Board of Health - Regular Meeting

and welcome to the June 25th Littleton Board of Health meeting. Tonight we are joined by myself, Kevin Davis, the chair, Matt Weisson, the vice chair, Dan Kaine, uh Francis, Kevin Baker, and Jim Gerffy. All right, let's start with our 700 p.m. hearing about 92 Foster Street. Uh, I believe it's Mr. Kirk Fitzpatrick that we need to promote. And is there anybody else in the audience that we need to promote? So, raise your hands. Good evening. I'm Kirk Fitzpatrick with Civil Solutions and I'm here on behalf of the homeowners at 92 Foster Street. Awesome. Thank you so much. If you wouldn't mind uh if you have something to display and share with your group, that'd be really awesome to do. Happy to share the plan. Thank you. So, basically what we have proposed before you is an upgrade for the existing three-bedroom house. Um the house is being sold. They had a uh an unofficial inspection and was told it would not pass a title 5 inspection. It currently has a small round tank off the left rear corner of the house and some type of a leeching system behind the house. Uh so we went out and conducted some soils testing behind the old system when we did tests one and two where we had about 24 in of fill over an old subs soil over a sandy lom. Um we actually we had a water table observed water table at 78 in and a seasonal high water table varied from 42 to 48 in. Um because the water we did have a water table uh we actually used a percolation rate on

record which was 17 minutes an inch which seemed indicative of the soil. Um there's not a application rate for 17 minutes in the code. So it actually jumped to 20 minutes an inch. Uh so what we're proposing to do is to come out the back of the house to a new 1500galon two compartment septic tank and that's going to feed a system composed of the presby and varose septic that's 13 1/2 ft wide by 32 ft long. Um with the use of the presby we're asking for a reduction in the groundwater offset from 4 ft to 2 ft. This allows us to make it by gravity. Uh the the plumbing currently comes out under the floor of the garage right in the back corner of the garage. So it's under the floor. Um it'd be very difficult to change it. Uh so this allows us to make it by gravity and it also uh prevents the fill from going within 10 ft of a lot line. And I'd be happy to answer any questions the board may have. Before we get to questions, why don't we have Jim and Francis provide any comments that they may need. Sure. So I did the witness the soil testing out there again. small lot trying to keep the fill that is necessary for the leeching area on the lot. So the reduction helps to maintain the fill within the lot lines within your 10 ft off the lot lines um as your regulations require. It is an area of town water. Um the upgrade will certainly be far better than the system that is currently there. So I think it's a reasonable way to approach upgrading the system. Sounds great. Thank you so much Jim Francis. Um, nope. Jim covered it. Excellent. Uh, why don't we start with uh Kevin Baker? I have no questions. Mr. Kaine? No questions. Dr. Wson. Uh, oh, I was just curious. The the

ground is sloping away from the house. Um, but you're going to have to put some fill on the downhill side of it. Is that what you're targeting? That's correct. The grade's going to come up uh approximately 3/4 of a foot over the system, but we catch the uh we catch the grade before we get to the large shed at the back of the property. Okay. That's kind of what I was curious. You're not going to run into problems with that shed? No, we should not. Okay. Uh I have no further questions. I see the exception is on the print. Thank you so much for the approval, for the exception. Um, I have no other questions. I need a motion. I'll make a motion that we approve the request for a use of the presby system with the reduction in groundwater offset from 4T to 2 feet. I'll second that. Now motion's on the table. We have a second. Let's do a roll call vote. Um, Miss Doc, uh, Dr. Wson. Matt Wson, yes. Kevin Baker. Kevin Baker votes yes. Dan Kaine. Dan Kaine votes yes. Kevin Davis votes yes. Thank you so much. Good luck to our neighbors at 92 Foster Street. Thank you very much. Have a good night. You, too. We are ahead of schedule. Do we want to do the ID distortion support tool? I can do that. That would be awesome eventually. Close it. Apologies. I threw you off. I know. I'm sorry. I usually have an open way to go.

There we go. Um, we kind of uh just bounce upon our COVID stats every single time we meet. I'm not sure if there's continued value in it. Um, I'm happy to continue obviously showing it, but at this point, every time I update, it's oh, look, there's another variant from last month and we have so little um case counts. I would I would propose we just kind of highlight it if that's okay with people. Um, like I don't need to call it the vaccination rate right now. Wastewater numbers are low and so if something changes, if if it's okay with people, that's when I'll bring it up again. But for now, I think I'm just gonna kind of leave it as green and again update it, display it, but not necessarily focus uh speaking energy on it. Unless anybody has a problem with that, I'm happy to change my mind. Um so I'll just jump right to the herbivirus. Um testing has started in Massachusetts. Um uh for both triple E and Westnau virus, uh Littleton is still considered low risk and um the we do have our first mosquito test positive for Westnau virus. um somewhere not too far away from us, but I can't remember where. Um but otherwise, we are still low risk for that. So, now is the time to take precautions to help make sure you keep mosquito numbers down for your season. So, make sure you don't have standing water and other things that mosquitoes like to lay eggs in and then hatch. And uh then influenza and RSV are both kind of closed for the season. So, that's what I got. That's awesome. Uh the Westnau virus case. Um you said that it was we had our first mosquito pop in and around the area. You just don't remember where it was. Yeah. Um I just got the report. I can send it to the board tomorrow. That'd be great. Thank you so much for that. And E, anything the states reporting on EA yet or nothing? Nothing. Zero. Yeah. Okay. Um as far as the CO stuff goes, definitely have it open. Um, like you

said, unless something changes dramatically with the wastewater or something like that, I'm okay with not reporting it. Uh, spending verbal time, I'm sorry, verbal time on it, as you said. How does the rest of the board feel? Any objections? No, no objections heard. It's uh, and it's Shrewsbury for West. Wow, so far away. Sorry. No, just kidding. Um, uh, thank you for that. Um, okay, that's awesome. Does anybody else uh anybody in the audience care to comment? Seeing no hands, uh we are a couple minutes ahead still from our 710. So why don't we do the administrative matters? We have meeting minute approval from 5:28. Has everybody gone through and read through the meeting minutes which are included in our packet? Actually, I have 514 in there. I don't see 528. I'm guessing it's a typo and we should be looking at the 514. Is that correct? Francis. Sorry. Uh, yes, that is a typo. Okay. All right. Um, anybody have any comments on the 514 meeting minutes? Yes, Dan. Uh for our public hearing, it's listed as number two Elmwood Road, but with our list of included documents, we have um three Elmwood hearing request letter and plan.

Uh can Francis, can you confirm one of them's a mistake? Um we'll look at administratively and correct as required. Okay, it's either at the bottom or in the paragraph itself. Okay, it's in both. So, uh we'll go back and look. Okay, so that may be an administrative correction after we approve. Anybody else? Okay, we need a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes for May 28th uh with the corrections as noted. May 14th. May 14th. Sorry. I have a motion. Second and a second. Roll call vote. Dr. Wson. Um the uh sorry clarification. That's including the corrections to May 28th and the correction of the listing to to Elmwood Road for the um May 28th was actually on the agenda. It was not 14th. in the agenda. It said the 28th, but it was actually the 14th. So, that's an agenda issue, not a a minutes issue. I think it but it's actually from the the 28th, right? Actually, I actually do believe these are from the 28th. The minute the minutes document is wrong, not the agenda. Got it. Is what I

is what I'm asking. So, I say is did the motion include that that Yes, it did. fix. I just want to make sure. Yes. Okay. Matt Wis votes yes. Mr. Kane Kane votes yes with the administrative corrections. Baker votes yes. Kevin Baker votes yes. And Kevin Davis chair votes yes. We'll do better next time on that one. That was a little sloppy. Okay, it is time for our 710 public hearing at 4K Road. Uh people representing for King Road, if they would raise their hands so that we could promote them appropriately. So Mitchell and Matt were promoting. Okay, Matt, are you still willing to become a panelist? Raise your hand again. If not, we're going to move on. Matt is the other homeowner for four King Street. Yes. Road, I'm sorry. For for King Road. All right. So, remote

Okay. Uh let's start with uh Fork King Road if either Mitchell or Matt would like to bring us up to speed on what's going on and then we can talk to Jim and Francis after that. Um, so the I'm the contractor that would be doing the Okay. for King Road. Uh, you know, was hired on behalf of Matt and his wife Jess. Um, okay. Do you have something to share for the for the for the audience? Well, I thought that when I sent all the stuff to they were you guys would have that all the plans that I sent over to the um, uh, administrative assistant, I believe. Yeah. Matt, is there a way that you could share out? Thank you, sir. I don't have the information. Matt Matt Wason. Sorry, there's two Matts. So, I guess we can go right to the submitted work. So obviously, you know, if it were to be approved, it I'd get a certified plot plan. Um, you know, I spoke to Jim prior. Um, he was saying that, you know, he would recommend not, um, you know, his recommendation would be to not allow it due to the proximity of the system. So, essentially, the current deck is like a 10x10 pressuretreated deck. um it's in really rough shape. Um the the homeowners, you know, it needs to be demoed. The homeowners ideally would like to put back a screen porch in place that way, you know, something that could fit their whole family on and then, you

know, avoid having to deal with the mosquitoes in the evening. Um the edge of the screen proposed screen porch would be 6 in from the leech field. The footings, there' be three concrete footings. proposed concrete footings. They could be helical piles would be 30 in back from the edge of the leion field. All right. Uh we have Jim talk about his concerns. Sure. So, uh, this is what you're looking at is a portion of the engineers asbuilt plan for when the septic system in the house was installed. Um, so it's an asbuilt plan. So that you can see the measurements on there. That's to all of the existing so this the existing structure, the existing leeching area. Um, and it's a really tight lot. The there was an old house, I believe, on this lot that got torn down and got rebuilt. That's that's why this house was there and that's why they were able to do it um well before the current owners owned it. Um you can also see that around the property line on the edges um there's a concrete wall so extremely tight lot. You can also see the leeching area the cult contacttor bed that's the leechfield. It is 14 1/2 ft from the foundation. If you look in the left hand uh corner there's a a dimension that's provided so you can see that. Um so that leads fields raised. there's only about 10 ft around that between the system and the wall. Um, title 5 doesn't have a offset to helical peers or piles, you know, sauna tubes. So, generally speaking, um, I ask people to be at least 5 ft away from their system or their tank with them. And a big part of that is, uh, to make sure that they

don't hit the system or the tank and do damage. Uh the construction costs are high enough. The replacement of a system, you don't really need that as an added cost to it. Um my additional concerns here is if that had to be replaced, there's not a lot of room already to get back there and actually uh put a system in to replace that system. You've got about 10 ft around the walls. You you'd have no room between the house um and the system at all. Um, so I was concerned that just building out on too much of the lot, um, you know, building within 6 in of the the Leechfield. Now, granted, it'll be above the Leechfield, uh, but and the peers will be back a few feet according to Mitchell. Um, but again, just a little too close for my comfort as far as um, you know, building within that distance of the leeching area. And again, just looking out for if ever you had to replace the system, how do you get a machine back there to actually do the work? Okay, Francis. Um, yeah, in addition to Jim's comments, I would say bringing machine back there to install it's going to affect the soil as well. Um, it's going to disrupt the field potentially. And you're looking at frost heaves um that are going to happen over the years that could affect the soil. We've always stuck with a 5ft standards and a lot of towns have done this as well. So, I feel like in this case, if we allow it now, where does it stop and it just puts us down a road we shouldn't be going? Okay, thank you for your comment. Uh why don't we start with the Yes, Matt. Can I uh just a quick second if you don't mind? Go ahead. Yeah. Hi. Uh, so I've I've we've lived in town for 10 years and I and I uh I appreciate you letting us come on tonight and I was just hoping that, you know, we we we really it's hard to find houses in this town and I understand the risks of doing

this, but I I was hoping that you guys could kind of see the plan from the builder uh and maybe kind of, you know, build a uh a decision off of that. I'm hoping that that uh I wrote a letter kind of we really love living in town and we love being here and it's hard to this this is kind of the best um uh plot that we have to build something there. there's no other place to build. So, it's kind of hard. So, I was hoping you guys could kind of see it. Um, we understand the risks that we're getting ourselves involved with. So, I was hoping that you can kind of see that. Thank you, Mitchell. You had another comment. Yeah. So, I spoke with the installer, uh, you know, that worked on to install the original system. He said, you know, no matter what, you're not getting a full-size machine in there. You know, you have to bring in a smaller excavator. um even when they did it originally, he said he would have no issue um replacing the system. You know, a lot of these uh lots over near the the lake are very very tight. Um and you know, I understand the 5-ft setback, you know, um if there was obviously, you know, the standard lot minimum is an acre now in town, but um you know, some of these lots, the older lots near the lake, um obviously they're a lot tighter than that. So, um, you know, I don't know if, you know, setting the precedent, you know, is kind of a a different, uh, circumstance here than you you have, you know, on newer construction. Um, that's all I guess my counter argument would be like you informally asked, if you can get something formal signed by one of these installers, I think that'd be something else. Mitchell, is that something you're willing to work out and get a formal letter from one of the installers saying

that there would be no issue doing that? Yes, I I could easily do that. Okay, let me go around the board and see uh if they have any comments. Mr. Baker, you're on mute. There you go. Yeah, it would be nice if the the lot were bigger, but it's not. Uh I don't think we should um you know, restrict them if they're willing to to to take the risk and there's a there's a there's an installer. Uh and and also if we get a certified plot plan so we can pinpoint the dimensions and know that the the pylons aren't going to be impacting the system at all. Okay, Mr. Kane. Um s certainly having an installer saying I'm willing to is nice, but that doesn't nely change the fact that 5 10 20 years from now that that's still going to be the case. Um, which raises some concerns for me. I think I I I definitely understand the challenges with small lots. Um, I I I guess I'm wondering that with a small change in the plan that we could be compliant with pro it would appear that we could be compliant with our five set offset as opposed to a 14T deck. If this was a 12T deck with a similar cantal lever that puts our footings greater than 5 ft away and now and would basically solve this entire issue. you lose some feet or it looks like you have four and a half feet between the edge of the deck and the the Bravo side of the house if you again I'm not sure about offsets from the plot line the property line but it seems like that lost space could be easily recouped going towards the the left side of the house I guess I'm just wondering as we're looking at a

waiver process to have footings 2 and 1/2 ft from a leeching field where a small change in the design could remove any of our concerns as far as frost heaves, ground shifts, any of those pieces could simply be resolved with a small change in the plan. Thank you, Mr. Wson. Dr. Wson. Um yeah, I kind of was thinking of it similar to Dan because um right now there's a 10 by10 deck there. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. And if I since I'm showing I think there's a picture of that somewhere right there. Maybe maybe not. Yeah, there is. There's a there's a picture of it farther down. Okay. Um, is that it? Okay. Yeah. So, I want to see the height of it because technically right that deck right there there's there's a current footing for that deck coming down. So, that deck is basically within 5 ft of the leeching field right now. Um, so one of my questions is when when does the structure cross the line into really having to follow the 5T? And it is something with a foundation. And this is kind of more of a question for Jim. Uh, as Dan's alluding, is it the footing that we care about most? Um, I'm not totally wild about an overhang. It looks like on this drawing that it might actually be an overhang slightly of the corner because how are you ever going to get equipment in there? But if I may pause and say, Jim, is it about the structure going into the ground, the foundation of the footing or whatever it would be for a structure, or is it the footprint?

A little both, but the the bigger part that we're worried about is where they're going to dig. So again, Title 5 doesn't have a dimension for peers. It does for founders. If this was a foundation, it' be easier. It' be, you know, it' be either 10 or 20 ft from it, but it's peers. And so the general rule for us that we've used in the office is and again it's mostly to make sure people don't find their septic tank when they're digging their peers is to have them be at least 5t off of either the leech field leechfield or the septic tank. The overhang, we want to make sure they don't obscure any part of the system. So if they were overhanging the deck, we'd have them pull that back. I mean the tank, we'd have them pull that back or the the leeching field too because they need to be accessible for um maintenance. So again, there have been situations where, you know, if we have a really good plan of what's there, um, and we're not worried about the peers and they're using something like a helical peel pier where they don't dig. Um, they've crept closer than the 5T. Again, the five is a guideline. Um, so I I just really want to make sure the board's clear on that. There's there's no real waiver. It's the comfort level that you have with what's happening. And this lot, and unfortunately, many of the lots down on the lake are really tight. And so when you start adding more and more to them, it starts making the systems harder and harder to replace. Yeah. Thank Thank you, Jim. And I hear what you mentioned earlier. I I also am not wild about just saying, "Well, we'll we'll do less than 5T on this one because it's a tight lot because what precedent are we then creating that um this board is going to be tied to?" So, uh that does make me nervous. So, I would kind of echo what Dan said. Is is there a way to engineer this where you can actually get the footings 5 ft away and make sure there's no overhang of the field and even if that means losing a foot or two in that width. Is that is that worth it? And can you design it? Um right now it looks like the patio doesn't extend to the end of the house. Is that because we're

trying to keep the access from that side of the house open? Cuz it looks like it's about the same 16.2 two feet away from the line. Um, so that's the that is a of the bathroom window downstairs is where that stops. Got it. Um, you know, as far as changing the depth, you know, once you start, you know, you because you have the screen port, you're losing the wall. You know, once we start getting down to 12, we're really only like 11 six inside. It's getting pretty tight. Um, you know, I'd have no no problem switching to the helical piles where there'd be no disruption of the soil at all. You know, it's just the cork screw going to go right down in that specific area. Um, you know, along with the I could even get a couple licensed installers to write letters if you know and switch to the hill compiles if that would allow um, you know, to get the screen porch put up. Um, as far as the certified platin in order to get the permit, I would have to get that. I was just trying to see if, you know, if it was possible to get the screen porch approved prior to, you know, spending the couple thousand for the homeowner um to get that new certified plot plan and as build at the end. Okay, thank you for that. Um, okay. My comments, uh, I am uncomfortable with having the deck the size that it currently is. If we made it so that uh we re-engineered the deck so that it was back from uh you know the five within the 5ft even for the helical piles. I am really concerned about the um uh the leeching field as it exists and then having to put in a spare unit for that. So again, re-engineering that and getting it so that it's off of that um you know covering of that area I think is probably the um best that we're

going to be able to do. So, um before I think before the board would would also like to see um more of an engineered plan if possible um showing like you know making sure we've located things appropriately and things like that so we know where things are so that way we can better make our uh use of that. I understand, you know, you're going to need to do that to get the permit, but um it sounds like um a 12 by 12 or something similar to that uh would be I mean maybe if you did 126 and had it can levered, you could be the helical piles could be within that 5ft area. Um and then you know you could you know it would it would meet within that recommendation of the board. So then you're at a instead of an 116, it sounds like you're doing a six foot stud on the exterior walls for the screened in porch. So um I think that's where the boards at right at the moment. Uh do the homeowners or anybody in the audience have any other comments? So So do you mean the the width could stay the 18 or even increase a little wider but pull it back from 14 to to 126 or so? You're going to need to you're going to need to stay within the five foot away from your septic tank as well. Okay. Yep. Right. So, if you you you're starting to see the parameters that we're we're placing for this. So, get it. So, the he the footings or helical piles are five feet from the leeching field and from the tank and adjust the the the structure the building accordingly. Yeah. Okay. with a with a couple letters from licensed installers and then the certified plot plan showing the proposed um porch redesigned with all of the dimensions, you know, accurately, more accurately than just

Yeah. Yeah. Does that I think that seems to capture what the board was kind of going for and I don't think that places a burden uh on the homeowner. Okay. Um, I'd like No, no, it doesn't. Sorry. No, it doesn't. Okay. Thanks, Matt. Um, uh, I need a motion for continuence, I'm guessing, is what we want to have. So, do we want to continue this, Mitchell and Matt? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yep. Okay. So, let's do that. I can have a motion for a continuence possibly, please. I will make a motion to continue this hearing. And do I have a second? Second. Motion and a second for a continuence on four King Street. Uh roll call vote. Dr. Wson votes yes. Mr. Kaine, Mr. Kane votes yes. Mr. Baker. Kevin Baker votes yes. And the chair Kevin Davis votes yes for the continuence. So, um, Francis, uh, you know, go ahead and schedule it for whenever our next meeting is. I think when is that? Um, I'll speak with a an engineer if that works tomorrow and I'll try to get on his schedule as far as, you know, when I can get that certified you. If if you get in touch with our office, they'll let you know when the next meeting is that we have scheduled and that way we can put put you into there so you can figure out all those kind of complexities. Okay. Yeah, it it's 9 July would be our next one. If you can't make that then it can be the 23rd. Okay. If you need time. Thank you. Okay. So that's it for that.

Let's move on to our 7:20 public hearing for the board of health fees schedule review and vote. Um so bringing the board back up to speed on this. This was um uh we had gotten um a notice from the town that some of the fees uh needed to be reviewed by legal. legal has gone off and done the review and came back and Francis has then gone and uh looked at things and rejiggered things around a little bit to basically uh have all of the fees that can be backed by either uh town bylaws or or or something like that and or state um laws or rules. And so then um I'll let Francis kind of get into that and do that presentation, but that is the background for this. Francis, take it away. Um yep. So everything has been reviewed by legal and this is kind of the final product. Um I did send the comparative which we did across 15 different towns um just to see where the pricing is on everything under the sun for public health. Um, so in looking at the prices, um, we are in the most competitive price marks, but we're not the highest. Um, staying within range, making sure we're kind of falling in line with other towns that are doing fairly similar things. Um, so I I tried to be as fair as I could while maximizing and making sure that we are getting correctly compensated based fairly on wages and time. Um, I'm happy to answer any questions about any items in particular. Is there something we can go

ahead and share, Francis? Uh, sure. Thanks. So this is our comparative data. Um first one we have is a lot of food related items. Um as you note in the subscript um so the tiers are because every town has different ranges. Um so to be able to convey the data in something that makes sense um I put it into tiers. So for food service we'd be looking at different number of seats. um for an establishment. Retail, everybody does a little different either square footage or employees. Um so that's subcategorized as well. Um all the other areas keep the same name and there's no differentiation and requirements. So those have all been able to kind of go across the board. Um, and at the very bottom, these are the suggested removals for items that we did have on the old fee schedule. Um, as you can see, a lot of them aren't used in any other towns that we did in the comparative. So, it's recommended that we eliminate those. See, any questions on this first page before I move to the second?

Matt, go ahead. Uh, I do. Um, couple of questions. Um, did did you skip actton for a reason as a comparator? I did because it looked like it was directly copied from Actton. So, in trying to do comparative and Littleton would just match up basically directly. So, I can tell you that everything that Actton had matched up to Littleton, but we really need to look at a larger scope of town. So, if one town versus 15 other towns are doing things differently, um I mean, Actton's not the best comparative and I've been told that the fee structure they have is um concerning and uh I mean it's so talking about council also like some of the prices are just so high you have you can't really um support that. Yeah. Um, and then what? Um, let's see here towards the bottom down here. Re reinspection is is blank. So, do you charge for reinspection or how does that your process work? Um, we do not charge for reinspection. That would be up to Littleton whether they want to do that or not. Um, essentially when you're reinspecting, you're having to go out of your way and you're going to spend potentially another hour going back at least that is not really factored into the original permit and the cost and all that. So, um, it's a question of whether we want to charge facilities that are not keeping in standards where we have to spend that extra time where we could be doing something else whether that's worth pursuing. Yeah. I mean I I think if you I if you look at several of the kind of lower numbers they often have that in as an

line item and we I think we did originally have that because as you know we kind of used actin as our basis. Um, but I think you're stuck either saying that you're going to have to include something separate for a reinspection or you have to calculate out how likely a reinspection is and then include that in your original fee because the fee has to cover the the manpower time that it's going to take to do the work. And we can't leave it as a reinspection is a is a freebie then. Um, so it's either all the fees have to go up an incremental amount or you decide they say they sit at a certain amount and then we tack on a reinspection. That's that's probably seen as the more fair version because then the good establishment isn't getting dinged with a slightly higher fee to cover reinspections at other establishments. Um, but you said is that a town decision that has to be made or a board of health decision? Um, I would see it as a board of health decision. Okay. policy. So, on the one that we're reviewing that's included in the packet, the reinspection underneath the food uh is actually a $50 fee for the one that's proposed. Correct. Uh yeah, sorry. Yeah, this one has the uh You're right. It's added on there as a 50. Okay. All right. Now, I just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing because I'm like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. on the on the the I guess our yellow banner when they were looking at original. Totally. Um and and so then uh my kind of next concern is let's see here. Sorry, I'm looking at my packet. So looking at the the smaller version the other one you were just going to show. Yeah, that one. So, um, one of the concerns I have is that the Nishoba

numbers are from FY20 at the at the most recent, if not older than that. Um, and so I I just I I I understand that there's concern. We have to make sure the fees are reasonable and we have to make sure that we can show that the fees cover the work that has to be done. But I'm I'm just kind of blown away that we don't have to kind of bump things up higher for some of the some of the numbers that are that many years old. I believe the Actton's from 2018. Um so while it might have been seen as high then, I'm less convinced it's seen as high now. So I would say for a tier one food establishment that's say less than 50 seats or whatever that might be. Um what is the hourly cost of doing that inspection? How many hours does it take? Um and I'm not sure this this is now getting a little bit even further a field of um we don't have a food inspection agent in the Littleton Department of Health. we have a director and so therefore all the work that is being done in the community is being done by our director and so do we have to account for that in terms of again going back to what's reasonable? Well, it's our if it's our director doing the inspection, then it's needs to be that hourly rate, which is obviously um both uh you know, wages and benefits and everything. And how much time does it take? So, Francis, if you had to say, what does a 50 seat restaurant take to do an inspection of on average? How much time is that including travel time, inspection time, paperwork time, and review? Um, so the NOVA prices, these are, I believe, current. And Jim, can you look at these real quick on the screen?

You're Jim. You're muted, Jim. These look like our current fees. I mean, they're going to go up 10% in in July, but that's that's the increase that would happen. Yeah, I believe that they're current. What I'm saying is that they were current in FY20 when we created our original budget. We've been bumping the fees up. Okay. We've been bumping our fees up since then. So that from 20 2020, those are those are higher fees than. Okay. Yep. So let me let me just make this clear. the the column that's in the showa, those are the correct fees right now for like today, July 1st, you said they're going up 10%. So that our fees actually seem to be in line with the proposed ones. Uh the proposed Littleton are in line with the proposed um Noba that's going into effect July 1st. I do also want to say that uh we do need to have fees in place July 1st. So, um, yeah. So, we're going to have to put something in place, uh, tonight so that way we can get those fees, um, there for the board of health to charge appropriately. Any other comments on this first food section? Well, I I standing question of Francis. How long does it take to do a 50 50Z seat restaurant? Oh, sorry. All in 50 seat. Um, depends on the food, but uh, let's call it like an hour and a half, two hours. Okay, Dan, I see your hand raised. Uh, I'm gonna follow up on that real quick and then another question. Uh so 2 hours that's reviewing submission, getting there,

doing a kitchen inspection, training inspection, everything else, and then writing out the report afterwards in two hours. Rough for 50 seats. So let's say like a pizza place. Yeah. Okay. I'm just making sure that's I admit for me that seems quick. Um um depends how good they are. Well, well, I think I think that is one. How long does it take to do a thorough inspection? How long does it take to do a typical inspection? So, not a best case scenario where here's our binder with all of our employees and all their certifications and all their paperwork. Here's our place and our temperature logs and they're perfect. All the when everything is perfect, it may be a certain amount of time. When things are perhaps more typical, they may take longer. When things are not as organized, it may take longer. I just think we want to make sure we don't want to base this on best or near best based near best situation. We want to think typical. What is a typical take, which is some challenging, some awesome, and then everybody in the middle of the bill curve. Um, for reinspections, I'm assuming that is for a just cause reinspection, not for our ann our twice a year inspection, right? That our $400 for a tier three covers two inspections per year. Correct. Okay. So, as we're thinking about how long it takes, how long does an inspection do take? Two or three two hours give or take for a 50. That really is four plus hours because we're doing it twice a year. So, as I think about an hourly rate, right? Right. Your hourly rate is I understand whatever. Pick a number. 50 an hour. That's four hours. That's $200

just for two hours twice a year for a perfect easy two hours from I've opened the email requesting it to I am done and signed the form at the end of it twice a year. I'm just want to make sure that we are kind of thinking of what's really involved because all these all these food inspections or for retail and restaurants are twice per year at least and then that reinspection is obvious is going to be for for causes reinspections or complaint or concern. I I certainly understand the point. Um I tried to really take in consideration what other towns are charging to. I don't want Littleton to be the highest one on the list in Yep. You know, I'm not saying we should be, but I just want to make sure that as we're looking at this, we recognize that the workload involved in inspection is really two inspections minimum per year, right? And then obviously concerns, complaints, problems, or a for cause reinspection after an initial inspection. Um that there's there's a lot more wrapped up into this. So, um I guess that's my only thing is certainly balancing. I I know there are a desire to be as revenue neutral as possible, which I I'll be honest, I don't think is necessarily realistic from a financial perspective. Health departments aren't revenue neutral. It's not how it works. But we obviously want to make sure that our workload is appropriately compensated by the users of that service. Um, I think that was my only piece. And so I guess I'm trying to compare. So like our 250 here. So we have retail tier 2 five plus staff is 250. So to me five plus what is that five plus staff? Is that per shift? Is that total employed? What does that look like? That' be total employees. Total employees. So my 250

retail tier 2 would be anything from a small gas station to let's use our real examples, Market Basket cuz an average gas station is going to have more than five employees. So Market Basket and Donins would be in a separate cateory of grocery. Um they would those two alone would make up that category. That would be 500. Okay. So retail would just be strictly canned goods and things that are PHFS and maybe some drinks as well. Um Okay. But so in the removing the other items, those were basically built into the grocery because that's where those would have came into effect. Gotcha. All right. Sorry. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. No, I think I'm okay at the moment. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're Mr. Baker. Okay. Uh, thanks for the conversation. I I I think this looks good. Uh, thanks for sorting it out, Francis. All right. Well, if I may circle back then on the reins inspection kind of along the lines of what Dan was saying, it's I I would be surprised if a reinspection could take less than an hour with again transport time, additional paperwork time. You know, I know the time on establishment might not be that long because you might just be walking in to check to make sure one thing is done, but reinspection should also be for something a little bigger. It has to be an average of the work. And so I I I'm nervous about reinspection only being $50. Um because I think we realistically probably need to be saying it's things cost $75 an hour. I mean I I would start there. I wouldn't even want to consider a $50 an hour as an estimate cuz I just don't think that's realistic

for our staffing and and other expenses. So, if I look at that and say it's $75 an hour, I'd be hardressed not to have the reinspection be 100 to start, if not something a little more than that. But, so that I think that's the only one I had left of of being kind of nervous about. I think the rest of them are are probably pretty reasonable. I'm not sure if farmers markets like like per stand or market as a whole. How's that one work? That' be per per stand. Okay. Um then yeah, I think the rest of them are are more reasonable and kind of match each other. So I think the last one I have just that reinspection. Okay. Uh from the chair's perspective on all these things, um I I all I'm not going to p I'll pile on to the comments. I hear what said. I do appreciate Francis getting this together so we can have something in place for uh July 1st. The one comment I have about reinspection, um, and maybe this is something that we can isolate out of the passage for this is that we set it at $50 and we look at it another time in the future, but is can you make a reinspection a unit of work? So, in other words, can you say you set it at at some hourly rate, so it's it's $70 per hour reinspection? Can you say instead of a flat fee, can you have a flat unit of work and say for every hour that you're spending on reinspection, you're charging that unit uh to that? I don't know if that's the legally um there or not, but that would be one of the questions I would actually ask. I guess my only concern would be that um let's say someone kept you longer because they want to learn more about the process. They want to understand better whereas someone else is asking no questions because they don't care as

much. Then we get into how is that fair? Maybe to some degree. We'd also have to keep time tracking records be able to justify any sort of hourly charge. Fair. And and I and I think it's it's not just all one one block because Francis is going to have to come back to the office and write something up and get it back to the restaurant and they're going to have to act. You know what I mean? It's like that that cyclical stuff that's broken up and that's what makes me worse because that's also makes you less efficient. So, it's not like you can just like get it done in a half an hour just in one little chunk. You've got to there's more work and followup and what about the restaurant that doesn't call you back and return your phone call? Like, you start to add up all that stuff and it just makes me nervous that it's nothing against you, friends. I I think you're not giving yourself enough credit for how timeconsuming it can end up being. I I was just I was just thinking back to like you know when you go to take your car into the shop they have a certain you know a book that says you know it takes an average and you know 700 hours to change a front right front brake. Not that that's what it is but you know there's the book rate and that's what you get charged blah blah blah and then there's the hourly and then it's like two of that or whatever. Okay I hear it. I hear the feedback. Um okay so why don't we go ahead and move on to the next section the other miscellaneous or whatever you have Francis. Sure. I'm sorry. Hand was raised. Yes. Dan. So, just a really quick question. Uh, I see function hall. We have a line, but it's blank. Um, I was kind of curious. I I'm guessing it's under catering, but things like church kitchens, VFW, the Masons, um, what is it? Khaliva was a Rich's a function hall as well as a club. So, some of those kind of do those fall under catering. Where do those land in this mix? Um, so function halls I left blank cuz I wasn't really sure. It's mostly churches typically have function halls or like you said the other categories there and

those are typically not for profits. Um, a lot of times typically don't charge for them but if the board does want to charge that's fine. Um, we currently don't charge for them basically. So, I'm I'm not necessarily suggesting we do. I just want to make sure that we are mindful if we make that choice. You know, if if we're going to make a a nonprofit exemption that we just kind of think that way through as part of this that that nonprofits are are are exempt from inspection fees. Um, we just want to be careful we don't wipe out other inspection fees that may also be involved. You know, if I'm if I'm a nonprofit with a beach and a well and portable toilets and a tanning booth and a kitchen and that we're spending 20 or 30 or 40 hours a year inspection for without recompense. I don't see that happening. But I just I just want to make sure that we are making a thoughtful mindful decision that that's excluded purposefully. Um, I can put on a listed table to a future meeting if because we don't really get into it until the fall basically. So, if you want to just do that. Okay. Any points of discussion for this section? Okay, let's go. The next section is at least that I have in the packet is other miscellaneous. Uh any other uh Francis, would you like

to walk through it or is there any is it pretty self-explanatory? Yeah. Yeah, not really much to go through. Just look comparatively and this would be competitive without being the highest. So, we do actually have a campground that's in town. How would that work? Um, so we check that once a year. Um, Nisha charges about $10 right now. So, the recommendation would be charging 75. Um, obviously, as you can see, there aren't that many, so it's kind of hard to say. Um, but that seemed like a fair amount considering they're going from $10. And also, there's not that many on the list that charge if they have them or not. I don't know. Right. What's the difference between a campground and a recreational camp? Campground would be like um actual camping. Recreational camp would be like a day camp that we have in town. Got it. Okay. And it also looks like we're removing the fee for the beach. Um so we don't charge the beach right now and the beach is town operated. Um the recommendation was council is that we should not be charging um the town anything owned by the town or run by the town. Um so essentially that would be the town running the beach. Okay. So if if a the only thing that comes to mind for that would be something over in Westford like the Tiki Bar that has a beach that's there. Um but Littleton doesn't seem to have something like that. Right. So we have the town beach. Yeah. Um Camp T uses it. Yep. Yes. To answer your question, Kevin, that line item came and was called semi-public beach, not town beach. So it was You're right. We don't have an example of that.

Okay. So, I guess we're making the decision then and we don't need to carry it forward. It's just something that we would like not have to worry about. Question mark. Dan has a question. Go ahead, Dan. I'm sorry. All right. Um the I think it's Manowanaki Association, neighborhood association. Um I know they kind of have a shared beach access, I believe. But I'm not sure how that falls. Is that private beach cuz it's the association? Is that semi-public or does that not really exist officially anywhere and it's just their thing? Somebody I I'm just not sure. That's the only other place I can think of. Tiki Bar, but that's over the line. Madawanaki and Forge Pond is the only thing I can think of that kind of might fit that more public. I don't think Nishoba Day has waterfront access, do they? They do. They do. So their waterfront would fall into the recreational camp fee or is that also a beach fee? Um, so that was just kind of built into the camp. Okay. water. Since we're talking about beaches, um I'm not sure how Banana Key works if we need to look at that. Um obviously for camps, part of the I mean, excuse me, for waterfronts and beaches, part of the that inspection fee is sanitation stuff. It's also around water quality and and water testing. Um how is that incorporated into this this model obviously for

Long Lake that that is you know it's town property we're managing it as the town but for okay let's do for Manowani if it's open for the show bedet if they have waterfront um is that on long lake I always forget which lake that on if it's on the next one over Jim do you know about monarchy so the the regulations for bathing beaches from DPH is for both um you know public beaches and semi-public beaches. Semi-public being like the campgrounds associations. Never got a clear answer out of Madawan Key. I've never really seen a ba beach area. There's more like a boat launch area. So I guess a judgment call. Is it a beach? If not, I mean so Camp Nishoba does have a full waterfront. Um, and so that's certainly a semi-public beach and has been licensed as a semi public beach right along. Um, as far as water quality, the regulations for bathing beaches require that they do a caulifform sample, uh, ecoli, I'm sorry, sample 5 days before they open and then once a week during operation. Uh, those results get submitted to the board. Um, we, you know, we send them the the state of, you know, Department of Public Act, I'm not sure which branch anymore, Bureau of Environmental Health actually has a beach portal that the information gets uploaded to. Um, and and actually you can go online and look at the dashboard and see the beaches uh once the information's up there. So, and we do the same for the town. The town gets tested uh you five days before and weekly during the season. Gotch. Okay. Okay. So the operators of the beaches or who the responsible parties for the beaches are responsible for conducting the testing having it tested and having the results submitted. So we're not submit running those tests are submitting their part of the operational responsibilities are to perform them and submit data. So currently Nishoba does the town beach. Um Francis will work that out with the rec department. Nishoba pulls their own sample but

submits their results to us so we can upload them. Yep. So going forward, um I'm told Rick that they have to do their own. Awesome. Thank you. Does anybody else have any other comments on the other miscellaneous section? Okay. So coming out of that, I just heard the Manowwaukee. Uh just looking at that's something that we can look at outside of the approval. Uh okay, that looks like our final one is septic. Is that correct? Yes, we can display that really quickly. There we go. Uh, does anybody have any comments on septic categories? That's the 0 to 99. I'm confused. Um, so it's a,000 gallons and um, got it. All right. with it on on Jim Gi because he's going to be changing his as well to very similar uh ranges. Got it.

Um inspections. Uh you also have at no cost um at you um down at the bottom there. Yeah. Um um so if we look at it um if you look at the septic construction permit, it's built into that instead. Towns typically don't charge per inspection from the comparative. Um it's just kind of built into the permit fee itself as a separate charge for like anything else. You get a permit and the inspections are included as part of that permit price. Okay. Is there any from an inspection point of view, is there's do we have to go out and inspect a like a septic system that is, you know, less than 10,000 gallons per uh day? Do we have those inspections that we have to do in town? And if so, is that one of those things that the permit price doesn't cover those annual inspections or something like that? Yes, typically be looking at two to three inspections depending um maybe more depending on what might need to be revised. Okay. So, but the inspection itself there's not a you know once it's in and approved and signed off there's not a yearly inspection that has to happen for those systems. There is not. No. Okay. All right. Does anybody else have any other comments on the septic categories? Yes, Mr. Wson. Um, so this is obviously one of the ones that our older fee structure had. Um, probably too many things. Um, but we did vote and approve on it. And so I just want to touch base

on some of the things that that are going to no longer be included and make sure we're all on the same page. So, we had a section I know this is a question. We had a section on public sewer connections. Do you does the Department of Health not do anything at all in that scenario? Now, um we do not I didn't really know what I mean. So, the only thing we would do is witness the abandonment. We wouldn't really get caught up in sewer connections themselves. Okay. And then it was obvious the stuff on treatment treatment plants. We're getting rid of that section. Correct. Uh so yes, that was recommended to get corrected. Okay. Because this was a I'm scrolling through the other one. Um, I didn't see any in the You didn't You didn't list the suggested removal, so I was just trying to compare line by line to see. Um, I guess since it was kind of more standalone, it would just kind of make more sense just to put Yeah. No, no. This is We always wanted to kind of clean this up and make it a little a little neater. And then there was a hazardous material section. Yeah. Another one that I'm not sure if we had anything for it, but it was there. So just in your opinion not necessary or doesn't apply. Yep. I mean so a couple towns do varying. Um right now I really only see it so I've had experience with biosafety like pharmacy companies coming in and they have a lot of hazardous waste storage. Um the only thing I can think of is um tanks. Jim, is there anything else you can think of for hazardous waste that would be applicable? Yeah, I mean if if you had bylaws and were regulating it, uh if

you're doing inspections for it, again, back to your comment, Francis, about bio medical facilities, you know, box kind of get blindsided. A place moved in. Unfortunately, three or four years later, the market didn't support it anymore. So, the board actually had a permit fee because it was pretty extensive review of plans and walkthrough facilities and making sure they had industrial waste holding tanks and that they had the hazardous waste removal. So in that case, the board charged what they considered a reasonable fee for that. And then has it been decided that we also don't get to apply or or we don't have the regulation or do we want one for the sewer treatment plant ongoing? We're saying that's handled at the state level and we don't have any responsibility and cannot have any responsibility. Uh I believe the legal uh explanation was that it's basically doubling efforts and if they're reviewing it and they're the ones who are supposed to be re signing off and issuing things that we didn't really have a standing for it. Okay. But my my more important that means that means you never get asked to do anything with that facility. Because if if if work is going to fall to this department, then this board should consider creating regulatory language about what that our oversight would need to be and and pass something. So there should be a fee. If it is nothing, I'm totally fine with that. But it it has to be zero then because the state has to be 100% responsible. I don't know, Francis, if I can pipe in just with the experience on them. you for Jim. So, here's here's where our involvement's been in my experience. Uh, title five inspections aren't required on on wastewater treatment plants. So, often when we and that's a big part

that's a lot of time because often realators will call and say, "Hey, I need a waste I need a title five for that site." And we say, "It's not a title five system. You got to call the state and get the groundwater discharge permit." So, generally shift them off to that. the the board the the wastewater operators um by regulation send the board their operation and maintenance uh reports and water testing. Um they're really more for courtesy to us. It's really D's responsibility. So I have sometimes taken the opportunity when I don't think D is moving fast enough to poke D and say, "Hey, what are you guys doing about this?" Um because we can take a look at the numbers, too. And we're a little more closer. So that's typically a kind of an elective opportunity at that point. Uh and if they fail and and if operator is not doing something that they need to do or if they're not meeting those standards, it is really the state's responsibility uh to make sure that they um correct those activities on the the uh operator and the owner's uh behalf. Again, I look at it having those reports as a a mechanism for the board to if somebody's not moving fast enough and it may be a greater public we can see it, the state can't. So, it's nice for us to say, "Hey, you guys need to really take a look at this because we think it's impacting more than just uh a failure of a permit uh condition." So, so following up with that statement then something like the point maybe where we might need to have a slightly next phase of the system uh to kind of well and again that's really the state's responsibility and the owner's responsibility because my original um understanding of that site is because wastewater treatment systems are often a biological process and because if you put a too big a system in and put too little flow and it doesn't work well the original permitting was to kind of do that in a modular style and something happened at the point where the flow was growing and the system didn't grow with

it. Um, so I think that's where we were having it. Plus, there's some kind of grease issues up there whether they're um lines that don't have enough pitch. So, we have gotten complaints um at least a couple of the facilities have had flooding. Um but they're more you they're owner complaints about the discharge and we turn them back on you know the state saying hey look at um owner of the facility you guys need to clean it up make sure it's working wastewater operator you need to figure out why it's not and D you need to kind of get these guys to do what they need to do okay just checking yep I just my experience I mean this like I say deep d really but you know they're covering it little's in uh central the central region and There's probably, I don't know, 80 towns. So, um, we're on the ground and can see it and we can be the voice to kind of push things if we need to. Okay. All right. Does anybody else have any other comments in the subject area? No. No. Okay. Uh, so just going back over the action items that I heard coming out of this uh reinspection. Uh, we just want to make sure that we have an accurate number for that. So that might be a future meeting sort of kind of vote. Uh function hall. Sounds like we're okay with a function hall. Sounds like we're we're making a conscious decision to uh for non uh nonprofits to uh be okay with that. Uh there was some discussion around uh the beaches, but it looks like we're okay with where we're headed with the beaches as far as fees because mostly that was the town. Uh we will have to go look at the other semi-private beaches that are in town to make sure that this uh doesn't cover that, but that's something that we could reintroduce as a an amendment to the fees at some future date. I didn't hear a large objection to that. And then

I think we were good on the septic categories. Um Matt then reviewed all of the other pieces that were dropped as well. I appreciate that. uh Matt to get that done. So, I think that's where we're at. Did I capture all of the actions coming out of this? Because I think at this point we uh can I would be comfortable moving forward with a vote on this. Um Matt wants to clarify. I agree with everything you just said. Um the portable toilet one. Nope. Is that one that we figured out we do have a regulation and so we have to is that we have to start doing that permit. Is that correct? We're doing it currently. Um it just hasn't posted the clerk yet. That just, you know, spurred the memory from past time when we were dealing with that one. And then the other one I want to bring up which doesn't necessarily have to be on your day but I need it on the radar and um and that is um some sort of review process for industries expected to produce odors that might be problematic for adjacent homes and the like. Um so what you're saying is exist right and this is this will also be a gym question. What's your experience? Um it sure feels like something where um we've kind of been dealing with one of these kinds of issues and the last time it came across our table it was kind of a a courtesy that we were being involved in some review that frankly probably should have been something more of requiring our approval as opposed to just asking us to glance at it. Um, so and like I said, this is not a tonight thing, but is this a what's the next step? Is this a we need to create a regulatory document or

some sort of thing to say this board, I think, should have oversight over industries or commercial enterprises that produce odors or are likely to produce odor complaints if they do not have the right systems in place. Not that this board has the expertise to say whether they do, but we have a great health director and we'll find the engineers that can that can help us in that scenario. But step one, I feel like is has to be something along the lines of right like get something started and add a fee an annual fee for that. What thoughts? Nuisance related. Pardon? Nuisance is nuisance. Yeah, nuisance odors. Yeah. But again, something that you kind of ex that that if not done right, it will be a nuisance. Like it guarantees a complaint if the proper job isn't done up front in an establishment like that or if the filters aren't changed enough or there's not enough carbon in the filter or dot dot dot. They have no plan to clean the air. I mean, like, right, it could be anything. And so it's the same as right if I had a horse stable and my plan for the manure was to just dump it behind the barn that will be a problem not just for the soil eventually right so maybe not the best analogy but best I could come up with right the second so I throw that out there like I said it's I I don't know where the right first step is I have no idea if Massachusetts has any guidance on this um or or where we start throw that out there again I don't want to up this particular like vote on this on this schedule, but I think it's a missing piece. Yeah. Yeah. So, I have definitely taken that as a note because we spent a lot of time reviewing that and having to go through that process. So, we'll I think the first thing that we can do is reach out to our town council and talk about a regulatory for nuisance odor fees for inspection and things like that. We'll figure that out.

to to your point, Matt, um the m the air pollution control regulations of the state allow the board of health to enforce them and that's when we were dealing with the facility that's what we're using and consequently the cannabis control commission has built into their approvals that the operators have to comply with that. Um and so the the activities that we had back what January of was it last year was it? Yeah. where the planning board issue is coming up. I think those are the actions that the board should be able to have you know sign off on building permits. Um because again I don't have the expertise and I think we finally wrangled them to say hey look at somebody you you need to hire because businesses will come and tell you oh these are the most wonderful filters and and many times at least twice I should say we got programs on how they control odor but then there was always something else that allowed odor to seep from the facility and so we need somebody who is a mechanical engineer maybe to kind of take a look at said facilities and say here's where odors are created here's is the sizing, the vents, the ducts that move the oat, you know, the move the odor around and collect the I mean, we need somebody who can do that. It's not me. Um, so that we could feel comfortable that a facility is built um that doesn't that we don't expect is going to have an issue with odor. And I think that's what we didn't have in this case, but we did ask them for the expansion to take into consideration. Yeah. But then that like the expansion this board was mentioned but we had no oversight. So we were not we were not a block in that process. So it sounds like the cannabis control commission has actually deferred that to the board of health type thing. Is that correct? I think what they do is they say that applicants have to comply with the um air pollution control rigs. Okay.

So maybe I So Matt, I think that's something we definitely want to add to a a backlog uh that we visit in the future and um move from there. How's that? Yep. Okay. Yeah. I said it's not a now thing. It's but I I feel like it's something we need to get so that we don't get caught in that situation again where we have no regulatory oversight. So we have therefore no official say and therefore we don't have any control. and then it's great. We're empowered to deal with the problem afterwards, but that did not work well. So, I think it would be far better served for this community if this board was involved at the start of the project with the reviews with the engineers to hopefully get things started on a better foot. Sounds great. Okay. Uh duly noted. I will pass that along as my notes uh to Francis after this meeting. So, that's there. Uh, does anybody else have anything they'd like to chat about this before I would like somebody to entertain emotion? Hearing nothing else. Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion that we adjourn. Okay. Okay. Well, we still have one more item on the things. I apologize. I make a motion that we accept the proposed fee schedule for the Tyler Littleton Department of Health as submitted. A motion on the table for the fees as presented. Do I hear a second? I'll second. Hear a motion and a second. Let's do a roll call vote. Kevin Baker. Kevin Baker votes yes.

Dan Kaine Dan Kane votes yes. Matt Wson. Mason yes. And Kevin Davis votes yes. Excellent. Thank you. We have one final item on our agenda, the 750 correspondence. Um any board member updates? Yes sir. The this board needs an update on admin support for our department. I do agree with that statement. So uh one of the things that uh has happened um uh Megan uh has accepted a position in the accounting department. I was a competed position and she was selected for that and is transitioning. Um I have sent an email hopefully uh to the town administrator following his email for that. So um I'm hoping to hear back from the town administrator Francis. Have we heard anything from him after that was sent? Uh yeah, I have not. No. Okay. So, uh yes, definitely. Um we need to figure that out because uh we don't have an admin tonight and we need an admin to take notes for the meeting. So, okay. So, so does I'm I'm sorry, Kevin and Dan, do you know that what has happened with the reshuffle? So, that's what that's why I'm saying that this email the emails can't go to everybody unless we have them sent officially to All right. So, let's so

let's let's go through this real quick. So, uh, after she competed with that, the town administrator came back and said that, um, due to staffing or whatever that we're going to go from 2 and 2/3 person to just two and the 2/3 uh, is going to go away magically. Um and uh right now um after a conversation with our um select board representative and Francis uh I'm reaching out back in an email saying uh because he said in the email that there were he looked at and evaluated deficiencies and had numbers which uh the efficiencies um allowed for the reduction in the staff. And so my email back to him was to please detail the metrics used to determine the efficiencies so that way we can uh concur and have a discussion at the board with those uh numbers so that we can discuss what's really going on there. And I haven't heard back from that yet. So uh that's where we currently stand. Yeah, it it's very confusing from the email. I I get the sense it was it was 2 and 2/3 and now it's going to be one and 2/3. No, it's going to be No, they just dropped the 2/3. It's going to be two full bodies. That was what I got out of it. Francis, is that because it says to restructure the one, right? 2/3 admin positions plural to share in the duties to support lands and building. And part of the issue as well is that sometimes he says BO and CC, sometimes he says building, sometimes it says lands and building. And so it becomes confusing as to where we are. Um, so this this has happened. This this ship has sailed. Um, Kevin, thank you. I

know you've followed up to try to get some kind of detail. One of my concerns is that the way that we found out about it was we were informed that town administration had made this decision. Um and so I think we have a question out to the select board of you know h how and why is this allowed to occur without this board's involvement at all. Um this is our budgetary position. We we are not a board beneath the select board and so for our positions and budgetary dollars to be kind of moved around like this I think is is not appropriate without involvement pri prior to any decision making. Yeah. um part of my email stressed I just want was going after the metrics but I appreciate that and if I don't get no no back from that I will be sending out a much stronger worded u email and um Matt I will ask you for a review on that email before it gets sent out so we can make sure that that position is appropriately stated Dan uh okay just so we can be So right now uh we have Francis as our director at 1 FTE. We have a shared nurse with Actton who we're at uh third of an FTE half FTE somewhere in that ballpark. And then we going to have a quarterish of some other administrative support. We don't know who that person is or do we know who that person is shared between us, conservation, building, somebody else. Is that a person at the moment or is that a theoretical position yet to be identified from the available administrative staff in town hall? And that might be more for Francis than for the chair. But

um so that the absorption would be the full-time existing employee that that's not answering my question. Who is who is our current if if I had to say hey Francis I'm just going to drop this off with the admin. Do you have a specific person you would point me at or is this still a just a theoretical person without actually a name attached to that quarter FTE? Right now it would be to another existing employee in the office. Megan is not but we don't know who that is. But we don't know who that is. We know who that is. Okay. Okay. So, we have a quarter FTE in our the budget the budget the budgeted position is now just disappeared. The budgeted position is still there as far as I'm concerned because that was a past budget and that's what town voted on. So, that money is allocated for that budget item and and and only this board from my opinion can move that allocation and it's a half, isn't it? It was a half of a person with conservation, right? But town administration has chosen to not fill that position. I said the due to efficiencies they have they have enough people to handle it all. That's got nothing like like what I said in the email back to that person. what Dan was. Um, I would really like to see the data for the efficiencies that were gained and to gain a better understanding of how you believe the bo the elimination of that position can support the board of health and their mission and I haven't gotten anything back yet. And I I I apologize. It didn't even dawn on me that Megan actually wasn't on the call tonight. So clearly it's broken. There are supposedly people in place and we don't have anybody taking minutes tonight.

I I I admit I wish I would have known this at the beginning of a meeting because I would have I I admit I've taken my little discussion notes. I have not taken anything near the level of minutes and having did having done minutes for this board for a big hunk of my first year. Um I would have approached this meeting differently. So I actually was aware as clerk that I needed to produce minutes for this meeting. I'm sorry, Dan. I That's my fault. Sorry. Yeah. I just in general I'll admit The fact that we lost our administrative support is kind of a you here at 8:30. It kind of buried the lead of um oh by the way town administration that we we have lost our administrative support and town administration has decided not to fill that position and we're just going to kind of tag on with somebody else. That's a that's a lead. That's not a 8:30. Well, but if that's the plan, then that person should have been here tonight, too. I and that I I'm going to point because I have no choice but to Francis as the department head was the person who yet to be named although you said you have a name told that as part of your responsibility at 7:00 on Wednesday night we have a board meeting and that is part of your administrative responsibilities being there to be we have not really been told to hand down any information yet whatsoever um tonight I'll be doing the minutes and re-watching. So, so we don't have an admin then. Um, obviously there's not a clear answer to that question at this point, Dan. Okay. I want to make sure because I'm trying to get to that. Either we do or we don't. I think the answer is but I think we don't really. I think the answer is there's a there's a human and it's not an open position that needs to be filled. that will take time as to which human is going to end up with which piece of the pie. I'm assuming

that's kind of still what's happening. So there's no vacancy to fill. So right. So again because they're choosing not to fill a vacancy. They just haven't figured out who's going to pick up the workload. The work the pile of work is still in front of people. They just haven't figured out who's picking up which piece of work yet. So we we have the position that was filled by Megan before. So we know what the workload was because it was a because it was an advertised position that was filled. So we know what that workload is and that's been described. So now what I basically said in that email again is please detail the efficiencies shown to relieve that workload for this position. Right? I I'm not and and so that was the that was the excuse given in the email as to why this rearrangement could be done. I am basically saying and so tonight part of the thing tonight was and uh was also and yes I should have been more prepared to say something like hey Dan by the way it looks like Megan didn't show up tonight could you have taken it that's on me I'll take that one u but it's to show also that hey look we need this support and this was part of the detailed support that was part of this so yeah that's on me I'll take that one I'll take that arrow I mean and I care less about them showing their efficiencies. I don't care as long as it doesn't impact me. I, you know, we should still get our same amount of support. If they're if their efficiencies don't come to fruition, then it has to come out of somebody else's time pool because that was their decision. Of course, does that really happen in the real world? No. Then we get concerned. I agree. It's it's a reasonable thing to ask, but that's not really what I care about. I just care about we are getting the support that we already got. uh which we are not at this moment in time, right? Which were allocated in a budget which was voted on by town and now this is where this is. So you need to go I I need like I said

need to see the efficiencies. So we'll figure that out. Mr. Baker, you have pens of thoughts. I have lots of thoughts. I'm not going to say them right now. Roger that. smarter man than me. I'll follow up with you, Scar. Um, any other discussion around that topic as it is 8:30? Sounds like we going down that path. All right. Um, any other comments then from the board? Any other updates or correspondence? I have received none. Um, our nurse starts next week. She's ready to go. Um, we've been coordinated action. We're actually going to start off on a couple projects together jointly. Um, because they have a bigger department there already have some stuff in the works. So, we're going to piggyback on that. Awesome. Um, she will not be housed with us though because we don't have any space. Um, so I found a spot for her in the new senior center um where she'll be working with the volunteer nurses and kind of getting an introduction into the community and being part of the events that they have every day. Um, so that should work well for at least the interim. Okay. Uh the the rearrangement letter did talk however about um uh promised spaces finally getting to the department of health. So that was that was good. So we were told today that plan might potentially change to something else as well. Of course I'll follow up with you on that so that I can be better informed.

Anything else there? Um, I bought a humansized skeleton for their nurse. It's a welcoming gift. Wow. So, I was told it's important to have. I That and a BP cuff and a stethoscope, too. So, I got those, too, though. Do we have a naming contest? Skeleton. Absolutely. The skeletons need to have a name. So, you know, maybe we do a maybe we do something with Shaker Lane or something like that to name a name the nurse's skeleton or something like that. That school is out of session. Yeah. Library reading program. Yeah. That I think I think next year I think we should definitely reach out to the uh school board and and propose that as a as a name. Uh and that is actually a very important and traditional thing to do. I know it doesn't seem like it, but um my wife, who is a professor for human anatomy and physiology at Firmingham State, she uh had her opportunity to have her full-size and articulated skeleton named appropriately uh by her first year students that she had um some 20 years ago. So, that was a that's a thing. So, um definitely want to go down that path and have the naming rights. So maybe we'll go off and do that for if the if uh the nurse uh would so be kind to do that. You might want to chat with her about that. That would be a really good outreach thing to do with our schools. Yeah. After I surprise her with it, I'll let her know. Walking around the corner with a dead hand or a skeleton's hand coming around the corner. Okay. I I see how this is going to go. Okay. What could possibly go wrong? Okay. Do we have anything else?

Nothing from the board. We do still have a member in attendance in our audience. Um, if uh any if the member in the audience would like to share if uh Francis Yes, that's our intern. Oh, well, hello interns. Uh Elsie, would you like if you would like to come on up and uh say a few words, you're more than happy to. You can also choose not to. We're not going to force you to get onto uh onto the board to say hi, but all of us uh do welcome you and uh feel free to reach out to any one of us if you have questions about the town. We'll be more than happy to cheer your ear off for at least an hour. Okay, seeing not a hand raised, I will I will let our intern go back into the corner. Okay. Does anybody else have any other questions, comments before we move on? Hearing nothing else. Uh motion. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. I need a second. Second that. Second that from Mr. Baker. I'll take a roll call vote. Uh Dan Kaine. Dan Kane. votes yes. Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes. Matt Wson Matt Wson votes yes and Kevin Davis the chair votes yes. This concludes our June 25th meeting of the board of health in the town of Littleton. Thank you so much for everyone and have a pleasant evening.