker for the nonprofit environmental group Beyond Plastics, which fights plastic pollution. Plastics are made with more than 16,000 chemicals and approximately 4,200 of those are toxic. Annually, the U.S. produces billions of pounds of plastic waste that's either landfilled, incinerated, or littered. These plastics break into pieces called microplastics, some of which are smaller than human cells. They carry their toxins into the environment where they're absorbed by humans, plants, and animals. Microplastics have been found in the air, water, soil, food, all bodily organs, breast milk, and newborns. In animal studies, microplastics are linked to cancers, heart disease, infertility, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's. The plastics industry plans to double its production by 2040, and with no help expected from Washington, it's up to towns and states to protect its citizens and the environment from microplastics. The General Assembly's attempts to pass laws restricting the use of disposable plastics have been blocked by special interest groups such as the American Chemistry Council. Bloomfield can help support state policymakers in their efforts to pass laws and push back against special interest groups by passing local laws restricting use of disposable plastics. That's how the state's ban on single-use plastic bags became law in 2021. Many towns had already passed bag restrictions, giving state representatives momentum to pass a statewide ban. One disposable plastic law Bloomfield could pass is called Skip the Stuff, which requires food service establishments offering takeout or delivery orders to provide plastic utensils, condiment packets, and straws to customers on request only. Skip the Stuff laws benefit customers, businesses, and society. Bloomfield could join other Connecticut towns that have already passed Skip the Stuff laws, such as Norwalk, Groton, Westport, and Hamden. My plan is to work with the CEC and Nick Gabuzda in drafting a proposed law, bring that proposal to this subcommittee for discussion, then having it passed by town council. Thanks for your time. Thank you so much.

Um, if you, you don't mind staying real quick, just for a second. Uh, are there any questions online? Oh, okay. Uh, council Oliver.

Thank you, chair. So if there was a ban of plastics in the town of Bloomfield, would that mean that everything would be bottled by glass? What would be?

Well, thanks for the question. So skip the stuff law. What that does is it simply opts out the businesses from having to provide those items that I listed, such as plastic cutlery, condiment packets, straws. You can get them as a customer, but only upon request. So it reduces the cost for the businesses because they don't have to automatically give packets of ketchup or soy sauce or duck sauce, all the things that might be clogging up one of your kitchen drawers. It helps our customers and it helps society because it has a cleaner environment, right? Because a lot of people just toss those and those are all unrecyclable. None of that can be recycled.

Understood. Thank you for the clarification.

You're welcome. Thanks for the question.

Uh, thank you so much. Oh, sure. You're welcome. Appreciate it. I appreciate the efforts. All right. Um, we're going to move on to, um, uh, we have public comments, uh, so, uh, council with Oliver and to beat them Brown. If you guys are ready, we would like to, um, Approve, uh, the meeting minutes of the previous meeting.

I'd like to make a, I'd like to make a motion that we approve the meeting minutes from June 10th.

Okay. All in favor.

I am sorry. I'm trying to not let you all hear my travels. But yes, I I'm sorry.

Okay. That's okay. Uh, the chair votes. I can, the motion passes, uh, take a motion to adjourn.

I'd like to make a motion that we adjourn.

Uh, all in favor. I meeting is adjourned at 6 51 PM. Good night. Right. Thank you everyone for coming out and thank you. Bloomfield.