Board of Health - Regular Meeting

6, Grafton Board of Health meeting. As a preliminary matter, this is Jennifer Maynard, Chair of the Board of Health. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Andrew Chalupka.

Andrew Chalupka here.

Bill Muller.

Bill Muller here.

Karen Gustavski-Galvin.

Karen Gustavski-Galvin here.

Staff and anticipated speakers on the agenda, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Jamie Kerrville. Jamie Kerbel here. Nancy Connors.

Nancy Connors here.

Annette Garcia. Annette Garcia here. Great. I'd like to open the meeting. May I have a motion to open the meeting?

This is Andrew Chalupka. It's 6.31 p.m. and I move that we open tonight's Board of Health meeting.

Is there a second?

This is Bill Mahler. I second that motion.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye. Bill Mahler, aye. Darren Gostowski-Govan, aye.

Jen Maynard, aye. This open meeting of the Grafton Board of Health is being conducted in a hybrid fashion, consisted with the act extending certain COVID-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency. Governor Healey has further extended this act until June 30th, 2027 of the remote meeting provisions of former Governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 executive order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, the act extends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed to participate remotely. The order, which you can find posted at the town's website at www.grafton-mass.gov allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely so long as reasonable public access is afforded. so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation unless such participation is required by law. There are no public hearings scheduled for this evening's meeting. If the public has a question or comment on an agenda item, please utilize the Q&A feature in Zoom and please include your full name and address when submitting a comment. For this meeting, we are convening in a hybrid fashion, both in person and video conference via Zoom as posted on the town's website, identifying how the public may join. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that some attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording. Any supporting materials that have been provided to members of this body are available on the town's website unless otherwise noted. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless I note otherwise. Before we turn to the first item on the agenda, permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I'll introduce any speakers on the agenda for a topic. After they conclude their remarks, I'll invite the board members to provide any comments, questions, or motions. Please identify yourself by name when speaking. Rather, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until I yield the floor to you and state your name before speaking. if members wish to engage with other members please go through me taking care to identify yourself finally any votes on any motions made during this meeting will be conducted by roll call vote i thought i started really fast okay uh this is our new um portion of the meeting where we allow for public comment at 6 34. And just noting there are no other attendees dialed in other than those that we have covered for members and staff and anticipated speakers. So I'm going to go ahead and close the public comment period. However, should anybody join us in the room or virtually, I will pause and offer to reopen the public comment period. Any concerns? Didn't think so. So we've met in the room, but we wanna welcome Jamie Kerbel, who is the new office assistant in the Board of Health, who will be working alongside Nancy and downloading as much information as she can from Nancy and help offload some of the work there. So we welcome you. We know you're gonna be in good hands with Nancy and Annette, but your members are also here. Karen has been on the board for a very long time. And so we ask questions of each other and we hope that you just have a smooth transition from your last department. So some people might recognize your face when they walk in as well, I hear. Thank you.

Well, I'm glad to meet you all.

Yeah, great. All right. And Annette, have you guys met yet?

Oh, of course. We did, yes. Excellent. Very good.

All right. And speaking of Annette, Annette, we're gonna turn it over for your public health nurse updates and environmental health updates.

Awesome. Thank you. Bridget can't be here tonight. She's teaching a TikTok at the Shrewsbury Library. So I have her update. In the month of May, she conducted four routine disease case investigations. There were no foodborne illness investigations that linked back to a local food establishment and no trends identified that there's any, you know, disease of concern in the community. Bridget held a TikTok presentation at the public library on June She had a really good attendance. About a dozen residents came out. They all left with tick handouts and tick kits at the end of the event. She has seen a slight increase in tick-borne diseases coming through MAVEN. So that's Lyme disease primarily, but anaplasmosis is another one that we've seen quite a bit of. So definitely want to remind residents to perform tick checks every time they're outside, both for yourself and for your pets. That's even if you're just doing yard work around the house, still important to make sure that you're checking when you come back inside. The arbovirus season is here. So that's, you know, we're concerned about mosquito activity. It's been pretty wet and the temperatures are starting to rise. So that's when we see mosquitoes start to hatch. So make sure that you're taking precautions when you're outside to prevent mosquito bites, things like wearing long pants, using bug spray, avoiding peak time. So that dusk and dawn timeframe is important to help reduce the risk of bites. That'll also help protect you from ticks, some of those things as well. So all good practices across the board. And that's all the updates I have from Bridget from the nurse. So for environmental health data, in the month of May, we conducted 19 inspections in Grafton. 11 of those were food inspections. There was one temporary event. We had three new housing cases, four new nuisance complaints. And it's a little lighter this month, I think, than previous months because we've been doing a lot of pool inspections, which I think are more heavy in some of our other communities. Everybody was looking to get open and running before Memorial Day, even though it was a washout, but still operating on time. We're certainly seeing an uptick in housing and nuisance complaints. That tends to be pretty common this time of year. People are outside more, the weather is a little bit warmer, so you see pest activity or overgrown lawns start to pick up. So our inspectors have definitely been busy with that. We're also heading into camp season. I don't think we have any camps in Grafton. But, you know, certainly keeping our eyes out and doing education as those arise.

Has the Lions Club been in feathers one count as a camp in Grafton or is that different?

The Lions? I don't think I've heard of that.

I think it's through the rec. Yeah, it's through the REC. It's through Grafton REC.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so REC departments, if they use municipal employer exempt from camp regulations, so they don't have to get permitted through the health department. Gotcha.

Good to know. Any questions for Annette?

Thanks, Annette.

Yeah, thank you.

I had one question. Go ahead. Thinking of ticks, how are, and I don't know, maybe there haven't been any cases reported, the alpha gal syndrome. I know that's a big, it seems like a big uptick in a year by a lot, like the vineyard. But how's the state and then communities, how that being handled where it's Not technically an infectious disease in the way we all think of infectious diseases, but it causes the allergic reaction to red meat and stuff. Is that being tracked similar to infectious diseases in other tick-borne, or does that just have a different way of being dealt with?

yeah i'd have to double check with bridget i believe that it's still reported through maven if a positive test comes through because it's still important for communities to be aware of but i will certainly follow up with bridget and we can have an update at the next board of health meeting to talk a little bit more about how that goes i haven't heard of any cases in our three communities which is good but you're certainly certainly right. I think I just saw a news article and actually they were on CNN out on the Vineyard talking about it because they see such high numbers and it's really exploded in recent years.

We'll have an update. Thank you. Yeah, I know, like, they're saying some restaurants on the vineyard have, like, changed their menus and everything to, you know, have more non-red meat options available, given how much they're saying. So, I appreciate it. I wouldn't be surprised if it kind of gets tracked through MAVEN, same kind of way, just probably about the best way to track it.

Yeah. Good question. Thank you, Karen. All right. Dr. Muller, would you like to give us an update on the grafted opioid recovery community?

Certainly. I've been absent at the last couple of meetings, so I did talk to Dan Finn today, and I know that they're working on renewal of the grant with GAP, the Guided Addition Access Points Recovery Organization. I think the general sense is that it's been quite a successful venture. And I think we're good ways ahead of a lot of other communities in terms of using funds that were made available with the opioid Settlements with Purdue farmer and other organizations They're at the end of their first annual contract there's a new contract that has been devised and it's being reviewed. One thing is that it appears that it will probably be for a little less money than what the contract was last year. I think it was $119,000 last year and they're thinking it'll be closer to $100,000 this year. But it's certainly expected that in fact it will be renewed and that the current activities will be continued. We do have a student on our committee, Samir Perdue, who I believe is related to one of our board members. It was a difficult deduction. But he is interested in doing a survey of adolescent people in terms of some of their feelings regarding some of the substances involved. And there's some members of the administration from the school committee that will assist him in that. And so I think that will be a good summer project On a separate note, I did undergo, or I did go on a tour of the Tufts Biosafety Laboratory, which I guess I knew existed, but I had trouble finding it. It was established, I think, about 20 years ago, 18 years ago, I think, 2008. And it's quite an elaborate place. You know, it does do research in infectious diseases. and has very high levels of protection both for the employees and for the surrounding community. They're on a pause in their research because they were doing some renovations to the building, which is why they let me in, I think. And I didn't have to wear a mask or I did have to wear boots over my shoes. But it was quite an impressive organization. And it was just interesting to see, you know, here it is in our community. There were some things that they raised. They said they, you know, their experience with the Grafton water is somewhat problematic, I think, because of particulate matter in the water. And they also said that as a condition of their approval for the town of Grafton, they can't put material into recycling. So everything goes in the trash.

Interesting.

And that seemed to be at a variance with what their experience has been at other sites. You know, they obviously have other campuses. They have their campuses in Boston and Medford. And I have participated in several of their monthly meetings just as a observer where they talk about some of the research that's going on on the other campuses as well. But I think it was a good opportunity. I told them I would bring good tidings to the board and that there were no pathogens that were about to escape.

Good, I hope not. I'm sitting awfully close to you right now, so.

I've been feeling fine in the week. But again, there was no research going on there during that period of time. But given all the interest, given the, I think it was important to take advantage of the opportunity.

Yeah, glad you were able to go, especially since we just were talking to this topic recently.

Yes, yes, yes.

Interesting about the water, though, you wouldn't think that in that type of, doing that, that they would be using much tap water. You'd think they'd be using like distilled or saline or something like that.

I don't know, I don't know. They have all kinds of sophisticated air handling things and so forth and so on.

Maybe they can fix it.

Well, I think, though, they have the perspective that they have other municipalities they're dealing with.

Sure.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I think the issue of the recycling may be an issue that would be at least worth kind of revisiting. I don't know. Apparently, it was a condition of their initial approval that they received from the Board of Selectmen.

Oh, really?

That it'd be separate from?

Yes.

That's probably, I would imagine something with their contract with the recycling versus anything in town.

Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, it was an interesting afternoon, or actually it was morning when I was there. And I do think it was worth the time. Great. The person who showed me around is from Kentucky. He had done this sort of work at the University of Kentucky and actually had come up here to New England to a biosafety lab at Harvard and then somehow got from Harvard to Tufts. I don't know how that all happened.

It happens, I'm sure.

But he's still here and he didn't have a really prominent Kentucky accent. I hope I didn't have too much of a Massachusetts. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Well, I'm glad you were able to go. I would have liked to have gone, but it was conflicted with a few other things that day. So I'm glad somebody was able to go. That's great.

Right. Thank you, Bill.

Yeah. Awesome. All right. And actually, well, while we're on you, you have been either our primary or alternate PEP, PEP. It's not FEP, it's PEP, right?

I have been a representative to an entity.

That shall otherwise be known as PHEP.

I've made a few of their meetings. And I know Annette has been there representing us as well.

Yes. So tonight we need to decide. I think our goal would probably be to have Annette continue as our primary representative, but we didn't want to take anything away from anybody if you were interested in being an alternate, or we could have somebody else from the Alliance sit on as the alternate, ideally somebody from the board, it would be nice to have an alternate, but we wanted to, we don't wanna take anything away from anybody if you're interested in remaining with Annette as primary.

I'm not hugely vested in the activity. But as long as Annette plans to come, I can be the alternate. That's great.

I think you've done a great job. You've brought back a lot of education for us on this. Can I make a motion then? You can make a motion. I would love that, Andrew.

All right. This is Andrew Chalupka. I move that as primary representative to the PHEP, we appoint Annette Garcia, and as the alternate representative, we appoint Dr. Bill Muller.

Is that for a term of one year? Is that how that works?

Yeah, it's not a lifetime.

It's not a lifetime. It's not a lifetime for a term of one year, forever.

For a term of one year or until they get fed up.

Is there a second?

This is Karen Gwizdowski-Koven. I second that motion.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalutka, aye.

Karen Gwizdowski-Koven, aye.

Do I get to vote?

Bill Muller, aye.

Jen Maynard, aye. You can vote yourself on. Annette, you can never leave it, though.

I'm there every month, so I'll make sure to bring updates back to the board when we have different projects going on.

You could never leave us either. That was all-inclusive, but awesome. Thank you, Annette and Dr. Muller, for your continued service. We appreciate it. All right, old and new business, exciting stuff. We do have a CPR class open for town residents on June 2nd, 2026. That is listed on the website for details and our Facebook that folks can feel free to Do they have to sign up, Nancy, in advance for that? Yes, they have to sign up.

There's about five people on the list, right?

Five people so far. Do we have a limit for how many we can have?

That I don't know if there's a cap.

Nancy, if you're talking, you're on mute. I'll unmute you. Let's see. Maybe I'll unmute you.

20. 20 is the limit.

All right. So we've got some room to grow.

Yes. And Nancy, can I just ask, it was my understanding in talking to you at some point in the past that these classes are subsidized by the Community Nursing Association. Is that right?

That's correct.

Okay. Then I would like to extend the board's thanks to the Community Nursing Association for their support for this endeavor. Sure. Absolutely.

Yeah, this is a great resource for residents to have the opportunity to join. Thank you. Awesome. And I do want to note, I know we closed our public comment period, but we do have one attendee that's joined. So I just, I have allowed for you to talk, Mary Ann. I didn't know if you came on for public comment or anything you wanted to raise to the board.

I'm going to guess that's not actually Mary Ann.

I'm thinking it's not either. Or Dan, if it's a Dan perhaps.

Dan, are you there?

We've allowed you to talk if you want to say anything. I don't know if he's planning on speaking at all. All right. I'm going to leave so that you can speak if you want to raise your hand or come off mute. But our next meeting... Oh, I have a new business. Oh, you have new business. Go ahead.

So number one, at the town meeting, there had been an article regarding the Central Mask Mosquito Control Project. Annette and I spoke with the finance committee and explained the important public health service that this project represented. And I'm happy to say that we will be staying in the central mass mosquito control project. Wonderful. And then my second item of new business is to I extend my welcome to Jamie. Thank you very much for joining us and for helping the board and the health department. But also, at this time, I would like to make a motion that the Board of Health formally recognize Nancy Connors for her over three decades of service to the town of Grafton. So Nancy has worked tirelessly for the people of Grafton public face of the Health Department and the Board of Health and made sure that the citizens of our town knew that the Health Department and the Board of Health were doing all that they could to keep the town safe and healthy. At the time she started, the Health Department and the Building Department were were combined, I believe, and she was responsible for both. And so for a generation of residents building houses and businesses in town and seniors, Nancy has been the first and the last point of contact for a lot of their interactions with the town. And more recently she worked diligently and conscientiously as the sole full-time employee of our health department during a pandemic to support our community. And on a more personal note, when my mother served as the public health nurse for the town, I always remember Nancy volunteering and providing support on her own time for the special activities that the department and the board sponsored. So Grafton has been very fortunate to benefit from Nancy Connor's dedication and expertise for these last three plus decades. And I therefore move that the board commend Nancy and thank her for her service to the town of Grafton.

I second that motion. Roll call vote. Bill Muller aye.

Chair Inglisowski-Gilvin aye.

Jan Maynard aye. And of course she is also trained and and spirited us all along the way. Many many people before us I'm sure as well and just has been an unwavering gift of knowledge and support um especially having to sit in this seat right karen so thank you so much for all your many many uh contributions and support over the years thank you for the kind words oh marianne has raised her her hand marianne would you like to speak actually this is in fact dan

On Marianne's computer. And yeah, I just want to echo the thanks for the support, you know, for the numerous years that I was on the board. And then also the continuing support with the Grafton Opioid Recovery Community Partnership and doing our minutes and our agenda and minutes. And it's been a tremendous help. And thank you, Nancy.

You're welcome, Tim.

And that's why we know you're in such very, very good hands because she's taken very good care of all of us.

Yeah.

All right.

I just want to say, I finally learned how to use the hand thing on this after 8, 9 years.

We miss you, Dan. We're glad you're still out there and very much involved.

Thanks.

I'm sure you want to run a meeting, right?

No, well, running on tomorrow night. So there you go.

All right.

Have a good night.

Thank you, Dan. Thanks for joining. And then, well, not to follow that, but I did, I did just want to mention what the thank you to Annette and Andrew for going to town meeting as well and speaking on behalf of those resources for our community. I do know that there are some folks that. don't always want that type of prevention in their area. And I do believe folks can make that wish known. There is a process for asking for your area not to be sprayed. So folks that are concerned about that can certainly reach out to the Board of Health and folks will support through that process. Although we do highly recommend it.

Yeah, and there was, I mean, at the FinCom meeting, there was an expert from the project there, and he sort of explained more about the pesticide that they used, the exclusion process, but also the extent of the exposure and the dissipation of it. So it actually, I came away with the impression at least that it is relatively low risk compared to contracting West Nile virus. Right.

Right. Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you for that. Awesome. And again, hate to follow that with after all the wonderful things about Nancy. Um, all right. So our next meeting we do have, I think our meetings are set through December, so we'll get those on there for next time.

Uh, we're going to try to read it to you now. Um,

So July 13th, we have hybrid, so we'll be here in conference room F and via Zoom. And then if you have the list, do you want to just run down the rest of them, Nancy, if you wouldn't mind?

August 10th, September 14th, October 5th, November 9th, and November 7th. It's December 7th, I'm sorry. And November and December are Zoom only.

Perfect.

Thank you. All right, great. All right. Any other items? We are getting more and more efficient these days.

Yeah. Well, it is 7 o'clock. This is Andrew Chalupka, and I move to close tonight's meeting.

Is there a second?

This is Bill Mahler.

I second that motion.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Mahler, aye.

Karen Wazowski-Oven, aye.

Jen Maynard, aye. All right. Thanks, everyone. We will see you next month.