Board of Health - Regular Meeting

Littleton, this is May 14th and this is the board of health meeting. Um, welcome. We have Dan Kaine, Kevin Baker, Kevin Davis, myself as the board members and we have Francis and Megan from the board of health in town. All right. So, let's take a look and see what we've got going on on our agenda. It looks like Oh, where' my agenda go? Perfect. It's missing. Uh, looks like we have the discussion about basement and additions starting at 7 o'clock. Okay, let's go. So, where we last left the conversation with uh Chair Wson, requesting everybody give some thought into what kind of rules they want to have for basements, whether they're existing and going to be finished or they're going to be under a new construction. Same policy as the bedroom count, just filtered out a little more and be more precise. Um, there was talk about having either a square footage over an excess amount count as two rooms or perhaps having elements of a basement maybe count um where it needs to go before the board or not or where they can get a deed restriction. Um, so it's all up in the air right now what the board would like to do. All right. Uh, Kevin Baker, we haven't been around for a little bit. Would you like to comment on said basement items? Sure. I I think the local regulation uh proposed covers all the bases that we've spoken about and I think the 400 square

ft uh is is a good number. And uh I also like uh section D uh with if there's an accessible exterior egress is included in the modification dividing a basement into more than two spaces and includes a bathroom but will be considered as adding a bedroom. I think that important for the future. Yeah. Okay, Dan. Um, I I think it covers what we've discussed. It's I would love to see Matt and Gino here as well for their input, but I think we're in a a good place to be able to uh put this out as a public hearing and get the community engaged right now. This is still the discussion. There's no actionable items at this point of the discussion, but I mean I I would say we're ready for to put it out and get the get the public's opinion and continue drafting if I get close to being in place. Yeah. Okay. Um, as far as basements go, I'm really still against the walkout egress making it add another bathroom, I mean bedroom to it if it has those other pieces there. Been pretty consistent about that through the whole thing. So, I'll let it go forward to see what the public comments are on that, but I am I think in the end I am really pretty dead set against that. So, do you want to do like a combination of you have two out of three elements type of thing or do you not like the egress itself? I don't like the egress itself. I think you're I think what you're doing is you're putting a tax on people that happen to have a walk out basement that want to finish their basement. Mhm. That's the way I look at it. So, I can redline that for the next uh hearing. Um,

yeah, I don't mind about about the square footage. I have no problems with that. Accessory dwelling units I think is fine. The other thing that I would like to do is to also have it reviewed by town council to see if she thinks it's defensible. I already made the note. Yeah. So, whatever product we have as a draft, I'll send to her to save a little money there. Um, perfect. Does anybody else have any gobacks? Let's see if we have anybody in the room. I see nobody in the room. So, unless anybody else has anything, we still have four minutes until we get up. Yes, Kevin. Comment. You know, I'm wondering how this would will work with the accessory dwelling bylaw and if there's something we need to make sure of in the language so that things aren't contradictory. So, right now, um, we just tried to stay at Title 5. I think that'll be part of, uh, legal counsel to kind of review, make sure we're not stepping on that. Um, but, uh, essentially, this should line up. um based on what DEP has explained to me in a meeting and others in other communities um what's in this document right now should line up with what they agree with as well in theory. Okay. is the model language that we have in there in section three for the ADUs the model language that was given by the DP but it's guidance um okay so it it lines up enough where I don't think it'll be an issue but again cuz towns can kind of

change the ad ADUs as well through the planning departments um so we're going to make sure that we line up locally because it's a little different I think locally than the state prescribed So um we'll have planning look at as well and also zoning board too as well. Okay. Kevin that does your consent. Perfect. Okay. Still have three minutes. Um okay. If anybody else has any other comments, we can close that and maybe do some administrative [Music] pieces. Uh I didn't receive any other administrative manners um so or correspondence. So that's done. Uh did anybody else receive any correspondence? D. Okay. Uh we do have meeting minute approval. Let's see if we can actually vote on it. I don't think we can. We cannot. So, we're going to have to push the meeting minute approval from April 23rd to our next meeting because we don't have enough of a quorum to vote because uh Mr. Baker will have to vote in the abstentia. Okay. All right, then we are almost at 710. Waiting for

my clock to switch to 710 that we can do the ID to suborion decision support tool and the chairperson as usually does the ID decision support tool. Uh so I haven't seen him do the update yet. Uh does anybody want to share information about um RSV or the flu? I think we're out of those seasons. Yes. So, I can pull up the most up-to-date ID tool to just look at if you want as a visual. That'd be great. Yeah, that'd be a good thing to pull up. Okay. Share it. So, can everybody see that? Might want to zoom in a little bit. to that area if possible. Beautiful. Much better. Um, COVID 19, I don't think there is a new variant that is the dominant strain. Uh, I think we're still at the XEC strain. Um, up-to-date vaccinations yet, we're still down really low on the vaccination rate within town. I have not heard if there is a meeting coming up to do the decision on the new CO 19 variant for the booster shot in the fall. I haven't heard that about that yet. Um so that's it. Uh wastewater update. I have not looked at what the wastewater looks like at NWR. Has anybody looked at that? It's It's low. It looks like it's See if I get the data point. It's the lowest it's been since October 1st, 2024. So, it's it's down and it's trended down. So, we're we're at the bottom of a tree of a of a trough right

now. Of a trough. That's great. Okay. So, we can scroll down in Yes, sir. I apologize to interrupt. It looks like Gino is in the audience. Let's promote him. Thank you, J. Somebody promoting Gino Force. There we go. [Music] Gino, are you there? Gino is muted. No video. You're just going to have to press There he is. Gina, do we have you? He's unmuted. Okay, let's keep going. Uh, influenza. Um, I believe we are nearing the end of the reporting period for influenza. Um, and I'm sure our vaccination rate hasn't gotten any higher since the last time we checked at

that. Um, so that's where that is. RSV, I think we are out of the reporting area for RSV as well. And then uh, Arba virus is uh, going to be starting up here. Uh, that's coming up in about another two weeks or so when that's going to start up. Uh, those are mosquitoborn, West Nile, and E. And last year we did have a triple E kind of outbreak in the fall. So I'm anticipating that to happen in the area again once it's kind of in the area the disease well exists. So I'm anticipating that to happen again. So uh the mosquitoes are out just in case anybody hasn't already seen them. My daughter did happen to go outside the other night and came back with a couple of welts of her own. So everybody please make sure we are putting on the appropriate bug spray and all that kind of good stuff. Does anybody have any other updates that they would like to give? Oh no. Okay. Gina my friend can you can you hear us? So just for the opera virus um we made a web page last year um giving updates along the way as things progressed and also kind offormational data for people to better understand um what mosquito-born illness is. Um so this year we'll do something very similar. We'll probably promote something through a flash news announcement saying, "Hey, please keep up to date with our website to get news and information from Li soon. That'll be a good thing to do." Um, have we done any uh reach out coordination with the other surrounding towns? Um, may be a little early to go and ask, but it may never be too early to go and ask and

say, "Hey, what are you guys doing for West Nile and Triple E?" Um, typically everybody does the same thing around us surrounding because we all have the same mosquito control company. Um, so it's kind of a uniform um, strategy and same type of procedures and spraying and all that. So um, we do meet like last year we met when we started getting cases as a big group. So there's I think about six towns that met together um to talk about what we're going to do and what the messages should be going out in terms of public information in terms of what safety precautions towns are going to be taking in comparison to others and based on threats. So um that's kind of how we did it last year and I assume it'll probably be the same this year. Um I think it was at beginning of July last year where triple E started becoming an issue where we had to start getting the information out. So, um I think we'll be better prepared this time. Um I think we took pretty quick steps last time. Um within 2 days, I believe we were out spraying. So, um that is the best mediation that we can do on our part. Yeah. I think that last year, one of the other lessons learned last year was make sure the communication was going on. Some people were caught by surprise as to what was happening. So, I think this year we want to make sure that we're correcting that misstep. Yeah. I mean, so there's two portions of that. It's also reaching a large part of the population that doesn't really going to receive a news flashash. Um, they might not have phones, they might have access to internet. They might not readily see something like that. So, um, it's a tough case when, let's say, you get a triple E case in town and you want to take immediate action. So, you try to do the best you can, but that could be same day. If they said they can react same day, do you wait or do you, you know, D if you don't. Yeah. Um, is the town

still use code red or whatever it was that was the central way of getting information out to people? Is that still being done with the Littleton Water and Electric Company or did they shift to a new app? they ship to different way of communicating. But um last year what we did talk about after things calmed down is we didn't use code red um for notifications because it was explained to us that that was more for an emergency where let's say your house is on fire, there's something significant that is immediate um and that this did not qualify under that. Um, so I guess a good topic for June would be to discuss the use of a 911 reverse when it's required um some form of vote of seeing when it is necessary according to the board of health to bring to town administration. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to understand uh the policy around that and who set the who set the level and what the levels are because that seemed pretty arbitrary to me about you know it wasn't you know there needs to be what the definition is because I thought the code red app wasn't at a reverse 911 it was something that you could sign up for and you would get a burst of information out it was like a um a you know an app information from the town. So, I don't know if we do that anymore. We do, but very rarely. Um, yes, a lot of our notifications are different levels within Civic Plus through the website basically at this point. Um, and it's kind of tiered. So, um, it's something I can prepare some kind of write up we can look at in June and discuss it more. Yes, sir. Um, I thought I I know we've gotten plenty of times in the past. I thought I got one recently for every time they spray any of the playing fields here in town. Mhm. So,

you might have got one through the parks and wreck um like uh emergency alert type of thing. I mean, but I've gotten the phone call with the as part of required notification of the public such and such a date field's going to be sprayed and advised no use on the fields for those times. So, I guess I'm just trying to figure out if what that what if that's still happening or if it just my memory is slow and it's been longer than I can think of. Um, but if that's still being utilized cuz it's obviously a municipal event that's going out to everyone or at least many, is there way we can utilize that same system for notifications? If it's not everybody in town, but it's 75% that is 75% more than we have if we don't do anything. So, I guess I'm just wondering understand the levels of reverse 911, but if it's being used because they're spraying the fields for with pesticides, that would seem like something that we should be able to utilize for other sprays and stuff. Absolutely. Chair. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Uh, Mr. Kane, I do believe they still make those calls when they're spraying the fields uh just as a notification andformational uh you know for for residents. And I think that the problem that we're having surrounding the use of anformational system is that we're calling it a reverse 911. Uh and and I think that if we just use theformational, you know, tool that the town uses uh to get the word out in in a non 911 situation, but just so everybody knows, I think we'll be more successful. Um just just the notification system as opposed to a reverse 911. Yeah, I I agree with that. There are and I understand where Francis is coming from. There are levels to the reverse 911 and I get that and there but there

like I was saying there was a code red app that people can sign up for at Littleton Water and Electric at one point and I think that's what we're all talking about is that there's someformational service that the town used to have that I don't know if we have it's just a it's a it's a call from the 2500 number you know 4862500 just comes out you know it's from the town whether it's from school or school or health or whoever it is. Um, you know, that's that's what I was referring to. Get some more clarity on everything for June just so we can better understand how the system works. Yeah. Cool. Love it. Okay, we are now at 7:21 and we are to the point of administrative matters. Francis Um so right now I'm working on a 15 town comparative um for a fee structure. Um as you probably know from the last meeting, Chair Wson mentioned that he met with town administration and town council about fees. Um and there were some questions. Um, so just in anticipation of that and seeing that, um, we did a comparison and we'll have that ready for the next meeting at the end of this month. Um, of what the fees are across 15 comparative towns. They're very similar to Littleton in a lot of ways. Um, you'll see what their fees are. I'll make a recommended fee. We can look at the fee that we currently have. And we'll also, I think, put in the mix Noba's fees just to have a better comparative as well. Uh so the board can look at that and make a decision. We do need to have something finalized um by midJune. Um so within the next two meetings we'll need to be able to nail that down completely. And then maybe

also within the fees if we could make sure that we have the backing stop of the regulations like say is regulation present or not present. Yep. And then so that way we know where there's other work. I understand setting the fees is one thing, but then we can also work to make sure we have the regulations there. Yes. Um, for the most part, we're okay on that. Um, but beautiful. Yes. Everything will be able to be backed up by some kind of general law or regulation. Perfect. Beautiful. Anybody have any comments on that? Yes, Dan. You're muted. You're muted. I realized it as I said it. We have a hand up in the audience. Carolyn from the audience has a hand up. Carolyn. Carolyn, you are muted. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Carolyn, if you want to state your name and your address. Yes, it's Carolyn Mueller, 8 East Roxberry Drive. And this is kind of off your agenda, but I'm here with Gino. Hi. Yeah. Speak about my behavior. I can't get in. Francis, I'm sorry, but we're using the permit computer down in the office. Um, Gino thought someone was going to be here to help him. So, he can hear you and he can see the captions, but he can't talk to you. Um, okay. Do you know how to navigate him to like a dial in? Maybe we could just get him on the phone on a speaker instead of video. Well, that's what I was Gina. Do you have your cell phone? I'm going to try to get him through his cell phone. Okay.

Sorry to interrupt everybody. So, I'm glad I did that, but sorry. I'm glad you did that, too. Thank you. I'm sorry that I caused a lot of trouble. It's okay, Gino. Oh, totally fine. Why don't you just use my cell phone? Use that. Use that and then when you're done, bring it to me in the other room. All right. Okay. Is that okay, guys? Yeah. Can you hear me? We can hear you, Gino. Oh, thank you. I'm using the young lady's phone. She going to help me. Perfect. Three different individual. the the lady supposed to be here and wait for me because she always helped me out, but nobody's here at the office. So, I'm I'm at the office with a lady that was kind enough to help me out. Is that okay? We are getting a little echo means that there's two microphones like a speaker somewhere. You got to turn off your speaker. Yeah, I got to try to turn. Okay, we'll circle back to you real quick. Francis, do you have anything else? Um, so they have decided that they're gonna Is there any way to mute Gino? Yeah, I'm trying. You got it. Um, the town has given us $15,000 in confessional services for FY26 um to help with capacity. Um, so we're going to have to try to utilize that best we can. I think it's enough to be able to sustain for

the next year, but I would be a little worried about FY27. Okay. With 550 King coming online, um I think there's just going to be a lot of increased work. There's going to be an increase. Can you hear me now? We can hear you, Gino. All right. Can you hear us? Yeah, it's really low, but he's got the captions on the TV, so he should be able to see what you're saying and go along. Perfect. All right. Okay. Perfect. I have to I have to go to some place to fix my computer because I couldn't get in the computer and then that lady gave me here. Yeah. So, anything they say they're going to be able to hear. So, I want to wait till they're finished. Okay. Okay, Francis. So, with 550 King coming online, you have a concern about all the work that's I'm a little worried about FY27 more. I think we'll be okay. It's going to be a lot of running around, but I think it's doable. Do you have the use of a town vehicle so you can do the running around? Um, I can. I prefer not to use the town vehicle um for a lot of reasons. Um, that's fine. I'm just worried about staffing in FY27 cuz once you get to sucked into all these construction meetings, new businesses asking about how they can move in, what's necessary, going to visit the sites probably a lot, and just the minutiae of it all, I think, is going to be a big time suck as time goes on. Okay. Um, when is everything else? Yeah. When is 550 King Street supposed to be finished up? Is that 29? Um, what I read maybe I I'm not sure to be honest. Um, I

think fall is going to be when it starts to get a little bit busier and spring I think will explode a little bit. Okay. Um, there'll be a lot of inquiry. So FY26 for spring and then through the summer construction and then something in the fall of 26 or the shoulder of 20, end of 26, beginning of 27. Yeah. Um, so I think we really need to fight next year very hard to be have some kind of at least part-time type of staff on. Okay. All righty. Make sure we add that to our thing of things to do. Um, we had second um second interviews for the nursing position uh yesterday actually in actton. Um there were two very strong candidates uh for the second interviews and there's some paperwork and some additional meeting with the town administration but um I believe that we'll have a candidate and that person will be in place for July 1st. Okay. Um, in terms of Maven access, which can be critical, um, I've talked to Actton, they're going to help us with that because the thing about Maven is once you start, it takes probably a good month to month and a half, depending on how busy they are, to actually activate a new account. Um, so I have access to Maven, so I'll be monitoring it and um, diverting it to the nurse when needed. But um we also have actin as backup as well if need be. Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Um lower on the total poll we have the uh emergency preparedness plan is almost complete. Um so that should be done probably in the next month. We brought TPH out to the middle school and walk

through cuz that's where our emergency plan is based. Um, we did open up new spaces and our main area is going to be the gym now. Instead of before it was two classrooms, but the gym has enough power and we believe we can get emergency power to it where it will work and it makes more sense for the space. Um, so DPH is working to write that up with us right now. We're also working with um our search team. Uh, Alex McCertie is leading on their part to help us with that as well. Do you believe the board needs a review? Um, when it comes to the plan, it's more about making sure DPH has their 100page long checklist of how things are written in a certain way. Um, I think it might be worthwhile just to look at the plan and see what the layout is for that space just so the board has a better idea. Um but I mean if you looked at during CO these plans were essentially built for a situation like COVID for mass vaccinations and we saw what that brought. So sadly these days it seems like it's a wasteful measure but we're still required to do it. Dan, you had your hand raised. Um yeah, I just wanted to clarify the emergency preparedness plan there for the middle school. It really is not it's not the town emergency plan. It's a shelter and distribution site plan. It is not EOCC or those kind of things. Okay. We kind of have a resident expert if you want some advice. Okay. Uh anything else? Um Nope. We're just plugging along to July 1st. Um, still meeting with Jim twice a week, just kind of talk about

things as they come up. Um, in terms of file retention, so we've been making a good dent in the show's basement of files. Um, so we will be retaining them. We are about halfway uploaded with digitals. Um, so by probably fall, we'll be able to have all paper and digital. So you won't necessarily have to go look stuff up in paper. will be able to more readily access it wherever. We're uploading that to Open Gov as well. So, the ultimate plan is that any homeowner will be able to access basically a jacket for their file on their home online without having to come in the office. Um, so that'll be significant. We're much further. We're much further ahead than building or any other department being able to do that. So, um, within the fall, I think it'll save people a lot of time and a lot of headache because we get many, many calls about people looking for all types of records. Yeah. Title five and water girls. Yep. One was my last inspection. Um, question. Yes. Do people ask if they get their septic pump? Do they ask if they could add a record to their jacket or is that something that generally isn't done? So, if they get their septic pumped, the company is required or they're supposed to send us the pumping slip um detailing when it was done, how much, and we add that to their jacket. Um, this does not always Can you hear me, friends? I can hear you. Can you hear me, friends? We can hear you. Kevin Davis, can you hear me? I can hear you, Gina. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I miss you guys. I'm so sorry that this happened. I can't believe it. Okay, it's quite a my computer fix again. And then the young lady is supposed to stay here until the meeting

is over. And then I want to make sure they gave me the B agenda, but something that I can read the numbers. Got it. Everything used to be fine before. I wish we can meet in person, especially in the summer. In the winter, I can see that we can go in TV. But anyway, I hope everything goes well next time. I hope you people understand. It's not my fault. I try for me. I was I was asked to be in three different they they called me Gino would you like to come for for dinner tonight? I said no I got to go to a meeting. I went to a meeting at the church and I came here 10 minutes before 7 and I I thought I can be able to have the lady here. It was all dark. The lady came and she she took me to the and she she come here. She saw it's dark and then she put the lights on and then she put the TV on. So I feel bad. I really feel bad. Oh, I'm so sorry that it's happened, you know. But it's okay. We got you here. Yeah. You want to come in or give me a call? Well, I'm here trying to figure it out. And you're not going to beat me up, Chino. I wanted to let you know my friend, the president, he called me friends. I picked you as a MAGA ambassador to represent your state. I'm conducting the largest. Hey, Gino, let's focus on the meeting. Presidential study. Hey Gino, let's focus on the meeting. Okay. So, I am an

ambassador for the president. So I have in charge all Massachusetts. Would you they believe it? He trust me with all Massachusetts. So if anybody is a Republican, Democrat, I still love you in no matter what. Okay? If you need some help, I can take you to the TV that they call it Gino TV and is my show. I have a show in Actton and in Westford. One gentleman that is running for governor is a Republican and he already got in touch with me because he find out that I am an ambassador from the presidente said can you help me Gino I want help forgot to put his telephone number I don't have no address to get in touch with this gentleman so you think you got a problem with me he's got a problem with me because he's supposed to at least put his address. Gina, that's it. Okay. Thanks, bud. That's it. You call it off. Uh, we're we need to keep going on our agenda. We're going to do it tomorrow. We need to go on our with our agenda. Francis, do we do we have anything else on our agenda? Thank you. Thank you to do it tomorrow. I appreciate it. I I didn't say that we do it tomorrow. Well, anyway, at least you know that I'm an ambassador. Thank you for letting us know. I appreciate that. Francis, what else do we have? That's all the excitement there is. Excellent. All right, we are at um Kevin's got a question. Yes, Kevin, what's up? May I make a motion to adjurnn? I have a motion on the table to adjurnn. Do I have a second?

I need a second if we want to have an to consider the motion hearing. No second. And I'm sorry the motion doesn't in fact okay it's okay. Um Dan, do you have anything else you'd like to check? Uh I just want to double check to see if the Francis needs anything else for transition process uh as we're coming down to our last few weeks. Is there anything we can do as a board to to help you prepare so that we're ready to hit the ground running? I know you've been working hard trying to get ready for it. Just is there anything you can need from us to help support you in the here in the the home stretch? Um, just uh keep in mind that July to probably end of August, midepptember, I'm going to be pretty much underwater completely the whole time. Um, so if something comes up, um, you know, please don't hesitate to bug me about it. I apologize if I don't get back to you right away or something like that, but um, I'm just going to try to maintain um, you know, we're working on how to figure out the capacity thing right now. So I might call on the board in an email. Um, so just try to keep up your emails if you could in case I have a quick thing to bounce off the board. Um, otherwise, thank you for the support. Okay. And in regards to email, how often do you think we should be checking the town email that we have? Um, every two weeks I would say, is probably a good bet. So, okay. So, every two So, so would you like it a couple of times a week would be better? As often as you can, Kevin. Got it. All right. Yes, Dan. All right. It wasn't on our agenda for this evening. Um, one, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate

um, Matt and Kevin for being reelected to the board. Great job. We appreciate your service. We're glad you're still with us. Um, hopefully Matt will see this someplace. Um, usually we do reorganization. It's not in the agenda and we're missing a few. We're missing Matt tonight. So, just if we can just try to make sure we have the board reorg next agenda. I was going to say let's go ahead and put the reorg on the next agenda. Yes, Dan. That was all I had. That's it. Okay. Uh, does anybody else have anything they'd like to discuss? Mr. Baker to make a motion to adjurnn. Do I hear a second? Second. I have a motion and a second on the floor to adjurnn. I'll take a roll call vote. Dan Kaine. Dan Kane votes yes. Kevin Baker. Kevin Baker votes yes. Gino Fredalone is muted. Gina Fred alone. We're going to have that as an abstensia. And Kevin Davis, the chair votes. Yes. Gino. Okay. Kevin Davis votes yes. I hereby have the motion pass. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. This concludes our meeting.