Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the July 13th, 2026 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 to the affirmative. Andrew Chalupka.

Andrew Chalupka here.

Bill Muller.

Bill Muller here.

Radhika Prabhu.

Thank you.

Staff and anticipated speakers on the agenda, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Annette Fokker. Annette Fokker. Annette Garcia. I'm sorry.

Annette Garcia here.

Let's see. Allison Turner.

Allison Turner here.

Jamie Kerbel.

Jamie Kerbel here.

All right. I'd like to open the meeting. May I have a motion to open the meeting?

This is Andrew Chalupka. It is 6.32 PM, and I move to open tonight's Board of Health meeting.

Second.

This is Bill Mauler. I second that motion.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye. Bill Mauler, aye.

Bradley Kupferbue, aye. Jen Maynard, aye. This open meeting of the Grafton Board of Health is being conducted hybrid consistent 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 orders 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 to 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 hearing schedules for this evening's meeting. If the public has a question or comment on the agenda items, please utilize the Q&A feature in Zoom. Please include your full name and address when submitting a comment. For this meeting, Grafton Board of Health is being conducted in a hybrid fashion. 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 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 comment, questions, or motions. Please identify yourself by name when speaking. Further, please remember to mute your phone or computer when you're not speaking. Please remember to speak clearly in a way that helps generate accurate meeting minutes. For any questions, please wait until I yield the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage with other members, please do so through me, taking care to identify yourself. Finally, any votes and motions made during this meeting will be conducted by roll call vote. One day it's going to get shorter. I keep telling myself that. Okay. Just acknowledging we have been opening these meetings with a public comment. Public comment being open to attendees using the raise hand button on Zoom and a maximum of three minutes being allotted to each speaker, not to exceed 20 minutes of our total meeting time. However, there are no additional attendees noted in the chat today. If somebody should join, I will perhaps reopen the public comment period to allow for attendees to offer their comments. So with that, let's turn to the first item on our agenda, and those are the public health nurse updates.

Bridget is currently on vacation, so I don't have any significant updates from her. You know, certainly a few things to keep in mind as we're heading into tick and mosquito season. We're definitely seeing an increase in tick-borne illnesses being reported through MAVEN, so taking care to... You know, wear protective clothing when you're outside, long sleeves, long pants, doing tick checks when you get back inside. I know during June, Bridget was very busy doing TikToks at all of the public libraries and the senior centers in each community. They were really well attended and really well received. So we're very excited to do that. And that's all I have for public health nurse updates. I had to stop and pause.

think for a second about what a TikTok was.

I got it. I got it. Not that.

Provided info on tics. And we also have these tic removal kits that are really great. They've got tweezers, magnifying glasses, and some health education in them. So we were able to give those away to residents that attended.

So she's not doing the latest trend. I got it. Okay.

Yes.

Although it was a good play on words. It was very well played. Well played. Very good. Any other environmental or social consumption sites? Either one. Annette, did you want to?

Mackenzie, I don't know if you want to give the environmental health update.

Sure, I can. Just one second. All right, for June, we did 20 food inspections, one nuisance inspection, one beach inspection, and one septic inspection. And the nuisance was actually – it was a re-inspection for – An address that was reported for trash and discarded mattresses and everything. And so the reinspection just confirmed that they did do the cleanup. So that was a close case for 18 Waterville Street.

I'm happy to provide a quick update on the social consumption sites. Back in January of this year, the Secretary of the Commonwealth promulgated new regulations under the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, which allow for three different types of permits for social consumption. They cover supplemental, which means an existing marijuana establishment can incorporate on-site consumption into their business operations. There's one that they call hospitality. So these are where... different businesses, whether they're current marijuana establishments or non-cannabis businesses, can open social consumption sites on their site. So basically, they would partner with a marijuana facility to offer the sale and consumption. So the example that the state gives is like a yoga studio wanted to partner with a marijuana retailer to offer consumption space in the And then the third license type is called an event organizer license. So this is where, for example, a music, why can't I think of the word, festival, wanted to offer social consumption on site at that music festival. They could rope off an area where individuals of age could consume marijuana on site. So I had sent this over to Evan, the town manager, some more information because in order to offer these types of licenses, the town has to adopt the process and allow it. So this would mostly most likely go through a town meeting question or it could be a local bylaw update. But certainly as the Board of Health, I think we have a vested interest in making sure that we're part of this process to identify any potential unintended consequences of allowing these types of establishments in town and making sure that we're supporting businesses and residents to stay healthy if the town does decide to allow this. I will be at the select board on July 21st talking about social consumption sites. And, you know, I'll provide them with a memo ahead of time that provides a little bit more detail on the different types of permits, what the adoption process looks like, and then certainly any Board of Health considerations. So, yeah. you know i wanted to to make sure to mention it today in today's meeting to see if the board had any initial thoughts on it and then certainly as the select board in the town continues to discuss it we'll make sure to stay engaged and incorporate any feedback but certainly happy to answer any questions or just hear your thoughts on these

Just one quick thing. So I know we have regulations that are statewide that we comply with for tobacco, and that's under the purview of the Board of Health. Regulations for cannabis sales locations, I don't know that we've had oversight, or do we have oversight of those today? I don't believe we do, right?

no we don't so they're state regulations they're run through the cannabis control commission so currently any retail or grow facilities are licensed through the state local health departments can adopt local regulations i've worked with communities in the past that have their own set of regulations and that would give the the health department oversight um in terms of you know permitting the establishment but also conducting inspections um with especially with these social consumption sites the board of health could put more strict regulations on it so some one of the examples that the state gives is if the local board of health wanted to prohibit combustion so smoke actually smoking marijuana at social consumption sites that's something that would in your would be within your purview so that would allow just edibles or vaping um you know you could set those types of specifications locally

And I would imagine that we could probably figure out a way to acquire public public feedback on, you know, sites in general through whatever process that the if the town was to adopt those things, collection of public feedback of considerations like that, that they might want their local Board of Health to adopt as well.

yeah certainly i think as we work through this process you know there's there's going to be a lot of good pieces for gaining public feedback certainly if the board of health were to consider a local regulation we'd have a hearing to to get public feedback that way as well right yeah thanks thanks jen annette i do have a question you know from a public health perspective it seems to me like there is quite a difference between the sale of marijuana in town and the

consumption of it at a, you know, not public, because I guess they're private commercial enterprises, but, you know, if marijuana is sold at a dispensary and intended to be consumed at home versus consumed, you know, during a yoga class and then that person is then driving home on the same road as a Grafton public school bus, to me there's a difference there. Are there any kind of, I know there's no intoxication test the same way there is like a breathalyzer test for alcohol. As far as you know, has this been something that municipalities have had to deal with when they've approved social consumption sites or how they've dealt with it?

Since it was only passed in January, there are no open consumption sites yet. There are a handful of municipalities like Worcester, Cambridge, some of the bigger cities that are in the process of approving them, but the state has not actually issued any licenses, so nobody's open yet. This is certainly one of the concerns that I have. And I know that, you know, our public safety partners will be a great asset in identifying how they think about that to make sure individuals aren't driving under the influence. Because like you said, there's no hard and fast rule like alcohol of an acceptable, you know. intoxication level there aren't any um tests i believe most often it's like smell visual and just general um you know how the person's acting if they seem to be in control of the vehicle so it's certainly something that i think the board of health would consider um if adopting local regulations to to engage the public safety partners okay thank you any other questions from members

All right, so we'll look for any feedback you get at the July 21st meeting. Certainly members, if you're planning on attending, just make sure Jamie knows in case we end up with a quorum there so that we can do the proper steps to post that. If we have three or more that are attending, you'll have to just post it as like our meeting that we attended.

Awesome. And then I think we have a couple other just regular updates. So we have selected our strategic planning consultant. I want to thank Radhika for all the time and effort you put into helping review those proposals. All of the insight that that review team provided was really beneficial. And I think that we picked a great partner. So Allison and I actually just met with them recently to talk. get some of our kickoff documents ready. We're gonna start coming up with a scheduled plan and identifying a steering committee. But as the board of health, you all will be incorporated in some capacity to help provide your feedback, to think about the direction of the health department over the next five years and how you hope to see us grow and provide services to your community. So certainly be on the lookout over the next handful of months. This project is scheduled to go through December for those different engagement opportunities. And then I'll hand it off to Allison. I know she's got some updates of what she's been working on.

Yeah, thanks so much Annette. Good evening, everyone. So just to build on what Annette shared for the PHE grant, we closed out fiscal year 26. So we're just working on some of the final reporting for that. And you'll be seeing our annual report soon, which we're really excited about. And then in a similar vein, we have submitted all of our FY27 work plan materials. And so we're just waiting now on the official approval from our DPH colleagues, but expecting that very soon. And so I think we probably will in a future meeting, you know, request a little bit of time to just walk through more of the details of what we've included in the FY27 work plan, but maybe just to call out a couple of things. So it really is building on a lot of the groundwork that we laid in FY26, continuing a lot of the work that our inspectors have been doing and Bridget's work, especially on the communication and health education front. But then we're also starting a couple of new initiatives. As Annette said, the strategic planning will definitely be one of our top priorities for FY27. We're also really looking to increase our communication and public health outreach efforts as well, thinking about if we can do some new events this coming year. Again, really building on the success of the TikToks and some of the other events that we were able to do in FY26. And then there was a couple of, I guess I would say, maybe building on Jenny's work this summer on the community health profiles. We're also looking at how we can kind of increase our, I guess, evidence-based programming is maybe the best way to put it, but looking at some of that data and thinking about where we can really leverage that in designing some new programs. So more to come on that. Just wanted to mention that high-level overview. And then I wanted to flag, we actually have an upcoming event on the 21st, July 21st, at the library. We're actually partnering with the Central Mass Mosquito Control Program, and they're going to be doing a really interactive session all about the programs and services that they offer. designed to be open to Grafton residents. We're trying to make it very fun and interactive. So really for all ages as well. I was lucky I had the opportunity to see their headquarters and they showed me a lot of their equipment and surveillance techniques. And they're really, you know, trying to be intentional about making that a very informative and interactive session. So we're excited about that and trying to publicize it widely. So just again, big thanks to Jamie as well for your help to get the word out there. I think that's it, but yeah, happy to take any questions.

Any questions from members. Thank you Allison. Great work. Mackenzie. Your assistant is getting very big. All right. A 1M motions and things coming people's way here. So 1st, order of business each year we look at the composition of our. chairs and such, and I received feedback from a few of you about interest in continuing in your roles, and no one felt very strongly about making significant changes to the composition, but to make it official for terms for the coming year um i'm going to look to andrew first to see if he'd like to make a motion and then i'll look to karen for a motion is there any any discussion did anybody not reach out to me that was like oh my gosh i'm i really want to be chair or vice chair or clerk or chair okay no takers no takers

this is andrew chalupka um i nominate or move uh and move yeah i move uh to reappoint karen kudzowski-govan as vice chair of the grafton board of health for a term of for a term of one year is there a second uh this is bill muller i second that roll call andrew chalupka aye bill muller aye

Karen Gustavski-Govan, abstain because it's always weird.

Jen Maynard, aye. Thank you, Karen. Karen, would you like to make a motion on clerk?

Sure. This is Karen Gustavski-Govan. I make a motion that we appoint Andrew Shlupka as clerk for the term of one year. Is there a second?

This is Bill Muller. I second that.

Roll call. Karen Gustavski-Govan, aye.

Bill Muller, aye.

Dr. Kupfer, aye.

Andrew Chalupka, abstain.

Jen Maynard, aye. Who wants to do it for the chair?

This is Andrew Chalupka. I move to appoint Jen Maynard for a term of one year to the position of chair of the Grafton Board of Health.

Second. This is Bill Muller, I second that. Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Muller, aye.

Thank you for your willingness to continue to serve alongside in many capacities, all of you. All right. So there's that. And again, everybody consider that in the future. If you are interested, make yourself known. Always happy to have folks step forth. And I know I tried to give Karen chair back, but you know, she did do it for God only knows how long, so fine. Okay. Grafton Opioid Recovery Community Partnership Update.

I don't really have any significant update. We're continuing our partnership with GAP, and I believe a new annual extension of our contract has been executed. But beyond that, I don't think there's anything to report.

I think I did see something that they're involved in. There's like a family outreach night and wiffle ball tournament or something coming up in September that they're engaged with. We should probably make sure we post that.

Yeah, that is, I can give you the date for that.

That's pretty cool. Is that in Nelson Park?

Correct. Yeah, that's on Saturday, September 12th, I believe from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Go ahead, Allison.

Oh, no, thanks. Andrew found it. I was actually just gonna add the date. Thank you.

Yeah, excellent.

No problem.

That's pretty cool. Fun. Everybody loves a good wiffle ballgame. All right. And then it looks like the Tufts biomedical safety permit extension to July 31 2026. I thought we did this. Did we do this already?

Hmm.

It came up at the last one, but I don't know if we voted on it or not we approved the Contract the contract for the review by the person from UMass Gotcha so they probably need to extend their existing I

Yeah, so I think this this extension this vote is because we haven't received the report yet. I know it's incoming. I believe she was working with Jamie. So this is just to give them that that grace period to extend the the permit through the end of the month.

I get the emails and the conversations crossed. Got it. That's right. Thank you, Annette. Are there any discussion? Is there any discussion or concerns with giving that extension while we wait for the report to come through? Great, would somebody like to make a motion?

This is Andrew Chalupka. I move to grant an extension until July 31st, 2026 to the Tufts Biosafety Lab for their safety or operational permit.

I second. This is Bill Muller, I second that. Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Muller, aye.

Thank you. Jamie, we're going to give you more things to do. You want to sign the bills for the health department? Why not? I'm here. Would someone like to make a motion?

Yes. This is Andrew Chalupka. I move to assign Jamie Kerbel the responsibility to sign for Grafton Health Department bills.

Second. This is Bill Mahler, I second that. Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Mahler, aye.

Radhika Prabhu, aye. Karen Rustesky-Gilvin, aye.

Jan Maynard, aye. Congratulations on your newfound powers. And then we need to appoint Brian Is that how you say really? Well, that was easier than I thought it was going to be, um, to alternate board as the alternate board of health agent. Um, have we talked about this before on that? Just a little background case team. Um.

Yeah, I don't know if I, it probably happened before I was here, but I know Brian helps sometimes with like observing abandonments of old septic systems when the building ties into town sewer.

Oh, gotcha. Yeah, we definitely want to make sure that happens, right? All right.

This is Andrew Chalupka. I... Sorry, I move to appoint Brian Zirko as an alternate Board of Health agent.

Second.

This is Bill Muller, I second that.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye. Bill Muller, aye.

Radhika Prabhu, aye. Karen Gostowski-Gilvin, aye.

Jen Maynard, aye. Okay, and then I think we can do this in one fell swoop to reappoint. Do we need a term of one year on these?

Uh, yeah, so they do have to happen annually.

Got it. That's what I figured was like, you're not going anywhere. Um. And we can do them all together.

Okay.

Yep.

This is Andrew. I move that we appoint. The following people each for 1 year terms as agents of the graph and board of health. Mackenzie Falker, Michael Sager or secret, excuse me and Annette Garcia. This is Bill Moller.

I second that.

Roll call.

Andrew Chalupka, aye. Bill Muller, aye.

Radhika Prabhu, aye. Karen Wazowski-Gilvin, aye.

Dan Maynard, aye. All right. Thank you. And Radhika, I meant to say it earlier. Thank you for your work on the review of possible partners for the plans as well. Looking forward to looking at all that stuff as it comes in and work with you all. Okay. And now we have several sets of minutes. Um, we're gonna hold off on 511 and six, eight until the next one. Um, was, were there any, um, edits or discussion on the, um, sets of meeting minutes that we received before the meeting?

Nice work, Jamie.

Right? Well done. I was saying that's my least favorite task to do any time I've did this. So bless you. All right, would you like to start the series of, and they have to do each individual.

Yeah, yeah, okay. This is Andrew Chalupka. I move that we approve the minutes for the March 9th, 2026 Board of Health meeting.

Second. This is Bill Muller, I second that.

Okay.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Muller, aye.

You have to cover the line here in Wissowski overnight.

This is Andrew Chalupka. I move that we approve the minutes for the April 6th, 2026 Grafton Board of Health meeting. Second, this is Bill Muller. I second that roll call. Andrew Chalupka I.

Bill Muller I sorry.

Can I take a proper line? Karen was asking overnight and made it I.

This is Andrew Chalupka. I move that we approve the April 21st, 2026 minutes for the Grafton Board of Health meeting.

Second. Ms. Bill Muller, I second that.

Okay.

Andrew Chalupka, aye.

Bill Muller, aye. Karen Grusowski-Govan, aye.

Jen Maynard, aye.

This is Andrew Chalupka. I move that we approve the minutes for the June 29th, 2026 Grafton Board of Health meeting.

Second.

THIS IS BILL MULLER. I SECOND THAT.

I SECOND THAT.

ROLL CALL. ROLL CALL. SHOULD I SAY AYE?

SHOULD I SAY AYE? I WAS IN A MEETING. I WAS IN A MEETING.

YOU ARE ABLE TO VOTE ON YOU ARE ABLE TO VOTE ON THEM EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT THERE.

THEM EVEN IF YOU'RE NOT THERE. OKAY. OKAY. ANY OLD OR NEW BUSINESS TO

I don't believe we have any other mail correspondence that we haven't discussed here already today. We have set all of our meetings through the end of the year. Hard to believe we're halfway through July. It goes so quickly. But we'll plan to meet through October in a hybrid fashion and then November, December back to Zoom. Are there any other items that folks want to bring up? Or any other motions? You're on such a roll, Andrew.

Okay. This is Andrew Chalupka. It is 7.01 p.m. and I move to close tonight's meeting.

Second.

This is Bill Muller. I second that.

Roll call. Andrew Chalupka, aye. Bill Muller, aye.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye.