 Continue. How are you? Hello. Thank you. Oh, hey, welcome everybody. This is the May 5th Board of Health meeting Amherst Board of Health. And pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021, this meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so. There is an online zoom link at the top of the Board of Health agenda found on Amherst Board of Health website. And at the bottom of the agenda, there are directions for dialing. No in-person attendance of members of the public will be permitted, but every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite our best efforts, we will post on the Board of Health website an audio recording of this meeting as soon as possible. Also, all Board of Health minutes can be accessed on the Amherst Board of Health website. So I'm going to open the meeting with a roll call. So Maureen. Maureen Malay. Is it Tim? Tim, are you here? Lauren. Here. Nancy here and Steve is unable to attend today. So we will have five minutes of public comment. I do not see anyone raising their hand right now. Okay. So I think with that, we will just move into old business. So the first part of old business. It's a pleasure for me to introduce two outstanding UMass public health students. Bailey Glenn and Emily Connors, and they have been working on the first phase of our community assessment, collecting the demographic data and the best if they can of some of the vital statistics. So I'm going to turn it over to Bailey and Emily. Are you there, Bailey? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Is Emily there too? Yes, I'm here. Okay. Great. So we'll turn it over to you. And I had emailed the link for the report. To all board members. Did you get it? Yes. Okay. All right. I'm just going to share my screen then. Someone just asked to enable screen sharing. And you enabled the screen sharing. Jen. Yeah, I don't know how to do this. If I make you co-host, will that be able to. Yeah. Or if you're the host. Actually, I think I got it. So. We can share. Good. I think I was able to fix it. Let's see. Okay. You guys should be seeing the front page to the presentation. Okay. Emily, do you want to take it away? Yeah. Okay. Hi everyone. Thank you for coming to our presentation. Phase one of the Amherst community health assessment. So here's a quick rundown of what we'll be going over in our presentation. We're going to start with a quick introduction of the project and the process that we followed. And then we'll cover demographic information from the U.S. 2020 census. And next we'll go over census track level prevalence data from the place's health data. And last we will go over a county level mortality data from the Institute for health metrics and evaluation. All right. So I'm just a quick introduction. Community health assessment is a process of identifying key health needs assets and challenges of the community through systematic comprehensive data collection and analysis. And then we're going to talk about how we're going to address these issues. Our intentions for this project are to give the Amherst health department, board of health and other community groups, comprehensive information in order to identify needs, prioritize decisions, identify ways to reach at risk disenfranchised populations, address systematic health problems and concerns of our community members, promote equity and guide advocacy efforts and policy development. And then we'll go over the process of completing the community health assessment. Phase one, which is what we're focusing on today involves synthesizing descriptive and quantitative data, including demographics and general health status and population vital statistics. And providing a written report. Then in phases two and three, which we working on in the summer and fall of 2022, we'll work on descriptive, quantitative, data collection, including determine determinants of health, government and policymaking and community members views. We will review, analyze and prevent, present this data, set health priorities, develop a community action plan, and write and disseminate a report. Okay, so just a quick overview of the census tracks. We figured we would provide this map to make sure everyone could follow along with the different tracks as we discuss them throughout the presentation. So census track 8203 corresponds to North Amherst. Track 8204 is UMass. 8205 is Amherst Center. 8206 is Central Amherst. 8207 is East Amherst. 8208.01 is South Amherst. And 8208.02 is Hampshire College. Okay, so now we'll get into the demographics data from the 2020 US Census. So in terms of age distributions across all Amherst census tracks, the majority of the population falls within the ages of 15 to 24. This is especially true for tracks like 8204, which is UMass, and 8208.02, which is Hampshire College. And in the remaining census tracks, there is somewhat of a wider spread of ages. These tracks being North Amherst, Amherst Center, East Amherst, and South Amherst, but it is important to note again that even in the tracks with wider spreads, College 8 students do still make up the majority of the population. Next, we can see here the distribution of gender male versus female in each of the census tracks. So you can kind of see that across all of the tracks, there is a fairly even split of males versus females. North Amherst is probably the one that has the biggest difference in males versus females. There being about 700 more males than females. But again, it's mostly evenly split among all of the census tracks. All right, so here we outlined the estimated Hispanic population in each census track. So we can see that 8204, which is UMass, has the largest estimated population of Hispanics in Amherst with 1,006, followed by North Amherst with 631 estimated Hispanic individuals. And next we have, we'll cover race distribution. So we found that in all census tracks, the majority of people were white. This ranged from 56.1% at the lowest to 72.5% at the highest percentage of white individuals. So because of this, we decided to further break down the distribution into black or African-Americans and Asian individuals to get a better idea of the next most common races in each census tract. So we can see that in most other tracks, Asians make up the second highest racial percentages with the one exception being census track 8208.02, which is Hampshire College, where black or African-Americans made up the second highest racial percentage. So now I'll take over and just talk a little bit about some more demographics. So marital status was evaluated in individuals 15 or older and categorized as now married, widowed, divorced, separated or never married. Almost 100% of individuals were never married in census tracks such as UMass, Central Amherst, and Hampshire College. And these tracks are thought to be predominantly college students. So that kind of makes sense with the demographic there. And then there was a more even split between the never married and now married. So about 50-50 and other population in the other census tracks with a very small amount being widowed or divorced or separated. So then we'll get into educational attainment. Unfortunately, educational attainment was categorized inefficiently. We felt like the categories overlapped each other. Nonetheless, across all tracks, individuals predominantly reported being high school graduates or higher. And then the three top categories were high school graduate or higher, bachelor's degree or higher in graduate or professional degree. And so these range from the high school graduate or higher ranges from at lowest 35.6 to 46.2, that highest bachelor's degree or higher range from 7.5 to 27.9. And they graduate or professional degree range from 1.7 to 19.6 depending on the census tract. So then we wanted to look at languages. So across all census tracks, approximately three quarters of the population only spoke English at home. So the other quarter of individuals spoke one of the following languages, which were categorized as Indo-European, Asian, or Pacific languages and then Spanish or other, which other was not very common. So it's not shown on this chart. So then depending on the census track, it appears that Indo-European and Asian Pacific languages are the second most spoken language of the area. And again, this is probably depending on the racial distributions that Emily showed. So then next we had household income, which varies pretty greatly depending on the census track here. So the first one we have is 8203, which is North Amherst. And I would say this is fairly evenly distributed, but you do see the highest percentage of individuals is in the 100,000 to 150,000 range. Then when you get to track 8204, which is UMass, you will see that over 80% of the population is making less than $10,000 annually. So that's probably a lot of the students. And then there's also just under 20% making the 75 to 100 grand. So then we move on to Amherst center, which again more distributed, but you do see over 20% of individuals following the 15 to 25. So this could be grad students, students with a little more income living off campus. So that's what we hypothesize, but then moving to 8206, this is central Amherst. Again, it's much less evenly distributed. You have a lot of people making higher household incomes here, possibly maybe where professors live. Again, more research would have to be done to identify who are these populations, but just the spread is definitely not distributed well in that area. And then 8207, which is East Amherst, and then 8208.01 is South Amherst. And again, these are fairly evenly distributed with a big, with about 20% in each making the over the 200,000 mark. So now we're going to move into the places data. So places health data is provided by the CDC and provides 2019 health data by census tract. So data areas that they provide include health outcomes, prevention, health risk behaviors and health status. So we will be sharing a highlight of all the work we did. So we'll be presenting what Emily and I found to be the most important, but for more data, we like would refer you to our report because that has a lot more of our graphs. So to start off, we want to look at high blood pressure. So on the left, we have high blood pressure prevalence in individuals 18 or older. And on the right, we have a graph showing people who are actually taking high blood pressure, high blood pressure medication among those who actually have high blood pressure. So if you have high blood pressure, are you taking your medication? So for the prevalence of high blood pressure in Amherst ranges from 5.7% to 25.4 with the highest prevalences being observed in East Amherst, South Amherst and Amherst center. And then the prevalence of taking high blood pressure, pressure medication among those who have high blood pressure in Amherst ranges from 13.4 to 73.3% with the lowest prevalence being observed at Hampshire college. And what should be noted about all this health data is that it is not age adjusted. So for some medical conditions that are going to be high, more common in older populations are going to see just more numbers in the student dominated areas. So now we're going to look at high cholesterol. So on the left, the prevalence of high cholesterol in Amherst ranges from 6.2% to 24.6% with the highest prevalences being observed in South and East Amherst. And then we looked at cholesterol screening prevalence and the prevalence of cholesterol screening in Amherst ranges from 65.7 to 86.7 with the lowest prevalence being observed at UMass. So mental health and depression, which we find these numbers to be fascinating, but also pretty high. So the prevalence of two weeks of poor mental health, which is again is self identified in Amherst ranges from 13.7 to 30% with the highest prevalence being observed in UMass. This is quite a big jump than the other areas. So it shows a need to focus on mental health within the UMass population. And then just looking at depression prevalence again, prevalence of depression in Amherst range from 20.2 to 29.8 with UMass again being the highest. So definitely a possible population to look at for mental health. So next we have obesity and physical and activity. So for obesity, the prevalence was 13.7 to 24.4 with the highest prevalence being observed in East Amherst. And then the prevalence of physical and activity in Amherst range from 17.4 to 30.1 with the highest prevalence being observed at UMass. So risky behaviors, which for our purposes include current smoking and binge drinking. So the prevalence of current smoking in Amherst range from 20.1 to 30.7 to 15.7 with the highest prevalence being observed at UMass. And then for binge drinking, the range from 20.1 to 30.7 with the highest prevalence being observed in Central Amherst. So other common chronic diseases that we just want to go over a little bit was the prevalence of diabetes, which ranged from less than 1% to greater than 8% with the highest prevalence being observed in East Amherst. And then we wanted to also look at coronary heart disease. So the prevalence of coronary heart disease ranged from less than 1% to almost 6% with the highest prevalence being observed in Amherst Center. And then one last thing that we thought was really nice that we could find data on is lack of health insurance for individuals between 18 and 64. So lack of health insurance in Amherst range from 7.3 to 11.8% with the highest prevalence being observed at UMass. So possibly that these student populations are not getting access to the health insurance that they may need. Emily, you there? I think Emily may have frozen. So I will start talking about her data until she gets back. Her Wi-Fi just cut out, so she'll be back in a minute, but I'll get started. So the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation data. This is going to be county level mortality data. So these are going to be death rates that we're going to be comparing county level rates from Hampshire County to state level rates at Massachusetts and then to country level rates of the US. So first we have all cause and non-communicable diseases. So for Hampshire County's all cause mortality was around 712 per 100,000 in 2014. And this was lower than both the state of Massachusetts and the US rates. And again, I should have mentioned that all this data is the most updated data was from 2014. So it's what we had. It's not necessarily ideal because it's pretty old, but it's what we're going to work with. So then going to the non-communicable diseases. So Hampshire County's mortality rate for non-communicable diseases was about 662 per 100,000. And this was actually higher than the state of Massachusetts by a little bit, but still lower than the US rate. So as you'll see Hampshire County is doing pretty good compared to the rest of the world, but there's always still room for improvement. So more non-communicable diseases and these focus specifically on the heart. So Hampshire County's mortality rate for atrial fibrillation and flutter was around 8.2 per 100,000, which was actually higher than both Massachusetts and the US. But then when we, we moved to cardiovascular disease, which is a big killer around the world. And for Hampshire County, the mortality rate was 216 per 100,000. This was higher than Massachusetts, but again, lower than the United States. And then for ischemic heart disease, the mortality rate was around 127 per 100,000. And this was lower than both the state of Massachusetts and the US rates. So now we will move on to other non-communicable diseases that affect different parts of the body. So we'll look at COPD. So mortality rate for COPD was 38 per 100,000. And this was higher than the state of Massachusetts, but lower than the US rate. So then we had diabetes, neurogenital and endocrine diseases. And these mortality rates were 44 for Hampshire County, which was actually lower than the state and the US. And then similarly for cirrhosis and chronic liver diseases, there was about 13 per 100,000. And this was again, lower than both the state of Massachusetts and the US rates. So now we'll talk about stroke, both ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke. So Hampshire County's mortality rate for ischemic stroke was about 31 per 100,000. And this was actually higher than the state of Massachusetts, but lower than the US rate. And then for hemorrhagic stroke, the mortality rate was around 13.5 per 100,000. And this was higher than the rate for the state of Massachusetts, but lower than the US. So then mortality rate for all cancer or neoplasms, the mortality rate was around 190 per 100,000. And this was actually just about equal to the state in the US rates. But you'll notice that these cancers, even though we have equal mortality rates, the actual cancers per each state will vary. Some will be higher and some will be lower. So for breast cancer, our mortality rate was around 14 per 100,000. And this was a higher than the rate for the state of Massachusetts, but lower than the US rate. And then for cervical cancer, it was a very low 1.44. But this was still higher than the rate of Massachusetts, but lower than the overall US rate. And then lastly, ovarian cancer had a mortality rate of 5.4. And this was higher than both the state of Massachusetts and US rates. So something to keep an eye out for. So other cancers we have here is prostate cancer had a mortality rate of about 10 per 100,000. And this was also higher than both the state and the US rates. And then testicular cancer, which is very, very low all around the world, was had a mortality rate of 0.1 per 100,000. And was very similar to the state and the US rates. And then moving on to bladder cancer. So the rate for bladder cancer was around six per 100,000. And this was higher than both the state and the US rates. So now we want to talk a little bit about risk behaviors. So Hampshire County's mortality rate for alcohol use disorders was 3.6 per 100,000 in 2014. And this was actually lower than the rate for the state of Massachusetts, but higher than the US rate. So it's something that Massachusetts definitely deals with. And then similarly looking for mortality rate for drug use disorders was around 10 per 100,000. And this was lower than both the state of Massachusetts and the US rates. And then we wanted to look at self harm and the mortality rate for self harm was about 10.4 per 100,000. And this was lower than both the state of Massachusetts and the US rates. So some overarching conclusions. Oh, Emily, you're back. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I've never, my wifi is completely not working. So I just joined on my phone. I'm sorry about that. It's all right. It's all right. I, I got to the conclusion page. So I'll start the conclusion page and then have you wrap up the next steps. Okay, so our overarching conclusions from the work where that we've been doing is that the data that we have access to is very flawed. So the place's data was not age adjusted. So certain tracks were heavily influenced by this student population. You're not going to think that they, you're not going to think that they're age adjusted. And that's what we do because it's such a. Dominated by younger individuals. So it's really hard to compare, compare certain rates of diseases. And then the Institute for health metrics and evaluation, mortality rates were from 2014. And we're only at the county level. So there could be other towns impacting it other than Amherst and this data is very old in the, and then lastly, we, we did not know what demographics are behind the health data. We know the demographics and we know the health data, but we don't know if there's certain races or certain subpopulations that are being more affected by certain health conditions because we don't have access to that. But then to talk about areas of concern. So we identified mental health, depression and risk behaviors to be a concern of our area. We thought those rates were pretty high, especially around the college campuses. And then our overarching conclusion is that more specific data is needed to draw conclusions and to begin to understand where and where interventions are needed most and what interventions are needed most. Okay. So where do we go from here? Looking forward phase two. I'll be working on this throughout the summer and also in the fall on phase three. But in phase two, we'll be focusing on determinants of health. So housing characteristics, economics, transportation, recreation, education, places of worship, library services, law enforcement, fire departments, communications, environment and healthcare services as well as government and policymaking. And then beyond phase two, we really suggest that a focus should be put on collecting data that's more relevant and representative of the Amherst community. So whether that be through surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews, these are all going to be part of phase three. So hopefully this will help us gather some more accurate data and having more detailed and relevant data on the community will supplement the findings of phases one and two and really allow for the development of more effective interventions in areas of concern that we outlined. So thank you for listening. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask us those. And we also just wanted to say a quick thanks to Nancy for all your support throughout phase one. You were a really great mentor and helped us along the way. You're most welcome. You are great, great professional students outstanding. Board members and Jen, do you have any questions? Also, I want to thank Lillian for her help. She came to our meetings and helped with processes. I just want to say thank you Bailey and Emily. I'm so honored to be here today. And I really appreciate it. Thank you for joining us. And I'm also looking forward to working with you over the next two semesters. You know, you have this great foundation. So, you know, research translation, you know, more information, how do we get it working? And Bailey, are we saying goodbye to you? Are you graduating? Yes. Unfortunately, I'm graduating or fortunately, I don't know which one. But yes, unfortunately I'm leaving the health department and work because I am graduating. Yeah, I would just say thank you. And even though the information, the data is a little past. Past the ways do. It's still informative. So thank you. I found it very helpful. And then when you look at the different census tracks and I talked to, to Bailey and Emily about that. So Amherst, Central Amherst 06, that's a big pieces is Amherst college. So you can, you can see the three census tracks where the three colleges are, but then also looking at, and this is what we'll be looking at in our other phases is where some of the apartment complexes are. And I was very curious about the data with the data that we have. And I think it's a good start for us to start looking at, and then when we get the phase two data, putting that together and then with the quality, qualitative data of phase three, we'll have a lot more to work with. I have to say, I was surprised by the percentage of people without insurance, especially at UMass because. I think that's a good start for us to start looking at. And then when we get the phase two data, that's a good start for us to start looking at, you know, because I think it's not that generally required of students to have insurance. I know it's the other four colleges. It is, but. You know, it just, it just buys me, you know, in Massachusetts that we have 9% of people without insurance and, in Amherst. So that'll be interesting to suss out, I think. And I wonder if that's with people. That's a huge difference in terms of their relationship and how that affects. Insurance. Yeah. Like I worked in Mount Holyoke for years and every student was required to have insurance and, and almost. And then I think that was. Part of what it was built in, I think, for international students. Was couldn't avoid it. So, you miss. So for you. I think probably the couple of reasons why it may not be documented insurance for most graduate students is through the union that means they do not pay directly on an individual basis so that might be one reason it may not be documented they might be shown as not having insurance the other category is even though all are required to have insurance if a student coming from or if a student is in a parents insurance they can submit a waiver and I am not sure if those are counted towards this if they are waived they may be shown as not not having insurance so it might be those cases possibly there's I mean there's such a high I believe a high percentage of students that would be still on their parents so I would be inclined to think they were counted but it could also be students who are taking UMass's insurance and then graduating and still living in the area and not having their own insurance yet but not having UMass's yet either I think that could definitely be a possibility although until age 26 you can be on your parents insurance if they have insurance but that's if your parents don't and you're taking UMass's and you graduate what do you do then it goes away that'll be interesting to out so one check with me santi health center what what they're seeing so one suggestion I think the data is aggregated by everyone above 18 to all the way to 64 if it's some sort of a disaggregated by age groups we might get a little bit more detailed information you know how each age group is in distribution is respond you know is different from each other it goes like very similar to the argument of age adjustment but but looking at demographics by age groups I you know I think all the all the things you mentioned all the data can be disaggregated by that anything else anyone wants to say ask just once again Bailey and Emily it was a real joy working with you amazing students and Bailey lots of luck in after graduation you have your masters and we're very fortunate that we will still have Emily with us over the summer and next year and I'm going to be working as her preceptor so that she can get course requirements done for for parts of these projects too and through the school of public health you need a preceptor at the agency and because Jen already has so many hats filled I'll be the preceptor for her so thank you any other comments well thank you all very much and we'll move on to our next piece of business which is the center eastway subdivision oh you know what we forgot the minutes from our last meeting so before we go on can we move back to the minutes review and receive the minutes I don't know how I missed that it's my number two on the pile I'm just going to back up to do that so does anyone have any comments corrections or amendments to our minutes of April 21st if there are none may I have a motion to accept them as they are presented to us you're muted I'm muted and I myself yeah I will make a motion to accept the minutes that's written for April 21st I'll second that thank you so it's been moved and seconded to accept our April 21st minutes and now I need a vote Maureen hi Tim hi Maureen I was I wasn't able to um to read over the minutes but is it possible to you know say something like um if there's anything that needs to be added at the time you can abstain or you can say in favor or or not okay and Nancy um I uh yes so it's been moved seconded and three of us have voted to accept them okay sorry about that little snafu um so now we'll go back to all business and the center eastway subdivision and we have material in our packet from that we uh we wrote a letter to the planning board and we have Christine here and we have a response from Tom Reedy there were some new documents that were emailed to me this afternoon that I forwarded on right before the meeting I don't know if that's pertinent tonight oh I didn't see those just uh they came in just before the meeting yeah and I didn't see them either let's see oh here we go definitive plan oh yeah yeah Tim can you see them um uh yes I just received those two documents I just opened them up is it possible to share it on a screen if on the screen or if we just receive them I Jen can you share them but um I don't see Christine perhaps I can if I make you co-host you can share them as in advance are they needed I am I'm not sure that they're needed and I'm really incompetent at sharing my screen but if someone needed to share a screen either Mr. Reedy or Mr. Roblesky might be able to do that but the reason I forwarded them to you I wasn't aware that they hadn't been forwarded um previously and I thought you should have them as part of your documentation um Mr. Roblesky took some of your comments and some of the planning board's comments and has revised the definitive subdivision plans so one of the things you'll notice is that the sanitary sewer has been increased in size from six inches to eight inches and that was one of the things that you requested that he do I'm not sure if the subdivision plans have changed in other ways related to your comments but I know Mr. Reedy has answers to your questions and comments so you should probably speak at some point the other things that I forwarded to you were the stormwater report that we did receive so the stormwater report relates to the existing undeveloped land on the property and the roadway that will that would be constructed if this subdivision were to be constructed so that has all the information that you need as far as stormwater calculations but I'm not sure that you want to get into reviewing that but um you do have the document now and it's been submitted by a registered professional engineer and the other thing that um I sent you was the soil data and again Mr. Reedy may have some comments that he wants to make about that soil data but at least you have it now as part of your records and I know Mr. Rendier had you know commented on the fact that we didn't have that and so now now you have that so I really don't have any more to say and I will be happy to hear what Mr. Reedy has to say and then if I need to answer questions I'd be happy to do that. So with that Madam Chair I'm happy to take over if you don't mind. Okay yes. Perfect okay for the record Tom Reedy and attorney with Bacon Wilson here in Amherst here on behalf of Mr. Robleski and his definitive subdivision plan Mr. Robleski Mr. Robleski is here with me this evening. Yeah and and so those plans and I agree with Ms. Breastrop I don't think I think they're good for your packet but I don't necessarily think that they're germane to this conversation. We did as Ms. Breastrop noted update that sewer line to eight inches based on the conversations and then we also as of last week had sent over responses to your comments that were provided in your review and it might make sense for us to go through those 11 comments and responses and then if you have additional questions you know we're happy to answer them. I'll take a step back and say we expect the town engineer to take a look at the stormwater information the stormwater management report and the soil tests and for him to confirm that what we've done is acceptable to the Massachusetts DEP stormwater standards so just so you understand a little bit about the process there will be oversight in review so that's one and then two we had a meeting with the planning board last night the discussion with them was we've updated the plans you know we'd ask for them to review it I'm going to work with Ms. Breastrop to update what waivers were asking for and what conditions are germane and then ultimately it's in the court of the planning board to hopefully approve the subdivision with conditions so that we're compliant with the subdivision rules and regulations which which we expect to and for more context when we had submitted the plan initially to the planning board we had asked for a slew of waivers understanding that the the plan was never to be built after conversations with the planning board and conversations with this board we had since updated the plans really to eliminate almost all I think of the waivers and so it will be when it's back in front of the planning board for their final determination a compliant essentially a compliant plan so just to talk to you about the process a little bit so that all said you know we appreciated the observations and questions hopefully you had the opportunity I did not have a word document so I wasn't able to you know italicize underneath so we may have to flip back and forth or I can you know speak about what the comment is and what our response is and so the first one really is will the detention structure be able to handle all the all the flows in the subdivision and the answer is yes the detention structure will be able to able to handle all the flows from the road and undeveloped land and then just to put a finer point on that the individual lots so hypothetically again if we were to construct this subdivision the stormwater management proposed would be able to handle the impervious surface that is being proposed as part of the subdivision the point of the subdivision is to provide frontage for lots which wouldn't otherwise have frontage those lots would require as part of whatever approval to receive their building permit they'd have to show that they have stormwater management capacity and capability so those individual lots would deal with that on a one-off basis but the subdivision which creates the frontage is handled by what you have so that's number one number two there was a discussion about and I'm impressed with all of this but discussion about the the soils the infiltrating nature of the soils and then how to prevent contamination of the subsurface flows and then our responses so we're providing a drainage system with catch basin treatment chamber like oil water separator drain piping and underground detention basin with an overflow connection that goes back to the town catch basin and the town system which has its own protective mechanisms the proprietary stormwater treatment infrastructure is called a storm scepter they're used I mean I so I do permitting all across the state cumberland farms as a client of mine as well as other gas stations and convenience stores cumberland farms uses a storm scepter and as you can imagine they're probably a much more highly intensive use than what we're looking to propose here they use it to for oil water separator to to reach the total suspended solid numbers that they need to do under mass DEP so that's what Mr. Robleski is proposing here is a storm scepter storm scepter pretreatment so we don't expect any contamination from surface into groundwater which is what I anticipated what I at least understood that question to be. Ms. Bruster, I'll stop because I see your hand. May I make a comment? Yes. I just wanted to know that the storm scepter is before the water gets to the infiltration basin so it takes out the the material that you wouldn't want to get infiltrated into the groundwater before the water gets to the detention basin. Thank you. That's a great point. I see Lauren and Mr. Robleski as well with hand so I'll stay quiet. Lauren? Thank you. I was trying to do my homework and look over the the forms and the information and so I basically just want to to know about two things from what I read the zoning is a it's in the business district and it's non-residential and I know there's going to be some construction and so I just want to know what we as the board of health what we need to do and exactly what we need to know and what what exactly are the locks for that would that's just the curiosity of mine. Sure so if if I could respond and this is where it's a little bit of a mental exercise to understand the lots being proposed while there are real lots it's a fiction and what I mean by that is Mr. Robleski does not intend to build individual units of any kind whether it be residential which are allowed whether it's commercial on those individual units and in fact he has already received approval and has built so if you look at from the the front page of your board of health review you see a new building all the way on the east side Mr. Robleski has recently built that it's a mixed use building so it's a mixture of commercial space and apartments and there is on the balance of the site an additional mixed use building and he has just proposed to the planning board to build a third mixed use building on the site and to be clear these structures do not simply exist in those lots that we are creating this whole exercise of creating these lots was simply to freeze the zoning so that and I'll back up and say that the town of Amherst has recently passed revisions to their mixed use zoning bylaw which requires 30 percent of the first floor or it could be another floor floor area and while we can appreciate that as an appropriate percentage for the downtown being where Mr. Robleski's property is and really the lack of foot traffic for commercial uses it seemed like 30 percent was much too much and so the only way that he could preserve the old bylaw was to go through the is to go through this process and so that's really the context of of why we're going through it so to answer your question nothing will be built on those individual lots because there's already existing structures on the land and there would hopefully if the planning board approves it be another structure on the land but not specifically in those lots and hopefully I haven't confused too much no so this is an exercise correct to preserve the prior zoning rather than the new zoning as it relates specifically to the mixed use requirement of the 30 percent commercial in the structure or development yes Mr. Robleski has his hand raised right yeah just shortly now thank you board members for all your time I certainly appreciate it and I certainly realize that this is an exercise as Tom just described but I just wanted to comment on number two regarding the detention areas when those are designed they have stone like three quarter inch stone or one inch stone all the way around them including the bottom so the railroad you know at that gives it some capacity to move a little bit and absorb any shocks and stuff but it adds further filtration and the bottom of that stone is above the estimated seasonal high water mark so water coming in from a big storm or something I don't think it's going to affect it there's probably a foot to 18 inches of stone below the structures that are within that detention area okay thank you thank you no too many questions on that I mean let let Tom finish it you know okay because it looks like many of the responses are coming back to the first one I think if we need to talk about that more comprehensively certainly certainly can so yeah number three which for Candle is a new one to me but I certainly appreciate it is the corrosivity of the soil and it's something you know will be sensitive to during material selection you know I think it's it's probably as simple as that number four it takes into consideration the slope and draining toward the cul-de-sac and the rail track and will the design account for this accumulation and the answer is yes and then I refer to one because of the whole drainage system number five is about EJ which we know we're obviously because it is a new I don't want to say new concept but it's being newly implemented as far as regulatory and so it's something that you know we've obviously acknowledged I don't know that there is anything jurisdictional with the Board of Health but it's something that you know especially hearing the previous presentation and wondering the interaction between the data and environmental justice but it's something that you know we certainly take into consideration uh six is impervious cover if the three lots are developed and so that's another one where each individual lot will have to meet its stormwater standards and yes each lot would have a stormwater plan submitted and I believe that's a proposed condition by the planning board which is you know fine by the applicant underground detention basin so for number seven there was a question about it there setback from the railway and there is no required setback from the railway is there's probably best management practices best design practices but there's no required setback from that railway for that underground infrastructure um and then as we've mentioned and as you have now in your packet soil testing is required to make sure that the soil can handle what we're expecting it to handle um number eight is the relative to the rules and regulations of the planning board and um we do comply with what the rules and regulations say and I miss Bess can probably expand on that one a little bit more if you'd like her to want me to answer that good by me yes um so the um dimension that is referred to of 39 uh point something um that refers to a minor road and the 49 point something refers to a major road so depending on what kind of road you're designing I think this is on page 23 of the of the planning board rules and regulations governing the subdivision of land 22 and 23 um there is a picture of a cul-de-sac that's given as an example and it shows that the right of way is 49 point 212 feet wide but if you go to the standards that are in the table on the opposite page it shows that for a minor road um the right of way can be 39.370 feet wide so um it's just a question of whether we're going to consider this sort of major road or a minor road and and I think it's being designed as a minor road so that's why it can be 39 feet rather than the 49 feet. John do you want to expand on that? You're muted. Can you unmute? Yeah just a comment on that in that chart that Miss Bessrupt just referred to uh SC note one and note one is says to be determined by board at the review of the preliminary plan so that's already been reviewed by the planning board and approved as a minor road. Okay thank you and then I guess I'll I'll carry on to number nine which is uh drainage needs to account for upstream properties and roads this is a kind of foreign calculation uh my simple answer is you know on a I guess a technical level no because DEP requires only on-site stormwater considerations and I guess my more long-winded answer or practical answer is if if water is traveling over a site it's from another property it's probably it's going to be taken into consideration so while we don't do necessarily a watershed analysis of all the surrounding property and we stick to on-site um there is necessarily some consideration of how that water gets on-site um and then 10 is sidewalk or biking provisions um that uh sidewalk or biking is missing on main street and so then what we've said is just main street that area is a public right away outside of the subdivision jurisdiction and then there's a comment about Grant Street which I believe to be Gray Street um which talks about having parking on both sides and it's our belief that parking is only on one side of Gray Street a and then b that's outside of the the subdivision and so I don't need to run through them so quickly um but those are our responses to to the board of health's comments thank you sim do you have any questions oh um thank you for I think there will be detailed comments I think I agree if if there is an engineering oversight on the design itself because that those are the all the questions are related to that oversight I think if those are going to be incorporated I think it'll be perfectly fine especially the corrosivity in the materials which was not uh specified but if if the engineering oversight will take care of it'll it'll it'll be addressed at one uh same thing with the uh structure of the detention basin looks like the detention basin is designed for just the impervious current impervious cover right the cul-de-sac and everything so that means uh I am assuming that um if the three proposed lots are going to be developed there'll be other best management practice is going to be proposed and uh and they will be reviewed and approved so I mean so that answers major questions there uh one thing about seven you mentioned about uh the frontage to the railways you know especially compaction uh uh integrity of the basin itself uh so think something to think about in terms of the BMPs I think you mentioned BMP so some some buffer uh in terms of the impact of railway itself the the the nature of how the long-term sustainability of the structure will be impacted so I mean anything that could be added to that it'll be wonderful um related to the question number eight uh I agree it was actually uh approved as a minor minor road which that means 39.37 is is perfect so but uh my question is is will it be sufficient for any type of large vehicles to turn around uh let's say for example for uh any type of a garbage truck or either fire truck accessing their property. John have you talked to the fire department about that? John can you unmute Mr Robles? Yep yeah my bad I believe the fire department did respond to the planning department. Yes but typically would you have a document from the fire department? To further you know standing from a public safety point of view and realizing what you're asking if there is a any kind of structure fire on any one of those lots my guess is that it'd be parking at the end of the road tying into the hydrant at Main Street and there's also a hydrant on a corner of Gray Street plus the hydrant that we would install at the cul-de-sac so I think firefighting wise public safety wise they wouldn't be driving in there and as far as other big vehicles um my guess is this cul-de-sac is pretty close to the cul-de-sac at Triangle in East Pleasant as far as width I haven't measured it but you know that's pretty tight I was there yesterday parked on the street and I could see a flatbed tractor trailer and the wheels went up over the inside curbing. Are you talking about the roundabout there? Yeah yes yeah um but I did want to comment on the uh BMPs Mr Randy here um I did add a uh rain garden at the bottom of the cul-de-sac island and that also has a uh catch basin I know that would drain any overflow it's an overflow catch basin over to the uh the drain system so I understand the BMPs I use that on another project rain gardens LID development and all and I like that. Any other questions or comments? One one last question I I think the question number nine uh I agree that current rules uh by DEP does not need to be accounting for upstream runoff but uh I think I encourage any type of a new uh site developments in the three sites should some sort of a account if there is going to be runoff from the road or any place you know upstream of it because the slope is actually coming from the road itself the grey street and towards the rail to just to account and see if there is a need for a upstream rain garden to be included not just the onsite runoff but but that is just a request as a in generally it it may not be a part of the statute itself but but it's just something a landowner should consider. I think they did consider that I didn't look through the entire storm water thing but there's a graph in there that I believe takes into account some other properties to the north that you know flow down that direction and grey street has curbing along it so nothing is going to overflow there it's going to channel into the catch basins along grey street. Thank you. Any other questions or comments from board members? If not are we ready to move forward and vote? So what you are asking us to do is to approve the Grand Theory Eastway Definitive Subdivision which will probably not be built. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay so may I have a motion to accept the Center Eastway Definitive Subdivision I'll make the motion I accept the Center Eastway Definitive Subdivision as presented with the changes with the planning board will have all the oversight on this. I second it. Okay so it's been moved and seconded. All in favor we'll have a vote. All in favor. Maureen? Aye. Tim? Aye. Lauren? Aye. And Nancy? Aye. So it's been moved seconded and approved for the Center Eastway Definitive Subdivision so thank you all. Thank you very much for all your time. Yes thank you again I understand I served on a committee in the town I live in and I understand your devotion to the town of Amherst and spending the time to do what you do thank you. You're welcome. May I ask a question? Yes. I wonder I received a letter from Jennifer I think it was about a week ago and it was based on the meeting that was held in April and I wonder if you're planning to issue another letter stating what this vote was or if that's the letter that I should pass on to the planning board and the other thing is I would then give the planning board the board of health review that was provided by Tim and the answers that were provided by Tom Reedy. Is that how you would like this to work or were you planning to give me another letter about tonight's meeting? Do we need a letter or can you just use our vote do we need a formal letter saying that we voted in favor of the subdivision? Well Jennifer had written a letter and it was sent to me about a week ago maybe and so Jennifer I don't know if you were planning to write another letter capturing this discussion or if the letter that you sent before is something I should send to the planning board or if we shouldn't send that letter and I should just tell the planning board myself that you voted tonight and then perhaps provide them with Tim's analysis and Tom's answers. From my perspective it's I mean board of health provides the recommendation to the plan their recommendation to the planning board so it could be as simple as I don't want to put more work on Jennifer's plate but just either a letter saying on the May 5th 2022 meeting the board of health unanimously voted to recommend approval of the definitive subdivision plan or Chris you can just take and Jennifer could even do an email if she wanted and just send it along and say here's what happened and then whatever material you want to give the planning board based upon discussion I mean obviously you can do that. Would it help if I took that off Jennifer's plate and if I wrote the letter and copied Jennifer and attached Tim's analysis and Tom's answers would that help? If you're willing to do that that would be great send it to me I'd like to have something for our records yeah so I think yours would be included yeah and something for the records for the planning board so all right so I'll draft that letter and I'll send it to Jennifer with the attachments because thank you very much for that you're welcome thank you thanks everyone thank you thank you very much so I we have new business now but I also see that Anne Devlin Gauthier who is a town counselor it's a topic not anticipated by the chair but she has a meeting at 6 30 so I'm just going to move this up to here quickly and this is regarding the bylaw prohibiting deceptive advertisement by crisis pregnancy centers and it's a bylaw that the town council is considering it's deceptive advertising and it was my thought that it would be helpful if the board of health sends a letter in support of this bylaw so Anna can we hi there we go can you just address this quickly and then we'll absolutely so thank you so much Nancy for the invitation and hello love the board I apologize for the last minute notice of this and I am so grateful for Nancy for reaching out so here's the quick overview I introduced a bylaw on April 28th I believe which is intended to prevent deceptive advertising on behalf of limited services pregnancy crisis centers or cpcs for short so cpcs are organizations that seek to intercept pregnant pregnant individuals who might be considering an abortion their mission is to prevent abortions by persuading pregnant people that adoption or parenting is a better option they often give the impression that they are clinical centers offering legitimate medical services and advice yet they are exempt from regulatory licensure and credit credentialing oversight that apply to healthcare facilities so they they engage in counseling that is misleading and false despite claims to the contrary they do not meet standard of patient centered quality medical care they are known for those billboards that say like pregnant we can help pregnant and scared we can help right they advertise specific types of counseling and medical care that they do not offer so other ways that they engage in deceptive advertising they claim to advertise free pregnancy tests as STD testing confidential counseling and some clinics don't actually offer it they advertise it they don't offer it they say negative things about abortion birth control condoms or sex including false claims about the legality of abortions and false claims about the safety of abortion abortion care they say some of them often say it leads to cancer infertility or mental health problems none of that is true and they often post signs near real health centers like Planned Parenthoods or near us like tapestry and they've even been known to use similar branding or colors so a lot of what they engage in is deceptive advertising so what this bylaw would do is it does not limit CPCs from existing what it does prevent or what it does provide is an avenue for folks to report false advertising on behalf of these pregnancy crisis centers and they would be faced with a $300 fine which is what we are allowed to find based on state law. That's the very very brief overview I'm very happy to give any further questions or answer any further questions that you might have about this bylaw and its intention and its process just so you know the council referred it to our governance committee in April and they are reviewing it this Wednesday it then goes back to the council for two readings starting at our next meeting. I hope that was I know that was a blazing fast overview but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have I think this time might be better used in conversation than me talking at you so I'm happy to hear anything you might any questions you might have and I would be honored if you would write a letter in support that would that would mean a lot and I appreciate that. Does anyone have any questions for Anna? How many of these centers are in Amherst and how much of the advertising is in Amherst and would the advertising for something say in Hadley or Northampton also be covered under this bylaw? So the way that I wrote the first off there are 29 of these in the state. Amherst does not currently have any CPCs in town one did try to establish here I believe it was maybe five years ago Jennifer might know better than I do but one did try to establish here in the past and was run out of town by our students for that's that's what I hear I'm sure that's there's a more official way of saying that so while there are non-currently located in Amherst there are some located around us East Hampton has one I believe Greenfield might Holyoke Springfield to do as well so this would limit them from advertising in Amherst. There are questions about regulatory there are separate laws governing their ability to advertise on places like Facebook and we're ensuring that this bylaw which does cover the internet is able to be followed through upon for for advertising that is online but it would limit centers outside of Amherst from coming in and advertising here. They also have mobile clinics mobile CPCs that could come through without necessarily establishing a business here and so that those would also be limited from advertising in Amherst. Thank you. Did that answer your question Maureen? Absolutely. Tim or Lauren do you have any questions? So one quick question so much of this by-law is is based on the premise that it is deceptive advertisement and was there any type of studies or any type of quantification of it or because we have advertisements are always deceptive most of the time for everything so I'm just curious how it is quantified and what is some sort of a motivation to only focus on this particular organization? Sure so the reason why I'm going to go backwards with your question so the reason why I'm focusing on these is that they are not typically covered by our state's general deceptive advertising law because they what they claim is that they are not selling a product and so that's how they tend to get through the loopholes. I'm happy to send along some studies that I have found including a really great article from the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics that specifically talks about the propagation quote their propagation of misinformation should be regarded as an ethical violation that undermines women's health. I mean there have been studies on this both on the federal level and both by the federal government and by the some of these researchers from the AMA so this is this is known but they typically are not they are typically not caught under that umbrella of state and federal deceptive practices laws because they claim they are not selling a product. What your other question I apologize what was your other question? Oh just a quantification you know is there was there any study about that or I think you mentioned the publications right? Yes yes so and I'm happy to pass those along to Nancy to send to you all. I can send the the few articles I found that have been the most helpful but the the information is readily available on how these are deceptive and and how they've managed to get around existing law. And is this by-law is only proposed for Amherst? Correct that's all I need to let me have jurisdiction over right now. Right so I'm just I'm just curious about other towns you know in the Pioneer Valley. Oh yeah so yeah so Somerville recently passed one that's very similar and I've been speaking with some colleagues in Northampton and Eastampton from their city councils I'm passing them in their areas. I believe I I see some some intrepid reporters in the audience and so I want to note that this don't quote me on this but I believe that there is um there are some folks at the state level who are hoping to introduce this legislation on the state level. It has been introduced in Connecticut as well on the state level so um yes we are not we are not alone in doing this. Any other questions Lauren? Lauren? Lauren can you speak? As I'm unmuted but I guess you can't hear me. No we can. Yes I was just gonna say. We can't hear you. We lost you. Lauren we can't hear you. Lauren you're muted. Can you unmute? Okay Lauren is muted. No. And Lauren are you there? Yes I'm here but you're having a problem hearing me so. Now I can hear you. You were muted for a minute. Okay. No I was unmuted but anyway I just if you can hear me. Yes I I just wanted to thank Anna for bringing this to our attention but um I have never seen any of these you know billboards because I guess you said that there's none in in Amherst right now so I was just wondering what was what initiated this for you or what what was the initiation to put this together this bylaw together. Sure so um I'm sorry oh yeah so first off it's not just it's not just billboards right so it's any print or online advertising the billboards are usually just the example that people can have have seen before so this would limit folks from you know buying an ad in the gazette or something like that as well. What prompted this for me you know this has been I mean how deep into my story do you want to go Lauren uh so this is something that's been on my radar since I was in college and first learned about these CPCs um and I you know I went to school um outside of Massachusetts in an area where they're they're much more common and I think that ever since then it's just been on my mind of like that's that's not right you know like that's not how can they do this it's not right just personally ethically that's how I felt um and as I learned a little bit more about it that feeling deepened and became more of more informed on fact than just my gut feeling and then I learned about the the idea of doing local legislation when a city counselor in Somerville introduced and passed it there and so I spoke with her about her process um I looked at their bylaw and and wrote ours um from there so that's that was kind of the process is I saw other people um engaging in this and kind of creating this this um this protective this this protection for their towns um and I thought it was something that reflected Amherst's beliefs right we've passed uh resolutions in support of the row act we have stood very strongly in support of reproductive justice and this is something else that we can do and we should do the fight for for reproductive justice I mean in the past week uh has has demonstrated that is it's under extreme attack and so um in my mind there the local level doesn't have a lot that we can necessarily do in terms of policy but this is something and so and I'm looking for the other things too right but this is something right now that we can do to support reproductive justice um even if it's not necessarily you know the the most dire need we can we can walk and chew gum at the same time we can pass this and deal with it the other dire needs in town and I've been aware of them in um Holyoke and Springfield and and the problems they have caused for especially um teenage girls yeah so more do you feel educated enough that you we can vote on writing a letter of support for this um bylaw and if so could I have a a motion to accept it or if you want to postpone it for our next meeting although when when do you hope to get this passed through the town council uh so GOL is the governance committee is reviewing it on Wednesday the 11th um it would be wonderful to have support by that point um I understand that would mean tonight voting tonight um our next council meeting is um the uh 16th and then we don't have one again until uh until the 6th so it so we would need to do if you don't feel like you have enough information yet I'm happy to give you more I mean I have a whole a whole presentation you would need to vote on it tonight otherwise it would be great yeah that would be good board do you feel comfortable voting on this tonight a letter of support um for the bylaw about um crisis pregnancies uh centers and deceptive advertising I think the letter of support is perfectly fine I think okay would you like to make this is on my for a long time and I would support this letter you want to make a either of you want to make a motion to support writing a letter um supporting the bylaw prohibiting deceptive advertising of pregnancies I'll do that I'll see if I can say it right I would propose that we write a letter in support of the bylaw proposed um for the town council that would limit yet advertising by cpcs or what is it's like pregnancy crisis pregnancy centers um in amherst Tim do you want to second it I will second it only only one correction I think you didn't mention about deceptive advertisement right it's specifically deceptive advertising not yeah not all advertising deceptive advertising yeah yes all correct so the motion is to support the bylaw prohibiting deceptive advertising by crisis pregnancy centers um in amherst can we add with a letter because that's how we're supporting it yes that's what the right I know I I just didn't hear that yes the motion that's the motion it's been seconded um all in uh uh call for a vote Lauren sure Maureen hi Tim hi and Nancy I okay Anna and I'll be in touch with you for writing the letter and we'll get the letter right and thank you for all your work that presentation was beautiful thank you yeah okay thank you okay so thank you everybody for moving that up to there now we're going to do the green meadow pool with Susan Malone and we have all the documents we're forwarded to us about this with the letter from April 27th and the swimming pool inspection report and the photos and we we have two people that are are joining us Sharon Callahan King and Alberta Morales okay Susan do you want to give an introduction can you hear me all right yes oh great thank you so um we normally do a routine pool inspections beginning in late May but um Elbel Troll Morales who is the certified pool operator for Green Meadow contacted me he had concerns about um the pool fencing and uh some safety concerns so he asked me to come out and do an inspection and I did and so the two important things that came out of this um and I'll I'll do the kind of the lesser one first um pools built prior to October 2nd 1975 I required to have four-foot fencing around the pool and uh due to the um briefly I'm just going to say due to circumstances that is no longer the case that was my observation that it no longer meets the standard and the of that needs to be replaced if the pool is to be reopened it now must meet standards the same as pools constructed after October 2nd 1975 and that's either a six-foot chain link or a five-foot stockade fence so that all will take effect if and when the association decides to reopen the pool which usually they do in late May or in June the other observation I had at that time is related but it's of a more emergency nature the pool had been uh previously surrounded by a dense tall thick bush and shrubbery so you can see a lot of that in some of the pitchers um and on the let's see it's the it one side of the pool that um provide and it provided somewhat of a protection because not only was there at the time um fencing but uh this additional dense tall shrubbery also was a deterrent for approaching the pool on the south side of the pool and fencing uh it's been substantially removed and additionally there is planking that was placed down the planking really has to do with this kind of a pathway to the um uh electrical utility out there they were doing some work and there's a picture there that shows the planks and in the background you can see the electrical tower and wiring so that it's very high it's about measured approximately inches and that reduced the effective height of the fencing so basically even my old body could hoist itself right over that fence and get right into the pool area um which is a danger not only because it is a field filled pool but also the um tarp covering the pool the pool cover uh or any pool cover over an in-ground pool is a hazard because if you were to step onto that you would sink down into the pool and become entrapped into the tarp so um the emergency order was um to present a plan to remedy that um situation and a very short timeline was given because it is an emergency the um so we have two parts of this order the um replacement of pool fencing in its entirety is dependent on reopening the pool but there isn't this emergency component which we would like them to have a plan present you know ready to go by May 6 and to be implemented by May 9 and uh uh both Alberto and also the president of the Green Meadow Association uh Sharon King are here uh so they can be heard on on their concerns and questions and I've already said to them and to Jen if the board determines that more time is needed or um a better description of a plan is needed I'm perfectly amenable to whatever the board's um best judgment is on how to resolve the emergency situation so with that I would say Jen we could let Alberto and Sharon I just have one question Susan so this planking is this the planking that that's going down all over Amherst because they're replacing those towers and it will be taken up or is this permanent planking that's now I have I have not been in contact with them if you go if you're on the road of um West Pomeroy um I think it's West Pomeroy Lane that um and it's sorry I'm I don't know if it's West Pomeroy Lane or Pomeroy Lane at that this is Pomeroy how just Pomeroy yeah so so yeah I have not been in touch but there's signage um and uh I don't know how long that planking is going to be there if it's um a short term so I'm sorry I can't really answer your question well I can Sharon okay jump in yeah um say Sharon or Alberto if you'd like to speak this planking went down we met with Eversource um oh two years ago and they told us that they were going to be replacing the high tension wires and the towers and that there would be a small road that ran through the right of way and that um it would not impact the pool which they didn't they were supposed to start last year but they held off till after the pool season so so that was great but then they started in um about I think October and put this planking down and it is just covering like 20 feet or more from Pomeroy Lane all the way down Potwine Lane and then all the way up to Shea Street and beyond yeah it goes up a base street I've seen it all over the place that's right right because they're replacing the tower uh that those green towers with big solid iron like pillars and so I came home on um 1210 and Alberto called me and we went out to the area of the pool and they had taken a brush cutter and just cut the hedge down didn't ask anybody didn't notify us that it was going to happen nothing just tore it down all the way to the fencing so I wrote a letter to Eversource said what have you done how are you going to fix it what are you going to fix it you know this is the green meadows only asset really is the pool and we have to pay membership dues but without this asset people aren't going to want to pay the dues and we have covenants on our deeds and so this is a real mess so I was reassured by Tyler Donnelly who works for Watkins strategies that they would replace the entire fence the enclosure but said that they couldn't do it right away and there was an anticipation that they would fix the area that's so easily accessible but they have not so I've been back in touch with Tyler and I sent him the information that Miss Malone sent to the Green Meadow Association and he has responded that they are perfectly willing to repair all of the fencing but that it is not going to happen immediately they I also send them in the most recent letter a request that they put in temporary fencing until such time as they can do the entire restoration of the whole poolhouse area and he has agreed to look into that they've sent that to their construction team and they are to be coming back with a plan however they want to meet with me and Alberto on the 11th which is Wednesday so at that time they will lay out their plan for the replacement of the temporary fencing I've offered to meet on Monday Tuesday and Wednesday any of those times to expedite this I have not heard back from them but they have been fairly responsive to this but in the short term you know we need to have them help us out to fix what their subcontractors have done so that we're not put in a liable situation for someone entering the pool so that is what the immediate plan is and I think that's about as good as we can do on short notice is to meet with them either Monday Tuesday or Wednesday and then have them fix the I suggested that they fix the temporary fencing like today they didn't of course respond to that but that was what I asked them to do it's a tough tough situation it's a terrible situation it's horrifying not to mention the fact that they have totally destroyed all of this 60 years of trees and you know they've taken out so many trees and you know evergreens it just looks like a wasteland back there and these are people's backyards and you know they never really indicated that this was going to be the case. Susan can you give us some guidance? Sure I think that as long as they Sharon's able to obtain a meeting date on one of those days Monday Tuesday or Wednesday and that out of that meeting comes a plan for some type of temporary fencing or barrier or protection and that that will happen within a reasonable time I'm suggesting a week but I'm certainly oh well I feel like anything that sounds reasonable and practical to be able to put some protection in place as soon as possible but we all have to go through a process of meeting and getting a plan and and they have to get workmen out there I came up with my original deadlines because it seemed foolish for me to say this was an emergency and say now you have a month to address it so but knowing that Sharon you you've been working on this and Elberto has been working on this and you're the ones who brought it to my attention so that's Nancy what I I see if they can make that meeting happen and they're working out a time frame so you would like us to vote to give you the ability to extend the deadline yes or or the the board itself can actually extend the deadline okay I've no problem with that we don't need to add more paperwork if you would like to extend the deadline that's great so do we do you want a date on that or say a two week Sharon what do you feel like is going to be workable well you know this is sort of like pushing a rock up a hill trying to get ever sourced to do anything that they don't want to do but I feel like they've grasped the urgency of it because not only are we asking for them to fix the fence and do it temper for in a temporary way and then do it in a permanent way but we're asking them for a financial amount of money to make up for the people who live here and have had to put up with us and you know that they have made our property really unsellable at this point so I think they get the urgency that it's not you know that we want the money but that we want to be whole again yeah I and I think the the urgency is more important because even though we want something that that's a reasonable barrier or protection we're also not necessarily looking for them to put in fencing and then put in other fencing down the road when I spoke with the building inspector they were saying you know maybe some of that the orange construction webbing I'm not familiar with all of the proper names but just getting something up there that deters people from from the access if the board agrees that that's sufficient. You would like a motion extending the date for having the temporary and permanent pool fence um tell me what you want in this motion all right so um to to extend the deadline for the to remedy the safety hazard that that's the only part because the other part is going to you know when they open the pool they just won't open the pool until they can get that fencing resolved so it's the safety hazard portion and I think that if we're talking about them meeting on the 9th 10th or 11th I'd like to see something put it up by the 14th and I think also Tyler's been pretty responsive like answering questions and emails within hours so I feel as though if I suggested to him that the crew that's out there regularly daily put up the orange webbing that they could maybe get that done before the weekend yeah you know that would seem reasonable if they could do that that would be great and then we can hammer out the other details later that that sounds good to me that gives them a you know it's additional week right on to do that okay would someone like to make that motion I had a question oh I'm sorry um Susan you had mentioned that the tarp added to the risk involved in this is there anything you would recommend doing about that other than just really trying to get this fencing up sooner rather yeah I think some kind of emergency remedy is the most important thing right now okay because because let's face it you know up until this point mostly it was a four-foot fence but now it's not even four feet you know it's it's hardly over three feet in effect so we want to be reasonable yeah yeah any other questions one do you want to make motion um I'll make a motion that we extend the deadline for emergency fencing to be placed around the Green Meadow Association swimming pool by May 14th is that did I capture that I'm not good at that yeah I think that's um adequate Susan is that an okay date that that sounds good to me okay so it is still an emergency yep yeah so we have the the motion for the date to be extended to May 14th for the temporary fence until the permanent fence is put in place may have a second my second date okay so voting Tim hi okay Maureen hi Lauren hi and Nancy I okay so Sharon I hope this moves fast for you I do as well thanks very much Sharon um talk with me later let me know when you have a meeting set up okay I should know tomorrow great thank you thanks everybody bye bye thank you thank you okay now mosquito control I've been talking with Jen and although we discussed it and voted on it last summer we did not join the pioneer valley mosquito control district um so Jen do you want to present the material on this yeah so so thanks everybody so this is my understanding of what's going on with the mosquito so I'm going to speak to you tonight about two separate issues um ask you to make a decision that they will then be moved up to the town council I'm presenting to them on mosquito these two mosquito issues on May 16th um when I present to them I'm going to have a power point presentation and I may be asking Christopher Craig from the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District to join me who is an expert on this material so yes you guys voted on this last year um the two things I want to talk to you about are joining the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District the PCMCD and I'm going to talk about that the second thing is to decide if Amherst wants to if you want to recommend to vote out of spraying that would be conducted by the state so that's the state reclamation mosquito control board um so I want to um say that I would recommend joining the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District the cost is five thousand dollars that's something that the board of the health department has this year next year who knows what we'll we'll have but we've had different funding so we have enough to pay for it this year the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District um if we join we join many of our neighbors um and um including Granby Hadley Holyoke and Hampton Shootsbury South Hadley Sunderland and what they are able to provide for us is um certain services and it's a la carte we can choose what we want um but what they do is sort of an integrated pest management approach approach an IPM and they will look at water management so catchment areas if there's free standing water they can come in and assess and help us manage that source reduction again that's looking at the habitat of different mosquitoes that carry West Nile or Triple E they're able to do education and outreach for us um if we need larval mosquito treatment or adult mosquito treatment um they also provide which I'm really would be excited about is um surveillance so they'd be able to put in mosquito traps um and they would be able to analyze the viral load and actually do mapping for us the other thing that I think is key to partnering with them becoming with them is that they really do meet with the State Reclamation Board frequently um the Mass Department of Agriculture and DPH they have a very open uh communication with them so that's something that I'd like you to consider um I do recommend that um I think that's something that you voted for doing last year well shall we do that and then move on to the second part or do you want to do both yeah no that's good keep it nice and clean yes so what we are re-voting on is that we I have a question I have a question oh sorry I'm sorry I keep wrong when I read that some of the information you provided and I realized that that Amherst is considered now a high risk area it requires that the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District be demonstratively uh proven to be able to perform comprehensive interventions including adulticide applications and uh both aerial and ground and I just I remember we received some information about that district but I don't remember if that was true so I just wonder if if you've been able to find out that yeah so my understanding and thank you that's a really good question I was kind of going to lead into that um with the second part is but at this point the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District is not able to provide spraying so no hopper on a truck nothing on a helicopter or airplane so that's something in the future but that that's not something that they offer okay so it seems like our applications for this is the next part wouldn't to be out of the state program would be denied um if I did that correctly yeah I don't know if it would be denied the process to apply is much easier this year I've looked through the application the checklist and we really have a history of you know robust education and outreach we have a lot of things tools in our hand that we can do before we get to that point so I don't know if it would be denied um we would make a strong argument yeah and we would now have testing um and catch catching mosquitoes to test them for um no I think it's a good idea to be a member including like the ability to do surveillance and come in earlier with less intense measures um and avoiding the high risk health risk determined to be a health emergency you know so I think it's a good idea I just wonder it just from my reading it seemed like unless unless they have the ability to do that they we might not be approved in terms of our our withdrawal from the state program but excuse me we'll do what we can right right right so I think I think you're right these are two two they're intertwined but still I think we're just yeah looking at that pioneer yeah I don't think it's a reason not to be part of that I guess is but I have concerns about how this is going to play out okay Lauren Lauren oh yes can you hear me yes okay um if we become part of the uh if Amherst becomes part of the PCMCD I isn't that we're not utilizing any of the state um pest control um uh provisions or you know anything that the state would uh provide I'm gonna tell you I don't have a really clear answer if that's something um how it would overlap you know this the state um the state reclamation control board um are working with these other um mosquito control districts so they're all really communicating I don't think they would say hey you know you're on your own we're not going to offer this but I think it does come down to sprain that's the thing that I that we would be we need to decide on separately the last time I I think you checked on the date um Jen it was either 2009 or 2010 when EEE triple A was rampant out in western Massachusetts and there was a lot of education going out and all sports games were all cancelled after before dusk came so there were measures educational and measures taken in town when there was a rise in the possibility of AAA. Yeah so AAA goes in these cycles every 10 years every seven years and then a six around for like about three or four years. 2019 was really horrible. There were 12 cases of AAA and six deaths in the Massachusetts. Most of them were out in Bristol, Norfolk County. 2020 was still a busy year with five cases of AAA. 2021 it was very quiet so you know there's some people talking about you know where are we going to be in this cycle and I'm going to tell you I don't have that knowledge was the fall wet was there not a blanketing snow cover what does that mean for this year so I just don't know. And in the past the the greater number of cases in all were um uh southeastern Massachusetts. But we did have them in this area um we had them in Wentworth yeah and we had them in Belcher Town. That was 2012 I think that was back then that the last the previous cycle of AAA was about 10 2012 and that was like Belcher Town in Granby there was like a horse and there was a I don't know maybe maybe a horse. Yeah surveillance starts in June and I think last um or maybe it was in 2019 but they they started getting AAA mosquitoes in the area in July so and what joining the Pioneer Valley um mosquito control district will allow us Sue is having surveillance and having the mosquitoes trapped and tested correct. Yeah it's kind of fun to see the traps if you go down to station road at dusk you can see them blowing off into the woods you know we have the habitat here in Amherst we have hardwood cedar freshwater swamps you know park at station road and head to Belcher Town you can just see these mosquitoes crips you know so they're there so do we want to join any more questions I just have a good question you mentioned that it's a cycle of 10 years like seven I think it's seven or eight years and the idea is I think that it's it's brought into the area by migrating birds and then it'll then it gets into the mosquitoes and then there's a different kind of mosquito the bites both birds and mammals and and I think that the timing is that there are how many susceptible birds there are in the area so they'll all get it and then a new variety will come like seven years later and the birds are susceptible again I think is how that why why there are these cycles so um and then they might be active for two or three years and then fade out again and it's I don't know it's interesting it is interesting I know this and it's increasing I think that's the other thing in the western central western part of the state it would have been pretty much non-existent until more recent years um if you go to arbor virus you know mass.gov massachusetts department of public health the 2021 massachusetts arbor virus surveillance and response plan you can really read this very long document that's that's very detailed and um and has information similar to what mooring was talking about yeah it seems I mean I this I I don't know if we need to talk about this but it seems like the legislature about two years ago decided that the old uh regulations about mosquito control were formulated in 1918 and they hadn't been really really significantly rotten by since then and so there's a task force that's trying to bring this into the 21st century and there will probably be some legislation that changes but um and I think the goal is to use more scientific measures to have things be more uniform across the state in terms of when to come in with these heavier duty things because I think in southeastern mass I think some of those control boards go too far you know and that they'll they'll spray for nuisance reasons that not just public health reasons so I think they're trying to get this up to date and learn a part it's part of this process there's like a 300 page report from the eastern research group about that that was commissioned by that task force that came out in April I looked at it but I can say I read it um and there was a summary of the task force that was shorter but also very detailed um so it's it's I think we're in the process of trying to bring this bring these um measures forward and be more responsible in terms of environmental issues and health issues issues and having more input of the board of health onto the state reclamation and control board so um anyway it's great morning yeah that's what I did yesterday on a rainy day on a rainy day okay any more questions yeah there are two aspects to it one is more scientific surveillance see where the thing you know where the cases are and that's where the mosquito control district comes into play and the second decision is primarily what if we have very high number of cases occurring what do we do about it you know so these are two different ones I think right of course the mosquito control district one is perfectly fine because that it provides a lot of intelligence uh about you know data set collection and all sorts of things you know but if we hit a you know like a case load which is going to be rising up and what do we do about it you know so those are two different things right and that's why we're going to have two separate votes so the first vote if anyone no one has any more questions I need a motion to vote that we join the pioneer valley mosquito control district you have a motion I can make a motion oh sorry did you have a question more no I thought we were seconding I'm sorry go ahead okay so I need a motion to join yeah I make a motion that we join the pioneer valley mosquito control district um the second Warren did you want to second it sure yes second okay so now we'll vote so Lauren voting on joining the pv Tim hi Maureen hi and Nancy I okay now the second half is the opt out discussion for aerial spraying yes do you want to yeah so so thank you for that so then the second thing that we need to discuss and this is something that you talked about last year is do we want to vote to opt out of spraying conducted by the state reclamation mosquito control board um so this is something um that um is something that you know is important um to understand you know the process I I believe of what a phase responses and what their surveillance um response and response plan would be if there was triple e detected you know there's these risk categories and then recommended responses so it would be a remote level that um there's no triple e activity if there's sporadic um isolations of mosquitoes you know um that have been detected but no animal and human you know cases then we'd be considered low so there's a response for moderate what do we do if we move up to moderate meaning that there are cases human cases and then it goes to a higher level so um I think historically the town has said that this is something that they do not want to support when and I say that because I've read emails from last year um that were written to the Hampshire Gazette um and I believe that's what people had wanted last year um so I think the board needs to decide if it's something that we want to choose not to do um that's the decision that I will move up to the town council um the 16th if that's what you do decide there's a process um to opt out and it's a simple one there's a checklist and then there's some questions to ask and I've started drafting an email about what we would do um what are we able to do if we are deciding to opt out and like I said we have a really long history here in this department of being very proactive with education um for example and community outreach um one thing that we have done which I kind of like is that I don't have my narrative in front of me is that um we have used something called for example the bite board we get from the department of public health at UMass and someone's gone through and they've taken different mosquitoes they put it out and there's educational pieces and then looping videos we've had that plane here at the bank center we've sent it to the library we've created a trifold here we've created education about where um mosquito bites happen when mosquito bites happen you know dust to dawn we've had it translated into other um languages and we also not to underplay you know how important um orange paper and a laminator and a good stapler is because we really go out to the areas of kiosks at areas um that playing fields uh you know growth park and we really can advertise and our IT department is incredible at talking about um different risk modification so that's something that the board wants um I think we really have a very good um plan in place for community outreach um I would say that I think opting out of sprain is something that I would take a second look at I think if we ever got to that point that we really were weighing risks the risk of of humans becoming sick and possibly dying is that something that we we don't want to have in our in our in our back pocket and be able to do um so I I think that we should not opt out but I don't know if that's what the board wants or or town town members questions comments well I think if I think even if towns choose to opt out if the department of health health in the massachusetts declares that there is a public health emergency that state will do aerial spraying they'll work with the mosquito control boards but you can't like opt out completely because if there's a public health emergency the state board the reclamation board or whatever is going to do spraying so I you know I so it balance sort of you know I think they don't do it they wouldn't come in at before that level but they would if it was considered a public health emergency I think it'd be very transparent it'd be very obvious when if we were getting to that point no one would be caught off guard that's right so it just that wasn't clear to me last year and I didn't actually was hard to find that documentation last year this year things are seem a little more transparent about how this all works and or would work um so it it is opting out of the state program but only up to a point I don't know if that makes a difference in how people think about it well uh I was I thought we would be in favor of opting out of spraying if we just voted on um the PC MCD that seems like it's more as you said you know localized and so one of my questions is if you opt out is that just for a year and I just I just thought from from the last vote that we would want to opt out so I'm a little confused so you know I think um like I said it's it's it's two separate things you know we really we've decided that we want to join this this uh the piner valley this district they have these different um pieces that we want to be part of you know the education the surveillance but now a second part is the opting out of the spraying through the state reclamation board um so I have to say that um you know I've been reading on this I thought the aerial spraying um wouldn't happen over certified organic farms so I I am saying that you know when we go to the town council I'm going to be having somebody um from from the piner valley school control district to talk about the opting out and actually what it would mean a real a real expert that can just tell me what's why there is some controversy about how effective aerial spraying is in reducing risk actually again I don't know that much about it but it it's not how clear how effective it is because it in reducing the populations because they just kind of can't get them all and they just read really fast you know um but um and the question is you know what what side effects that has on the environment in terms of beneficial insects and birds and fish and everything else so that that's one of the reasons I think a lot of people would like to to avoid that if at all possible right um I think you know it's anvil 1010 is that how it's said that's the um the pesticide that's been used and it has two um active ingredients in it I don't know the inert substances in it I think people would be interested in that um yeah there's been do you have any thoughts um I think if you are opting for the m pvm cd that's a different one I think it gives us a lot of information but my only concern is by opting out I of course and I think if you are in a critical stage even if you opt out there is going to be spraying by the state that that's going to happen but given that many of uh many many in the ms are actually spending a lot of time outdoors nowadays with the past two years hadn't been isolated now I think engaging with nature and um so and I'm just wondering um if if if the exposure is going to be higher in the coming season um you know are we putting ourselves you know even though the map on the website says that we are low in terms of risk right now no oh right now no no I mean this year not the historical one oh yeah well it's too early yeah yeah yeah I'm just saying you know uh how that turns out when people more people are outdoors engage and everything of course we can educate them with don't just don't go out and cancel all the meetings and everything so that's the only concern I have you know if we opt out um and if uh if there is going to be cases emerging what do we do about it you know so we have to wait till the crisis occurs where there's heavy crisis load and then the state is forcing force to spray on spray on the you know state you know so that's the only so it's a it's a trade-off we have to decide in terms of environmental impacts versus life impacts you know I'm with you Tim you know 50 percent of me says oh my god don't spray that's awful for the environment and people and then the other 50 percent of me says well if it gets so bad that we have a chance of our kids and us getting triple E or West Nile we really have to do everything we can possibly do to prevent because people die from triple E um and that's very serious so you know and the other thing is if it I mean I'm just saying if it really got to this critical stage you know I feel like the town could rally and figure out you know we're fine we could get finances to spray I don't know if that's true or not but we wouldn't just sit by and say oh well I I think the Pioneer Valley the folks at Pioneer the Pioneer Valley control board could give us a lot of information about what they could do I think they don't maybe don't do the aerial spraying but they the larbicidal applications that use um like biologic like bacillus thergeensis or something to to kind of kill the larvae are things that they would come in is this that that integrated pest management system I think they can probably do things that will help but it you know but it sounds like they won't be able to do the spraying and from what I read on that application I have a feeling that we would not because Amherst is listed now as a historically a high risk place and Pioneer Valley mosquito control board doesn't do the aerial or truck spraying um it would be rejected but you know our requests would be rejected but obviously I don't know that I think it seems to say that in the documents that in the documents that the application yeah and I I know it does make mention that high risk communities are carrying a burden for the region you know so right and it right and and you know I was surprised that we actually fell into high risk I mean um I think Granby did I don't think Belcher's I it was looking it looked the map looks strange to me but I don't I don't know quite how that how they determine all that but um you know because I actually went back and looked over the years and and the the risk for triple e has only been mod level raised as moderate in 2019 and 2014 on the data that I could find um but again I think they changed the way they are thinking about it I don't know West Nile virus we've had more trouble with but that that's not quite as serious a problem and it's a different problem it's really your tires and your bottle caps and your you know watering your bird baths or whatever that are more of a problem for that blossoms and yeah yeah small smaller water sources um I think the historical risk mapping is not just looking at the cases within a town but they also look at a broader range of pounds you know so the historical risk is the area seemed like I think we are on the edge yeah I think we are and I think what sounds hadly you know it's like you know I don't know it just like didn't quite make a hundred percent sense to me and I think it has to do like with what Jennifer was talking about what habitats we have and how much how many acres of of that and if you look at Lawrence swamp and and other wetland areas in Amherst it's quite significant I just have a right over the the border in Hadley you know right next to UMass there's a whole wetlands thing but I believe it's they're not high risk yeah yeah but they come over to the Amherst playing fields Lauren you had a question um yes uh yeah um with the state services for um mosquito management um I don't know if you guys know the answer but is there like a certain amount of times that they just spray regularly whether there's a issue or not and again with the opt out is there a certain time frame and then you can opt back in or because I just this is new to me I've been unaware of spraying since the 70s they used to spray I don't have them on stuff I they haven't sprayed there's not a routine it's not a routine thing through the state um I think the state has also adopted this integrated pest manager program I think I think there's some concern about some of the mosquito control districts that they want to kind of get in line with with a more modern approach um but one thing that I was reading is they're in terms of surveillance there hasn't been much surveillance outside you know by the state itself outside of these mosquito control districts so they they haven't been like routinely doing a lot of surveillance in non-mosquito control district areas so there's a lot less information about areas like that like amherst and uh this anvil 1010 um is supposed to biodegrade quickly with sunlight and microorganisms it is and I'm reading that from a paper I printed out from the CDC so I I don't have too much information that I can tell you off the top of my head I'm looking at their website and about more details about this anvil 1010 Sumitrain and Finotrin uh this for the central mass mass mosquito control project yeah that's great that yeah that they say that it biodegrades with sunlight and microorganisms quickly you know yeah that's right it's an adult side it's a what it's an adult adult side it's not a lobby side or yeah it kills the adults yeah rapidly rapidly inactivated and decomposes with exposure to light in there for the half life of less than one day and and the active ingredients are also common in household pest pest control products like for ants and wasps and fleas and tick shampoos hmm license cabbies you know shampoos and stuff like that so I'm looking at something that says uh the anvil 1010 can be sprayed by a truck from a truck and yeah okay so you don't have to spray it from the air I think there's different ways to do it I think it probably depends on what where you're trying to get it to go you know even some things might not be accessible by a truck yeah so so what what what are we deciding on with the opt out what what would be the well that's what we have to I know but but are there more pros than cons I just I'm I'm not sure yeah oh I didn't mean to cut you off I'm sorry it is a lot I'm not an expert this is something that I know before I was the the director you know last year it was discussed so something that comes up from time to time so what we decide what the board decides tonight will be noted and will send to the town council and then on the 16th excuse me if your decision is to opt out that's a recommendation to the town council they'll say oh okay thank you but I also plan on having someone help me with a presentation so the town council will have a public comment and there'll be a lot of questions and this will be picked apart um this discussion so we're not making the ultimate decision for the town right now but I stay out what did you say Lauren I say we should make the motion to opt out of the okay do you want to make the motion so Lauren making the motion to opt out of mosquito spraying I need a second I'll second that any more discussion I will vote Tim I'm I'm as I was saying like a 50-50 on this opting out is very easy but if PVMCD doesn't have the capability to spray until they get the capability I think we should get the help from state okay so you're voting no to opt out yeah Maureen I would vote yes to opt out I'm not sure it's gonna work but I support that you can help me draft the letter I know I'll draft it you can check it so Maureen I say yes to the opt out all right so I have to decide oh my heavens I'll I'll say I'll say no to opting out so that's a tie vote okay so I'll steal so um well it sends a message I mean that's exactly it both both Tim and I have said it's 50-50 and guess what yeah no I agree I mean it's hard to know exactly what these things mean if we opt out and we need spraying my understanding from reading it is we're stuck with that bill the town but not I don't think so I think if there's an emergency the state is going to do it anyway I think there are areas of public emergency that's my understanding I don't know if we have to pay for it but I don't know what happens normally when the state does it do they charge the towns for their services I have no idea I don't know but I somewhere in reading all that I thought we're stuck with the bill that is wrong but no if we have a crisis state will support us they will they will spray but if we have a approaching emergency say for example towns closer to us are having high number of cases and we are not having any cases that would be an approaching emergency so in those cases I think we have to proactively spray and then we're stuck with that yeah we'll be stuck with those those cases I'm sorry and you also said that if Amherst is considered high risk that we may not be able to opt out in the first place yeah that's my reading of what the application says whether that's only one factor in their decision about whether you can opt out or and it's a more general look at everything else you're doing or whether that's a you know hard and fast rule I have no idea I mean I think this whole process is new right in terms of this whole opting out and how to apply and evolving evolving process simplified yeah so we really needed a little bit more information about who's when we're who gets stuck with the bill if it becomes a true American thing so I agree I bet the Pioneer Valley got guys will probably know what that means yeah I think I think it'd be great to have somebody really upfront and able to talk and answer some questions hard hard questions okay so thank you now the director's update all right thanks everybody so I want to give a COVID update the board members were sent some of the data but I think we thank you for that yeah you're welcome so our numbers have been going up and I think we all know that these cases are under reported or underestimated the actual COVID level of COVID is probably much higher because people aren't testing and then the rapid antigens aren't reported so our numbers are going up I looked at what we are today because the state comes out Thursday night at 5 p.m so our numbers are inching up for example overnight we had 27 new cases come in we have an active case load of 260 right now the last time it was that that level goes back to March the beginning of March so what the state put out this this week is oops I just is that our 14-day incidence rate last week was 49.7 this week is 52.2 our 14-day average positivity rate is 3.25 last week was 2.8 the state average is 5.11 and we're at 3.25 so we have our numbers going up but also we know that the CDC is really having us look less at case counts and more at hospitalizations or acute cases and bed capacity and looking at deaths and those are all pretty stable right now I want to let you know that I called you mass I said hey can you give us any information on sequencing so we're approximately 95 percent of BA2 and 10 percent approximate that is some sub variant of that and I don't have information on what the sub variant is I don't know if it's BA2.12 I just don't know when you break down the cases pretty consistently what we're seeing is about 73 percent are between the ages of 18 to 26-year-olds and the rest trickles out into other age groups. When we do contact tracing some of these cases can be linked to dorm parties and social events and I know I say this but it's sort of normal activities in abnormal times the cases that have been in the general population has have also been mostly attributed to social events and going through households we're not seeing spread out in the community for example like I'm not hearing about you know restaurant spread anything like that the other things public health key indicators that we also keep in in mind at least you know what I do is like what season are we in so winter you know everyone was inside we're spring with better ventilation the testing ability the PCR ended but we still have rapid antigen tests and we have wastewater testing that I'm going to get to after this. When I speak when I listen to the Department of Public Health weekly webinars what they're saying is there was a question is someone said are we ever going to be talking about mass soon or physical distancing and what DPH is saying that we really need to focus on vaccination and I know from my own you know interactions people say that omicom has been mild but it's not mild it's just that we're well vaccinated so we need to keep the vaccination going vaccines are doing exactly what we want them to do they're reducing severe disease and preventing death and just a reminder it's still two weeks after your booster to get that effect of the vaccine stay home so this is from DPH saying stay home if you're sick test notify your contacts if you're sick and just a reminder to everybody and to virals are important and then ventilation is something that we we talk about but maybe really need the word out about better filtration and mask your risk assessment and ventilation and then I'm going to mention one thing that I really like from the New York Times they said that everyone should have a backup plan and so that's just a little bit of education that I've really been giving people that if and these are two examples that people gave me that they thought it was going to be a small gathering at their aunt's house on the deck but they went in and everyone was inside and from the TV so really you know have a backup plan so so do you want to be there and inside with poor ventilation the other example someone gave me is they they saw that there was a church fair this is in a different town and there's a photograph it was supposed to be outside but they went there was a rainy day and it was in the basement and was very crowded so they decided to leave so I think my point is there's some risk assessment that we need to be thinking about for ourselves excuse me um does anyone have any questions about that I can go into wastewater surveillance that I'm interested how about the schools Jennifer I know we had that little burst the sort of significant burst of cases at the high school before this vacation and my sense of that is it settled down some but but there's a steadier number of case higher but steady number of cases in all spread through all the school yeah so I speak to the lead nurse the nurse manager every week there and we go over the cases but also we communicate during the week and what she has told me is that again these are cases that are going through families they're happening at social events that sometimes happen after school events they're being very proactive the promise coming their socials coming giving people antigen tests and asking them to test before they go they go in so I think I would tell you that there's no to my knowledge contact tracing or spread in the classrooms so that's something that I'm not aware of and haven't been told it's happening in other in other situations yeah the middle school had its social last week excuse me for the cough I'm going to segment into wastewater testing so I know we were always talking about layered approaches to to COVID mitigation so I feel like we took some things away when we took away the PCR testing but what we have now is we have wastewater testing through the department the Massachusetts Department of Public Health so we met met with them two weeks ago and we asked if we could do testing here in Amherst and we really tried to woo them we said you know we have the infrastructure we have the leadership we can do this we're used to disseminating information and I met with Dr. Monima Clevens I'm sorry if I mispronounce her first name and she's like absolutely so they were right on board from the beginning so working with the Department of Public Works what we're doing is we're taking wastewater samples three times a week and the composite sample is representative of all the buildings homes businesses that contribute to wastewater in the Amherst wastewater treatment plan so that includes Amherst College and Hampshire College and UMass we run the samples three times a week we send it to Jamaica Plain and then Biobot is actually analyzing it for us this is under a grant so we're doing this through June and then hopefully we can just continue it on the testing results are going to go on to our dashboard tomorrow we've received four results so far I think last last week was our our first or two weeks ago so the thing that we really want to drive home is like lots of us are used to you know analyzing incidents for you know rate and positivity rate well this is kind of new for us this um copies per milliliter copies per liter but really what we want to look at is the trend and you'll see tomorrow when we post it that the trend of cases and wastewater really do mirror each other they've really parallel so it really does give us um it's going to reflect the trends in the the burden of COVID in town um so I think that's something that we can really make sure that we undersponded has DPH recommended I will use this data um so uh what what they say is similar to um you know the CDC that it's this can be used as an early warning um but but when you talk about it has this really been studied that that this see this trend and then its response is this I don't think there's a correlation there but I think the more information we have um thank you so that's a lot of fun so I have a quick question uh the number of cases among 20 to 29 around that engage is very high right in terms of the case load and given that UMass and regional colleges are some sort of a wrapping up for summer so we should expect some sort of the case load to go down yeah I think when you look at um Hampshire county you know in the CDC COVID levels we've gone from green to moderate so green to yellow and we're Amherst is really driving that that number up so I think we really need to be sensitive about what we do as a response the board of health the health department I know we have people asking about mass mandate but I think we need to look at trends and not fluctuations and I think we'll see um a dip after graduation should I keep on going to my next item and slums yep yeah it could roll away at 742 let's yeah yeah so this is something that was on my mind I don't know if I should have put it on the agenda um but I we do not have any tanning salons in the town of Amherst right now in the past we have had some so I'm wondering if this is something that we want to consider saying we don't want tanning salons in Amherst because of the health risks um I think it's going to be something that we need to I need to speak to town hall I need to speak to a town lawyer do we need to speak to the bit about this but I just want to see if it's something that we should pursue sort of you know you know with the health risks um of eye damage skin cancer is it something the board would consider or should I just sit on this for a while and do a little more research I'm happy we don't have any more because I remember hearing students say oh I'm going tanning oh I'm going tanning I'm wondering if the trend is going out um let me do some more research yeah let me do that what do other people think I I think uh it's not a question of Amherst alone if Amherst proactively says no students are going to Hadley or Northampton I mean people you know students who want to do that they will do it you know so I think in terms of research I think we have to see how effective will be and if we do much more localized or if it's a regional one that might be more effective thank you well one of the things like that is like as as an as towns start to do that maybe other towns will follow suit too so you know and then the stake it gets an idea too so it's a lot of public health in Massachusetts seems to come from the towns up but yeah I'd like to know more about about the you know specifically the risks and also what other regulations maybe other places have and is there a list of tanning salons how many are there there used to be one university drives yeah they're none right now they're none now so so I was thinking it but I wonder if other towns yeah I don't know in Hadley say now or is it now everybody puts that lotion on to make themselves okay anything else Jen I'm all set thank you we have public comment but public gave up on us yeah I know everybody got the email from Darcy Dumont also Jennifer Taub who is a town counselor reached out to me and she wants to talk about recycling and composting so I said yeah we could talk about it and I'd bring that information to you and then topics not anticipated by the chair there's two things one is Steve's term is up in June is that correct yes I've notified Town Hall and when we get and so there's a notice that puts out put out that we're looking for applicants so when we get five or six will be notified well and I can't remember what we did for John but I'm willing to get a card and bring it to the health department if people want to sign a card for Steve he did all those minutes what are your thoughts I can I can get a card we can circulate it we can come to you that helps okay well thank you Jen okay um and then also you know I've been the chair for I don't know how many years and I really need if I'm going to be doing the precepting of the students for phase two and three I really need to step down as chair so I would like people to consider becoming a chair we can talk about it June but especially if there's gonna be focus groups and all that going on in the fall I really can't be a chair and and be part of phase three any other comments for the good of the board okay can you would you still be on the board but just not the chair I'd still be on the board just not I have another year I think it's another year to my term and then I've been on for so many years I'll be off so I will be on until I guess it's next June I don't know what months they all started didn't start because at one point it was extended to October and then it was extended another year so I don't know anything else not can I have a motion to adjourn I'll make a motion to adjourn this meeting okay our next meeting is June 9th and I need a second I second it okay so Tim hi Maureen hi Lauren hi Nancy I and thank you all and see you in June thank you thank you Jen for everything yeah thank you