 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. I'm going to do a roll call to make sure everybody is here and their audio and video except Maureen will just be on audio for now is working properly. So Steve here Tim here John here Maureen here and Nancy here Emma here okay so we are all here and we can proceed the first thing on our agenda tonight is our public hearing and I have a statement to read the Amherst Board of Health is responsible for the protection and promotion of public health the control of disease and the promotion of sanitary living conditions for the town of Amherst the board oversees health regulations for the town including creation of new regulations review of existing regulations review and determination of variance requests for existing regulations the Amherst Board of Health is seeking to update their 2010 regulation on promoting smoking in workplace and public places to the revised regulation prohibiting smoking and vaping in workplaces and public places this is the review and revision of one of our three town regulations addressing tobacco and nicotine products and smoking and vaping the other two are one we revised in 2020 that is restricting youth access and exposure to tobacco and nicotine delivery products and the other one is smoking disclosure and multi-unit residences which was last we voted on in 2011 the purpose of this public hearing is to hear testimony from businesses residents and other interested parties no vote will be taken at the end of this public hearing written testimony will be accepted until April 30th 2021 the Amherst Board of Health is a five-member board that is appointed for a three-year term the board derives its authority from the Massachusetts legislature and the members are Nancy Gilbert, Stephen George, John Tobiason, Timothy Randier and Maureen Malay. Emma Dragon is the health director for Amherst the health the health director is an employee of Amherst the director's duties are to carry out the wishes of the board assist in the enforcement of our regulations and to deal with the day-to-day operations of the health department with the exception of title five regulations it is not legally required for the board of health to hold public hearing on proposed regulations before them even though all proposed regulations are addressed at meetings which are public and the public is always invited due to the broad interest in tobacco and nicotine products and the control of these substances every effort is being made to provide a public forum as the purpose of the public hearing is to collect information and opinions the board will not ask for a vote from the audience nor will the board vote itself on the proposed regulations at this public hearing the board will discuss and vote on the proposed regulations at our next public meeting on May 13th as noted this meeting will be public however the board will not provide time at that meeting for further testimony unless a board member has a specific question to which an audience member can offer some clarification after this public hearing the board will accept written testimony for a period of 22 days until April 30th the letters can be emailed or mailed or delivered to dragon e at Amherst ma.gov or the health department 70 boltwood walk amherst massachusetts 01002 if the proposed regulation is passed the regulation will be posted at the health department office and online and will be publicized in summary form in the hampshire gazette within 30 days of passage because this is a virtual hearing we will be following the following procedures i will be co-chairing this hearing Emma dragon as the other co-host will be muting and unmuting participants whose hands are raised as they are recognized by the chair before we begin taking testimony in the interest of time we ask that you adhere to the following ground rules before addressing the board of health please be familiar with the proposed changes to the regulation when addressing the board of health please state your name and any professional affiliation you may have that impacts your comments identify the section of the regulation that you wish to comment on please limit your comments to three minutes so that other members of the audience will have a chance to speak as noted earlier written testimony will be accepted until April 30th and can be emailed to dragon e at amherst ma.gov or mail to Emma dragon health department 70 bolt would walk amherst massachusetts 01002 any person showing verbal disrespect to others will be asked to leave the public hearing by having their voice muted thank you for your anticipated cooperation and may have a motion to open the public hearing the steve has made a motion to open the hearing may have a second i'll second that tim seconds it and we're going to vote on it steve hi tim hi john yes morrin yes and nancy i the the public hearing is open is there anyone who would like to speak so i actually i'm not seeing anybody um which is interesting yeah i have contacted briana um because i'm just curious as to how there's no one there's no attendees which is yeah so just wanting to make sure everything's fine on the tech side trying to i'm i'm getting some messages right now um that are saying that there's a passcode needed which is interesting so hold on one second okay tomorrow lord's name just popped up attendee one and her hand is raised right so i'm gonna allow tamera to talk that hi tamera can you thank you but the second link you sent me work sorry i'm sorry it was confusing do you have a comment to make on our uh proposed regulations um i'm just sitting in sorry okay well that's fine okay you want to just get do i can look at the email it has the uh passcode if you want yeah that would be great thank you steven and i see don dylan maxfield as is here he doesn't have uh he's hello everyone hello hi dylan welcome to the meeting you've been unmuted thank you for attending thank you do you have any comments uh yeah i i guess i had um a little bit of questions here on this for uh so i'm over at the uh the board of licensing commissioners and right now the thing where we're thinking about right now is going to be it's kind of dependent on the cannabis control commission and what they're planning on doing but we're thinking about in the future of what might happen with recreational marijuana facilities and uh how we want to handle that i guess the question here because looking through your um draft regulations it doesn't say anything about marijuana it specifically says tobacco and banning smoke shots such as you know cigar bars or hookah bars um was just specifically intended to to give leeway to um the marijuana recreational facilities in the future or was that just not a consideration of these uh regulations at this point it was not a consideration of these regulations but if there was any motion to have a marijuana bar we would look into having regulations on those okay um and i guess just my my second question why this was uh how how was it operating in in the past that's something like the vfw uh which is now closed but were they allowed for smoking inside was it just because america never said anything specifically about that and these regulations are now actually speaking to that yeah it was always um a discussion was a former um director of the health department and they closed so it took took it away so we didn't have to address it any farther when they closed but it it was a private club by membership only okay so just so just so i understand sorry jump so late into this uh this conversation you guys really come to the end of this but uh so this doesn't uh affect specifically private clubs um it but it just affects all all other businesses i'm correct about that yes and if it's a private club there has to be a membership and and only members can be present okay awesome we have a membership fee so it wasn't oh i just want and it was and it was a x amount of time that the membership had to be in existence you can't just join for one day go and participate and then unjoin okay cool that everybody worry were any of you others when we did the the 2010 version of this were any of you on the board then no just me okay did that answer your question billen uh yes yes it did thank you uh thank you so much and uh yeah thanks thanks a lot for doing this is uh this you know we all say appreciate the uh the work you guys put into all this so i'm going to read the passcode just in case anyone is listening and what needs it so the passcode if you needed to log on and you can't get in is 808-532 808-532 thank you steve see ed smiths in but i don't know if he wants to talk yeah uh joined them on my way to my home office i don't know context so do you have a question ed on the the prohibiting smoking and vaping in workplaces in public places i don't have a question yeah no okay thank you okay well do so that would be the end of the meeting if we have no other attendees to ask any questions and we have it on our agenda for whoops how long do we have the bit on our agenda let's see here it is to 520 what time is it 514 so we have seven more minutes we need to keep the meeting open so i wonder if we can keep the meeting open and discuss anything it's a hand raised i see dylan's hand i'm going to ask him to unmute hello well i figure if if you got seven minutes open that uh you're just just kind of looking to feel like it certainly asks some just more more questions about this um because i'm just thinking because right now as i've mentioned before we're working on over at the uh the board of licensing commissioners we were really trying to think about private club regulations specifically relating to marijuana uh i know something had come up in wuster uh i think maybe about two years ago where they were able to essentially open a marijuana private club but they did so by opening up a cigar shop more or less the smoking bar and they were able to essentially sell it by saying that you could smoke anything that was legally allowed to be consumed uh inside the bar uh which is essentially how they became a recreational marijuana facility so i'm just thinking as we go forward where we're outlong smoking bar is entirely for tobacco it really closes that route um so over at um the lc we really want to really make the regulation specific to uh marijuana but i guess the real question as i was kind of uh mentioned before you said that these regulations don't apply to marijuana yet but they potentially could in the future because anything we want to do over at the uh for licensing commissioners with that we say it's okay but then the board of health wants to say no we don't want uh marijuana smoking inside then that would you know ultimately negate our ability to have those so i guess what i'm i'm asking is is that even something really on on your uh radar at this point is it something as we kind of go down the line the board of health will look at has there really been any consideration on the part of the board of health for uh recreational marijuana uh indoor use potentially during a public hearing we're not discussing anything we can take that under advisement and we can discuss it at another uh board of health meeting but but that's not part of of the hearing okay what wonderful yeah then i just wanted to let you guys know what we're up to over there and uh perfect thank you so much thank you all right let's see what time was it we have three more minutes yeah it is five seventeen i know i anticipated a lot of discussion and public comment with this so that's why we had a little bit of a long time for it well there was an earlier email and i thought other people were going to be joining but they did not join it's always best to be prepared right that's right that is right just counting down two more minutes so we uh so everything is legal it's not bad to sit and take a moment yeah yeah we can do some meditation there i i just there's one hand raised i just i just close that participants okay so tomorrow you can speak um so i guess if you have like a couple minutes to kill um i'm like joining i'd like join this because um i got a UMass so i'm like just taking a class where i'm supposed to like attend like public hearings and stuff um so i was just wondering since i like missed like the first couple minutes like um like i guess i was just wanting to know like what exactly like did i miss i guess okay there was a i read a long statement opening about what public hearings were and what the board of health is um and then that we just hear during a public hearing we don't ask questions or speak per se we can it's not a discussion anybody else want to answer what what the public meeting was or at the beginning where did you come in um like do you mean like what time i came in at yeah um like five oh six or five oh seven were we were was i reading off what the public health what the board of health did in town no it was like um you're talking about like receiving an email about someone trying to get in that was me i think so the you can even go on to the Amherst board of health and it just says that we um let's see sorry exactly that we of course i've lost that sheet that we create new regulations review existing regulations and we review and determine do determinations on variance requests for existing regulations that this is one of three of our regulations you can go on to our board of health website and see our regulations and what Emma dragon who Emma dragon is and that um at the close of the meeting we'll accept testimony up until April 30th i think the timer also is asking about you know this is a public hearing but the public hearing is within a larger public meeting so we're gonna we have a lot of other things we're going to discuss tonight besides this one thing so this is just the one thing is just a public hearing on a particular regulation but then we're going to do like approving the minutes and hearing about covid vaccination and stuff like that after this public hearing is over pretty much right now am i allowed to still attend that or is that right absolutely please do okay awesome thank you okay so we we have met till 5 20 so i need a motion to close the public hearing i move to close the public hearing regarding public smoking and vaping okay may have a second okay so now we need to vote steve hi john hi moraine yes tim hi and nancy hi okay so the public hearing is closed and now we will go to our regular board of health meeting and the first thing on the agenda is our minutes from our last meeting and i had one question on that steve for clarification i'm paid to under new business the amherst farmers market is it going to be moved to the south amherst common or the south portion of the downtown amherst common i had that same question i thought it was the south portion of the amherst common but perhaps ed might know as well i think that's what they did in the spring didn't they yeah that's what they did last last year yeah last year right ed you unmuted yourself do you have an answer okay um i can't imagine that it's going to the south amherst common no but i that doesn't make sense to me so it's really the southern the southern portion of the downtown amherst common yes i believe that's correct that makes sense okay i could see something in the gazette about work that's going to be done in the north part and i just called it the north common you know so i don't yeah we can call it the south downtown common i don't know central common south of three days is spring street you have a comment on that ed no no okay any other comments on the minutes okay can i have a motion to approve them with that minor change i move with you approve we accept the minutes from march 11th meeting as uh edited thank you john a second i'll one second okay now we have to do the vote steve hi john hi moraine hi tim hi fancy i okay so we have that now um we have the tobacco handlers quiz and the fact sheet so did everybody get the minutely revised fact sheet and the tobacco handlers quiz steve sent me a couple of corrections uh one is on question seven on the quiz to say legal is it is it legal to sell a cigar and the other one was i had an error on question one of the last questions question 14 i had both a and b but i should change it to both of the above yeah um so a and b right because i first started doing abc and then i took it out so i didn't catch that does anyone have any questions on the quiz or comments um i'm just reading this for the first time this is kind of a uh actually i mean recently i often make this point to students when they write such a sentence that measuring something does not ensure anything so to like people will say we test the water to ensure it's in compliance with the regulations no you test the water to have to have information to evaluate if but it doesn't ensure anything and especially insure i don't know what i mean where is where are you seeing number 14 number 14 number 14 that we do conduct blank throughout the year to ensure retailers do not sell tobacco to members i mean there's no way those two checks can ensure that um so i i don't know what the right language is but i always hate that kind of sentence because it does just doesn't cut it i don't know what the right word against to assist retailers and not selling tobacco products to minors i would say agents of the embers board of health assess compliance with regulations by conducting blank throughout the year okay would you do do you send that to me john what would you just send that to me i'll try because we already voted on this all right hey it's not a big deal it's not a big deal i mean i'm just saying it's a pet peeve of language use of mind that but i think most people you know just send me the correction but just send me the correction i'll put it in well okay all right am i off the wall here are you anybody else agree with me that that measuring things doesn't insure anything all it does is give you information to use to assess against some regulation or plan or whatever the goal is to insure it but the measurement doesn't do it you're right the process is in place to to uh to you know make to help or check on compliance it's to help people be compliant and not get fined right not lose their ability to sell for three seven or whatever days yeah i'll try to send you email through some more okay so any other minor corrections on that then we have to find out how we get this to people and is it going to be on the website remember i think steve had said it has something on the website for compliance or do we hand or do these get hand delivered i for the quizzes and everything i believe they were going to be i'm not sure if they were going to be hand delivered by the pvc staff or not um what that's that's that pvc t that's the pioneer valley come back to that control but this is our regulation so we're saying it has to be done so we can't let it up to them yep we can assure that remember we had the the talk with with steve mccormick from the um licensing commissioners also and he said he was he was trying to put it on there to do online but there's a problem because it can only be done once right per person it's like a user thing it's not meant it's a bill that has the licensing and certification not we're going to just skip that then and not try to do it online maybe right and do it on paper or try to do it was supposed to help them pass it with that on a one time big one time one try but i don't know that everybody will do that so we have to figure out how we're going to get these out because it's in our regulation that we already passed yep so i think for now that we should do paper and we should mail them to the establishments until um steve is able to assure that the technology piece is going to be corrected i think that's a great lofty goal but i think if right now we know paper is going to work then we go with the old school of paper we will mail them to the establishments with the instructions and the resource great so that'll bring us to the fact sheet does anybody have any comments on the fact sheet i put the piece in that i omitted moraine about the sale of flavored tobacco products or any enhanced tobacco product is prohibited in amherst any other comments on that one okay so that will be sent out with the tobacco products i'll make the edit on the on the quiz and then they can go out to establishments great okay any further discussion on tobacco handlers quiz and the fact sheet nope okay with that we'll move on to health inspectors outdoor dining farmers market inspections and any other issues going on is that you ed was that emma yeah i i would love to lean to ed for that um i know that uh there's been a few um one or two residential concerns for some mold that are tenants that has reached out to us as the health department i know that susan malone is working on food uh were mobile food requests and farmers market permits and also for outdoor dining that's starting you can see the great tables outside and the barriers and the planters that are starting to come out um as well as i believe we've gotten our first couple dribs and drabs of camp requests for to hold camps certainly within the current COVID-19 guidelines for day camps and also residential camps are starting to come in ed do you have any other feedback that you have yeah i could touch on a couple things that you just mentioned the amherst colleges probably are largest provider of residential camps especially um and they've decided not to have the campus open for camps this summer so some of those camps are making temporary plans whether they you know end up staying in these other locations that they find um i know at least one contacted me and will be going to mount holiope for the summer but intend to come back to amherst so um that'll be um i i've always thought it actually makes up for a bit of difference downtown for business there are literally hundreds to you know at times quite a few hundreds of children who come in and out of town and it's sometimes their exposure amherst there's a lot of international students that come um to frankly to get something on their resume or their um you know they've been to amherst college they you know can write a more convincing letter i guess about why they really want to come at any rate that's literally some of the things that the counselors and the administrators of some of the camps have said so that won't be happening um susan's working with a number of other camps i believe there'll be a couple based at hampshire college this summer as in the past there's a farm camp that's long long running there that's um been a mainstay of our summer and sports camps i'm not too up to date on those but um they may be the the commonwealth's regulations about those are complex let's see in other things the housing complaints we're getting emma mentioned a couple more complaints are more or less routine um other than that it's it's started off to be a busy real estate season i see that in title five work and it's mostly in turnover of existing houses um so it's you know the demand to come to amherst and the price situation it seems to be favorable other than that i i did submit the well results for the water quality results i hope we're coming to that or yeah that is that's mixed on the agenda yeah new business so emma do you have anything else on any updates for the inspections for health inspections um not really on my end other than we continue to work together with the inspection services department uh and reach out and communicate together um i'm really happy to have ed and susan as partners with that and i'm just continue to learn more each day about how we work together good so um next under new business is the new well at 822 east pleasant street is that what you were talking about it and yes okay so the homeowners are involved in this building project um they were submitting their materials they're hoping to be able to get a water supply certificate um they'd like to be able to use the water starting later this month um in the process of pulling together the information it appears that their plumber had not submitted a complete application for the plumbing permit itself so i don't have a number to go on the actual information about who's doing the connection but the we know the plumber he hasn't submitted his i think his um workers comp information and some other more or less details um where that's in the works so if you want to make a decision pending receipt of a completed permit application from the plumber i think that would be appropriate and i have a question um do we not have a water supply certificate form we don't so far as i know we never have but uh steven mccarthy is working on one i mean we we required in the regulation a water supply certificate separate from the permit yes here we have a group of things that are being submitted but there's no it's weird that we don't have a document says water supply certificate steven and i were working on that to satisfy this request so we will have one i remember us talking about it and me feeling like i wanted to contribute to that before i was done on the board so which is going to be soon so um it would be nice to get that done because yeah it's within a week we'll be we'll be there you're going to have a something to fill out okay is that where the plumber thing would come up um there's an application which i think actually i did not submit with the material to amma for this meeting because it was incomplete what's it called application it's an application for the water supply certificate oh we do have a form i'm we have a form we don't have a certificate per se of that oh no no no but we have a so we do have a form to apply for water supply certificate that's what i was looking for because that's what i thought we were being asked to review yep um okay but it's not complete you said because it's no unfortunately okay we have an application for that's what i was looking around looking oh no that's the construction permit and the property is actually 846 a east pleasant street not 822 no i believe that's actually 822 it's behind 846 the construction permit says 846 right and and since then the the lot was renumbered so that the actual number this is very recent is 822 okay but it's that same it's that location where it it is it's the same parcel and what remind us of the reason why folks want to get a well when they're adjacent to a public water system uh in this case i believe the water supply line is on the far side of east pleasant street and the um dpw was going to require them to resurface a section of road because it had been i think the town had redone it recently enough that this was a rather than have a cut and patch yeah drew a fairly recent um roadway improvement they were going to have to restore it to that level and the cost just was more than drilling 600 feet into bedrock wow and this is one that's far out and it's behind that colonial correct yes that's right it's the new it's the new construction yes yes yeah right i remember all this discussion the last time yeah um about why they were not why they were drilling and not connecting yeah that was it thank you for the reminder yeah it's certainly entitled to i'm just curious yeah we have i'm i'm looking i'm sorry i didn't forward the partially completed water supply certificate but the plumber performing in the connection is harvey revard of yankee ingenuity he's based in monagu the electrical connections were done by a g e electric um and the request was filed by linda rouch who's one of the two owners of the property okay so i noticed that there's a test from water quality tests from july of 20 um a very uh july 15th was the date the sample was collected so after the well was developed and then there's a set of separate iron and manganese measurements and bacteria analysis that were conducted a month later and yeah i think that's it right on quality and then there's a report on it's uh on the well it's the dp report on um well completion so so from i guess uh looking at our regs is there's water supply requirement which this seems to me that has lots of water and do you have any comments on the water quality stuff yourself in um the problems with iron and manganese are fairly common yeah can be dealt with by a filtering system yeah are they putting a like a whole whole house filter in there that's what i would expect yeah manganese is challenging at a home level i happen to be manganese is one of my things but uh in terms of expertise and treatment um so uh yeah it's it's challenging it's too bad but it's common that perhaps would have been an advantage of town water but yeah i mean we do take manganese out of baby carrot book well than before as more manganese in this and we take it out but but uh but but we yeah the public water supply doesn't have the iron or manganese issue it's correct interesting um so and their bacteria they had a positive total coliform the first time but they have net absent on the second ones which makes sense and the first test they had was very comprehensive i mean much more than you'd be required to do many people would do what those n a's mean non does it mean they didn't do the test and if so why did they report the n a result um no it's not a result it's a so the results the n a's are under acceptable level and it just means that there isn't a maximum contaminant level or a regulation for that specific thing in the way that they've written it i mean i'm not sure i'm a little surprised at some of them because sodium there are also secondary limits about but i guess it's so i mean just to get nitpicky there's something there called bromotide chloromethane that's one of the trihalomethane's we have a regulation about the sum of four compounds but not each individual one um i don't know if they have that listed this way um yeah and secondary under test type means that it's aesthetic i'm not health-based um and primary means it's health-based uh and some of the standards are not as straightforward as written here so um i guess that's what they mean by not n a and these just try to look through it's all pretty much not there which is good yeah so they'll have their challenge with iron with manganese mostly so what's our task here nancy or emma i don't know that's what i'm at so what do you want ed would like the approval of the board that they have created a um a water supply that they can use for their new home um you know so it can become a potable water source for them so they want us to approve a water supply certificate yes yes okay and what else is on that format is everything i mean these are it's the water supply i'm reading the regs yeah the only thing that is lacking is literally the permit number um permit for the plumbing the plumber yes the plumber's permit okay and you're okay with that well i i won't release the water supply certificate to the homeowners until the plumber finishes his um his job here so we'll need a motion to accept the water certification as long when the plumber's permit number is submitted to you is that what we need then ed yeah if you'll approve the water supply i will hold that until the plumber's permit is complete would someone make that motion please or can i make the motion as chair okay so i move that we approve the water supply cert certificate provided the plumber submits his permit number to ed is that sound correct may have a second second okay so all in favor john hi sim hi marine hi steve hi nancy hi okay you've got it ed all right thank you okay so anything else you need ed i i think i'm all set okay thank you very much thank you so now we're moving on to the director's report well you got the item in there before that oh wait a minute oh yeah i missed that word i double missed it the board of health member appointments so angela sent me an email that marine tim and john are up for whether they want to continue or be replaced and marine and tim said yes did angela send you any more information to either of you no okay so she will be sending it to you because it's june and john has extended himself for this year and he i gotta be done is moving on i'm gonna seven years is what i that is enough it is moving on so things and i i wish i i'm scratching my head and i continue to try to find uh the sort of water quality engineer type person to replace me i don't have an idea right now but i think we should all think about that but i don't have someone in mind we have a long straw i'm in the third faculty member in a row to serve on this from it was dave before you uh david afield then well first it was serena ergas then david afield then me in succession for about 20 years here so yeah but uh and i don't think david wants to come back no i i kind of scratched i talked to him about that a little bit um one person that comes to mind he's he's on the water supply protection committee and this is jack gem sick he's he worked for uh worked for uh new england environmental and then he worked he might be he's either retired around his own but he's been on the water supply protection committee oh okay yeah and he does wetlands and water stuff i mean i don't know if jack one would be interested in border health or not and then do you think marco would is marco still in town do you think he would like to come back i think he's still in town i you can ask him i mean i don't know i don't think so but uh yeah but i don't know that so in the past ama julie has reached out to people sure and asked them so we have jack gem sick yeah my son also knows him and marco roscata who have been on the board in the past i don't want to come back tim do you have any ideas well uh i was thinking about more junior faculty in civil engineering you know i don't know if anyone i i know that many of the yeah he's john is lording is maybe we should reach out to them without john knowing i mean so the one person who would love it would be right in her wheelhouse um and i have one two three four uh uh on ten-year junior faculty who are living in amherst in this field but i don't want them to do that now they shouldn't do that um emily koppel is in her fourth year um this is what she does water and public health that's what she does um she would be excellent but she's got a you know one and a half year old kid and his pre-tenure and uh it's just not not the right thing i think just i mean i'm i'm happy to talk to her about it but it's not it's i'd be uh disingenuous if i was bringing it up to her about what i thought she should do um another person is working his wife works at amherst college christian guzman is is living in town right at the moment but he's brand he's newer than emily he really shouldn't do this uh um so i it's just not someone that i that i know um there's another faculty member who does water not so much water quality and is going to be tenured next year but um i don't think he he's the right person he's trying to get some land in outside of amherst anyway right now um i wish i had the right person tim who you were thinking of probably emily right or i was thinking of christian christian yeah i mean he's also the right kind of person yeah you're right tim i mean he is but and what's his last name guzman guzman that's what i was going to say tune dancing and what's his name i have a neighbor who's in public health and her dissertation was on water in i believe africa it's gretchen peltier but she doesn't have the engineering background that john has yeah yeah gretchen do you know her at all i don't know she married to steve peltier no she's married to rick peltier who's faculty excuse me rick i met them on i said the wrong game rick yeah rick peltier yeah rick so air air quality air and masks and all of that yeah rick's in public health um she is she's home with three children and she's not working right now because she's being home with three children but she might enjoy the the challenge of of public health because that's what the hd is in yeah i mean that sounds reasonable if you want to ask someone you don't like you said there's the engineering side but there's one person well i'll call i'll call gretchen uh emma because she lives next door and i see her right and i'll i'll reach out to the other two i will say um john i know that you've been talking about individuals who have children and families and stuff like that and and i totally appreciate that perspective but i know that for myself when i started my my term on the hadley board of health i was um still yet to deliver uh i know yeah so yeah tenure i'm worried about tenure of these assistant professors i've invested an immense amount of money and how about that to get to get um to get pretty to the point um that's part of part of what i'm not i but the university whatever anyway stretching people too thin people need to do what they want to do i mean i do that but my job is to mentor them appropriately to take on tasks but there are service roles and professional roles so um it's not out of the question by by any means so maybe we should ask emily and let her decide i listen don't if if you don't mind i if let me before you reach out to either emily or christian i need to do that first okay so all right so you will do that i will do that okay and and i'll reach out to jack gemsick and marco riscata no marco is boscardin boscardin s c a r d i m got it boscardin so john is a he's a geotechnical engineer is rick palmer in amist not for long now he's moving to seattle uh imminently this summer yeah moving out of the house by the end of this month as a matter of fact sold their house so uh his wife is actively trying to find a find their next place in seattle but the bidding wars there are crazy any other ideas tim uh how about chul park he's a full professor right yeah um i think it's possible he's he's very involved in a korean language school he actually was head of a korean american language school uh uh um i don't know if he'd want to do it i i could ask him i could ask what he what he think yeah chosen town um okay you'll ask him john he's a wastewater engineer pretty quiet that'd be very helpful sort of person but he's a wastewater engineer i don't know if he wants to do it i'll i'll i'll find out if those the faculty are interested in that uh there's one civil engineer i might ask he doesn't have anything to do with water or health but his engineer so in your term is june 31st 30th i think there isn't a 31st here it isn't 31st june 30th what made it think june 30th that's like saying it never ends on june 31st june 30th the only we get june 31st one of these years i have a question has everybody on the board been immunized have you been immunized tim no okay because i thought oh maybe we could start meeting in person if everybody gets immunized i don't know what the town's philosophy is going to be on that but yeah i i know that in terms of the town we're still in discussions about um um how to move forward um because it is challenging uh having meetings we're not sure if it's going to be like a dual method because certainly some people still really enjoy the zoom and the accessibility of it um participation has has increased since being able to use zoom as a method so but there's lots of tech challenges with that that i know are trying to be worked out in the background so more to come fully on zoom for a year now the questions of returning to the workplace are really fascinating and starting to mount to me so interesting in many ways i heard humas is coming back full force in september that's what the website says yep okay any other comments on board of health member appointments okay so we can move on to the director's report all right so um wow six o'clock in the agenda six o'clock in the clock and then oh what a good predictor that's a good meeting um so in the last week the trends for covid cases in amherst um we had a total of 23 which was lower than last week 20 of which were associated with umas and three of them were town of amherst residents um a mix of on and off campus mostly off campus and um the ages were really um spread out as the majority the condensed amount really being between the ages of 18 and 21 and then the genders being pretty even between male female and non-binary uh there was one transgender individual um so there was one daycare exposure i know there was one with a camp that we've done uh but there doesn't has not been any transmission observed at either one of those places which is great uh we have arlene read our contact tracing nurse support who's working remotely who's fantastic and really on the money um and we're really excited to be able to use her as well as the contact tracing collaborative to continue our relationships with umas and amherst college and all of their robust contact tracing programs in terms of uh covid vaccine in massachusetts um to date uh there has been over four million cumulative doses of vaccine distributed uh and over 1.5 million individuals in massachusetts that are fully vaccinated uh and then when we speak about hampshire county when we get down to the weekly reports of how everything's distributed only uh with hampshire county there has been 40 percent of our pop of doses shipped to the county by population which is the lowest and disproportionate to other areas in the state that's consistent week to week yeah but actually but it's interesting because then when you look down farther in the report the killing of percentage of individuals with at least one dose of vaccine is 36 percent which is in line for that so that to me shows that people are going outside of hampshire county to access the vaccine yeah and then oh yeah there's a cumulative percentage of individuals who are fully vaccinated is 21 percent which is on the lower side of the scale of the spam but still within expected amounts um and then when we look in terms of how we've been doing with vaccine at our local site uh the two regional sites together have administered over 65 000 doses of vaccine so far um with the u mass as well and then for us in amherst we've done just about 7 000 leading into this week uh we've also administered over 200 home vaccines with the homebound program fully vaccinating 140 individuals so far we're scheduled to go out with our crews again tomorrow with that robust program with a mix of emt's and the paramedics and some hired per diem nurses for that can i ask a question about that sure any any luck or chance they could get the johnson vaccine so it's one and done yeah that's a great question john so that's actually what we're doing moving forward the state is allocating johnson and johnson specifically to homebound programs it comes out of a different allocation so we don't have to um change the amount that we're giving here at our clinics which is great uh the homebound clinic of uh program we are covering all 20 uh towns in hampshire county as well as sunderland franklin county which is right next door and we're really excited about that so that's the only thing that makes sense is to get the one if you can yeah that's perfect yeah for sure um other things that we've been doing uh talking about the camps and reopening which i know we already discussed with inspection services and just really trying to think about beyond covid um with what will not the new normal but as covid kind of progresses what can we recenter on uh i know nancy and i have have spoke a little bit about community health needs assessments um and really trying to do a thorough community assessment to really get a pulse in terms of where we can improve our efforts and really make a strong impact and i know i really look forward for us to be able to do that um here in our department uh we are onboarding additional admin support being funded under the care funding which is going to be wonderful to help us to keep up with phone calls um emails paperwork that needs to be done in response to clinics and vaccine efforts and and also just the overall reaching covid 19 response right now as well as the homebound program uh we have done a lot of focused work on equity that is remains a pillar of that recommend the brain fart lost it but equity remains a a point that we really want to try and meet and keep a regular focus on uh we have been communicating and working with the john musanti health center to help address their patients that need improved access to the vaccine with their challenging hours of work there um we've been communicating with and working with the bid in the chamber to access restaurant workers and other essential workers in town as with regularly working with craig's doors for their guests and employees as well um we have had um some communication with uh community outreach to do to down in south amherst at south point apartments in the boulders we've been communicating and collaborating with the coulee dickinson hospital who just recently this past weekend i believe had their uh van out at the boulders to try and do some education bilingual education about vaccines to improve um adhere like people accessing it to reduce that vaccine hesitancy one of the things that i know that um we just got kind of hot off the press this morning um is an increased awareness now that the johnson and johnson is becoming more of a widely distributed vaccine the adverse reactions possible for that um in north hampton at their clinic yesterday they did um i believe over 500 vaccines and they did have quite a few uh alert adverse reactions for that so that's just something that we're keeping on our radar uh with what were the adverse reactions and what have we been having so we have not had any severe allergic reaction i've seen several people go off in the ambulance so what happened to them yep so some people may have had like a slight allergic reaction meaning a little bit of a rash um where they had to be monitored but no one's had to be admitted um how many people have we had with that i believe for so far over our whole seven thousand in our clinic that's okay now you can go on to what happened so north hampton's doing johnson and johnson yep so we're all doing a mix of johnson and johnson and in north hampton and johnson and johnson advisor with us we're doing all three vaccines so yesterday um there they had they uh meredith reported about 10 adverse reactions um which one of them was a cardio event but we they didn't know if that was related to the vaccine or just happened to happen around the same time um and that person was transferred for to the hospital there was also an article about a colorado vaccine site um that had to close early recently um in response to the johnson and johnson uh at our vaccine clinics here with johnson and johnson so far we've had two johnson and johnson clinics which were fairly small uh and did not have any severe allergic reaction where we had to transport anybody um i think one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is that we do have our paramedics and fire department that we work with here uh we have emergency equipment ready to go um and in the event that for some reason there wouldn't be a paramedic here we still have emergency response equipment of that epi-pen on site to administer right away emma um in terms of uh allergic you know severe allergic responses coming out of the clinical trials was there an expectation of what was what was different between the three vaccines with respect to that were you was this expected from the clinical trials for johnson johnson or is this newly developing i i believe this is newly developing um i think we learn more each day i know also i mean in terms of covid long haulers with the younger population we're realizing that there's more strokes um and chronic depression and mood disorder and anxieties um which i think a lot of these things are challenging when we're doing such quick clinical trials to observe yeah i know you do a lot of great reading two and a half weeks ago i was on a webinar with the johnson and johnson which they don't call johnson and johnson they call it johnson johnson it's it's johnson it's a danish word johnson and um they were saying that the allergic reactions this was two and a half weeks ago were very similar to the reactions and the side effects that thizer and maderna that was two and a half weeks ago and of course it was people from johnson and johnson although it was put out by the cdc it the it was they were the ones speaking on the other hand i i read information that it's been a follow-up to the maderna and fizer and the incidence of anaphylaxis i think was around three per million doses in one and about little less than five per million doses in the other so it seems to be concern you know there but you know quite rare so i don't know what johnson will be uh and and once that it's out there in the real world i also anecdotally heard it's more painful and the people may be more fainting i don't know that's the case or not that would be a good um thing i don't know if the needles are different and it's more painful or if a shot hurts more itself for yeah the johnson and johnson it uh the volume is 0.5 mls and the equipment that we get for it is the same as the moderna for the supplies so it's not the tuberculin syringe like the fizer um so i think there are all of these intricacies that we don't really know about um i i will say for us our our gen brown was following our allergic reactions nancy um when we first opened and we were having around that 1.8 percent but that after the first two weeks it we've really have not seen any substantial path for that continued path yeah and the other thing that was mainly on the webinar was the the five dose vials and the longer shelf life once you defrost it that was and that that's really good because if you go out and make five visits there's five and you have a seven i think it was six or seven hours i i can't remember which it was to use it so it's great for homebound does yep i also said with with that vaccine as with the other vaccines the older you are the fewer side effects they were seeing and the younger you are the more you were seeing yeah the johnson and johnson can keep after it's drawn up if it's kept refrigerated in transport which we bought these great they're traditionally used for insulin but we did buy those for our mobile homebound bags and equipment uh ice packs and holders for our vaccines so they can be safely stored and carried and transported the johnson and johnson for two hours that room temperature is good and then six hours when it's cooled so that's great yeah so i have another question that you might not be able to answer what is the town doing with the since march 14th 40 per injection before that it was a different formula of 28 for this first and 27 for the second i can't remember but after march 15th the town can get under medicare and the free care it varies by other insurance companies that's a lot of money coming in yeah that's a great question nancy so i know that i spoke with sean mangano the finance director about that several times wondering and and hoping that we'll be able to access that because certainly that it's a major pull by our health department and our board of health here with our mission there are lots of questions still with the funds in terms of what bucket they'll be able to go in whether it would be a general fund or a revolving fund i know sean is actively looking out to get those answers but since this is a new system i think there's still a lot of questions to be answered with that before we can give clear answers and there's a lot of costs in this process right with the firefighters and you know other town employees who are involved in providing you know working at these clinics i mean there are volunteers but they're also a number of paid positions that are required so it's not cheap to do it is that money you're talking about nancy or and emma is that cares act money coming no so sorry to interrupt john i'm just so excited uh i normally don't like talking about money because it's not something in health that i normally get to be on the receiving side of right um i just think about my co-pays and all of that stuff um so this the town of amherst and and vaccine distribution and administration um boards of health and and other health departments can enroll with commonwealth medicine which is our uh out of umas medical center to help be our payer um processor for that um before i came on we were not enrolled with medicare mass health or any private um insurers uh we were only able to vaccinate under insured or uninsured individuals on a limited basis um which was what gen brown was doing okay um the last person that had um been able to work this out was epi bodi when i was doing my research when i came so that's really who i got to build off of to get us re-enrolled for these programs um to at least be able to get us the capability nancy to receive these funds once the once the health department got rid of the school nurses and the home care unit that's when they lost the ability to um uh bill and they there's a new icd i always want to say nine but it's now icd 10 yeah people know what icd numbers are they're they're the numbers that you bill oh yeah more in you know and that's how you how everything in in health care gets paid if you have the right code right um and so there is a special code or maybe i think maybe two now for covid covid vaccine things right well that's great and then i just have a another question i've been referring a lot of people come uh and they're usually chinese or southeast asian workers uh today there was someone from um whole foods who came who wanted to get an appointment and i know jennifer reynolds has been helping people are you working with jennifer because she's been doing a lot of outreach yep to get uh uh yeah non-white people yes absolutely so that i forgot to highlight jenn brown um but we don't know but uh jenn reynolds sorry but with i was actually just communicating with her early this morning um we were able to get over 50 individuals of the the population similar to what you're speaking about um appointments this week into our clinics with working with jenn because for about two or three weeks i i i ran out of her cards i would be handing out her cards to people so that they could call her so is she officially employed by the senior center or yes but she's doing more a broad approach i know she's good at that and i knew i was sending seniors in her direction yeah but she's really anyone the she's really been a champion um with that with the outreach um i i also want to applaud helen macmillan and mary beth's team with all the outreach that they've been doing for the seniors um i mean just countless hours i know helen macmillan um with several patients that have specific like case management needs um some behavioral health supports has actually gone out when our paramedics have been vaccinating people to give them the extra sense of comfort and support um i i just really it's been an amazing to see everybody come together for these efforts yeah because i've been you know reaching out to them and they've been wonderful with um uh workers yeah miss sygon would not release she had gotten appointments for miss sygon people at all different points and miss sygon wouldn't let them off work to get their vaccines and she got them their appointments at cbs yep and and most of them are expected certainly i can't speak on individual cases right because of hippa and privacy concerns but a large majority of the population you're concerned about nancy will be at our clinic this week great fantastic we're really working hard at the equity piece um i know for myself i i don't think i'll ever feel like i'm doing enough in that way right um but i'm just really proud of the work that we are doing now can you explain the cares money what what is that how is it coming to you and how is it being used can you give us just an overall view of that sure so there's a couple different ways that it's coming so we have gotten some health department meaning local health specific funds that have been channeled to us from the piner rally planning commission um and those funds went to them as the distributor for western massachusetts from the department of public health um we used a lot of those funds for testing this fall this winter for the covid testing when we did the mobile clinics to purchase our our great new refrigerator and freezer the vaccine carriers that we have that's how we've been able to fund these temporary positions to help us with the covid vaccines the administrative support and the additional hours that the town staff has had to perform including the paramedics there's also the kind of greater town overflow of cares money which comes out of a different bucket if you will which i know a lot of the the fire department staff for overtime that's coming out of so that's kind of the two ways that it comes to us now do the ambassadors are they funded through cares money i believe they were previously funded through cares money and i know um i i think it will continue to be cares money however there was a $50,000 airmark uh that senator joe comerford and mendy dome worked really really hard to be able to have happen so that way the covid ambassadors can continue to be funded this year now on the temporary so that's like michelle i don't know who else how long do you have them to work with you how temporary is it two months three months yeah so with temporary positions it's an estimate of between three and six months we have to anticipate that we're not going to use them beyond six months um however that is always subject to change i think one of the things that we're learning about covid is what we know today and think might happen tomorrow might not be the case right i know a lot of times we're able to kind of plan for end dates in the future um but with covid who knows where we're going to be next year are we going to be opening clinics back up to do boosters of vaccine i just kind of like the flu vaccine after these strains come out so i think lots of unknowns um michelle's position is a temporary position as are the additional admin support that are our the goal is for them to start next week or so okay so it's beyond nancy schroeder correct we have a new hire that starts on monday whose name is tabaya and then the second part time position we have not officially hired a candidate for and have an interview and tabaya will help you with what will she is it she or he it's a he okay yep uh he him has pronouns and uh he's going to be able to help with phone support uh we we've been having the assistance of mary and jordan from the recreation department for about a two month period um who's having to be pulled back to the rec department because spring is here and summer is coming um so tabaya is really to kind of fold into the duties that mary and was doing with the health department email monitoring our phone throughout the day um and helping book appointments if people have questions in the home bound program thank you yeah and the other position will be similar to that it'll be similar to that we really find that during the day mostly mornings and midday there's lots of phone calls lots of double stacked phone calls um so we think that having two people available for that would be great and then with the kind of ramping up of that homebound program with the johnson and johnson coming on board that second person will really be able to do the help assist with the coordination of the homebound program specifically are you working with the senior center on this because i know they get a lot of calls too because i tell people to call the senior center yeah we work um regularly with them i communicate with helen and jen reynolds we have that online form for people to enroll for we also take phone calls and enroll the people that way um i'm also communicating quite frequently with the senior centers around us um just with lots of inquiries so it's been a really great opportunity to build relationships with those other towns and and they just really can't thank us enough for for helping out the homebound program okay thank you with you mentioned people going back to their real jobs i was thinking about the school nurses going back to their real jobs and how how is that working and who's come coming in to fill some of those spots yeah yeah so the school nurses are um kind of stepping back a little bit and refocusing reframing on the schools certainly mary um and and robin continued to be uh very helpful to us um i i believe uh i mean this is really up to michelle uh as being our vaccine coordinator but i think that we're at that moment where we're going to reopen volunteer and recruitment again um i know that when i spoke with lauren davin the other day uh hampshire county now has over 1500 vetted mrc volunteers which is just incredible really robust group so um when we had really reached saturation with our volunteer group i'd say about a month and a half ago maybe right after we started at the high school um we kind of put a pause on recruiting more volunteers but i'm i am sensing that we're kind of at that point again where we might want to re-engage people so i i know um are both of them at as we're i know robin's at the high school where is mary because the high school isn't opening per se any time that they know where where is mary mary's at the high school as well i know that um robin is the interim manager for the school nurses so really likes to be able to be a resource for the other school nurses um they are assisting with the pool testing that's a occurring at the different schools and i think some other um manners that i think we i just don't initially think of um because it's very easy for me to kind of go to that to nancy and then i just think about how much i'm i can imagine that they they are fielding thank you anybody else have any questions yeah i had um one question i was just curious if you can tell this from the data i think uh overall for the country and and everything we're we're thinking what level of vaccination can we get to and and i'm wondering what you're seeing with age group wise like if we just take this the first group that was in 75 plus or take the 65 to 75 from a percent of our residents that there's this weekly report but we plateauing um in terms of no more 75 plus coming in no more 65 plus where are we where are we getting and what's that plateau and is it yeah so i love that so i was looking at the reports earlier and then i closed them because i was like i'm done i won't leave them anymore that's so silly um but when i what's your sense of it i mean so i feel i know hampshire county are 70 to 74 population i believe um we have like the highest percentage in all of the state which i just really love um and i remember seeing some numbers at the statewide of the oldest group in the order of 80 or 75 or 80 percent with at least one dose so that means that that many are going to get vaccinated at least yeah so in hampshire county we're over 80 percent i do remember that which is why i was like we're like a really high number um i i do wish that uh the state had some plan if you want to um phrase it that way with with college age students before they would disperse back home um but i but i don't get the sense um that there is one a special plan no no i was speaking with someone today who was working at smith and they said that that you know like at the health center level but she was saying the presidents and the administrative staffs of the colleges were trying to band together and try to help make something happen but it wasn't clear that anything was going to happen yeah i was on a five college consortium meeting last week or the week i think it was last week on friday on this very topic and and all of the college health departments are in emergency preparedness are ready to go um and eager and and understand the captive audience that they have but there does not seem to be a plan i mean if you're you could be dosing vaccines after your nasal swab at the moan center man is roll them through and they have the student nurses there for a few more weeks yes we do um i know northeastern is going to be requiring immunization for students to return i think a lot of colleges probably will it's a hot topic i mean my understanding at the state of messachusetts is that that's a governor level decision not a individual institution but that could be wrong in that um the topic's there it's being asked by all of us and being asked by there are a large number of vaccinations that are required for college students exactly just seem like why not have yeah as well make sense to me but it doesn't seem like they're yet and obviously nobody wants to require something that in the end you can't do right so i think everybody's hedging on it i mean that assumes the supply and the distribution or whatever works out but so emma would you say then we're we're still supply limited in terms of shots in the arm yeah so we are we are supply limited um we are still not at our total capacity of what we can do as with the hampshire county site um we can the state continues to approve and announce that other additional regional collaboratives are are opening like the big e um in chickpea but i believe they're not open yet they haven't had secured supply at this time um so and then there remains the strong demand on the um demand side like paid persons who want to be vaccinated that still overwhelms the number of appointments that people can get yeah our and i'm not sure i i like to think that not everyone is using these computer bots to book the vaccines but i just i can't imagine they're not when our appointments fill in in eight minutes yeah so that's and our time is moved from monday to wednesday at ten is it correct it did our town moved from monday to wednesday and that's really to help be assured of the total like we will already have the vaccine in hand so we won't have to reschedule people or because i know that's if if it's hard on our end i can only imagine being the person who made the appointment today a lot of college students and faculty that came for first doses because a lot of them were asking me outside well for my second dose if i have a class or if i'm teaching what how will and so there and there were quite a few and there were a couple 16 year olds that came with parents today so were they in there in a co-morbidity the 16 year old i would imagine i i don't quiz them no no nobody dies but but one one young man definitely um yeah had co-morbidities yeah um and i i think the other the other the other there's work work categories too they get yeah if they're working in a restaurant or supermarket or one of my uh advisory undergrads a couple were they were new york state actually and one was one had a job at home delivering food or something like that and in new york where it was that got him in he was going home to get a vaccine uh the other one had another reason why at their home place they were eligible and another one of my my faculty colleagues or husband works in connecticut and connecticut does it if you work there or live there and he and they're fully open for all ages so he's getting one in connecticut he's you know 40 you know yeah well john i will say that massachusetts you can be here for work you could be a resident you can be not a resident for travel yeah we don't need any verification of um address of status um yeah this happened to be yeah this happened to be the age uh i see yeah in other words he worked in connecticut so he was eligible there and they were open to his age group first yeah they're open uh this as of this week to all ages in connecticut yeah yeah but how far in advance can you can you be assured of a supply is it just one week at a time so we we got um from jenna furgusson and except expected yeah we don't know until we have it steve the track it's not much in advance uh i mean jenna furgusson did tell us like this is what we expect you to have for the next three weeks but for me until we have it at this point and then even when we get it sometimes it has to be reallocated to a different location um that's happened to us before so maybe i'm just a little nervous i don't know gun shy yeah yeah so my wife leslie was working at the whitney center in bay state last week and they over she had a eight hour day or nine or ten that became 12 or something because they had they had a bunch of extra extra dough you know dough anyway they were the line was out the door for hours wow oh geez that's great although other questions for emma did we interrupt you and let you finish your report emma or did we start asking away too much oh no the questions were good because i was talking about adverse reactions to vaccines and that was really the end of it so but thank you for thinking of that john yeah so i was going to ask anything x else on other than covid that you wanted to report on emma um i i know that last time i was talking about some grants um i did reach out to the state about the cdc grant they're very um they're in their higher echelons also thinking of applying which is what we would be underneath them um as a sub applicant that's not the right term but they're still looking into that which that would be about health equity in response to covid i know on previous um environmental justice reports amherst has 35 percent of our population we have the highest environmental justice population in all of hamptree county for means i think that there's a lot that we could do for our community that needs us um we have a lot of um english english isolation as well as individuals of color um that i just really don't want to be mitten forgotten i really want um i know my focus to kind of transition um a little bit more not just on distributing it of the vaccine and equity that way but thinking about the impacts of covid beyond just vaccine um within our community some more with that do you have any questions any more questions for emma or anything else emma before we move on i'm pretty good okay so topics not anticipated by the chair i have two things one is um i know at least a brewer because of her email and because of the dylan i know the town is interested in opening up a cannabis cafe along with home delivery so we might want to decide if we want to write any cannabis regulations um i can reach out to sharyl and dj shale sabara who's and dj wilson and ask them for any advice on where we should go from there what are your thoughts are there any state regulations about these issues it's all being developed and i looked online the place where cannabis cafes are the city of los angeles is captive at eight and they have one they have one open one and a second one opening and the one that's open there is some inhalation but it's mainly these gourmet cooks who are developing gourmet meals that have cannabis in the food so and i could not find any other cannabis cafe so that's for another discussion but do we want to look into that area that's why i sort of brought up the smoking things what three years ago knowing cannabis is coming down the track um what are your feelings on that one issue certainly is if people are consuming away from their home they're going to have to travel probably by car and so like that raises a major issue there that you don't have when you're just buying it and then consuming it at home yes i flig re steve uh moraine john or tim do you have the other thing is the things in the air if it is being smoked or vaporized it's not you know it's not just you know thp or whatever so that's an issue that's a health issue yes the same kind of indoor air pollution issues correct okay we're we're all on the same wavelength here but do you have any thoughts my thoughts are i think uh we don't have much information yeah tina so so what sort of step we're making it should be some sort of based on evidence yeah and john and that's a problem because it's been illegal there's no there's very little scientific evidence out there there is well that one professor at the university of massachusetts who we in public health i can't remember her name but i think steve you were at that presentation we went to um she is a resource we could reach out to to get uh more of the the state of the art science on cannabis and john do you have any thoughts oh boy uh i think it's a public health issue being driven by income by money and um yeah i wish that the health would drive it versus that but that's you know i don't know i have mixed feelings about the the whole thing um every time i drive down university drive so narrow on the avenue yeah you know i mean but i i'm i think that that yeah it's a developing issue we should be on top of it in the front of it and the as a board but we have been historically as a town and a board um what fraction of cannabis intake is by inhalation of of smoke anymore i have no idea but my guess is it's not large but i don't know i just given so many other ways to intake uh you know well as a board when it first opened we wanted to have education uh required for first time buyers and we wanted to have lock boxes available and jeff cravitz was working on all that and then jeff cravitz moved to sunderland and all that left it all went into licensing and we haven't had anything um to do with it so what do you mean lock boxes uh for edibles so that if you add a bowl so that children or one one thing that research is coming out with veterinarians have seen a huge increase in vet visits because animals have been eating marijuana of course they have come on okay man and because it hasn't been safely kept any place and the animals have been eating it so um pretty expensive dog food so we should put it on the agenda and and i'll reach out to sharyl and dj to see what's happening and then the other thing that um emma mentioned is for the health department and for the board of health to move forward looking at equity looking at needs looking at hidden populations one thing as a public health nurse and from a public health background it is important to have a community assessment which is pretty involved and for if we ever wanted our board of health i mean our health department to be accredited you need a community assessment i've reached out to faculty at the school of public health and i also known faculty because there's a doctor of nursing practice in public health at the college of nursing although that's primarily online where we could possibly get um graduate students to help us do a community assessment what are your thoughts on that i i can't really start okay okay i just wanted to i put out the feelers and i just and that's part of mine i mean i've done community assessments and when i was teaching at elms after 9 11 i had a lot of students work on solid pieces of community assessments for their emergency preparedness plan so i've done them there and so i'll i'll reach out and see where we can go with that but if we can get graduate students who help us do it because it's very long very involved but if they can do that for a capstone course or something hey we'll benefit and so will they so i'll continue to reach out on that then that's all i have any other comments or questions we can close the meeting then second thursday of may 13th may 13th exciting no we have two more meetings john maybe we can have a party when you leave not that we want you to leave but to recognize your work maybe we can just be glad that we can like see each other all together in person i hope you get vaccinated soon tim i'm all done i'm good no but tim hasn't tim hasn't right tim's the only one who hasn't been may 13th may be challenging for me but i'll i'll see um depends on timing we've got it i've got us i've got to run a graduation celebration event virtual for my undergraduates that day and there's a graduate event anyway and they're 13th and 14th are crazy days but um we'll see what we can do okay sorry that one's out of my control well it's in my control but there's a lot of constraints a lot of constraints yeah well thanks everyone um can i have a motion to close the meeting i move we adjourn our meeting today second i'll second good morning okay moving seconded moraine i tim hi steve i done hi nancy i i just go by the order our pictures are on on my all right well thank you everybody have a wonderful month and we'll see you on zoom or volunteering at the clinic thanks everybody thank you very much emma bye guys