Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Littleton. This is the board of health for the July 23rd, 2025 meeting. In an attendance from the board, we have Kevin Davis, Matt Wson, Kevin Baker, Francis, Heidi, and Susan. Okay. Uh, let's get started. Our first agenda item is a public hearing at 17 at 7 p.m. for 18 Pleasant Street. If the people representing 18 Pleasant Street could raise their hands, we'll promote you. Hey, hey everybody. My name is Montgomery Stemsky and McNary at 1000 Main Street Actton. I'm going to be representing the applicant tonight. I'm going to share my screen.

That sounds great.

So, this is 18 Pleasant Street. Um, so for the existing conditions, they have an existing house, the deck, and a shed here in the back. Uh, they do have this existing driveway. This is the edge of the existing driveway. Um, they do have wetlands in the back as you can see this BBW in the blue. Um, that offsets the 100 foot buffer zone into the property. Um they have an existing uh septic tank. Uh it's within the 50 foot uh buffer zone. Um uh so what we're proposing here is to uh is to install a new septic uh system. Uh so a new septic tank, a new pump chamber in a new leech field. Uh because of the restrictions that we have on the property, it's very small. uh this is the best place we can uh put a leech field and have the proper drainage and the proper proper cover needed for the system uh to to function properly. Uh so we did place the beach field over here. So you can see uh most of like almost half of it is going to be underneath the driveway. Uh, and we're showing um a proposed grade on top of the leech field which slopes down uh on slopes down into uh this side. Uh as you can see, it's going to be a swell directing the water here to the back of the property.

So, I need to interrupt real quick. Um is anybody else seeing the share? Because I'm not seeing the share. Thank you. Yeah, the the plan Kevin. Yes. Yeah, I can see it. Okay, keep going.

Okay. All right. Oh, yes. So, yeah. Um, so most most of the properties within actually the 100 foot buffer zone. We did have a meeting with conservation yesterday and they requested us to uh locate any trees that may be coming out u uh and just put them on the plan. Um, so that was the biggest thing that they uh discussed with us. Uh, for this septic tank that's existing, we're just going to uh pump it dry, then rupture it, and then fill it with sand and leave it in place. So, this existing septic tank is going to stay in place. And we do have this uh suit barrier to protect the wetlands, but that's foration. Um, so basically that's the that's the scope of the project. I'll take any questions from the commission right now. note from the board. Sorry.

Um Mr. Wson, um do you want me to kind of run through it real quick? Yes, actually. Yes, Francis, please run through it.

Sure. Um so, soil conducted soil testing was conducted in the front and the back as you can tell. There wasn't enough room in the front, so that's why it is being cited in the back. Um it's a small lot, as he mentioned, and the wetlands are pretty significant in the backyard. So, um this is really the only place they could put it. Um the reduction of the groundwater offset for the leeching area will minimize the height of the mounted area in the backyard. That is key because um it will prevent runoff into the abuing property especially to the left at 14 pleasant. Um and of course the fill needs to come to breakout for the leeching area. So it's going to extend to 10 ft based on where it is in location. So, um it's probably the best location and uh the swale also adds another element that will prevent any runoff as well.

Okay. Thank you, Francis. Uh Dr. Wson,

uh okay, just for everybody's sake, uh Montgomery, could you tell us the exact things you're asking for this board to rule on? Um, so I think I think there's a waiver if I'm not mistaken for because I think uh still within 10 10 ft from the lot lines is not u allowed. Um um so we're asking for if I'm not mistaken a waiver to that. Um so right now I think we're a minimum of like two feet away uh here which is very close to the line. So we we're going to be grading and filling within uh the 10 ft uh uh from the property line on uh adjacent to 14 uh pleasant street. Um yeah, basically that's it. So he's requesting a reduction of the groundwater offset as well for the leion area from 5t to 3 feet

u which is allowed under the D pre-approval of the presby system and like he said placement of fill within 10 ft of the lot line. Okay. Um and then yeah it's obviously a tight line and those those dark lines running vertically those are the lot lines. Is that correct? Mhm. Yeah lines. uh 14. And then the whole systems between the 50 foot and 100 foot buffer zone it looks like. Mhm. Okay. Uh and yeah, there's no room on the right side obviously because that lot line is so close and you have a shed to deal with. So see what's going on there. Um

uh in your in your opinion, any problems with that ending up under the driveway? Is the driveway going to have to be elevated from what it currently is? Uh yeah, a little bit cuz uh we're changing the grade. Uh so it's going to come up a little bit uh like this portion because we're going to be increasing the cover over cuz you need uh 18 in minimum if you if it's if the system is going to be underneath a driveway. So we have to raise the grade a little bit. Um okay, for that. But it looks like the house is kind of at the peak of the grade of the property already. It looks like front to back and in the westerly direction on the drawing.

Yeah. So, the grades are going to be tying back into the existing. So, yeah. Okay. Um I don't believe I have any further questions at this time. Mr. Baker, I'm just curious why you're uh not asking for uh two foot groundwater offset. Two I think you mentioned it already, right? We're we we're asking for that as well. You're going for 3 ft.

No. Uh so was it uh so the perk test um my data? So the perk test showed that there was it was less than um two minutes. Yeah. So we so take basically you would need like five feet from the groundwater to the leech field. But then once you do that twofold reduction it brings you down to 3 feet. So the perk was too fast. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

So that's why I wish it's Yes, we did reduce it to two feet but because of the fact Yeah. Yeah, no other questions. Thank you. Okie dokie. Um myself, I'm looking at the drawing and I'm looking for the variances that you're actually asking for or the exceptions or the waiverss that you're asking for. They're usually spelled out on the prints themselves and I don't see them. Maybe I'm just missing them at the moment on the plan. Yes. So, we do have we do have it here. Okay.

Uh this is this is for for the fail within within um within the 10 ft to the lot line. Yeah. And then where will you go ahead? And the other one the other one is not on the plan. Um but we can we can add that if if there if there's something that's required. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's a tradition that we usually have with the board is that um each of the

um waiverss that you're asking for are included on the plans. So that way it creates a complete package on the plan. So that way if when people go to pull it um all the information is there. Um just a quick question. Um, I don't rec maybe I'm misremembering something here. Having a driveway over top of the leaf field is that a no no, Francis, or is that okay?

Um, it depends on the weight calculation, but typically no. Okay. So, how how are we going to protect the leechfield with in this case with a driveway over on top of it and cars parking on it and snow load, all that kind of good stuff. Okay, I think Kevin raised his hand. Mr. Chair, yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Kevin. I think they just need to make sure they use the schedule 40 pipe. Oh, was that I thought it was a I thought this was a a special like a presby system or something like that or am I

Yeah, it's a presby it's a presby system. So, usually if it's if it's not underneath the driveway you would need um 7 in minimum over the system. Uh but uh if you're putting it under the underneath the driveway then you need 18 in minimum. So it does pro we are providing enough cover um over over the beach field uh just in because cars are going to be driving over it maybe parking so it's it is sufficient and you do have um and you do have that detailed on the on the plan itself.

Yes. So we have it here in the profile and we do have a detail for it as well here. My computer's going to slow here as well. And it's show me where it says 18 in. I'm just being curious. That's all. Yeah, here. Oh, there it is. 18 inches minimum. It also says in the in the profile over there to the Okay. Okay. All right. I have no further questions. Um, let's see if anybody in the attendees or the audience, if anybody in the audience uh has a point of view that they'd like to raise, raise your hand.

That's just our intern. Got it. Sorry question. Yeah. Um, were the abutters notified appropriately by certified mail? Um, they were. We also spoke to Yutter and we had them connect with the engineer to discuss their concerns um their concerns about proximity to their system on their side. Um so Montgomery did meet with them I think twice. Could you let us know how that went?

Yes. So I spoke to them. So the they were basically telling telling me that there was a time where uh the owner at 18 uh they were doing some work on their property. I don't know if they were fixing something. Maybe their septic at some point. I don't know. Uh but they did go on on his property. Did he have access to his property here on the left? And they did damage a portion of of of their leech field on the on their side of the property. So he was asking how far is our leech field from uh his property? And I told him this right now. He's like um 12 feet away. So that's that's that's enough space. So, I I don't see. And he did ask um if they're going to be needing access uh to his property in order to install the system here, the leech field. And I told him, "No, they shouldn't be needing any access to your property." Plus, we do have this uh silk barrier here kind of like um showing the limit of work. So, uh they shouldn't be doing any work past this um silk barrier. They shouldn't be going to his property. So that's what he was uh worried about.

And a final question I have um and the Concom has already met on this or are they waiting for us or they did yesterday? They met yesterday. I talked to them this morning. Um they don't have general issues of where it's being placed overall. There was a question of where they could be placed in the same spot and we were kind of replied like no that's not really possible. um they're more concerned about vegetation and certain tree species. Yep. Yep. Oh, totally understand that. Okay.

Does anybody else have anything uh before I ask for a motion? Hearing no other questions or comments? A motion, please.

Go ahead. I'll make a I'll make a motion to approve the plan as presented and allow the variance for regulation uh 27 the fill requirement and uh to allow the uh groundwater offset to be uh reduced to 3 ft. I second. I have a motion and a second. Uh Mr. Baker Baker votes yes. Dr. Now votes yes and the chair Kevin Davis votes yes. Okay, Montgomery, you are through the wicket. Thank you so much. Enjoy. Have a great evening. Yeah. Bye.

See you. Alrighty. So let us see what our next item on the agenda is. The next item on the agenda is a discussion of the opiate funds update at 7:10. It's now 7:15. So, let's go ahead and start that. Um, so I wanted to ask permission if we could switch around the agenda and say hello to our special guest in the audience. Absolutely. Oh,

can't hear you. Why don't we go ahead and promote El LC up? Yeah. No, Susan. Oh, Susan. Oh, okay. Hello, Susan. I still can't hear you, Susan.

No, nothing. How about now? Now. Okay, great.

Hi everybody. I'm Susan Sama. I'm the new public health nurse working part-time for Littleton and part-time for Actton. Yeah. Yay. So, um my background is um I' I've been a nurse epidemiologist. So, I've worked in public health for over 20 years. Um I've largely been in academia, but I've been on the board uh of Health in Sudbury for about 11 years. So, I'm sort of doing a pivot uh into more local public health. I've always had a sort of a hand in public health uh local public health. I was an EMT in Graten when I was younger and so I was a volunteer uh on their rescue squad uh for about eight years or 10 years and then um since I moved to Sbury, I've been worked on the MRC and then was uh asked to be to run for election for the for the board of health. So, I've been doing that for a while. So, um so I'm really looking forward to it. I'm enjoying my work so far. We're working on um getting some flu clinics set up. Um so I'm working on that and um we are like I'm just trying to like figure out my some of the projects that I'm working on in in Actton I'm trying to bring over to Littleton also. So like mosquito and tickornne illness uh work that we're putting together. Um

uh triple E. Yes, I know. Hey, we just had a positive mosquito today in Massachusetts. Oh no, we were discard it because of the drought. Our triple E carrying mosquitoes were like at 50% of what they've been in the past, but no such luck. So, we'll see. It was in the Boston town. Which town was was lucky enough to get it? Yeah, I think it was the Boston area. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. We'll see. But yeah, so I'm I'm looking forward to working with you guys. I know. We had a case in Sedbury, too, right before the pandemic. Not fun.

Yeah, we got we got hit with uh cases around us and mosquitoes were positive, so we had to kind of have some fun last fall. Hopefully this fall we won't have those same issues. Yeah, we had that too. What is good? You guys have a mosquito control program that you're participating in. That makes a huge difference. We had when we had that in summary, we just like started hitting like the fields like the vegetation around the field. It really it really does make a difference. Like I feel like I know we get we get we can't win right either side whichever way we go. Right. Right. Right.

So the other person that would be very excited to meet you tonight would be Dan. Um Dan of course is at another meeting. Um he is another fellow lifelong nurse and has been on several boards of health. So, I'm sure he would be as excited as uh Kevin, Matt, and myself are. So, welcome to the welcome to the board of health. Thank you, Kevin and Matt, if you would like to say something, please. Yeah. Uh, thanks. I look forward to meeting you in person and working with you and supporting you, uh, however needed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes. Yes. Welcome aboard. Uh, I think we've kind of wanted to have somebody in this role for a long time now. And it's great to see it come to fruition finally. Got our got our director, got our nurse, and uh, like uh, you've already kind of got some stuff going and you've obviously plugged into the communities around here really well. So, you're obviously bringing a wealth of experience to um, our team and that is that is great. So, can't wait to meet you in person and welcome. Thank you. I'm excited. It's going to be fun. We're doing I'm doing a lot of contact tracing, too. We got a lot of tickborn stuff going on. That's the other stuff that Yeah, I'm excited. It's We're going to do some good work.

As part of that, Susan, do you want to talk about what we're thinking about doing in the next week or so with the ticks?

Oh, so you mean like doing the ticket kits and um like So, we have ordered some tick kits. We've talked about putting together we're working with our intern to put together like maybe a trifold poster. This week I I was in the um this I'm sitting in the senior center which is actually kind of nice because I'm actually able to interface with the nurse volunteers. So they did some uh they always do blood pressure clinics. So I brought in a bunch of mosquito and tick materials, educational materials so that they could you know so the residents that were coming in to get their blood pressures check could have access to those materials. Um so we're thinking about doing um putting together like a poster for for that type of stuff. um and handing out tickets that have like magnifying glasses, tick tweezers, um antiseptic, um that kind of stuff. And so we'll we'll um we'll talk to the seniors about how to use those materials. And then I also was able to go to the veterans uh breakfast this morning. So I spent a little time just meeting meeting those guys and and talking to them a little bit about what we're you know, what my role is and what we're doing. And I'm I'm really they were really glad to hear that we're going to be doing a a vaccine clinic, a flu clinic in the senior center. So typically I guess you guys have done it in the middle school in February. We do that too, but we're going to do one in the senior center and one in the middle school is what Francis wants to do, which they were really happy that it was going to be done at the senior center. So that's

that's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Francis, did I miss anything? No, you're good. Awesome. Well, this is a uh again very welcome to have you on board. This is amazing. Um again, as all of us have said, we can't wait to meet you in person and thank you so much for your involvement. Uh we really look forward to working with you in the future. Okay, great. Me, too. Thanks for uh making it possible. I think it's going to be good. Absolutely. It's what we're supposed to be doing.

All right. All right, Francis, it's back to you now. I'm guessing you're going to give us a report out on the opioid funding. Um, so we've been exploring the benefit of having poolled resources for our opiate funds. Um, looking at Do we want to put something up on the screen to share so residents can see what's going on? Sure. [Music] Uh, I can't pull it. Heidi, would you be able to pull up the packet on share screen?

Yes. Just give me one moment to pull it up. Sure. I think I can do it. Really? I can do it quickly. Hold on one second. Let's see. Am I able to do it? All right. Can everybody see it?

Excellent. All right. So this is a presentation of the opiate settlement survey that we had sent out to residents asking kind of where they want to see monies being used, what they think are the most significant um programming that we need to look at, what kind of programming do they think is the most beneficial, what target groups we should be looking for. Um so basically we didn't get much of a response but the responses we did get um essentially pointed toward looking at more of like a social service looking more towards prevention um kind of focusing on early education essentially. So, um, we've taken that into consideration as well as meeting monthly with a regional group of neighboring towns, talk about what their, um, community is looking for and what we're looking for and trying to like come up with a way to like pull our resources where we might be able to do something significant with enough money each year. Um, the great thing about the settlement funds is it's money to do something, but it's really hard to pull off something and programming consistently on the amount of money we get. So, it's enough, but not enough. Um, so that's why we've been looking more at what a regional pooling system would look like. Uh and as we talked more and more, we've kind of understood that maybe some kind of position where there'd be a prevention coordinator, substance abuse specialist type of person that would be able to handle programming and would be able to do all the areas of substance abuse that we need to address. Um so as part of that, we've met with um towns who have already hired this type of person in their community. So we met with two other communities who have a coordinator. They talked to us about

what they did, what their process was, how it works, um, and the benefits, best practices, lessons learned. Um, and we've also met with third parties like Riverbend, um, seems like a pretty strong leader in the industry of what kind of services a third party contract could bring if not a person. Um, so we're at a point where we've basically created a position and now we're at the point where can we support maybe a position should we be looking to do an RFP for a third party service to fill this role? Um, so I just wanted to bring this to the board to review. Um, obviously it's going to be months in thoughts. So, uh, I just wanted to bring it early on so we can discuss it now and at future meetings to develop it more. Okay. So on this page that we have here, the one that I have up showing on the screen is this is what we're coming to you. What you're asking for is us to consider this. Actually, us to read this and come up with some thoughts and have a a future discussion about where the board would like to go with this. Is that what you're at?

That's correct. Okay. All right. Um comments from the board Matt or Kevin?

Um well obviously we didn't you know get the thousands of responses that we would love to get in a survey. Um it looked like you did get some meat um at least from people who have some experience which is great. I'd much rather honestly get some of that viewpoint as opposed to too many respondents who say I have no idea what you're talking about and I don't think there are any problems. Um, so I it's nice that you got some direction out of that and I know it's been been a a long period of trying to get some information so we can get some direction. So I'm glad that we have what appears to be at least some idea to move forward. Um, one question I have is I in scrolling through there, I saw just the kind of comment of like why isn't there an AA meeting in town? Um, and while I know these are opioid settlement funds, um, should we consider the role and I I it's not on the screen now, but the, you know, opioid abatement coordinator, whatever the role might be called, should we is it would it make sense to broaden it to be instead of pure opioid to make it just substance or something else so that it's kind of focused not just on a singular category, which is obviously problematic. Um, I just wouldn't want it to be seen as we're closing the door on other potential issues that could fall under the umbrella obviously without making the position then too much or too big to handle. So, and I'm sure that's a question also for some of the communities that you want to partner with to say could we broaden the scope a hair um and would that would that still be effective or make sense? So, but obviously the first thing is kind of are we permitted to do that with funding or does it have to stay really opioid identified? Yeah. So, the language obviously like I pointed out um is a little specific to opiate funds, but I mean there's a lot of crossover and there's a lot of

gateway and there's you know um so our stance has been that it needs to be a substance abuse person, not just a specific opioid person. Um so it's looking at the whole issue as a broad category instead of looking specifically at one schedule. Okay. And and I like the fact that the the at least the job description has a word abatement. Not not my favorite, but I like it better than abuse. Um

because there there can be situations where it's not about abuse, but even usage is something that we need to be looking at. So I appreciate that. You know, continue to kind of think about that of uh avoiding stigmatous words and trying to make sure it's a positively spun thing that we're trying to help our community with. substance awareness and substance, you know, usage and treatment and such. So, um, thank you for that good work, but that please keep considering those kinds of twists and angles. Yep. Good thought. That's what I got. Thanks, Minister Baker.

Yeah, thank you for putting all this together. I think it's great and uh look forward to helping to push this forward. I think building awareness about substance abuse is uh critical and essential and so important uh to get our youth uh aware of uh harms of substance abuse at a young age and uh I think it'll help have a positive impact on everybody. So thanks.

Um I'll power on to all of that. I think this is a a great first draft of what's going to uh to become and then have a positive discussion um in our following meeting. Um I think all of these are the right steps forward and I really can't wait to see what comes of it. Um I should also mention that's not in the presentation is so right now in terms of funding and pooling um we basically be able to fund a pilot program for about five years um where then we could re-evaluate maybe in re year three or four

um and decide whether more funding should be put towards that. So, so maybe what we should do as part of this is set up a a a thing of measures that are used in other substance abuse programs or our support programs and try to come up with some of those measures so that we can evaluate it not, you know, maybe at the one-year, the two-year, and the three-year and start to have some sort of decision at the three-year point uh that we can do that we can start drawing. That would be really good to see though. That makes sense.

Yeah. I mean as part of it we'd have an advisory board essentially through the town. So board of health member probably myself and then other representatives of the town we talk about it usually like probably quarterly. That'd be great.

Okay. Any other feedback? Okay. Hearing none. Let's check the Let's check to make sure our audience is there's nobody else in the audience besides our intern. And there's nobody else besides our intern. Okay, that's awesome. All right. Um, seeing no other discussion, I guess it is now uh 7:33 and so it's perfect time for our 7:15 ID discussion support tool. Matt, take it away. Working on it. All right. Uh here is our current ID support tool update. Uh as we said last time, we're just kind of we're going to keep posting COVID information. Um but not kind of focus on it too much. Vaccination data. We're now out of vaccination data for at the state level. So they actually won't start reporting updated vaccine data till the fall. Um, and curiously, nationwide, the CDC is not getting enough samples of COVID testing to necessarily identify predominant agents by region anymore. Um, so Massachusetts and the New England area is kind of a zone for the CDC. And so they also have not updated those numbers since the last time in June that we met. Um, so it's a little we'll see how that goes, but they're going to keep reporting nationwide and we'll see when they update our region, but we'll keep posting it here when we can.

Mention, pardon, have we heard anything from the Mass D, not D, the Department of Public Health DPH, sorry, Mass DPH, um, as far as Massachusetts tracking numbers or is that something that we're not haven't heard yet? uh tracking cases or variant or what do you all okay so cases are still reported this chart is from Massachusetts DPH so that is still updated up to 28 June um okay

I'm not sure why that one I feel like there should be one more data point there or two but uh I'd have to go back and look at that data to see if that's just zeros now um the vaccination data is on hold. That's from the state. The wastewater numbers are continuing. That's obviously the two wastewater treatment areas um outside of Austin. Yep. And what about what about what about variants? Are they looking at is the state looking at picking up the variant tracking? You haven't heard anything?

No, I highly doubt it. If the CDC doesn't think there's enough data from the New England region, I'm not sure what Massachusetts feels there would be value in trying to report state level variance. Okay. Yeah. And when I say not enough, I think the CDC wants 300 samples in a in a two week or four-week period. So, if they're not hitting that, Gotcha. you're going to be basing upon such a small um sample size that it might not be worth it.

Yep. as well as in all honesty, the last time we saw a variant that we actually kind of looked at more than just a glance, it's been probably two years because we keep getting new variants and the statement is continues to be, oh, it's maybe a little or a little less uh transmissive. Uh, you know, our vaccine should do a good job. So, I think it's kind of not something to spend a whole lot of attention on until we actually have a variant where there's some concern or there's some bigger change that might impact us. So, I'll keep including when we can have the data, but it's not something that I spend a lot of time digging into.

Okay. Uh, arbovirus. Uh, yes, stole my thunder. We have a triple E positive mosquito sample. It was in some place west actually. Central some unless Yeah, you're right. It was Belure Town. That's right. Okay, there we go. It's Belure Town.

Belter town. Yeah, first mosquito Beltown. So, Littleton is still considered low risk, which is one of the the lowest level for this is is remote risk. Um, Littleton is at low risk. We start every single season at low risk. That's not something to be learned about, and we don't have anything close by. West Nile, those cases have been ticking up. They had their first uh animal test positive for West Nile. Littleton is still low. Um, uh, Fitchburg, Lemonster, Air communities have gotten a slightly higher. They're at the moderate risk level. Um, but we're still low. And we'll keep an eye on on the West Nile, but no human cases reported at all. And just some mosquito tests.

Yeah, that was a goat in Lunenburgg, right? Uh, that I I Yes, I think it was a goat in Lunenburgg. It's like trivia night. Yeah, I I fell asleep after I saw that one. Uh, so we'll keep an eye out. Um, I personally I feel like the mosquito season's very benign in terms of quantities. That's what I've experienced, but I don't know if everybody else kind of seen the same compared to the last couple of years. So, um, my daughter, the mosquito magnet, that as she walks outside right now, um, she has reported that, uh, observational evidence um, that her mosquito bites are about the number is about the same as last year. So, but um so

but yeah, she walks outside and they instantaneously just run for her. So, yeah. Well, we can add that row to the um table if you want. Yeah. Your your daughter's, you know, objective reporting of Okay. Uh but you know, so the same stuff still, you know, make sure you're you're putting some some uh bug spray on ideally with DE if you're going out in those evening hours when they're active and make sure you don't have the standing water pulling around. um because we are kind of still in the season where we could see this grow, but right now we're still low. So, and that's what we got.

Excellent. Um question for the question. Matt, Kevin, go ahead. Nothing. Okay. Um question for everyone. If we get if it gets closer as far as like a bordering town or something like that, I know last year we did some spraying once it got like really close. Um, do we want to do some preventative spraying in some of the fields as we get closer? Um, what does the board feel about that? I would ask for our director's recommendation. There we go.

Um, I think the first step would be if you allow me to have a conversation with the mosquito control company to find out what our options are in terms of additional spraying. Um, obviously the boots on the ground, they're collecting the samples. So, um, I can meet with them probably they're pretty responsive like next week and get back to the board on what their thoughts were and we can discuss at the next meeting.

I think that would be a great step. Go for it. Go forth, communicate, come back, let us know what our steps are. Let's be prepared for this so that way we know what's kind of going on for next uh if it happens. Uh last year I felt we were a little on our back heels. We kind of pulled the you know we pulled everything together very quickly and that was that was awesome that we did that but hopefully this year we'll be maybe if there's a couple things that we can do to prepare. I think that would be really awesome.

Yeah. So I mean the focus this year is going to make sure that we have better communication channels with the public. That was the main result of last year. we able to respond pretty quickly with the spraying, but um luckily we learned a lot last year and we prepared a lot after the fact last year that we can use this year. So, sounds perfect. All right, let's talk about that uh at our next meeting. Sure. Okay, awesome. Okay, let's see what's on our agenda. Unless somebody has something else that they'd like to talk about really quickly. Seeing nothing hearing.

The only thing that's not on the agenda but I put in the packet is the impact of 550 king. Oh, sure. We can talk about that in administrative matters because that'll impact the director and the board and everything inside. So that would be great. So why don't we go to that as an administrative item. Okay.

Um so a couple years ago an impact report was done I think between departments um by Lupi Construction um assessing what the cost and benefit and um how much work additional work we put on the town departments if the development was actually fully developed. Um it does not look like the health department was originally included board of health um in that impact. Um recently the town administrator's office asked for an update from departments on what they think that would be. So this would be our first submission. This is the details in the packet of what I laid out would be the impact. Um as you can see there's quite a lot there. I took a lot of consideration in thinking what that kind of would mean. Um, and essentially at the end of the day, you'd be looking at another full-time person to be able to address all the concerns in there with minimal revenue.

Okay. Um, okay. Uh, looking at that, uh, what are the yearly impacts? I see a staffing impact and then I see current proposed used in analysis. What are the yearly impacts or quarterly impacts that we would have?

I mean, it's kind of hard to say depending on the rate of construction and depending on how organized Lupi is versus industries that want to move in, people that want to move in. Um, it's kind of hard to guess what the foot traffic will be for contractors, subcontractors, um, companies interested in moving in but not sure if they want to, so they go to us first. Um, residential questions can keep coming up. Um there'll be a lot of affordable qu a lot of affordable housing questions. There'll be a lot of certificate of inspection questions. Um so depending on the speed they move, it could increase in volume dramatically really quick or it could be over time. Um the schedule for development seems to change a little bit each time they are asked. So it's kind of hard to say for sure, but I would say within year two from now, we're looking at a significant amount of increased foot traffic. Okay, questions from the board. Matter or Kevin?

If I may, um Francis, one of the things that would help me especially as you're talking about the staffing impact is um percentage change for current basically. So 1,089 residential units, correct? Like not everybody has a concept of what that could mean. So, how many residential units do we have right now? Knowing that a lot of them don't cause you a lot of regular trouble and you get a handful of issues kind of out of a year. I know you pointed out in here that maybe the quantity of issues coming out of this type of residential unit could be higher than than what we experience in this community at at a baseline, but still to be able to say this is a x percentage increase over the number of residential units we have in town. Same thing restaurants. We're going to have an expectation that there are this many more restaurants. I think you called out what 10 to 10 to 15. We think just ballpark. you know, what percentage increase is that on our on our existing and then the kind of the the shops and other things that are, you know, one last category as well as the hotel that I think that would help me and also help potentially other folks in town as you start to talk about necessary funding because we are effectively, you know, doubling the number of hotels and pools that we have, right? or or increasing our number of restaurants by 10 15% whatever that might look like um might help sell those those uh impacts a little bit.

It's good.

And then I hear you. it's going to be hard to figure out the timeline. And so I think you also just have to say, you know, unfortunately this is what we think it's going to be at the end when the whole project's done, but it might actually be easier in the end because things will be kind of more in a stable position and you're not going to be asked to do as much as opposed to that buildup time which actually could be a larger impact on your time and energy. So, I would I would say uh piggybacking onto that, I would say there's probably a higher impact as things get built up and then, you know, you get to that steady state where, you know, there's more uh restaurant inspections and like you said, there might be some nuisance odor issues or other things that go on with the living conditions and things like that, but it kind of will settle out. So the question is is there a temporary staffing impact that we could do early on to get somebody to come in temporarily help you and then while we look to do you know assess the impact in years two or three or something like that. Kevin, anything.

Francis, do you have an indication if those are going to be 1,89 uh rental units or units for sale? Uh I believe they're for sale units. Okay. Um there will be some rental I think built into it to a certain percentage. I would think they didn't really specify. So, I just use my best estimates cuz if the rental, you know, it just every year, you know, the paperwork just keeps coming. Uh especially on the affordability end of things, you know, I'm sure there's a bunch of boxes that have to get checked by the board of health. So, just to keep that in mind that, you know, it's not going to be just a one-time uh onetime effort.

Yeah, Kevin, if I can add on to that before you get that's that's a good question to ask. Is there is there anything in the project planning or anything that that the town can do in order to actually cap the number of rentals? It could be because that might be totally out of our control. Somebody could buy up a bunch of them, turn them into rentals, but that like you point out could have a much bigger impact. Yeah, I I can ask the planning department. I think that's probably the first place to look. Is there also going to be over 55 housing in this as well? Is it was it a mix? Is there a mix of style units that are going to be going into this as well? I don't really know those details. Um, I imagine planning would know that too, so I can just make a list.

Okay. Sorry. Well, thank you for throwing our our name in the hat uh as the Department of Health to have some input on the impact study. I appreciate you taking the taking the reigns on that. Uh, that's that's great. Thank you. Anything else from the board? All right. Our next agenda as far as administrative matters, uh, are there any other administrative matters that we'd like to bring, Francis?

Um, as Susan mentioned, we're going for the clinics now. Um Susan's been a great help in trying to connect with the pharmacy and getting those dates um hashed out. We're looking at one at the end of September in the senior center. Um I think that'll be a really good clinic and then the second one we'll still do at the middle school just to bring in all ages. Um it will be flu and COVID. We gave the numbers from the past couple years to the pharmacy so they have an idea of what to look for and right now we're just looking at a signup system that will work for everybody. Um, as usual, the search team will be able to assist with workflow in the clinic. Um, so that'll be great. And we'll have Susan running around. That'll be nice. Um, so I I think it'll go really well this year. I thought we did pretty good last year. Um, we actually did recently have the uh Nantucket Health Department call us because they said that we were one of the few towns who had a spike in vaccinations last year. Um, so they want to know how we did that and obviously I told them that that's when I was hired. So yeah. Um, so we just

we just talked about, you know, how to get the message out there and the different ways that we did it and how we kind of promoted it more and put it up everywhere. So, we just tried to help them assist and how they could do it better next time. And we provide some some materials that we use for our clinic so they can kind of replicate it. Did they need any members of the board to fly off to Nantucket for a junket to, you know, interact with that board or? Yeah, I got your plane tickets here. I think it was the chair at the time, actually. Oh, is that what it was? Oh, that's what it was. Sorry.

We'll send the other We'll send the Kevin. We We'll go up to Nucket. We'll interface and we'll bring Francis along. Make it a whole big trip. You know, it'll be great. It's a retreat. Yeah, it's a retreat. That that'd be perfect. Perfect. All right. Well, that's awesome, dude.

Yeah. And Susan mentioned, um, next week we're probably going to, um, send out a press release for the tickets, um, giving ticket education cuz this is the worst time of year. Uh, the tickets are pretty cool for the amount they cost. It wasn't too bad. We're going to start with a 100, see how popular they are. Um, so we'll have a baggie that will include educational materials along with the kit. um that our intern will be helping with. I I think it'll be a really cool promotion and we're going to do it in conjunction with the senior center so probably get more attention on it. What options do people have for tick testing?

Um right now we we don't have any real options that we can point them to. They can get tested in a private lab but Yeah. So I think UMass Ammerst has uh they still have their lab for you mean for testing ticks themselves, right? Yeah. I think that um UMass Amherst still had uh testing available, but the state's really not doing it for residents anymore. Yeah. Yeah. 10 years ago was a lot better. Yeah,

that's what I figured. But it if it'd be nice if the kid at least included that for people who are interested to say if if you do have one, apologies, the town doesn't do anything. You'll need to find a public provider to do that. um or if the university is doing something like if we can include that, but I I didn't expect a great uh solution there. Okay. And I must say some of the nastier tickborn illnesses are tricky. My brother-in-law got one of those really nasty ones and it took him about three weeks to figure out which one it was.

Yeah. you know, we're seeing I feel like I'm calling people multiple people a week with uh bzziosis and um anoplasmosis. And besiosis is similar to like the parasite that causes malaria and you can get really really sick. And so ticks have ticks, they're finding that ticks only have to be on you for a short period of time to transmit those more severe, you know, diseases like anoplasmosis and and besiosis. And I don't know, I feel like a pro prompt diagnosis is really important because things can go sideways with those diseases. So, we'll see. And, you know, the other thing I'm seeing is co- infections. Like people, they'll come into my, you know, the database, the Maven database with one and then a couple days later they come back in because they've gotten diagnosed with multiple. And I I mean, this is new to me. I haven't done contact tracing before in this capacity, but um I don't know that's that's a drag. So

awesome. Okay. Um also, are we uh in the tick packets, are we also educating, is there education in there how to remove the ticks, the proper way to remove them and things like that? Okay, good. Excellent. Excellent. All righty. Anything other any other admin funness? It's as fun as it gets.

Okay. Elephant in the room. Since we had a discussion in the last meeting about uh administrative support, um email was sent. Nothing was heard back. Um I'm assuming Hi Heidi. I'm assuming Heidi is uh our admin taking uh copious notes this evening of all of everything that's going on. So thank you Heidi for that. Um, anything else heard from? Um, right now it is ongoing. Um, Heidi will be filling in in the interim and she's been doing a great job with that. Um, learning a lot of new fun things about public health. I'm sure she didn't want to know. Oh, awesome.

Yeah. Um, obviously we're advocating for the same level of support that we had before, no matter what kind of structure is in place. Um, so until we see something concrete in writing, there's not much to say either way. Okay. I think as a board, I think what we ought to do is if we don't hear something by uh the September time frame is definitely to reach back out again and say, "Hey, what's going on with this?" and seeing what we kind of come back with. Um, so we wouldn't mind putting it on as an agenda reminder uh in the September time frame. That would be great. Yes, Kevin,

we might want to consider getting on the agenda for a select board meeting. I've reached out to Mark um and uh and he let he let me know that we should be working within the town administrator, but I agree. Um we should definitely be working with the select board itself and trying to figure out what's going on there.

Sorry, could you clarify that he said that we needed to be working with the town administrator on this particular issue? Yes, he said go back to the town administrator, write your, you know, well thought out email and then we'll go back to him. The only reason why I reached out to Mark is he's our board of health uh interface to the select board. So, I figured I could skip that level and talk directly to him. So, but I agree with you, Kevin. I think we definitely should have some sort of thing. Matt, I can tell your faces there's an Well, the select board was just asking us to meet with them more regularly and talk about problems so that they're not caught off guard. It feels like this is a classic thing that

should be taken to them. But that's fine. I guess I guess when we this isn't the first time that we kind of don't get the responses we're looking for. So I don't you said September and I just I I bristle at that. If we're not getting a response to a question that we send to the town administration office, then that that's just not okay. Okay. So

and so I I think sending out one more email to say like what's the answer? what's the solution? We need to be fully informed and if we're not getting fully informed, then then yeah, we need to be talking to the select board because that's who the town administrator reports to and made it abundantly clear to us. So there okay. Uh I will wait. Can I guess what I'll do is I'll wait till next week or the week after and see if I get something. If I don't get something by Wednesday or Friday of the following week, then I'll send out something again on the following Monday. So, a week from this coming Monday, I'll send something out again, say, "Hey, we still haven't got an answer and see what happens with that." I'm actually going after his statistics. Um, he said that there was he measured the efficiency and saw some efficiency gains and that's the reason why we can do this. So, I'm asking him for his statistics and his numbers for where he got his efficiencies from. I haven't heard anything yet. Okay, keeping it above board. Uh any other administrative issue uh items? All right. In our packet also we have the June 25th meeting minutes. Um we have everybody here that can vote on it. Um has everybody had a moment to review?

Yes, Kevin. And I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes as presented. I have a motion. Discussion. No second. Second. Uh, no. No second. I'm not saying. Okay. Okay. What's going on? Uh, Francis, you wrote these, right?

Sorry. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure I was saying it's the right person. Uh, the only thing was just a clarification under the section where we were talking about the fee schedule. Um third paragraph under there under public hearing board of health feast schedule review were my comments about reinspection and uh the only thing I wanted to call out is maybe could we add that I inquired about the current process for restaurant reinspection just to make the rest of that sound clear to people so they don't think I'm talking about a I don't know septic plant reinspection whatever else I was really specific about restaurants that makes sense okay otherwise that's Uh, that's all I would have pointed out.

I'll draw my motion. Motion withdrawn. I'd like to make a motion to approve the minutes with the update to said paragraph uh Dr. Wson pointed out, including the word restaurants. I'll second motion and a second. I'll take a roll call vote. Mr. Baker votes yes. Mr. Wson votes yes. And the chair Kevin Davis votes yes. We have our meeting minutes for that taken care of. That is awesome. All right. And then sorry before I forget on that. Yes, sir.

Uh the property in the minutes that were trying to do that deck reconstruction that was going to be too close. They were going to come back in the next meeting, but our last meeting got cancelled. I just want to make sure they didn't fall off our radar. Francis, they just haven't come back to us. Yeah. Oh, okay. I was going to say I didn't see them on the agenda, so I'm assuming they just didn't come back to us. Not yet. Okay. Okay. Well, let's hope they come back because we gave a pretty creative answer to their issue. Um, okay. Uh, board member updates. Uh, Mr. Baker

currently have no updates. No updates. Excellent. Uh Mr. Dr. Wson, any update? Oh, it's fine. Matt's fine. It's okay. Fine. Matt Francis, uh there was an email chain with some of us. Can you give an update about your plan for air quality concerns around the quarry?

Sure. Um so we received a complaint about dust nuisance from the quarry and contents of the dust from a concerned resident. Um we originally tried to inquire with DP about what kind of controls are happening and if they can come out on site with us to walk the site and review. Um we did not get a very good response to that. Um, so by the end of the summer and winter hit pretty quickly after that. So it really wasn't something that we could look at during the winter. Um, now as we hit the hot weather and dust is more potential, we received inquiry for um an update. So, as part of this process, we um did meet with the Westford Health Department uh a little while ago and talked to them about because they had a site in town that did um receive attention by DP because of their department and I asked what kind of methods they used, how they did it, and what's required to get that level of attention. Um so, they did talk to us at length about how they did that. Um, so we'd be proposing to do a similar approach and trying to get the same response.

If if I may ask you to maybe on your side, if you don't have it already, start keeping track of a timeline of all this. Um, and it obviously predates you, but these complaints are not new. They've been going on for years. Um, and if you can't find records of them, I know at least Dan Kane, our board member, would have some email records that he could also forward to you of the historical stuff, but I'm assuming he's not the only person. I don't know what where reports would have gone um 2 years ago. I have no idea what that would look like or if they were email that you would have access to. Um, but just knowing that this this isn't new. This didn't just start. But also in that timeline, I believe we tried to reach out during the winter when stuff was not covered in snow or covered in another way and that was still not supposed to be the right way of dealing with it. So, um I know your kind of comments are we need a lot of volume to help push our case and get some attention, but I I think those all should contribute to the volume that we're collecting. Um, and then honestly, if it's volume we're worried about, do we need to actually hate to like be proactive and ask people to complain, but do we need to be proactive and ask for people's opinions on it or something or saying, "Are you experiencing any sort of air pollutant nuisance? Please report it to us."

Um, well, so we don't have any files. You are correct. Um, that's not overly surprising. um as we kind of point I pointed out in the email like I would encourage anybody who has a concern for it to reach out. Um I don't know I wouldn't post anything but um I mean neighbors do talk and they have share their same concerns. So if that's the case if we could get people together and find out more about that that would be helpful because right now I only have one person to go off of. So,

have we um have we opened up a case in our electronic records management system so we can start tracking and we can start adding previous data that we may collect over time to it as a like an information gathering piece.

Um we have not we just have notes but we can do that. Okay. Um All right. So, it's pretty localized to the, you know, this side of town. Um and I also noticed that, uh we do have one of the Purple Air um pieces a little bit farther down from the quarry, and I know the resident also purchased one as well and registered it on there. Um the particulate on that should be picked up. Um it might not be

okay. All right. So that particular Okay. Or it might be a daily spike or something like that after they do blasting

blasting or something like that. It would be a spike in that area. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? uh at no okay I have no other correspondents um no one else reached out to me to uh speak specifically about any other items uh so that's what's going on from me um and it looks like Elsie is still the only person in the public viewing area so no other public uh does anybody else have anything else they'd like to discuss Um, just briefly, Westford Health Department reached out. They asked if we'd be looking to share any services with them. So, we're exploring what that might look like.

Awesome. Continue exploring.

Report back when you have something fun. Any It's all fun. Yeah. Well, health people would say it's all fun and games until you poke. No, I but we won't go there. All right, looks like we are done and our person who usually does the motion isn't here tonight. So, Mr. Baker would like to make a motion to adjurnn. I have a motion to adjurnn. Do I have a second? I will second. Second and a motion. I'll do a roll call vote. Mr. Baker Baker votes yes. Matt Matt Wson votes yes.

Kevin Davis votes yes. The board of health meeting for July 23rd has concluded at 8:07 p.m. Woohoo.