 I have a glare on my computer for some reason. There's Julie. Julie. Julie unmute you. Julie, are you muted? No. Well, now she is. Now she's not. I just said myself, I think. Okay. So you're going to be co-host now. Wait a minute. What was I said? Oh, let's see. May co-host. There we go. Okay, got it. Okay. So it is five o'clock. So the meeting is called to order. And first I have to read. Pursuant to governor Baker's March 12th, 2020 order, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General law chapter 30 a section 18. This meeting of the board of health is being conducted via remote participation. During public discussion time, members of the public audience who are dialing in by phone, press nine to raise your hands and speak. If you're using the computer or tablet, you should click on raise the hand button on the bottom of your screen to let me know that you want to speak. Please mute your computer to cut down and any background noise. I will now conduct a roll call to check to make sure committee members and the director of health departments, their video and audio devices are working properly. So Tim, you're up in my left-hand corner. Are you there? Unmute yourself, Tim. Yeah, unmute. Are you there, Tim? We can't hear you. We can't hear you. You might need to select your headphones from your computer. This happened to me the other day. Although this is a microphone. For me, it happened on the speaker side. Okay. Steve George. I'm here. John Tobiason. Yes, here. Nancy Gilbert here. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. Morning, Malay. Yeah. And Julie Fetterman. Yeah. Okay. So our meeting is called to order. We're going to first review the minutes of July 9th, then July 27th. Let's see. July 9th. July 9th. I had a question. I don't know if I want to share. It says the university needs to take ownership of its responsibilities for both on-campus and off-campus students. Julie said, I don't know if I want to. Put that really making that statement. Julie, do you remember making that statement to me? Um, no, I don't think that's a statement from me. No. So I think we need to remove that statement. I think we need to remove that statement. I think we need to remove that statement a little bit. Because you definitely expressed concern. Julie wasn't there. It was. I know. So I don't want. So I, I, I'd like that whole sentence. Okay. Okay. Does anyone else have any comments? Oh, and in this, in the second part, it said members agreed that the board of health should offer to be involved in the search for the new health director. So we agreed to be involved. We agreed to send a letter to Paul. Saying that if we could be of assistance, we would be. Okay. Wanted to dictate some words for that, or do you want me to make it up? You can make it up as long as you said that the members. Agree to send a letter to the town manager. To offer. To ask if we could be of any assistance in. Seeking the new director. It also does give some examples because I wanted to be clear that we weren't talking about reviewing dossiers or anything like that. That would not be our function. It was only things like was mentioned there, you know, at the very beginning to give some general advice and also perhaps at the end to help with the recruiting aspect. If they'd made an offer. I can find the letter I sent to Paul. I know. Yeah. Yeah. But okay, but what we said in the meeting was we didn't want to intrude on the, on the nuts and bolts of any search. That's not our job. It was just to be helpful at the beginning and at the end. That is what's in the minutes, but I agree. We should say. We should say that we offered to be involved. That's at the minute set. And that's what we offered to be of any assistance. That he would feel necessary. I don't remember the exact wording. It was more of assistance. Is that what other people remember? Nine. Well, I don't remember the words that were used, but I think the, the gist of it was to be of assistance. We're necessary not to kind of take over the process. But I think you and Steve are both saying. Yeah. But you'd rather have maybe looking at the letter would help us with this wording. Yeah. I don't know. Let me see if I can find it. Oh, here it is. Here's wanting to read it. Yeah, you found it before I did. Yeah. At our July 9th board of health meeting, we briefly discussed Julia's retirement in October. We're saddened by this news. We recognize her shoes will be difficult to fill. She has a long history of the town of Amherst. And we're quite committed to this. To the rest of the town, that we're willing to do our best for the future. Her zealous and dedicated work to achieve the best health house outcome for all residents of the town. If we can be of any assistance to you in the process of hiring. A new health director, please let us know. Thank you for all your hard work with other town employees during the difficult COVID-19 times. Your work is much appreciated. So. That just says assistance. Okay. And also I'll delete the specific references to things that we were thinking about even though we said that and just put down assistance with the process. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Okay. So be it. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Anybody else have any comments on our July 20 July 9 minutes. Yes, I do. I was just trying to look at them and I'm sorry I didn't do it before, but if we, if you go to the very last paragraph where you mentioned me in some areas. Yep. Can we just do the following? Are you able to edit right now or write down something or already. So if you could just say Mr advice and describe three is he and his UMass colleagues at UMass are working on that are relevant to public health. The first phrase is fine. And I guess the last two bullets are really the same bullet. What I was trying to bring up is that there's a state funded work in PFAS that is going to include testing in private wells and public water supplies. And that the topic is what you've described. So I'm trying to think of some text to change that. You could say how about say two areas, okay, instead of three. Yep. And then say the issue of per and poly fluoro alkyl substances. And then in parentheses right behind substances put in parentheses, the acronym PFAS, PFAS, okay. Yeah, right after the comma. And then say, you're okay with, for example, the two specific compounds you mentioned are okay if you want to. Yeah, I would cut them out because it makes it complicated. So just say, so the issue of per and poly fluoro alkyl substances in drinking water sources in drinking water sources, comma, both public water supplies and private wealth. You can leave out the. It's a definite state regulations going to happen it's imminent any moment. So it's not possible. John, why don't you email me the text that you want and I'll just stick it in. Okay, yeah. Okay, it won't happen while we're in this meeting, but I'll do that. Okay, within within a day or so. Yeah, yeah. We're done. I just can't do it in parallel. That's good. Let's do that. Let's do that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's spent a bunch of time in meetings on that subject. If we can ever get the regulators to let us get to work. A lot of language when you get to topics like that and private wells. So we will be reaching out to boards of health from on a meeting where people are talking about reaching out to boards of health and okay, not our community is not one that's going to there's 81 communities that have 60% more or more of the drinking water supplied for private wells and they're going to be targeted for private wells. And then all public water supplies can offer can vote no can have free testing done but there's going to be a new regulation it's pretty stringent compared to some not quite as hefty as I think New York state was the most recent one you know there's a subject that states are all over the place because the federal government is not doing anything. So it's a, it's a Wild West up there and be fast. And I have no idea if it's a real Lee that significant a health issue or not. I'm not at all. It's not my, I mean, like anything toxic. Yeah, it is if you are exposed to it but is there much exposure to the population as a whole. I don't know, but we can measure it. It's important. What can I have a motion to accept the minutes with the corrections. I wasn't. Yeah, I was there. I'll move we accept the minutes from July 9 as corrected. Second. I can second it. All in favor now we need a roll call Tim. I, Steve. John. Aye. Maureen. Aye. Nancy. Aye. No extensions. No. Okay, all in favor now are July 27 meeting minutes. Find them here. I have one. Okay. And it's very minor in the first paragraph of discussing facial covering orders. The last sentence that said the board is asked to consider mandating mask wearing at all times. I should say, we should say the board was asked by town council. Okay. Good. Make sense. Yeah. Got it. I'll move to accept them with the minor. Correction. I'll move to accept the minutes of July 27. Second. Second anybody? Can I second it? Yes. I'll second it. All in favor. Tim. Aye. Steve. Aye. Don. John. Abstain. I wasn't at the meeting. Oh, that's right. Maureen. And Nancy. Yes. Okay. I forgot you weren't there. Okay. So they are accepted. Now. All these pieces of paper here to keep myself in order. Something. Oh, and Moses. Okay. There we go. So now we'll go to all business first, the tobacco regulations and then second, the amendments to our July 27th order. So do we have any guests here? No, I wanted to recap our work over the past two years. And I can send this to you, Steve, just so that you know, and you did such a great job in the last minutes for the mask and the mask order, but just to sort of let us know what we've done to start, the town has three separate regulations. One, restricting the sale of tobacco products was last revised in 2015. Second is prohibiting smoking in workplaces and public places. That was last amended in 2010. And third is smoking disclosure and multi unit residents last revised September 2010. And due to the increased use of e-cigarettes and vaping by youth, the board decided to review and revise regulations, restricting the sale of tobacco products, which is now titled restricting youth access and exposure to tobacco nicotine delivery products at our June, 2018 board meeting. During the past two years, we have revert reviewed current research on the e-cigarettes, vaping and smoking, attending workshops and webinars on these topics, use information from the mask association, boards of health and other public health organizations, reviewed other city and towns tobacco regulations. One member attended special presentations on vaping and e-cigarette use at two American public health association meetings. We worked with students from the University of Massachusetts College of Nursing who conducted focus groups with students at Amherst Regional High School and UMass on vaping, interviewed school nurses and faculty on vaping problem in our public schools, developed an educational PowerPoint presentation for the Amherst Elementary, Middle and High School nurses on vaping and developed a draft of social justice based policy on responding to students found vaping and using e-cigarettes and schools, which was sent to the school committee. The board held its public hearing on November 14, 2019 on our draft regulations. Using comments from many at that meeting, including business owners, we have worked on the regulations. We now are reviewing our latest draft of these regulations and voting on the regulations to establish the effective date. And at this point, we're not going to do any discussion because the venue for the discussion was after the November 14th meeting. And we accepted written comments for two weeks after that meeting. Okay. Send me that, send me that and I'll put it right in. Good to like it. Yeah. Because we've done a lot of work. Thank you, Nancy. That was really great. That was good. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So now we have our regulations. Maureen sent me some typos. Steve sent me a piece for. Section B under the section specific to the town of Amherst to include which he added the page and the, and the section. I didn't send that out. Just because I didn't. And Maureen asked the question about. Number eight. The non-criminal disposition. And that came straight from the. Massachusetts association of boards of health. Template. Yeah. I can say why I wondered about that because we have above the state fines that are a whole different schedule. And. I just wasn't sure how those work together. If that's a. You know, I know it came right out of MAHB. I don't know if this was a conflict or it was just a whole different kettle of fish. So if somebody can enlighten me on that, I appreciate it. Because it says not exceeding $300. And we certainly do in the. In the state fines too. Yeah. We're not allowed to decrease the state fines, right? We're not allowed to. Yeah. It just struck me and, you know, I've read this a lot of times. And that's the first time I. Kind of took that in. Not being a lawyer. Jillian. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that funny? I didn't catch that either. And part of that is. I'm time ago. We're not allowed to decrease the state fines, right? We're not allowed to. Yeah. It just struck me and you know, I've read this a lot of times. And that's the first time I. Kind of took that in. You know, I'd say about a year ago when we were at one of the conference, the conference, I don't know how many weeks ago that was there was some confusion around this. Because the answer is you're correct. That those are the fines that we need to use. Oh boy. Or anyone who was at that last training. that I seem to remember there were a couple of incidences where these fines applied. Does anybody remember that? Well, Maureen, you went to that training, too, didn't you? I did. I don't know that I remember that. And actually, now that I'm thinking about it, in the sample, this is in that sample, and these state fines are also in that sample. Yeah, I went and I looked at that to verify that. But I didn't even hear all Sabara, I just... Although there is some description in the where the fines apply that we don't have in our document that was in the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, it named the laws or the regulations that were the state, where the state laws applied. I mean, I think we implied those, but we didn't. That's what it is, is where the state laws apply, which is not to every single thing in our regulation, those fines must be at the state level. And that's what we do say. So I think that's fine, but it just was like, wait a minute. Okay. Okay, that is what we say. Yeah, okay. So number two under penalties for violations of all other sections specific to the town of Amherst, the violator will receive, and then it's the 100, 200, 300. Right. Yeah. That section sticks out there on its own and probably fine. Yeah. Yeah, no, I think it is fine. I mean, the other piece there, too, that they were saying the last time I remember Cheryl speaking about this was there was going to be a certain amount of discretion for us locally with those higher fines also, so that if, if we felt that that first violation was, and this has always been true, frankly, so the inspectors who are the tobacco inspectors that we contract with and are doing the compliance checks, they always contact me and say, okay, here's exactly what happened. How do you want to handle this? And, you know, nine at times out of 10, it's very clear that you must go through that finding process. There are also occasional times where it's, there are so many variables and it's so nuanced that maybe I would decide no. And frankly, I don't think that's ever happened. But there is that possibility for that. So, no, I so I think this is actually fine. I don't know what everyone else thinks, but Section 21 D mentions $300. I can't hear you, Tim. So the section to 21 D which is referred to the state regulations in one of the paragraphs it says $300 specifically. Maybe I'll read that one. Any, any person notified to appear before the clerk of a district court as here in before provided may so appear and confess the offense charged either personally or through a duly authorized agent, or by mailing to the city or the town clerk of the municipality within which the violation occurred together with the notice such specific sum of money not exceeding $300 as the town shall fix as penalty of violation of the audience ordinance. So that one is where did you find that. That's the general masters of general law section 21 D non criminal disposition of ordinance. I believe that that is written that way because you cannot use 21 D for fines that are this high. So it actually has to be a written order that says you are therefore find, as opposed to a ticket. 9% that's sure that just came up on one of our Department of Public Health phone calls. When we were talking about 21 D ticketing for some other type of offense. 21 D has a limit. I wonder if john is talking, because he's muted. I'm sorry I'm addressing something of a personal matter, I'll be right back. Yeah, the part in the ma hb sample. It says incorporation of state laws and state regulations says the sale or distribution of tobacco products as defined here and must comply with all those provisions found at mgl chapter 276 6 a 728 29 and mgl chapter 1261 a sale or distribution of tobacco products as defined here and must comply with those provisions found at 940 CMR 21 and 940 CMR 22. So it kind of outlines what the state, where the state rules are and then it goes on to say. And the violation. Schedule for that new one that's been on the 1000 2000. Three thousand 5000 whatever it is, the higher ones. So, I don't know. It just seems like that's a different kettle of fish, but, and since that is in there. For example, it seems like we're on the right track and the way we have it written because they also have the non criminal disposition later on in the, in the document. Keep it. Yeah, I think so, clarified enough, maybe to add that little extra clarification before our paragraph on the state finds. Do you want to send that to me and I'll put it in. Sure. I'll go in on violations under just under violating, I guess, under penalties. So it'd be page 10. Number seven violations. Yeah. Okay, I'll send it. I'll send you that page and you can see how, but it's either before the penalties or right after penalties. I think it could be either. Put a that statement and then be penalties. Yeah. Okay. All right, I'll send it. Thank you. Welcome. Other comments, suggestions, changes. Steve, do you want it? I mean, we need to sign this thing. All I was doing was I saw that the section that lists the specific town laws, which is meant to be helpful to the reader and the business person to find out. Well, what are those ones that are specific to the town, but that now that list is quite out of order because we reorder things. And plus it doesn't really say where in the document it is. It just gives this kind of title or whatever. And so what I did was to just put down where those are in the current document and also the section number and subsection. So just to make it easy to find, however, you know, if we had to go and everybody has to look at that, I mean, I checked the double time to make sure it's right, but it can be, it's totally optional. It's just a little thing designed to help the reader. And if I don't want to make it in any way to delay the thing. Steve, what page and section where you're referring to. I'm going to go to page seven. I'm going to go to page seven. B. You know, Steve. Oh, oh. I thought I had. Because you had sent that to both Nancy and I, but you know, I deferred to Nancy and to the meeting is that. You're right. I mean, you're very accurate. But I began to think about in a lot of ways who the audience is. And then the man and the business managers. I think this is kind of a complex document for them anyway. And I wonder about them. Doing all that cross, cross referencing. I mean, frankly, what they often do is they call if they have a question, you know, so many of our folks, you know, English isn't their first language or, and so sometimes I think about the fact that. You know, it's a lot for all of us. And that I'm not sure how much they would use that, you know, I think of this as unlike some of our regulations as a really. A document that gets a lot of use, you know, so that's why, you know, we're trying to finish it to go out with the packet that goes out to, to the owners is because they have to initial every little thing on it. They have to. And I mean, you could look at it both ways. You could say that by doing that, you're making it so much clearer for them. But I just, I don't know if it, if it actually makes it a little more bulky and that they might not use it. That was my thought. That's fine. I would say it's totally optional. That's enough for me to say, don't let's stop it. It's perfectly optional. So let's just move on. Don't worry. Don't put it in. Okay. Other comments. Discussion. This is driving. Yeah. So this B under violations, right? So seven B violations. Or I mean, seven is violations. And what? Well, what we're just talking about, you said page 11. Page 11 B. Right. To the town of Amherst include. Yeah. So yeah, that's part there. So it reads weird to me that it just says the section specific to the sections of what, what is, what is this reference to it? I guess this is getting at what Steve said. So this got moved. This was taken exactly out of the template. It's the sections of the regulation. All I did was pull it from the template and put it here and add the tobacco handlers quiz and anything else. We have that wasn't in it. That's all I did. It's word from word. Okay. That doesn't mean that. And they say the same thing above that too. In, um, A section two. Is the same the vibe for violations of all other sections specific to the town of Amherst. So. Sections. Okay. So I guess I struggle with the word sections and is it a legal thing? Don't we mean provisions? Not sections. I mean, what's a section? I'm really puzzled by that term, the sections. Sections of the. Regulation. Yeah. Yeah, but does, does each one of these items sit in its. Isolated known single thing called a section or is it a phrase in a paragraph? I'm just puzzled by that. It's really. Sections. And again, I agree with that. I don't want to hold anything up, but it's just weird language to me. The section. Julie, do you have any comments on this? Cause you've been dealing with all of these in the revisions for the past 15 years. Does anyone come up and ask you what a section is? Um, You know, I'm trying to hear this always with fresh ears and with fresh eyes. Um, I mean, what do you violate a requirement? You violate the regulations. So. Yeah. It's a weird word to me, but it could be that that's the legal speak that they folks use. So in that case, it's fine. Right. Yes. I mean, I think so. So the two questions. One is, do people have ever asked me about sections? No, they call up and they say, Julie, I really, you know, can I do this or can I not do that? Right. Yeah. Actually, also those are all in different sections of the regulation. If you look above, but. Regulations specific to the town of Amherst include. Cause it's sections of the regulation. And they each have a separate category. Yeah. I think the wording is coming from. General law. You know, Masters in general law has chapters and sections. Yeah. Right. I think it's already derived from that. Right. Right. I suspect it is. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right. And again, it's so in a certain point way back in the day, you know, I think it's just kind of wrote their own regulations and used the language that they knew. And then the state had, you know, staff. So DJ Wilson, who was specifically from the state and then Cheryl Sabar two different attorneys. And they began developing these model templates. And this was perceived as a really good thing because then. There was a lot of, there was a lot of, there was a lot of content. There was a lot of content. There was a lot of content that was on the board. They had. The 151 boards with their regulations. There was a lot more continuity. There was a way to kind of have language be similar. That being said, yeah. Yeah. I often don't speak speak various types of legal ease. Like I always still struggle like with the zoning language or And then, yeah, so I don't always have an answer for like, why is it particularly that language? But I do think that Timothy's right, it's coming from MGL language. I think MGL has this classification, I think, chapters. Right. Within their sections. And then they have subsections. Yeah, let's just go with it. We'd have to change like three places. So, yeah, if it's widely understood that a section is a piece of a record of some kind of sub piece of a regulation, then that's fine. Yeah, it's just weird wording. I guess we're also writing this for the lawyers. Yeah. There you go. Any more comments and it's changes. Anything else. So the effective date will be January 1 2021, which goes along with the, the permit renewal to sell tobacco products in town nicotine delivery products, correct Julie. The markets go out the end of September, beginning of October. Right, they start preparing it all, right. So we have to approve it, then will we have to go and meet someone behind town hall to sign them. That's what I had to do for my renewal. They bring it out. Right. That's right, because you each sign it, don't you. Yes. Fun fun. I don't know that it has to be behind town hall. Wherever. I had to go behind town. Well, I mean, I think it really has to do with you're all supposed to sign it. I mean, I think you're each going to have to rent, you know, an RV and drive to Oregon. That's it. That particular detail is. Whatever. Yeah, I think we can figure that out. I mean, my idea is around Robin like one person drop it up at someone's house. You know, the last person I can go pick it up from their mailbox. I'm not quite sure yet what we'll do about john. I mean, I'm here. I'm here. I'm an Amherst. Oh, yeah, yeah. You're back. Yeah, I can show you them. I mean, I'm good back just we got back Saturday night. Yeah, it might mean my co pilot. So far. Really long time. Okay. No, no, it was I wish it was but there's something called the university that starting classes soon I got a job there. Oh, more again with the baby. Oh, okay, forgive me. Okay. All right. I'm here. I'm around. I mean, I'm happy to go to town hall. So it seems to me it might be better to keep it in the hands of someone at town hall and we just like you Nancy did we stop by and sign person came out and we signed it in the back. I see. Sure, however you all want to do it. Let's vote. Let's vote. Let's vote. The motion to accept the regulations that we have spent forever. Who would like to make the motion. I'll move I'll move to be accept the regulations as now as discussed and finalized. Second, I can second it. Okay, all in favor to say, Steve. I, Maureen. I, John. I, Nancy. I, okay. Hallelujah. Virtual champagne. Yeah, three months or two years and two months. Okay. So, what happens to these things in terms of the document or it becoming an electronic or physical presence in the, is there some book or standard format? Like what we just have this document in some words. What, what happens? Yes. So, um, this is a document for inspection services. Um, with the, and then the permitting folks have access to it. So as they create their packets to send out this new regulation, we'll go with it. The other thing is that, um, Does it get, does it get, um, Plopped on town letterhead with a logo and or something to make it official. No. No, no. No, it's not random. You, you know, you have the power coming for directly from the legislature. What you say is, is so. No, no, no, no. I mean, I mean formatting the thing. Like, like if I write a memo as a department of civil environmental engineering, I do it on my letterhead and, you know, I mean, So. Yeah. Um, Just was curious what happens with it. I mean, it's not, no, there, it's just a document. Um, it's on regular paper. I mean, you can see the formatting. It's all, you know, bolded in this and that, but no, it doesn't go on letterhead particularly. It's a regulation. Um, it gets, um, mailed out with documents that are on letterhead. Um, You're so physical still. Okay. I got it. Yeah. Okay. Can I make one suggestion about the formatting? I noticed that some of the regulations on our website, I think it's the restaurant ones actually, there's some very old, they're, they're a PDF, which is basically a photograph of the page is all it is. And so I hope it would be put on as a searchable PDF, which is the normal standard nowadays, but some of them are very hard to read because they're just basically they might as well be a JPEG or something of it. They're not tech. So I hope it would be. Yeah. Yeah, I will look into that. Um, yeah, I can do it. If I have the document, but yeah, I'm wearing you just send me that piece. I will put it in and I will send it to Julie within 20. Let me just, I can probably do that right now. Okay. And I will send this to you. So Steve, were you saying you know how to make a searchable? Well, yeah, I'm sure that the people at town hall do too. If it's, if you're going to have them do something, but I can do it. I have the, you know, I can do it. I can do it. So you have to have a digital acrobat and you have to be able to create a searchable PDF. It's standard. We have hit like a wall for my knowledge on this. So that would be great. Should I send it to Steve and Steve send it to you? Well, the thing is it should be the signed version. Shouldn't it that goes on the website. Yeah. So therefore we have to wait and do that first. And then we'll figure out how to get a searchable PDF. Okay. Yeah. Can we, can we add a digital signature? Yeah. If you all agree. You could have a vote on that. Well, no, wait, wait, actually, um, this is one of those archaic things where, um, I don't think you can, I was going to, I was going back to the Oregon thing. I was thinking maybe he could have, he was in Oregon. I believe this is one of those really archaic things where you can't. We need a hand signature. Yeah. Um, there are things that have not changed yet. Which means in the document, I mean, I always have this problem with theses and disstate things that become PDFs. You got to scan in the signature page and then paste that into the rest of the document so that you have a signed document. It's really easy to have unsigned things, but it's better to have signed things. Yeah. Um, and if you look at all the regulations, it comes up signed with our signatures from 2015. So, um, I don't know if that's the case. But Pam was here and Pam did all of that. Yeah. I suspect it was scanned in through a, through a scanner. Yeah, it was just scanned in. Um, so yeah, I think that do the original documents and then. Yeah. If Steve, you're able to make, um, a searchable PDF. I think that would be appreciated. It is, uh, It's quite overwhelmed with all the things they're doing. And that way we could just look at, he split, get it done. Um, so the other thing I wanted to add to the process is that, um, we also will, um, I mean, the timing is interesting. Um, so I'll have to think about, we'll, we'll, we'll send out a letter to all the permit holders saying that there's a new regulation also so that they know, um, and then to expect it in the next period of time. If it was another time of year, like mid cycle, we would send it all out to them. Um, and then we would send it out to them. Um, and then we would send it out to them. Um, and then we would send it out to them. And then we would just do it as part of the whole mailing, but do us. I'll do a letter to them on letter heads saying you can anticipate this. Um, Yeah. Okay. Um, Moreen sent a couple of typos on the tobacco handlers quiz, which I did. I know. I'm not good at that, but I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. And anybody else have any comments? Nancy, you fixed the. What? I fixed the typos. Okay. The insurer. Yeah. I'll make a tongue in cheek. It's not a typo, but a comment about word documents. You. It's really easy. Whenever you want to have a page start at the next page, you're going to have to have a page start at the next page. You're going to have to have a page start at the next page. You're going to have to have a page start at the next page as it moves between people. Just the suggestions of use of word. So a couple of places. Instead of a bunch of carriage returns, just insert a page break. And then, right? Then you know, it's going to be on the next page. It's just sort of a. Best practices thing with word in my opinion. You can tell it's from telling too many students to do it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I didn't look for new ones. I thought we took care of that the last time. Yeah. Okay. So is there any more discussion on that? Do we have to vote that in me? Julie that we accept the tobacco handlers quiz or that just is part of the. Without objections. I don't think we need. Okay. Separately. Okay. So now. We get to go to anything. Nothing. Congratulations. Okay. So now we get to go to the masks. And I'm going to go to the. The town council sent us a request. Examining. The mask order to extend the mask order to all village centers and university drive, but there are also. Two other areas. So there's. There's an issue about downtown parks. I don't know. I don't know. There's an issue with enforcement. Enforcement number six. There's been many a call to remove. That we call the police department if necessary. Second is there's an issue about downtown parks, meaning the common Kendrick and sweetster park that if people are sitting and eating using physical distance, may they remove their masks? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And then the areas. So I have a couple of notes. Should we work on enforcement first? Is just a, let me ask quite, is this relevant to the, is that article this morning that was about the board, the council directing us to do something today? Is that what this is? Consistent with these questions. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about creating these areas in the village centers came directly from the town council. Complaints about the. Police were at another town council meeting, but we, and we heard many people speak about that, but we've also gotten emails about that and complaints through various venues at the town. About that piece. I just put that up so you can see it. Thanks. The reference. The mask order. Was about. The specifically in emotion at the last meeting. Was for bill centers. And university drive. And yet. So Nancy, would you like to make some comment here? Yes. So I think we have to. Do you mind taking that down, Steve? Okay. Oh yeah. It was the social gathering number that caught my eye this morning. Right. That's going to be coming up also. We're going to deal with them. So the, the three areas are the enforcement, the downtown parks and the areas. So I'd like to break them out into three separate police pieces. And I thought dealing with enforcement was very easy. Do we want to keep her? Do we want to remove under enforcement number six? We may call on the police department if necessary. Do we want to remove that? We can discuss it. What are people's thoughts? Well, whether we want to or not, I think when the council says as they asked to do this, and they, there's a lot going on about the police and so on. And so I, I don't wouldn't advocate for removing it on the basis of anything substantive, except that the town council wants us to do it. I think we should do it. I, I didn't want to put the police in there. I thought they were already. In. In a precarious position. Also. I just think calling a police because policemen, because someone isn't wearing a mask is not the proper use of, of a police department. And they would be getting a lot of calls. That is not what the regulation says. It's clearly says this is a last resort. It has all kinds of language that the police would not normally be involved. However, it is a sensitive issue. And even though I really think the regulation is satisfactory as it is, it's an issue now before the town. So we should do what the town council wants. My opinion. Actually, I'd like to say it has more to do with. It wasn't the town council. It was all the people. Yeah. Forward at town council. And express their opinions. So the board of health is very separate from the town council. So the one thing that they wrote, they did a motion on was specifically. Asking about the village centers. These complaints that have come forward about having language about police came from many, many town residents through many venues. And, you know, I think I also didn't really want that in there in the beginning, because again, we're, we're seeing this across Amherst, the Commonwealth and the country. And the reality is that should there be any issue of public support, if necessary, we call on the police. There are partners. So for example, I did have a very, very unsafe situation a couple of years ago, involving, involving someone with a tobacco permit. And I had to sort of fear for my safety. We had dealt with him for a long time. I remember him. So I had to call on the police to provide for my safety. And they were very discreet and they stayed away, but they, he was aware of their presence. And so therefore he was not going to be, you know, to put me in the position of police. And so therefore he was not going to be, you know, to put me in danger. And so, you know, I'm not going to say that we never use police to protect safety as does everyone in town. But I think that, yeah, I think. And that really, you know, it's true. The way it was written was not, you know, to say that. It was something that was going to be usual in any way. But, you know, because of the discomfort for folks, they really want that clarity so that they can feel. Comfortable with the regulation. Yeah. I feel comfortable removing that because you wouldn't be calling the police about the mask. You would be calling the police because something else had happened when. There was an effort to enforce the mask. Regulation or something else that something escalated unexpectedly. So that wouldn't really be about the mask. It would be about some other behavior or physical. Like. Yeah. Something a safety issue. Does. Yeah. The first sentence. Apologize that I couldn't, or I wasn't at the last meeting, but the board's health agent and other agents. What might that encompass and other agents? That's a great question. So. So. There are agents of the board of health, right? There are. It's the health director. And then. We have three other people who have the powers of being the chief of the board of health. Which really only adds up to about one and a half people because one of those people is our code enforcement officer. And he is really used mostly for nuisance complaints. But so should we in the future want to. In the future? In the future. In the future. In the future. In the future. In the future than that person. But really the process of would be that that person would be made. An agent of the board of health for this purpose. I can talk more later about the fact that what we're doing is. We're hiring someone to be. An agent of the board of health. And that person is in the process of being onboarded. And she will be. Hiring more ambassadors who will be students who will be doing. A lot of public education downtown around. The mask order. The town's purchasing masks that those folks will then hand out to the board of health. You know, they couldn't say. You know, they couldn't use any type of enforcement power, but they will be the ones helping with creating this culture of compliance that we've been talking about. Good. Thanks. What. You say Nancy. Any other comments? I'll just say I'm, I'm in favor of removing the sentence. That's okay with me. Okay. Do you want to make it as a motion? Sure. What's the, what does it look like? I move that. In item six enforcement on the mass regulation. First paragraph, we remove the second sentence. Regarding calling on the support of the Amherst police department. Someone second it. Second it. Okay. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Maureen. Hi. John. Hi. Nancy. Hi. Okay. Second was. Allowing people to sit and eat in the downtown parks. Common in the two parks using physical distancing and remove the second sentence. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you've gotten some. I would just say eat or drink. Question of strolling through. It's more like you'd like to sit down and, you know, have your lunch or drink. One of those giant bubble teas or whatever and remove your mask to do so. I think it's very feasible. So this would be adding something under exceptions. Is that what the order shall not apply to. Is that. That's what it should be. I would say that's a good idea. If you are a person seated. And eating or drinking at. The common. Sweetster park and Kendrick. Park. And. Distance. Probably wouldn't have to be seated and physical distancing. Well, if they're walking with their mask off. No, but they could be standing. All right. I don't know. I don't know. Not in motion, not walking. There's a word for that. I can't come up with it. Immobile. Immobile, yeah, well, not moving. While sitting or standing still, I don't know. Yeah. Something like that. I don't know. Person seated or standing still. In blah, blah, blah. Eating. Or drinking, right? Is that it? Something. So you're trying to come up with some words for a bullet under exceptions. Right. So persons. Seated or standing. In. The common. In those places. In those places. Yeah. Downtown common. Sweet stir. Oh. And. Person seated or standing at appropriate physical separation distance. Appropriate distance. No, it's already an exception. So you're just saying who's. Seated or standing. Eating. While eating or while while eating or drinking. In. In places. Yeah. Downtown common. Sweet stir. Oh. So you're trying to get it all down. We're going to get seating and standing. Eating and drinking and just. And the location. Now, if we expand this to other places, we would have to add more. More places. Cause it's a sort of public area that it might not be any, but is it going to encompass Mill River, et cetera. So, but I guess we better say it anyway. Because otherwise people will say, what do you mean public park? So. I guess we have to list them. Okay. So, uh, why do we say standing, sitting and standing. Just say eating or drinking. Well, the walking and drinking or eating is the one thing. We don't want them walking. Why not? Walking in the wine. Does it matter if you're eating or drinking and at the right distance? I guess it doesn't matter if you're mobile or not mobile. Is that true? That's true. I'm just saying, you know, it could be. I mean, when they're eating, they'll be moving hands or something. You might not be able to have physical distance. But if you were seated and someone walks past, you can't have distance either. I mean, you have no control with the other person. So. They are laying down and then have a couple of next next to them. Yeah. I think it's that you're, I think it makes a good point. I think, yeah, these are hard things, but I think it's not the eat the standing, sitting, laying down, standing on your head or moving part. It's, uh, it's eating, drinking and distance in a public space. That's probably what people care about. Julie, what are your thoughts? Cause you've got all the. You know, I leave it up to you. I mean, I think what people are really saying is. You know, so you've opened all these takeout, you know, there's takeout, you know, a lot of people are avoiding dining in, you know, these are during the good weather, great places for people to be able to, you know, at work, get out of their environment and go outside and, you know, so various things. Um, I would say leave out the, what they're doing. Leave out sitting and standing at a proper physical distance. No, no, no. Physical distance is key, but eating, eating and drinking at proper physical distance. Yeah. Yes. And do you want to, proper physical distance? Do you want to use the six foot? Or are you saying proper in case. That changes that, that. I mean, I didn't read what language you guys have used. At least you didn't say social distance. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What do we have? No, I mean, we know that six feet right now is, is the gold standard for what is considered safe physical. What is considered safe physical distance. Right now is, is the gold standard for what is considered safe physical. At least six feet from other people. Yeah. Because it might be a family. Right. So it says here, I would say. What we have under the order. While maintaining a safe distance of at least six feet. At least six feet from other people excluding members of the same household. Where is that written? That's under the order. It's the last statement under the order. Under the order. Okay. One number one. Where's the, I'm sorry. I'm missing the distance under number one. Okay. Do you have the, do you have the mandate in front of you? I do. Okay. See number one, the order. One, two, three, four, five, the fifth. Sentence. Under there. Nothing in this order shall be. Strude to reduce or eliminate the requirement of maintaining safe distancing. So use those words while maintaining a safe distance of at least six feet from other. Excluding members. You've just added. Yeah. The word safe in corporate to me, the word safer appropriate encompasses all those things. Okay. Okay. If you want to say that you should have amended that in that sentence, then it is, it has been amended. That's not your, I don't think you're looking at the final document because that sentence does say in the final version, I believe it's supposed to say that six feet to get Nancy added that. Oh, I don't know. I don't have that either. No, that's not in what we were sent. It says of at least six feet. Not the one. Not the one I was sent. I'm reading. I guess I didn't send you the right one. Yeah. That's not that there was an extra amendment there that we agreed on and that that's in the order that went, went forward. When I printed the minutes that came through with the minutes. Of the meeting. Yeah. Yeah, you could find it in the minutes. Yeah. I thought I did too. Yeah. I sent the document separately as the mask order. And it's my apologies. I guess I, instead of sending the final, I sent them because I have it also. Okay. Sorry. So if you look in the minutes. Scroll down to the end of the minutes. You'll see. Minutes from the ninth. July 27th. I'm sorry. I meant that. Yeah. So the minutes from July 27th, half of the words you were talking about. Yes, it's there. So not the mask order, but in the minutes somewhere. Where is it? Well, there's a mask order attached to those minutes. Oh, I see. Yeah. Part of the document. Got it. Okay. Now I'm seeing it. Now I'm seeing it. Yeah. So I actually, I'm sorry. I don't even know how that happens. You want to get rid of the trash that document. Throw it away. I don't know how to get rid of it. But I wonder. I even have it. Okay. All right. Nothing in this order should be considered. Maintaining safe. Distancing of at least six feet from other people. Excluding members of the same household. Yeah. So use that phrase in whatever we've put in exceptions. So. Exceptions. Persons. What, what do you want to say? Persons. If they're persons who are eating or drinking in those areas while maintaining the distancing thing. Something like that. Right. So Pete persons. In the public areas. Eating or drinking in the public areas. While. Maintaining. At least six feet from other people. Excluding members of the same household. Perfect. Yeah. Looks good. Was that a motion. Can't remember if we asked that for a motion. We didn't. Does anybody have the wording? I think I could read it here. So. So they'll be under the exclusions and then we'll say. We'll say persons who are eating or drinking. In the town. Common. Sweets are park or can park. While maintaining safe distances of six feet. From other people. Excluding members of this. Of the same household. At least six, at least six feet. So now I need a motion. To accept that amendment. I'll move. We accept the amendment to the. The. Mass regulation. The motion a second. I can second that. Tim. Hi. Voting. Hi. Steve. Hi. Marine. Hi. Don. Hi. Nancy. Hi. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Now we're getting to. The town council. Request. And then. Requested. Extending our mask order to university drive. The north damage village center, which would be Meadow street, pine street, North pleasant street and Sunderland road. And would have to pick the exact start and stops in there. Atkins corner village center, which is north and east street. South Amherst common, which is south east. Middle and shade street and Cushman village, which is bridge Henry and pine street. Now the rationale for our original order. We designated a downtown area that was identified. Before any significant changes to the new mass reopening. Plan of August six. And we chose those areas. It was based on the potential of a high volume of foot traffic without adequate space for safe physical distancing. And. I'd like Julie to comment on the, on the board of health jurisdiction on private property. Such as the big Y parking lot. New market square parking lot. And that Montague road parking lot in North Amherst. You know, if. Would this mask order include parking lots that are privately owned. Yeah. So, um, I understand that the board wanted us to consider this. I mean, the town council. Um, I think what I am a little confused about is again, the idea here was for the very dense downtown. Where groups of people might create. Um, This opportunity for, um, You know, A crowd that others would then be exposed to and not be able to get passed. Um, So when we look at the other village centers, um, Those sidewalks are not, um, Or row. I guess the only place you can really walk as a sidewalk. Um, are not crowded or dense at all. Um, and so I, I'm wondering if that was the intent of the council. Um, to talk about people walking through parking lots or even going into the stores. And so no, we can't, um, We can't, uh, Write a regulation about that because for instance, Big Y or, um, The post office or, um, Or CVS. So I'm thinking of university drive, for example, Or Atkins in another village center. Like those places are responsible for making sure that people are using masks appropriately in their stores. And also when they're queuing up to, um, Go into their stores. Um, That wouldn't be something that, um, That that health agents or the town would oversee. And the big parking lots, I don't know if that was part of the concern. Like our people are putting a mask on when they leave their car to walk to the store. But I think that, um, Again, This would be taking on something that doesn't really come under. The board of health. It's really, This comes under the governor's order who's saying, These businesses are responsible and their parking lots are part of their business. And, um, So as you all know that I've since March, I've been on twice weekly calls with the department of public health. And over the past few months, um, There are many representatives from state entities there. One of them is the department of labor standards. Um, so. Um, We have a lot of, um, Of assistance at our disposal. Um, but I must say that the complaints about businesses in general. Have been, have been relatively small in Amherst. Now I'll have a lot of people contact me about someplace in Hadley. And that, you know, and I, I try to help them with that. Um, but, um, in terms of our businesses, and yeah, Maybe it took a few of them to get a little more up to speed in the beginning. Um, but. We're really not getting tons of complaints if we do. Um, because it is a business and, um, Some of them are permanent through us, right? Then we can't have a health inspector call and speak to the manager. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to say it's big why, But for example, big why. So yes, A health inspector can call them up and say, you know, Hey, we've gotten some complaints about how you are enforcing the Mask order in the store or people are starting to say there's big Cues out, big lines outside and you've really got to be monitoring that. So we already have that capability. Um, for the places that we permit, but. I'm not, you know, I don't see that. Um, And again, there may be something here that I don't know about these Various various centers, but I thought about each one of them and. There just isn't this density of foot traffic, which is what we were Trying to address. I watched the town council meeting and people just skated. They wanted it, but they didn't give a rationale for why. And I've driven through some of these areas and I don't see. Dense number of students or dense number of people walking. Um, and so I don't know why people are saying, well, we want it here. We want it there. They didn't give a, give a rationale. Also, my thought is, okay, we extend this and we have it going On in more places and we have no way to enforce it. And we're going to be the laughing stock the way people are writing Letters to the editor about Northampton. Oh, you have this ordinance. I mean, you're not finding people and you're not enforcing it. So why do you have it? I mean, that gets all over. Letters to the editor of the, um, is that so I think would lose Credibility. I can see if students come and we start seeing Masses of students walking places of then adding certain sections, But it might be Meadow Street or it might be, um, Also, I find living on Lincoln Avenue. I cussed the day that we put Lincoln Avenue there. And we put it because that used to be the de facto parking lot. But now that the university isn't coming back. I walked to Lincoln down Lincoln down to Elm and up sunset. And now if I want to go walk at Wildwood cemetery, We drive to Wildwood because it's too far for me to walk with a mask on. And we have, let's see, what are those men? We have ability to breathe safely. I could take my mask off and say, I can't breathe safely when it's 85 degrees and I'm walking into some, The mask is all wet and it's stuck to my face. I'm just taking it off. So I think we might be creating. A bigger problem rather than addressing a problem, but I, I feel we should wait until we have some data saying this is a problem area. Does that make sense? Yeah. I would guess my experience of these areas in the other village centers is limited to the daytime in the morning, you know, because I don't, I'm not out at 10 o'clock at night or midnight or 2 a.m. But I've never perceived those areas as having a lot of foot traffic. And so I agree with that. My question though is, I thought when we discussed this the last time, we were thinking about outdoor spaces accessible to the public, which would include a parking lot like the Bank of America parking lot or, you know, behind CVS. And when we looked at other, other. Are there. Are there. Those. Like Edgar town. I think they specifically refer to parking lots, although I don't know that those are public or private. Those parking lots are included in our, in our jurisdiction that we've done already. Right. I'm not saying we need to add that. I'm just talking about the question of, is it public? Is it private? Is it public or private? That we're talking about. Are there public spaces? We're also concerned about that people use. Publicly. Like. The CVS parking lot and the parking garage is. Public parking for the, for Amherst. What about like. Bank of America. The Amherst cinema that isn't that Bank of America. The, the, the. Part of it is the town, I believe Julie correct. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And the back park is. Bank of America, but the one right across from the library is the town. Yeah. If it's metered or has that where you pay. It's the. Yeah, I don't know. But, you know, some of the, some of those towns did say public and private if they're accessible to the public, but. I. It's not that clear in our, in our. Designated area. There aren't that many places that that would apply to in our. Designated area current designated area. Tim, do you have any comments? I am not for. Extending our regulations to. Private parking parking lots. But maybe make a request to the business owners, because right now most of the business owners. Are not allowed to enter the parking lot. Request for masks or what are the starts at the door. Door of the building. You don't extend it to what's happening in the parking lots. Maybe. Ask for a volunteer. One voluntary complaints on that rather than make me to regulation. That's just my opinion. So. Steve. Yeah, I think that it's too complicated. If we try to have one area here, one area there. We don't have a specific area. We don't have a specific area. But we have good reason to not make the whole town because there really are places where it's not applicable. So I think it's too complicated. It will be very difficult to define those areas. I looked on the map. Some of them there don't even have particular streets that really. Found the area. And so I think we're asking for trouble there. The one person that did give. And the town council meeting give some specifics was Dorothy. Pam. Who said she was complaining about the bike path where she said it's too complicated. So we don't have to ask for that. So we don't have to worry about it. So I just think this is too complicated to do what they, what they want. And with respect, we should do what you're saying. That is if there really groups to be a problem where we can really see a lot of people or it's reported, then we can reconsider. I was just going to say the bike path is DCR property. The state property. I don't think we have a jurisdiction. Very good. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I mean, I'll agree with the complaint, but that's societal complaint. Although North Hampton regulated the bike paths. Well, they did, but I'm not sure. You know, it is really DCR. And early on, like who knows in the smush of time, but. This concept that DCR was going to actually do something about. You know, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. And the same thing with the notch visitor center, for example. And then they got away from that. So I, you know, it really does fall in there. Jurisdiction. And it's a complex one. I mean, yes, we certainly hear from people. Not so much lately, but. There are definitely times where it's pretty dense there. And, but it, it does not seem to fall in our jurisdiction. I agree with, sometimes it's dense there. I would try it off and walking. Without a mask because I felt like there was based out, but it got to the point sometimes where I just keep my mask on because I wasn't comfortable walking without a mask, or it was just a pain because he came across someone every 30 seconds or two minutes or something. Yeah. It's a busy place sometimes. John, you're sort of lit up. Do you have anything? No, I mean, what? On my computer, you're square lit up like you wanted to talk. Oh, I just was agreeing with Maureen. That it can be dense. There's issues there, but this, I don't think it's, yeah, it's, I do think our emphasis should be on education and promoting the, that ultimately it's a societal making good decisions, society making good decisions. Yeah. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing in the end. I'd like that phrase in our, whatever you, the phrase in the regulation that referred to that concept. The mask wearing regulation about people not enforcing on each other, that we're relying on people to behave appropriately. So the, the general, do we need to vote on this, Julie? The general consensus of the board is to not add any other rationality to it. And, um, People's can certainly identify an area and why, what is the rationale for including it? Because we haven't gotten any rationale. And at this point, we don't see. Specific problems, but we do have a tremendous enforcement problem that would decrease our credibility. Is that correct? I don't know. I don't know. I think it will be reflected in the minutes. But, but I leave that up to you as a board. If, if you feel that you do need to. We'll also have an opportunity at our next meeting to have observed a couple of weeks of post. You know, return to Amherst of the people who are returning. We should get a sense. We'll be. So, you know, we could respond to. Any other comments? Any other comments? A specific issue. Somebody brings up. So does anyone want to make any other comments on. Wearing of masks or facial coverings or shall we. Move on. Yes, that's right. I should say, you know, these were the three. That I've really been aware of one of them, you know, coming from the town council. So, um, If anyone else has heard things that we're not addressing here, I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. Sometimes people reach out to you as individual board members about things. Um, this has been sort of the collection from, um, all town staff and then from the council. Well, the council had, they voted to ask us to do one more thing. Are you going to bring that up? Yeah. That comes under topics not anticipated. Oh, got it. Okay. Um, yeah. So, uh, next on the agenda is, uh, Julie. And then the topics not anticipated. And the new business, which is the status report for the new health director. Do you want to do that, Julie? And then we'll go on to. The request of the board. When you said, Julie, I was like, Hmm, I am. And then I realized. Yeah. So, um, yeah, I want to make sure you were all up to date. Um, interviews. Um, many of them have been completed a couple more this week. Um, had some really great candidates. Um, I've been into, you know, um, Dave, so Mac, the assistant town manager is, um, in charge of the search committee. Um, and so, you know, of course, I've been anxious to see how it's going. And so he's, he told me that, um, uh, let's see, I guess it's been, it has been a whole month. So, um, uh, another exciting, um, thing is that, um, Meredith or Leary has been, um, on the search committee. And I think that, um, it was so, it was so great of her to do that because. Yeah. Yeah. She really. Yes. She is. And she has, um, you know, She has, um, she has, um, you know, You know, such an understanding of the role and, and, and the area and all kinds of things. So, um, there are, uh, and I also, I believe that Jeff Harness from Cooley Dickinson hospital was also going to be part of the, um, interviews. Um, I know that, of course, he had many conflicts. And so I'm not sure, uh, if he actually has been able to be part of it, but I think that we've seen that for a long time. And I think that the, um, I think it's a great opportunity for us, um, to have more functional folks, um, to be part of this process. Um, so, um, In terms of timing, it doesn't look like they will have someone in place by September first. Um, But you never know miracles occur. But the town is planning for, um, when we don't have someone in place. So I think I'll go ahead and say that Dave Zomac, the assistant town manager, will be kind of holding that position of interim health director. I've been training him for more than 10 years, even in my role with public health nurse, and I think that he gets it. He really gets public health. He'll be working with Jennifer Brown, our public health nurse, who's also going to be, you know, of course, closely involved with this, you know, and she's just so ready to step up and do that. You know, I just always have had this concern like what if suddenly, you know, our case is really spike and contact tracing has just come so huge. What's interesting is that hasn't really happened. I mean, you can look at the numbers from the state and you can see we've had this, what they're saying is this incredible increase, but it's really, on average, only a couple of cases a day over the past two weeks. And I really thought that we would at this point be seeing a lot more than that for a variety of reasons, including so many people in the Valley traveling to other places and then coming back. But we haven't seen that yet. And then the other piece is that Meredith has also said that she'll be, you know, a point of contact for, you know, folks to reach out to and talk to about anything that might be coming up during that month. And also Nancy, your name has also been brought forward that not that this has been completely discussed with you yet because we're this is all such a project in motion here, but you know, what? I haven't heard a word. No, no, you wouldn't have because this is all literally like in full unfolding in terms of these specific pieces. And so, you know, the town manager, you know, maybe reaching out to you and Dave Zomek and I have talked about that of course as chair of the Board of Health, you're also, you know, really key and with your long history and knowledge of public health and also your incredible deep bench with research and all of that. So they may be calling on you. Just today, I was kind of prepping Dave for the fact that I thought it might be really helpful if he came to the next Board of Health Meeting because again, Jen is covering, she's covering weekends and you know, they'll figure that out between themselves, you know, how they're going to handle it. It was just a suggestion I had for him and but yeah, so they will be keeping in close touch with the Board through Nancy as chair and let me see if anything else to add to this. I think that's it. Do you have questions? Julie, if there is a definite search committee, could you tell us who's on it? Oh, yeah, let's see if I've got everybody. So Dave Zomek, assistant town manager, Mary Beth Ogilevitz, who is the senior center director and will, you know, those two positions often work really closely together around various issues in the community. Tim Nelson, the fire chief, as I said, Jeff and Meredith, Joanne from HR and I think maybe also Jennifer Moisten from HR. So I believe that that is the committee. I think I've got that all complete. Is this your last meeting for the Board of Health? Unless you schedule another one, this will be my last meeting at the Board of Health. Yes. Wow. Wow. Yes. I know. I have to have one after we can get together. Yes. Yes. It's a great bye and bye. Yeah, we can't celebrate you. Yes, well, it's really just been a pleasure working with all of you and learning so much from all of you and yeah and the same thing goes with the town. I've learned so much from all my colleagues. It's really been great. It's been a great, great journey and I really appreciate the opportunity and each one of you, I'll remember something. Thank you. So is the August 31st your last official day? Actually, September 1st is my last official day, kind of that way. And oh, shout out. So September 1st will be our day of voting and so the idea, we really need people to help with voting. So we're getting people on boarded for the actual polling work but there's also going to be a big need for people to be helping outside with line management and, you know, reminders about masks and so Paul has put out the word for all town staff to be available for that. So I imagine that will might be my last day of work. And any of you who, you know, want to put it out there through your networks for, they're still filling some spots for people to work at the polls. They're just doing, I think it's four hour shifts. Nobody's going to be there for a whole day but there's a big need for people to do a lot of other things too. What it reminds me of is the MR, the Medical Reserve Corps, the MRC, I don't know, for those of you who go way back. What we used to always say is for that one person who is actually administering an immunization, you needed nine other people to traffic control or paperwork or question work. So this is kind of like that. So spread the word if you know of folks. And interestingly here's something I learned. You can be a high school student and work at a poll. And certainly all of our young, our youth who would want to maybe help with things outside, you know, they would be so welcome. It must be quite desperate because, you know, I do that work and they want me to do a full day, which is 14 hours. And so the shifts are normally seven hours. And they're asking for people to work double so that they really need people. I'm glad you're saying that, Steve, because we had a conversation our COVID team with Shaveena and we were gonna, and you're the second person to say that. So I need to circle back to her tomorrow because we really discussed the fact of sticking to the half-day shifts. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very uncomfortable about doing it. I mean it's the only thing I've done that's out there in the public for, you know, four months. And but I really want to do it because it's so important. But I do think we really need more people because they shoot, people shouldn't be 14 hours in that. Yes. No, absolutely. I think that perhaps that hasn't gotten communicated down to her staff. So thank you for sharing that because I heard that this morning from someone else and no, they're supposed to be short shifts. So these are our town elections, is that what? No, it's the state primary. The September election, yep, the state primary. And then it will be, there's this other one coming November 3rd. A lot of people for that one too. So, and it's a great opportunity, you know, I think, especially, you know, so many of us are perhaps over the age of 55 or even over the age of we're concerned about working inside. So that's why I'm really also wanting to spread the word that, you know, for, or some of us have helped, you know, a variety of things, but, you know, the ability to be outside and safely helping with things I think is a true opportunity here because that's an unusual thing that we're going to need. And then the town council did vote to keep, we have several polling places. It won't be just at the high school. And so that'll mean we need to replicate at each one of these places, lots of people to monitor the line and things like that. So just putting it out there. So are there any other questions about what will happen as we onboard someone or my position or during September? Realistically, October 1st, November 1st, I mean, what's realistic? I know that anybody who's offered a job has to be vetted, has to background checks, has to, there's a lot of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm always such a Pollyanna. I'm hoping for October 1st. I know that there are people, there are, you know, some people who are just so ready and are you know, really seem like fantastic candidates from what I'm hearing. And so I think we all know that sometimes things then don't complete themselves. For example, you know, in Hadley where they had a new town administrator all set and then that did not complete itself when it got to the final stage. So it's true that you just really never know, but yeah. This is not exactly about this, but I just wonder with the school nurses maybe not being so available because the schools are starting to open. Is there another plan for contact tracers? Yes, I'm so glad you asked that. So the other thing is that, you know, that is, you know, constantly an organic conversation. We do have the CARES funding so that if, should we need to hire someone to do some part-time contact tracing, we have that capability financially. But the other thing is that what's happened over, I would say just the past month is that the CTC program has really come into full fruition and has been really great. So we've started using the CTC a little bit. So does everyone know what that is? What does it stand for? Is it from partners of in health? Is that? Yes. Yes. This is the state program that partners in health helped get up and running. It's the contact tracing. Is it collaborative? I think so. I think you're right. Yes. So, you know, in the beginning they were off to a bit of a bumpy start and folks were getting kind of discouraged about it, but they've really, you know, hit their stride. So for example, Jennifer was on vacation last week, so I was covering the two weekends and during the week. And so I was so nervous because I thought, oh my goodness, what if we get tons of cases and I will, and then also at a certain point, you know, on the weekend, you know, am I really going to do full investigations? You know, so what we decided was to use the CTC, for instance, on the weekends, and it went great. So, and Jennifer encouraged me with that. You know, I wasn't sure and she said that it's just been working out so well. And I noticed that because I also as director, I get for some, for a while, for some reason, I would get all these emails on very late Friday and Saturday night about, oh, this is happening in your community. And then I would go in to investigate each one of these things and it would be things we already knew about. Well, in these weekends, that didn't happen. The only communications I got were right on target. We're just getting back to you to say XYZ and it was like, oh my gosh, it's working. So we're feeling pretty solid in that area right now. That's great news. Yeah. Yeah. What's the feedback on, I mean, the fact is the Achilles heel of contact tracing is that people don't want to answer phones from unknown numbers and don't want to talk about other people, don't want to say they were in contact. And that's, I mean, it's fundamental. I can understand that perspective, but I understand the need for it. So how's that playing out in your experience? No, that's very interesting. I would say, of course, sometimes you're not going to know, are you, if this has somehow not worked, but we only had one incident where it was very clear that it was, the person did finally pick up the phone through, Jennifer did a variety of things and we had been made aware about this person because they worked in another town. There's a lot of collaborations between towns. And it took a lot of support and a laying of fears to follow through with what needed to be done there. And it really was a very good example of when folks are in a position or fear that they're in a position where this might impede their housing status or their, or their work or one of their family members. And so it is very sensitive. And so, but in terms of people picking up the phone, the other thing that the CTC is now providing us with is data on if they were able to reach people and how soon and things like that. And it's been great. So I think that they've really, and what I think might have happened, but I'm really just guessing is that in the beginning, you know, they had tons of people working for the CTC and there were, there were so many cases to follow, especially in the eastern part of the state. And then you may have heard that they started then sort of releasing some people from the CTC because they didn't need them because the cases had gone way down. So I have this theory that they kept the folks that were the best at it and that an all the multilingual folks and bi-cultural folks. Again, maybe this is me being Pollyanna and hoping that's what they did, but it does. And, you know, and but also some of it has to do with probably with the overwhelming, overwhelming situation they were having with this incredibly new system. And so there's there've been focus groups been being done by partners in health about, you know, working with various populations who are bilingual, bi-cultural and around the state. And so I think they're really honing their skills because that's really what it takes is to have that kind of understanding to really support people through things. But it's a very good question that you ask. Yeah. Well, it just comes up. Yeah. I just have one other question that's on the sort of the topic. So I was a traveler. I came, listen, I came into town Saturday night and we were fortunate enough to arrange for a test Monday morning and at UHS and and we got a negative result on 36 hours later on Tuesday. Now we did that through our physician and, you know, we were fortunate, but I would like to stop the text coming from Mass Traveler for 14 days, but I see no way to enter information that I have a negative test. Like I don't, I've looked in the site. I've looked in the things. It would be nice to be able to end the story negative test done. But probably can't. It's probably too complicated. I don't know if anybody knows about that. Well, you know, that's really interesting. Yes, here you are. You're a traveler. So it's good. I mean, it's good. The system is, oh, also obviously we get them because we registered. We did the right thing. I'm thinking of someone else who obviously had registered and it's so interesting because, you know, I don't know her, but suddenly I'm getting emails from her and she's calling Jen and she's like being right on top of it. But it's interesting. I'll have to circle back to Jen because she's telling us, okay, I did my form and here's the letter and she's being so great. And she's explaining actually that while she had been gone for over a month and she had COVID while she was gone. So it was a whole. Oh, that's different. Yeah. Right, right. And then she registered and, you know, she was, you know, considered cleared and everything and she was fine. But she was trying to really do the right thing. And so yeah, she was emailing us with what her test results were and things. And so I thought, wow, this is just so specific that it's happening by email. So I'll have to, I'll circle back to Jen about that form because I, frankly, I haven't looked at it myself. And yeah, you should be able to enter that. I don't know. It just struck me as maybe, but I can also understand how complicated it could be. So it's a lot easier to just keep sending emails, texts for 14 days. And I can ignore them. It's not a big problem. Just ignore them. It just reminds you. Yeah, yeah. So Jen, and of course, Jen keeps completely HIPAA compliant. So she didn't mention you. But since you're talking about it, maybe I'll check in with her because this is a good example and find out. Just curious. I actually texted back to yeah, I replied to the text, which of course probably won't get anywhere. And you said, can you, can you take me off this, please? Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter. And again, it's a very new thing. They just popped up to have work and, you know, are all the pieces working yet? Yeah. Yeah. Anything else, Julie? So now we'll move on to topics not anticipated. So we have an order, a motion from the town council to provide advice to the town council on the feasibility of amending a Governor Baker's order 46 to further restrict the number of individuals permitted at social gatherings. And what I want to say is presently the governor's order is at 50. The town council discussed numbers of 10, 20, 25 at its Monday meeting. And the Board of Health is very concerned about the possibility of large public gatherings as people return from Amherst. One member of our board identified. You mean the council? The council. No, no, the board. We as a Board of Health are concerned about, what was your question? I don't know. You're just reading. Okay. I said, I read the order. Right. And then I said, we as a Board of Health are concerned about the possibility of large public gatherings as people return to Amherst. And that one member of the board looked up and found two large cities in another college town where size of gatherings had been restricted. But in Massachusetts, no Board of Health as of yet has developed a gathering size or an order or a mandate. And all other towns are using the governor's direction. And what's different from us and these other places is that in Massachusetts, there are 351 boards of health. And in other parts of the country, and in these, these three locations, it was a city within the county and it was a county or a borough wide either came through the health department or through the borough council so that they were much different. So we now can discuss what our, our thoughts are and, and what we want to get back to the town council. Which is exterior, interior, both exterior, I believe it didn't. Well, the numbers are different for in and out. I know. Well, let's talk about exterior first. Yeah, can I just say something to that I wanted to add to this? Because of course this was being talked about at the council meeting, I think almost a month ago too. So during this month, myself and other town staff have been talking about this and looking at it. I reached out to the assistant commissioner of public health, Janet Ferguson. And also to Cheryl Sabara. I know I'm always quoting Cheryl. So Cheryl is an attorney, as you know. She also has recently been made the director, executive director of the mass association of health boards. And again, so, so referencing this, this call that we have twice a week, I had also boards of health, and not boards of health, you know, health department staff or towns who don't have staff, sometimes a board member puts in a question to our folks at DPH. And they try to look at all those questions ahead of time and answer them. I wasn't able to get an answer that way, but both Cheryl and Janet were wonderful to email with me later. And so both of them expressed a lot of concern about the board of health being able to do something about this. Because board of health's ability to regulate, I'm going to look at some of the language from Gianna. So the local health has a very limited authority to enter private property without the express approval of an occupant. So for example, now, of course, if there's a huge party happening and you're seeing it right from the street, you know, you know that it's happening, it's not like you have to go up to the door and knock on the door and say, oh, you're having a party in your backyard. But the main thing that they were both stressing is that they're wondering how constitutional this could be. It will very likely end up in court. It's, it would be an unusual thing for a board of health in Massachusetts to do. And then, so then fast forward a little bit, our COVID team, which is the town manager, assistant town manager, myself, the police chief, the fire chief, department of DPW director. We had a meeting with two of the town's town council from Copeland and Page, you know, not, you know, not counselors, town council, like attorneys, and discuss this at length with them. And so, of course, there would be a way for, so this is talking about specifically if the board wrote a regulation. So there would be a way you could do it. Their feeling was it's going to get challenged in court. That was also, I believe, what they were saying about if the town council creates a bylaw, is that this is going to be challenged. I think from, especially from either point of view, I mean, especially from a board of health point of view, this is an example of something that we definitely wouldn't be able to enforce in any way because our staff work Monday through Friday, 8 to 4.30. And so having large gatherings is going to happen at night and on the weekends. So by definition, you're creating something that the police are going to have to respond to. And so I think that's something that really needs to be out there. I had one last thing I wanted to say about that, which is that I just lost it. It'll come back. I don't want to take up all the airspace here. But so the council's motion, I believe is, and I do think that I do think really that the council is also wondering if the Board of Health would write a regulation. So again, that's why I'm speaking to that. But I think they also are curious about the Board's, Nancy read the language, the Board's advice. I think the word was it. Let's see. Provide advice to the town council on the feasibility of amending Governor Baker's order number for 46 to restrict, to further restrict the number of individuals permitted at social gatherings. So I'll just leave it to you. I just wanted to say what I, and then also just to reiterate Nancy's point, there are, you know, we also as a staff looked around at other states with college towns like, oh, what's everyone else doing? And it is, of course, always gets back to that fascinating concept that Massachusetts is one of only two or three states that does not have large county systems. So the large county systems, some of them can have as many as 70 employees. So it's and multiple office sites where they offer all kinds of things. So it is different in Massachusetts, for sure, the way we operate different and very unique. So I'll stop talking so that you all can have your conversation. So I had a couple of thoughts about this. I think the first is we don't want to drive things inside because inside is much worse than outside. The second is if you really look at the governor's order, it's not just a total number, but it also describes a density of one, you know, what is it? Eight per thousand per 1,000 square feet. And that applies inside and outside. So I think most of the things that people see and are upset by are actually covered under the governor's order, you know, like the 20 people playing beer pong in the front yard. I went outside in my yard to figure out, I looked at an area and it was like 1,400 square feet. It's pretty big. And I could have 11 people there by the governor's order. That would be, you know, not a problem. You know, it's pretty sparse. So I think those two factors are some things that I thought about in terms of that doesn't help at all with enforcement at midnight on a Saturday. So, but, you know, for those large gatherings that could, that generally would occur, whether they will continue to occur, we don't know yet. But if they go against the governor's order already. How is that going to be enforced? How is the governor's going to be enforced? Well, they do have it not help with enforcement in any way. Well, but the governor's order certainly has a long paragraph as a whole discussion about enforcement. And, you know, they're planning to do something and to support towns in the towns enforced. They say that maybe hasn't happened yet. Could I say why I raise this? I mean, there is a huge amount of concern in the part of the town. I mean, we just responded to reports. Oh, people don't want the police. So we did something. There's a huge amount of concern in the town about the prospect of large gatherings. And, you know, people are going to get killed. There's 24 people died just a few blocks away down the center for extended care already. And you have, if you have an amplification through one social distancing, through one social gathering, it can cause a large spike and has a big effect. So it's something that to me is just like by far the most significant health aspect that we're dealing with here in terms of coronavirus effect on the town. And so, you know, yes, we have 351 cities and towns that that is, you know, it's a terrible way to deal with global warming or glyphosate, but it's perfect for this because we are unique among the 351 cities and towns in the number of students, non resident students that come into our town from all over the place, all over the country and indeed the world. So it's very good that we have a local system that could address this. Now it may be, I do see that the town council said feasibility. I thought they were going to ask us, just tell us the health consequences, just tell us the health aspects and let them deal with the feasibility. So they have said we should deal with the feasibility. So I guess we're right to say, oh, we can't do it. We can't enforce it and so on. I do think that in terms of the health effects, this is a key thing you will have one, it's all over the country. The governor mentioned, you know, a particular party in Chelsea and another one in Chatham in his order, that there's individual events that have caused terrible amplifications of the number of cases. So if there's one thing that we can do to stop it, we really should consider it. And I guess maybe the idea is it's not feasible or somebody's going to sue. I don't know who will sue. It's not a business issue, but maybe somebody will sue. How is, you know, you say that these are large places, the places that did it. State College, Pennsylvania is not a large city, but it has a huge university and the local jurisdiction limited it to 10 people gathering. And also the other ones I looked at, state, Austin, Texas, that's a bigger city, but still it's a city with a large university and they limited it. And the other one was, sorry, didn't bring it down with me here, but there's a third one that is a large university. Oh yeah, Madison, Wisconsin, it's a small city and a large university and they, the local jurisdiction limited it. Now all three of those places are bigger than Amherst, so it may be true that we just can't do it, but this is a reasonable thing to consider. And from the health point of view alone, it's something that we have a possibility of really helping people not get sick and die. If there's anything we can do to limit those gatherings, because all around the country, they've proved to be the undoing of the progress that was made by those places. The state of Rhode Island now has a limit of 15. The whole state of Rhode Island just did it. And there are other, a couple of other states, Texas, I read, I looked at their law, it seems to limited to 10 in the entire state of Texas. That seems like it couldn't be so, but that's what it says. So the limit of 50, I really appreciate Maureen's point though. It may be that it's really covered by the distancing by the 1,000 square feet, but it really has the potential to greatly reduce the spread if we can stop people from gathering in very large groups, especially if they are slightly drunk and everything else. It's going to be a problem. So, but we were asked to discuss feasibility and I take what everybody's saying. I think Julie, I believe what you're saying and that it may just be that we can't do it for various reasons. I just want to add, there's two things that I forgot to say. I just want to add them in here and thank you Steve, that was great. So another piece here to just remember, because of course the concern is these very huge gatherings, but this will also affect everyone in town. So it does create some complexities for those who are not going to have something that's really huge. So I want to put that out there. And then the other piece is that you all know that we're part of this team with UMass. So it's 17 people, some from UMass, some from some town officials. We meet weekly. We meet this morning and we meet every Thursday. And so I really do want to commend UMass for all the work they're doing around educating students, thinking about ways to help with this issue. So this gets back to the concept of the ambassadors. So there is discussion that one of the best ways to reach, for instance, the student population who may be the ones having these parties, is via other students. So there are discussions around having these ambassadors that get hired by the town and are overseen by someone who already has a lot of experience at UMass working in health promotion. A lot of us know through the CCC committee at UMass. And so the idea is being developed and fleshed out that these ambassadors could be the ones to possibly go to the parties and be like, hey, you've got to stop doing this. It's part of the agreement that you've signed. It's part of the expectation. And Tony Maroulas and has committed to being the touch person for this also, the large gatherings that might happen off campus. And Sally Lemowski is also going to be very involved with this. So I think that this is an example of something really great that's coming out of this group that's working with UMass. The other thing that's being developed is this phone and email line that anyone can report any time of day, what's going on. That's probably going to be on the town side. And so now, of course, there's not going to, there isn't going to be able to be a live person on that 24 hours a day. We would have loved that not going to be able to happen. But what could happen is some of those things that go through that line are then going to be addressed the very next morning. Now that's not really going to help in terms of stopping the actual event at that time at night. So these are sort of layers of things because one thing that will be important will be also be the follow up. Like, hey, we heard that there are a lot of complaints about this address. The police were out because of a noise complaint. We know they had to disperse the party because of the noise complaint and the fact that you weren't social distancing and wearing masks. We also heard that there were ambassadors out here talking with you. So it would be this layer of things. And, you know, in some ways I feel like I'm speaking a little prematurely because this hasn't all been figured out yet. But these are the really active conversations that are going on that are really, I think, going to be bearing some fruit here. Because, you know, again, it gets back to, you know, this is one of my things as a nurse and as a public health person, how do you actually get people to change their behavior, you know? And what could actually, you know, prevent the next event? So again, I will now be quiet so we can have your conversation. I just wanted to make sure I cut that out. Could I just ask one thing? If all of the students that are returning, the great majority of whom are going to be off campus now, if all of them signed that agreement, I would be much less concerned. But what I heard in the town council meeting with probing questions by our representatives, by the town councilors, is that there is no requirement for off-campus students to sign that agreement. And some have, but many have it. And so those people, you know, that agreement is very powerful. I think if somebody signed something, I really can see that it would have an effect. But what's the evidence that, you know, she's gotten a bunch of them back, but my understanding was that there's no requirement just because you're taking, you know, because why would you? The kid could be anywhere and be taking courses remotely. So they don't even know who's there. And so there's going to be tons of students that haven't signed that agreement and are going to possibly parking so. So I want to respond to that accurately. So again, this is something that's being worked on as we speak. First of all, they're collecting data about everyone and where, you know, where they could, trying to figure out who's living where. One of the things that will happen is once people are actively using Moodle and things like that, they're going to know who's really actively in classes. And they're trying to work with all aspects of the off-campus students. I'm feeling caught off guard because I should know the answer to if they are trying to get all the off-campus students to sign the agreement. Because I know at the meeting, at the town council meeting on Monday, Nantipa phone had provided us with a lot of data, but she wasn't able to get it all until about six o'clock. So none of us were able to review it. So while you talk, I'm going to take a look at that document and see if I can add more to this. Great. Thank you. Good. Steve, I hear what you're saying, but I guess I guess traveled across the country and I watched a lot of adults not behaving the way you'd like them to behave. All right. So it's a deep societal problem. And for young adults, it's particularly difficult. So enforcement, I just, I do feel that Maureen is correct that, and you work it out, you need 6,200 square feet for 50 people. If the current requirements are enforced or adhered to, it's sufficient in my opinion because if the density requirement, but even that density requirement doesn't account for, it's like everybody's static and you're doing something. The fact is you enter and leave places, I mean, it's fundamentally flawed. It's fundamentally flawed. So I don't know that stepping in and thinking some other numbers are good idea makes any sense at all. It's just not, this is not feasible. I mean, also, I don't know about those ones you mentioned, the restrictions of 10, is that independent of surface area? I mean, so you have 10 people in a football, the only 10 people, what's a gathering? What defines the limits of a gathering? Now, suddenly you're going to have to say gathering A is when two people are more than 63 and a half feet apart. I mean, I don't know what makes one gathering versus another gathering is the whole downtown of gathering. So the 10 people can only be downtown. I mean, it really gets messy fast, in my opinion. We all know what the notion is. We want to not have 50 students drinking on top of each other in my next door neighbor who's renting their house. Nobody wants that. I mean, that's what we don't want, but the rules currently cover that, but how enforcing them. I agree with the concern. I'm a little less, I guess this is maybe naive of me, but I'm a little less concerned that there's a lot of probability of infection between those students. I think there's less, and that's not good, but I think I don't know how many of them will interact with townspeople. You have to take it upon yourself to do the things we all have been doing to minimize our interaction. How did 24 people die at the center for extended care? Mistakes were made. Yeah, I mean, mistakes were made. Nothing to do with students. I think they were very careful. It's just that once it's in the community, it spreads. Yeah. I guess it's people who are front-line workers of different sorts, whether it's the grocery store or the wherever else you're interacting with a lot of people. If there are more people who are spreading it among themselves, it can go to the more general population. I guess I expressed some concern about testing for those general population. It seems to be quite limited in our area right now. I don't know. I have a concern about the situation, how we modify it. I don't really know. Again, not only did the governor's order say that the people should have all this space, but they also should be six feet apart in that space, in that gathering, that they should keep stoves and wear masks. It's not just you can all be there and hugging each other or whatever. We know that young people, people who know each other, tend to drift closer together. People who are drinking really tend to drift closer together. I find myself drifting closer together with people that I know. It's a really hard thing. Tim, do you have any comments? I agree with Steve that definitely this is some sort of a trigger event where there is crowding often. Of course, there is a huge amount of risk involved, but there's also some issues. What is the right number? I mean, zero will be an ideal one. Let's say we go with 20 or 25 if we decide on that. One issue I'm seeing that is beyond enforcement we discussed, it's going to drive a lot of students indoors. That's much worse than being outdoors. I mean, that is a big concern I have. I think the parking is going to happen in the basement, where neighbors cannot see or whatever. I think that is much more dangerous than having this number of 50, which is statewide regulations based on their density, we also have to consider that we are also promoting masks and distances and all those things, which we assume that they will, I mean, everyone will follow it. If we assume that they are not following, then we can think about this as a measure of the number of people congregating. In my opinion, I think trying to find an optimal number, and even if you find it beyond enforcement, I think it might drive some of the students indoors. I've been hearing your last comment. Last comment I'm saying, if we start restricting the students, number of students or number of people congregating, that might have some much worse consequences like driving them indoors or into places where it's not visible to public or something like that. That's one concern I have. You see a lot of fences going up and down soon. Tall fences. Julie raised your hand. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm so sorry. I literally sort of had a brain freeze because I didn't want to get this wrong. So yes, everyone who lives off campus who's accessing campus, campus is mandatory. Everyone else who's not accessing campus is encouraged that they sign it, and they're having really high participation. They know that. There's a lot of people. They say they were saying there's going to be 3,000, but then the other estimates are that they're going to be 6,500. Yeah. Well, we ran through a million numbers this morning, and I don't want to misrepresent the numbers, but I just wanted to give you this. I think that they're also working really hard to figure out various ways to figure out who is in town, where are they, how many folks are in town. I really do feel there's a big effort on that. I mean, yeah, that's what I have for you. Sounds good. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Well, I too am concerned about the possibility of large gatherings in town, but I'm also concerned that if we start putting numbers as Maureen and Tim said, we're going to push parties indoors, which would be a greater health risk. And whatever is done, it needs to be done correctly and not, we don't have enough data. The Board of Health, I think, really can't write a regulation. Oh, yeah. It's the town council. We're advising the town council. That's all I'm saying. Of course, we're not going to write a regulation. So advising the town council, if the governor's orders are followed strictly as they are, it puts limits on the gathering size. Presently. Who knows what the governor's going to come out with next week or the week after? We don't know. Julie, you disappeared. I took it off video. I think our advice to the town council, well, I don't know if we need to move anything or whatever, but I would not advise them to enact a lower number on gatherings. I wouldn't agree to that. Tim, do you have a comment? Well, that's the same. I agree that we shouldn't focus on numbers, but more focus on education and distancing and self-protection as a way because I think this has to come from individuals rather than some numbers regulated. Maureen? Yeah, I have a hard time with just the numbers. I think 10 could be too many and 20 could be fine, given different circumstances. But I think the idea of who is keeping an eye on this or monitoring the situation, making any kind of enforcement efforts that we just don't have that available right now. The ambassadors sound like a good plan, but I think education and whatever kind of enforcement is really that's limited right at this moment. I don't know if they're not everybody signing this document from the student's point of view, but those are pretty specific about trying to keep your number of people when you see in a day down to six or eight. And I don't know if their consequences for your status as a student if you violate these those agreements. I don't know. But I don't think a specific number is going to help us as much as we would like it to. Steve? Those are all good points. I just wanted to be raised and discussed because we would be doing our job if we didn't tell the town council and really explore it. They asked us to based on a very high level of public concern. So I think we did the right thing and everything you say guys say I don't disagree with. Fine. I have that concern too. I mean I really do for the town, for myself, for people who are going, I can protect myself by because I don't go anywhere. But people who go to work, people who are working at a hospital or a health center or whatever or, you know, in the grocery store, they need protection. Just following up on that, you know, maybe one recommendation if they are interested in numbers, maybe they increase the number of ambassadors. Get everybody, all 740 students in the dorms to be active bystanders. There's a statement to that in that document. Just a quick about indoor versus outdoor. I happen to have three classes that I designated as face to face long to go and I tried to get them undone but I failed. So we've got, I've got three or four faculty involved, TAs involved, public health plan from the facility. Lots and lots of work to try to come up with some numbers and approach to having the students in the labs. But one of my faculty members turned to a model that's available. Some of our environmental engineering colleagues have done and she concluded that I'm going, I don't care what they said, I think it's this number, which was about half of what UMass said would be okay. Based on my modeling of risk in the air handling, UMass is saying we can put 12 in there. Nope, I'm putting five. And you know, we're talking about a 1950 building with inadequate ventilate, you know, all the things like that. So people are really on, I think a lot of UMass people are very concerned and on top of things about this specific aspect. I mean, the whole experiment is really challenging. Okay. So Julie, do we need a motion on our recommendation? But what we're recommending to the town council is that we adhere to Governor Baker's current regulation. And if they want any increase, any numbers increase their ambassadors or increase the way things can be enforced. Well, I can certainly convey that. I think also our board of health, I mean, yes, our town council board of health liaison is on the call. So, I mean, on this meeting, so he's hearing this. I notice we have four participants and then we have four attendees. We have four attendees. So when you open it up to public comment, those folks can raise their hands. Do you know how to do that? I do, but I'm not, let's say I'm here, participants. Yeah, participants. And then you go on these. Here we go. And so we can open it up to public comments. George has raised his hand. Okay. I see that. Yeah. I was looking for that. Okay. George, you got you have to, here, I'll do it. I'll unmute him. I think, am I unmuted? Yes, you're on mute. All right. Can you hear me? Distance from the screen. I certainly can. First of all, thank you for taking this up. On behalf of the council, I appreciate you taking the time to talk about this. I can certainly communicate to them at our next meeting, which is next Monday, what you have advised us. I don't think that you need a menu. You will decide what you want to do, but I can communicate that as a liaison so I could fulfill that function. I do have a comment I'd like to make, but again, my comments are simply from myself. I'm not speaking for the council at this point. I think I have to say thank you on behalf of the council and I can communicate to the council what you have decided. Where it gets a little trickier is me entering into the conversation. So perhaps if there are others who have raised their hand, maybe they should speak. I do have one comment I'd like to make, but perhaps I should say that, but I will carry your message to the town council. Do any other attendees wish to speak? Please raise your hands. I don't see anyone raising their hand. Okay. No one else has raised their hand. George, did you want to make a comment? This is difficult and perhaps it's best if I not. Maybe what I really need to be clear on is that in communicating this to the council, what you're saying is that given the feasibility of this, well, first of all, given the governor's order, there already are sufficient regulations in place that would address just about every conceivable gathering that people have expressed concern about. Given eight per thousand, right, and that would be basically you're saying you already have the governor's order to work with and so there really doesn't seem to be a need for us to lower that number. The number is sufficiently, given its other requirements, as Maureen pointed out, and I think others have you pointed out, masking, social distancing, and eight per thousand square feet with a maximum 50 outside and maximum 25 inside, that would pretty much cover almost anything we can imagine. And so given those facts, you feel that there's really no place, there's really no place for the board of health to, well, you're advising us basically that we have what we need. And so that's basically your advice to us is to use the existing governor's order and you also are pointing out that you acknowledge the challenge of feasibility, which is that this is going to be very difficult to enforce no matter what, and certainly the board of health can't enforce it. And you've also expressed very clearly a desire not to issue any kind of order. So that's my summary of what I've heard. Is there anything I'm missing or I should add or subtract? This is, John, the only thing you might add is that the board is concerned about these gatherings, as the council is, but we don't think that changing the numbers, you know, doing some other enforcement would change the situation. We're absolutely concerned. Well, then I will ask this question, and just whether you think as a, I mean, I'm thinking of the masking order that you have put out. So you have actually issued an order that faces some of the similar challenges of enforceability, but you did that. How do you, I guess my question to you all is how do you distinguish between that order and the challenge of feasibility that that presents, which is real? It's going to be, again, ambassadors and, you know, people just going up and saying, would you please put on a mask? It will not be the police. But you went ahead and issued an order on masking. I apologize. I didn't get to the meeting on time. I don't know if you, earlier in the meeting before I got on, whether you decided to extend that order or not. But you have made that order. But it's what I'm hearing from you is that you're distinguishing that order from a potential order where you would limit the size of gatherings. So you do have the power to issue orders. And even though feasibility is a challenge and enforcement is a challenge, and we certainly don't expect you to do it, you did it for masking. But what I'm hearing is you do not wish to do it for this issue of social gatherings. And I guess I'm to the question is, and this is a question now, it's not something that is how you distinguish that in your minds the order on masking versus a potential order on size of social gatherings. Well, one, one answer that was given is that, you know, if you give the mask order and people don't want to obey it, that doesn't drive them to do something worse. And the argument is made that this will force people to do have their gatherings in secret, which is even worse. Good. That's a point I need to make in my report. Thank you. You know, this doesn't address the, like the legal thinking and the concern about whether we can do this. But one of the reasons that we didn't advocate changing at doing a a limit limiting of the number was that that seems to be done adequately by the governor's orders, whereas the mask order didn't it had an out for if you're managed to be six feet apart. And we thought that that was too hard to manage in a crowded downtown area. So that's where the differences between our order and the governor's order. Okay, I think I'll just add to because this was talked about a little bit when we were discussing the mask order originally. An example that I think I gave at that time or I have sense is that so we have a tobacco regulation that talks about all the places that you can't smoke in town. And one of them is on town owned playgrounds and on town old owned fields during registered events. And what we did is we put up signage about that at these places. But when that that regulation was created, there was never really any intent that someone would go out and then enforce that if someone had lit a cigarette. The idea was to create a culture of compliance to change the culture around what you're expected to do. And I believe I talked about that some at our last Board of Health meeting where we were looking at this mask order because I did have concerns about it because of enforcing and what are we really going to do. And so partly for my own self, I was able to see as we talked about this and we talked about this culture of compliance that that's what we're really trying to do in this congested downtown with this mask order. So while when we write any regulation, there are enforcement capabilities written into it. The mask order, just like the one, again, I'm using this as a specific example on playgrounds and town properties, is should something really egregious happen, we have that capability to address that in an enforcing type of way. But what we're really trying to do is create a culture of compliance. And never is that more important than with this whole concept around masks, because it's a very fraught issue. People do not have to disclose why they're not wearing a mask. If they're not able to wear that one because of a mental or physical condition, they don't have to wear one. And so by definition, this is a pretty tricky one and one where more than anything, we really needed to create this culture of compliance. And what we're looking for, it's I also compared it to herd immunity. We're not really, you know, frankly expecting that every single person is going to do it for a variety of reasons. But what we're hoping for is that a huge majority of people are going to do it. So I hope that's a little helpful too. I don't know if it is. No, it is, it is. And again, I appreciate you taking the time to do this because the council doesn't we've been dealing with it. Well, you know, we've been dealing with a lot of different things. And it was one in particular dealing with polling stations has taken up an enormous amount of time. And this issue got pushed off Monday at night at 11 30. And we still didn't get to it Tuesday night until I think like 10 or something at least. And so the quality of our conversation diminishes, I think as the night wears on. And first and secondly, more importantly, we just lack the expertise and experience that you have and that Julie brings so that it's very helpful to have you do this and talk it out. And then I can bring it back to the council and tell them what you said and answer their questions. So it's much appreciated. And George, we do have concern about it. It's not that we don't have concern. It's just how it gets addressed. And John wants to say something because I happen to look at my email while we're having this discussion and there was something from my dean to department heads, which was from the provost to all the deans, which is that PBS news hour 6 11 tonight is Amherst and the town gown thing. There's a long piece on it was last night. It was last night. It was last night. Okay. I thought it was while we were meeting. Okay. You've all seen it. Is it it's have we talked through all the issues? Was it good? It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. Yeah. But why didn't you say anything about it? Now I feel stupid. Sorry. The provost is slow or the dean's low or the department has to slow one or the other. All right. Thanks, George. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all your long hours. For sure. Yeah. Okay. Any more comments? So George, Ryan has our message to the town council. Are there any other? I don't have any other issues unseen. Okay. I will get the last few little changes on the tobacco regulations to Julie tomorrow. I'll send them out to all of you and I'm getting a message. My internet is unstable. My connection is unstable. I'm up a new answer. Do I have a motion to close the meeting? How about we thank Julie for everything that she's done. I don't think we can take a recorded vote, but it's obvious that we really, really thank Julie for everything that she's done. Thank you. I know here in a difficult note. Yeah. It's bittersweet. I have to tell you. Yeah. We'll have to have a little party for you. Yes. Yes. Yeah. After there's a vaccine, we'll have a vaccine party. Yeah. Okay. All we need is about a thousand square feet. We're all set. Let's get together. 750 to be precise. Thank you all. Thank you. I can't believe this is your last meeting. It's not okay. Not clicking. Let's miss you. Careful in your expertise and your wisdom and how you work with people. Oh, good heavens. Every day I learn more and more about my patients. As I said, I did come in late and I wondered if you did take up some masking. Is George saying something? I'm sorry. I had realized that was still my mic. I can't, when you're in this webinar format, you don't know who is present. A, I can see all of you. And B, you don't know if your microphone is on or off. The only thing I know is my video is off. And I guess I thought that my microphone was off. So I was texting someone. And I always do it orally. I'm sorry. A little square got a little light up. That's why I knew. Yeah. See, I don't when you're in my position, when you're an attendee, all you see are the six of you. And when you speak, there's nothing. There's no, so this is a complaint we've had from a number of people about the webinar format. As you know, it's been adopted because it prevents other things that are very unpleasant. But what it means is that I actually don't know that I'm speaking when I speak and I don't know if my microphone is on or off. So I apologize. There's a way of seeing attendees under participants. It's a column. I have to put it up and then it blocks everybody, other people's faces. Mine doesn't block people's faces. We have four attendees. Yeah. Right. So it's the problem is with attendees. We don't have those capacity. But you know, our apologies because also I'm noticing that Nancy and I as co-hosts, which we are not really that used to doing yet, we could have muted you and we didn't. Wow. That's all right. I just, yeah. So that's what you heard. Learning process. Okay. Any other comments? Any other comments? The motion to close the meeting? I move to close the meeting. Second. I'll second it, Steve charge. Okay. Tim. I have to do the roll call vote. Steve. Hi. Don. Hi. Maureen. Hi. Nancy. Okay. Thanks. Take care, everybody. Be safe. And our next meeting is September. Let me get my calendar up. Oops. Is it? And I have too much stuff here. Calendars. September 10th. September 10th. Yeah. Yeah. Bye. Bye, everyone. Good luck, everybody. Bye.