 I guess I can start the meeting with the preamble. Or maybe I should wait till Lawrence here because we don't have a quorum for a meeting right now. I don't see anyone in the attendees at the moment either so. You have a phone number for Lauren maybe we could try calling her. I don't know that I do. Let me look. I do either. She's often had a little trouble. Oh, I do. That's not in service. So I texted to the email. Oh, that is Lauren. I see her listed. Oh, there's a for. Ah, yes. Hi, Lauren. So I guess we can get started. Can you hear and. Lauren, can you hear? Okay. We're having a hard time hearing you, but. I'm going to call in as well. Oh, that we can hear. So I'm going to read that preamble pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. And renewed by governor more a Healy this meeting of the board of health will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by following the instruction on the board of health. Hosted agenda via zoom. 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 proceedings as soon as it is technologically possible. After this meeting, all approved. Board of health minutes are posted on our website. Once they are approved by the board. I will now open the. August 10th 2023 board of health meeting. At 5 30 PM with a roll call. Tim. Yes. Lauren. Okay. I'm just allowing Dave's omac to becoming a. A panelist, but. Okay, great. Hello, Dave. Welcome. Good evening, everyone. I guess we get to introduce you later, but welcome now. Our first item on the agenda is to. Review the minutes of the July 13th 2023 meeting. And I guess they're just the three of us, but that's enough to approve them. Does anybody have any corrections or. Concerns about those minutes. No. I didn't. Okay. So. We need to. I can make a motion to accept. I forgot if we had to make a motion to vote on those, but I guess we have to make a motion for everything. Yes. Go ahead. Yeah, I can make a motion to accept the minutes of July 13. And I'll second that motion. Lauren. What is your vote? Yes. Yes. Okay. Tim. Hi. So the minutes are accepted. And now we have public comment and it does look like there are a few. Participants. Public comment. Is limited to two minutes per person. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment at this time? I don't see any hands raised. Okay. All right. We have, we have one actually let me promote Jill to panelists for the two minutes. Okay. Jill, you might be seeing something on your screen pop up. Prompting you to join panelists. There she goes. Okay. Does the comment have to be on last month's minutes or can it be on something new? What is the comment on? I think it can be on anything. Okay. I just wonder what, since I exercise in Amherst and see friends and shop in Amherst, I just wonder is the board of health making any plans. Are they making any plans at all? We don't answer these questions, but we appreciate the fact that you are bringing them up. Okay. Thank you. That's all I have to say. Have a good meeting. Thank you. I just moved Jill back. Is there anyone who would like to make a comment? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Thank you. I just moved Jill back. Is there any other attendees that would like to speak? I'm not seeing any hands. Lauren, is this the, is your. Number trying to join the one zero seven four. Okay. I'll promote its panelists as well. Or it doesn't allow me to promote a number of the panelists, but I allowed you to speak during it. So you can use that function if you like. So now I guess we're going to all the business. Okay. So. After the. Agenda was posted. We learned that neither Susan Malone nor Ed Smith could be here today. So. I think we have to postpone any discussion about the simple gifts farm. Until the next meeting. So that. Will be. Be moved to September. Okay. Okay. So the second item is from the toxic chemical regulation. And I'll let Tim or Lauren kind of pick that up. So in our last meeting, we decided that. There is no need for this regulation. Given that the. Relevant offices are already pursuing it. And then we suggested that we have guidelines. So. When I started working on developing some sort of guidelines, it's really, there is no. Essential need for a guidelines to because. The procurement office, the public offices, they are already using some sort of a green type of substances. And so. It has to be some sort of a resource page. It's available on the web on the board of health website. So it's looked like a guidelines. It's just a bunch of resources from already existing links on the website. So. So I would, I would propose. I mean, I would, you know, propose that. We don't need a particular, you know, we will withdraw that. Toxic chemicals regulation proposal earlier. I propose that we will have say a resource page. For. Use of any type of car toxic chemicals available for the public. On the board of health website. I don't know if this could be a motion or. Well, I think if we're going to revoke. A regulation that would need to be a motion. But maybe we had had any conversation about that. I don't think it's going to be a motion. I don't think it's going to be a motion at this point. It's certainly the regulation as it exists is really. Out of date and. Not. Not helpful. And I don't think anything about it has ever been enforced. I. I think I agree with the idea that some kind of information that's going on in the city, in the city, in the town or maybe businesses of the town. Might be helpful and help in directing them. Towards least toxic options for different kind of products, whether it's cleaning products or cosmetics or. Garden products and so forth. You know, that kind of makes sense to me right now. Yeah. I think. As we decided on last meeting. That we don't have, we don't need the regulation. I think it will be. Something we have to vote on revoking it. Right. That was the one for acid. Acid free papers. At the pub, you know, that's outdated, you know. Yes. Yes. Can't hear you, Lauren. Lauren, I'm prompting you to unmute. From the phone call. Are you near me now? Yes. Okay. I'm going to try to do it. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah, that's pretty good. Okay. I thought we. Had. Already voted on. Not. It's just a volume issue. That right then. Here we go again. Okay. Okay now. That's better. Okay. Okay. I was trying to do the video. Be gone other, but. I thought we had already voted on. Not. Continuing with a toxic regulation. And. To me, I'm concerned that. With guidelines, then. We won't have. Anything. Or for people to. You know, departments. I feel the regulations and guidelines are there so that. You know, people have some. Some impetus or some, something to go on as to. Where, where, where we are in this, in a standard, like what kind of standard we're trying to put forward in the town. And to me. The PFAS. Conversation with her. Kind of interjected itself in our. In our thought process of, you know, what we wanted to do. And so I'm just a little concerned about we keep like. That tracking. And I'm not really sure that's the best thing to do because. There are. Environmental concerns. That I think we should try to address. And whatever guidelines we set. So. It sounds like. Tim, you're trying to say that. We're not going to do guidelines at all or. So. So guidelines right now, when we're right. When we started writing the guidelines, it looks like it's guidelines only for the public offices. Procurement office or any type of. Public use of chemicals and. And those guidelines are. I think I would say they are muted. Only because we heard that these offices are already. Proactively using. Some sort of a. Non-toxic green chemicals. So even if you have guidelines, I think. It really is muted. There's no purpose to that. Even PFAS is not something. They are. They are a big source. They are a big source. They are a big source. They are a big source. If as is a contaminant, you know, which is, which is coming from a variety of diffuse sources. So really, I think our guidelines or even our regulations. Have to be on the public procurement office and looks like they are. Already at. Using some sort of a. The minimally toxic. Chemicals. So. I think with your point about, you know, there's a very important problem and. And you'll, you'll, you'll see that. What additional thing we could bring in beyond. The federal government regulations on all these contaminants. Like EPA. Then we have state. Regulations which are very strict from the department of environmental protection. And beyond that one, I think. I think. I think that the town has some sort of regulations if they are not covering. The state regulations or federal government is not covering it, but looks like, you know, there is standards established. For both at both those levels. So. So regulation was some sort of a muted only because I think. It's. It's already the. Officers are not, you know, primarily following. Guidelines for minimizing that. So even if we can recognize it, I think it's more of education. Rather than. Regulating regulating or, you know, regulating it's guidelines. Or primarily for those offices, but I'm, I'm proposing that we have this. Information resource available for everyone. Not just for office office public offices, but also for businesses. Residents and then it's primarily links. Too many of the. Sites which are already there in online. I don't know if I'm clarifying that. So. Have we already made that information resource you said, because I, I'm not. No, no, we haven't. I'm proposing that we have. That information on our public health site. Why wouldn't we want to do that? I know you said that there's already state and federal. Guidelines. And regulations. What is it? Putting the work in. We're losing the volume again, Lauren. I said, is it that we don't want to. Put the work in because we feel that. The state and the federal guidelines are already there. Yes. I think the main purpose is. The resources are already there. But. It may not be needed for us to. I don't know if we can replicate it again. But one of the suggestions is if we have a. Some sort of a summary type of thing where people can. Go and see quickly. What, what type of things they could. They could use as alternatives. Just like we provide information about vaccinations or. Information about COVID or other things, you know. It might be helpful to have that type of link code there. I know that the state is working on PFAS guidelines. And that's, I guess. Where I got stuck about what Amherst regulating that it's such a complex situation. That is. Really, I seems to be also like a moving target right now. That. I don't know we have the resources to. Make an adequate. Regulation or enforce one if we did. And I think I don't think there are any other towns that all that regulate toxic substances on their own. In Massachusetts, I may be wrong about that, but I think that Nancy had mentioned that. In some of our previous discussions. We talked about, you know, how toxic chemical regulations to guidelines. And thinking about that now guidelines are. Are kind of. Or a health board kind of a no man's land. It's not something you can enforce. It's not something. You know, I don't know how much meaning that has, even if we do do that. We can use chemicals in our environment and make people, you know, help people be aware of that. In the things they use every day or. You know, even in things like the fire department, you know, it's probably the PFAS is like the fire department. It might be this one place that has a significant source of those types of chemicals with the flame retardants and. Things like that. Yeah, I think it's a. Yeah, it's a, it's a, I agree that it's a complex one, but also. Regulations are being developed, I would say in the, in the federal level and the state level. But it is an important topic. That's why we have so many standards and regulations. From water quality to air quality and everything. So one thing is. The proposed regulation or guidelines. If they are not, if they are muted, if in terms of, if they are already. Following some sort of a safe standards. Why have a regulation to actually, which is not helpful. Or a guidelines, which is not helpful. So that's what, that's why having a, it's not worth having a guideline. Also, it just, if we can appeal to some sort of a education and awareness through some sort of a providing resources, I think that might be a better way. And then maybe in the future, there might be. Potential. Gaps where town can step in. So if the federal and the state hasn't. Regulated and they are not monitoring certain things and the town is actually. Having some specific issue, then we can actually develop. That's what happened to our regulation. Earlier, the toxic chemical regulation, which we, which we discussed before, was for having this type of a. Procurement of some papers. To be acid free. And that's how dated. So, but we can update it and make it relevant even. Guidelines and, and I just. I just, I don't know. Like I said, if, if we need more people to help us. With the work, but it just seems that we're trying to reduce. We're doing because one, it might be too much work or. To we don't. Departments. Don't necessarily. Have to. Abide by a guideline, but I just feel like. In this environment of like. The climate change and. The flooding that's going on. And, you know, other things that can impact. A person's environment. I just. I don't see why it would. Hurt to, to have guidelines. Like I feel like, you know. I just, I don't know. I just feel like. We, we were talking about this for two years. So, and. Because they're. Departments and agencies that might be affected. If you don't really want to. Handle it, but we, as the board of health, I think. Like. You know, I just, I just, I just, I don't know. I just feel. We started something. And now we're not doing anything. I know you, both of you worked on these more than I did. I just read through some of the different drafts. I did find that there's some fairly. Thorough resources. When I was looking at things like the Tory site from the UMass Lowell. That addresses a lot of the issues that. Come up, I think, including things like PFAS and. And. Lawn chemicals and different, you know, it just has options that. For the uses that people. Both the town and other like residents might. Might. Be able to use. And. I guess between that and the regulations that already existed, the state and federal level. I'm not sure what we add to that at this point in time. But I could be convinced. I suppose, but I don't, I just don't know. Yeah, I think we see it right now. We spent a lot of time. Exploring what's their specific need. For a regulation or a guideline and. It's primarily pointing out saying it's already done in many more specific focused areas and. If you are going to propose something, it's as a resource, it's going to be pointing to. A EPA site or a DPA, the EP site or a. Tury site. For the resources. So I don't think we agree with more in that we don't, we are not essentially adding anything. In terms of, you know, what value it brings in. It's not about resources. I think we could always. Find resources, you know, staff resources to compile it. But we have already spent a lot of time on that. And then, and then finally it boils down to actually focusing on procurement department. And so it's a guy, it's a regulation of the procurement department or guidelines of the procurement department. And I think in last meeting of the meeting before we found that the procurement department. Is already actually following some of the same guy. And I don't know what else value it will, this will bring in. I know, you know, I think it's of times in the past that we've discussed. Regulating specific. Chemicals of concern like. Life to see the round. And I think in last meeting of the meeting before we found that the procurement department. And I think in some ways we found similar. Outcome in that, that we checked to see how much round up the town used. And it was extremely small amount for very stubborn poison Ivy. The idea that we wouldn't sell roundup in the town. Seemed complicated because you, you people could get that. In any other nearby town. You know, so I think some of the, the conclusion was to focus on education and. Information. Rather than a regulation. But that may change. You know, there, there could be some circumstances that more information is available or there might be some changes and things like that. But. That might be something that could be dealt with. On a one at a time kind of basis. If we feel like the state isn't doing as much as we wanted to do. I don't know. Is, is, I just wonder where we should go from here. It would seem to not all be quite on the same page. Would it. Maybe be helpful to see what these resources, you know, just another view of what these resources are and how that might be put into, into effect. I don't know if that would be helpful for us to consider. We're going to have a new health director soon. We're going to see what the health director can do with some of this information. In terms of the value of putting it on the website. And that's really in their purview. I can say briefly that if. The board did decide to. Do away with the guidelines or regulations and you guys just want me to put it up. On the board of health website, that's something I can do. So depending. What that decision is that something that is possible. Since we already voted on. Not doing the regulations before. Looks like there is a difference between a guideline and a resource. Resource is a much better one. Guidelines is going to be focused on. Only procurement department. So it's essentially muted. In terms of what we are going to do. But resource is going to broaden in terms of usefulness. In terms of business. Businesses, residential customers. You know, any type of garden usage. So I think resource is a better option for us. So. I know we probably have a lot of those on hand. You are Lauren. Would it make sense? To just pull those together for us to look at it one more time in one place. And. Look at it in our next meeting and. No, no, no, no. The. The revised. Regulations and guidelines doesn't have much resources. No. Those are scientific arguments for. Regulating certain things. All right, but I think we probably. Have looked at them, you know, in terms of. Yeah, you could identify them pretty regular. Pretty easily. Yeah, that won't be a resource, which is, you know, these are a scientific papers and stuff like that. So whatever suggesting is. Providing a link to Turi. Procurement. Providing a link to some sort of. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Sustainable gardens. Some sort of a sustainable gardens. You know, that type of links provided in a one page. Maybe someone at the health department can help to compile it. And we can post it on the, on the site. What should we do a little work to just. Identify with some of those resources. The ones that look like something you would find. That might be helpful outside of Turi EPA and mass DPH. I. I think that might help us understand what we're putting out there a little bit. I don't know. Oh, you mean they are guidelines. Some asset classification. Well, not just, you know, what are those resources? I know we know of a few of them, but we see what that page might look like. I don't know. I don't know what those links, what they are, what. Yeah, maybe I think I can help Kyle. Actually just to classify who the client, you know, who the specific categories are. And then maybe we can, the board can look at it. Yeah, you can share that maybe with everyone. We could do that. And. See where we continue to go with this. As we think through it. Yeah, Tim, if you want to email me and we can set up. Sometime next week, or if you want to send me whatever information you want to compile, we can work on that and then present to the board at the next meeting to approve if that sounds good. Yeah, this month is very busy for me, you know, so, but I can provide some sort of a. Broad classification of resources. And then some potential and maybe. You can find the correct exact links and we could, we could work on it early September, you know. Yeah, hopefully it'll be done before. I'll be away this August, you know, the remaining of August. That's good. And. I don't know, Lauren, I don't know if you can look at other cities or towns and see if anyone has a toxic chemical regulation or anything else that's out there. I, I. Yeah. I can do that. Okay, I'd be curious, you know, just to see if there's something like that that exists that seems to make sense and for Amherst. So we'll, we'll keep plugging away, I guess is the. David has some hands raised. Excuse me. I mean, I just jumped in there for a second with my hand raised. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. I was listening, you know, intently to your conversation. I just came back from the Cape where I have some relatives who live on the Cape and certainly some of the Cape towns with their sole source aquifers and. And groundwater issues are looking at these kinds of things. I know Orleans. Rooster. I think well fleet. I know Orleans is looking at. At these kinds of issues very closely. So I just offer that as. I'm sure on their websites. There may be some drafts. And, and, and they're identifying many of the same things. That you, you are talking about here today and the complexity of them. So I just offer that as perhaps a source to, to research. If you aren't aware. The. Regulations we looked at, but there was a very clear. Focus on that. Protecting the sole source aquifer. We are not doing that yet. That means what, what it means is the aquifer versus drinking water supplies. You, you need to provide guidelines in terms of contaminating the cycle. That's totally different from what we're trying to do here. And when we started looking at what is our focus area, it boiled down to procurement. And then it, it's essentially there is no. Impact in our, in our town. So I think you, I agree with you there are. So many of the things that are actually regulating soul source aquifer has a toxic. Chemicals regulations discharge. Into the aquifer. And that's a totally different one. In terms of our focus and our focus on. Is on procurement. So. Yeah. I know that towns are like Nantucket and, and Martha's vineyard, you know, also with the social act of aquifer, we're talking about not, you know, banning. The synthetic playing fields and things like that, because that, that's a source of chemicals that they didn't want to contaminate their aquifer. I mean, we did talk about, you know, the town. We weren't charged with. Making a decision about the. I don't know where that actually stands right now, but. Single things that come up in our, and that may come up from, from time to time. Yeah, I'm coming in, you know, mid, mid stream on this. So I wasn't. Direct correlation between the way, you know, we do not have a sole source aquifer here. I wasn't suggesting that I was. More to the, you know, kind of the education what Tim was talking about in terms of outreach and education and, you know, many of the Cape towns and. Have explored strict regulations, but also done a lot of outreach to their residents about herbicide, pesticides, spraying on lawns and, you know, many of the things that I think the town of Amherst. Hopefully residents should be doing, but there may be other ways to achieve those goals. Short of regulation, but. Anyway, thanks. We can explore that a little further, I guess. Thank you. So then. Next topic on this. List is the body art regulations. And I. I guess about two or three weeks ago sent out a pretty clean copy. And actually just yesterday, I think I sent out a slightly updated copy just so we would all be on the same page. I just found some typographical errors and a few order issues in matching the index. With the actual document. And so I just wondered if there were comments or questions about, about that or any errors or. Or anybody have anything to say about it. I think you know it's a very well written compilation of all the aspects of that regulation. I have some couple of suggestions, just some. Just a couple of recommendations one, you know. On page 10. Yeah, page 10 we have all these prohibitions. Yes. And then we are saying there is a. Wave around that Cypring, unless performed by healthcare. Yeah, let's find a professional. I'm just saying instead of repeating that unless. Maybe we should say. Prohibition the following prohibitions. Okay. Following. Activities are prohibited. And then have. I couldn't do that. I took this from another document and I, you know, it does seem quite. Yeah, it's a simple one. We'll just say unless. Followed by a professional healthcare licensed from common. And then have one item on the heading. And then we can delete all those extensive repeating. And then we can do that. Unless unless unless in every area. So. I could do that. No, then there's a lot of repetition in this document. And because it separates out. Essentially some very. Almost identical or. Information for the different types of licenses and, and, but it. It's, it's set there listed separately. But I think it's a little clearer that way. For that, but I, I, I, yeah, this other listing thing. I think we could shorten. Shorten it. By just lumping it together a little bit. Yeah. Other one is on page nine. We talked about. No piercing shall be performed on a person under the age of 14. I'm just curious if should we have any type of a. Conditioner allowance for some sort of a cultural type of thing, you know. Well, your piercing is allowed. It's allowed. Okay. So, if this doesn't include that forcing of the ear lobes. So, right. So I think. Somewhere at the very beginning. This, it says that that's. Not included. In these regulations. It just. So, so that doesn't apply to. To that type of piercing. I don't know if there are other things culturally that would apply there. But, you know, I know in a lot of cultures. The babies are. Have ears pierced at birth. Essentially. Yeah. And certainly a lot of kids. In multiple culture to get their ears pierced when they're six or seven years old or whatever. When they push their parents to allow them to do it. So, yeah. The ear piercing is separate from those regulations. Maybe I think it's, it has to be clear in our definitions. Well, it's right. I remember seeing that. It should be. It's really in the very beginning, I think. Where. On page eight exemptions. In section five part B individuals pierced only the globe of the ear. So those are exempt. Those are your. Yeah. Yeah. I think it looks good. I think. With those minor edits on the details, I think it'll be. It'll be good. Okay. And. I think it does say in many places that the board will set a fee for this, but we don't have to set that right now. And when I. I think Jennifer. Said that that might be reviewed by some other committee or finance committee or some other. Fee setting body in town. But the fees. First of all, go back to Lauren. Do you have comments or questions about this? We're able to. It's quite. I looked it over, but no, I don't have any questions. Okay. And, you know, Pramela and I, I guess both Pramela also said she looked this over. So I guess the question is, are we ready to vote on it? And. So let me just go back to that question of fees. I think that can come. A little later once it's passed. I do have a copy of the, I think I might have sent this out that. An establishment. I think that would be a good idea. I think that would be a good idea. I think that. Permit is $275 a year. If you're going to be a tattoo artist, that's. $250 a year or piercing artists is $250 a year. If you both it's $325 a year. So I think our charge will be to. Put. A fee for an apprentice or a guest artist. I think that would be a good idea. I think that would be a good idea. I think that might want to just be thinking about it in terms. My thought would be they would be somewhat less than these fees because these are. One it's short term. And the other one is someone who's just a trainee. But. But I wouldn't mind getting input from. Folks who set fees for such. Things. Yeah, we couldn't get an input. If a regular. Fee is. Let's say. For the whole year. Yeah. And if a. Temporary guest artist is coming for a month. It has to be some sort of a one-twelfth of that or something. I, yeah, that's. I was thinking that too, although I, the process of like vetting that person is that, is that something. That the town thinks about in terms of setting, you know, any of these fees. I was thinking something a little more than one-twelfth, but not certainly less than the $250, you know, like $25 or $50 or something in that range. If he can assume three months. That could be one fourth, you know. Yeah. That's a way, one way to think about it is just dividing by the months. If, yeah, that would be fine with me if it's reasonable for the, for what, how the town views these things. And I, yeah, and I just sort of pulling things out of the air. I was thinking $100 for the apprentice one, just because they're probably not making any money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is it, is it routine that we will have a. A hearing on this or. Yes. Yes. I think we would have to have before we vote. Right. Right. Not what now, you know, it has to be after the hearing, after the hearing. Okay. So I think we're ready to move to plan the hearing, which I guess we could do at the beginning of the next meeting. I think we're expected to be a long hearing. So we can put that. We can plan for the hearing. And I'm meeting for the September 14th meeting. And I will make those couple of changes that. You mentioned, I think that'll shorten it by maybe a whole page. Which wouldn't be a bad thing. Right. So we're making progress. The last part of the old business is the board of health succession. And I don't know if people thought about that anymore. We're still waiting to get another member on the board. I haven't, I've heard that there were interviews, but I don't know when we'll hear about that. When Jennifer was sort of sent a little information. He said, basically, it could be pretty simple. Like, I guess my concerns were. For me, you know, I. I'm not going to be out of town. During this period of time where I'm going to be out of town a lot. If some, my concern was I, something might come up quickly that I wouldn't feel like I'd respond too quickly. I. I guess I found that that. That actually the, the nuts and bolts part of being the chair of the board, isn't that time consuming in terms of. You know, I don't think it's appropriate to set up the agenda and. And just trying to. Cheer the meeting itself. So, and that's, that's pretty much. And reading that statement before the meeting begins. Those are the three chores. That are kind of routine. I guess my, my concern is just like. Yeah. I mean, you know, when we were doing COVID and we were doing. Masked mask mandates and vaccine mandates and things like that. I just felt like. I might not be able to respond and read, look things up and kind of get organized for something like that on, on short notice, but. I suppose. We could connect. Can I comment on that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the same issue. People are traveling and, you know, but that shouldn't be a problem because. If it's going to be, you'll be away and you can actually depute some of the member. To take care of, you know, business. If something arises, you know. Yeah. As a standby. So you could do that. It's not a. So. What are you thinking? I think one of the questions was. Do we still have to vote. Or nominate. The chair. Even though. I mean, I feel that we. Haven't done that. And I think other committees. Do that. So I'm not, that was one of my questions. And. Are we going to try to have any in-person. And kind of get to know each other's interests a little bit more. I just feel like. Maybe we should. Because there is that gap that you say you. Might not be available. Could we just assign like each member to chair. A meeting. Just so that we can all get a feel of how it is. And. That's just my suggestion. Yeah, I. I know wait. Well, he didn't really vote on who's, who's going to be the chair. And I guess that is something that. Probably should happen. I can interject quickly and just say something. Before Jen left, she wanted me to express to all of you in the meeting that. The succession of chair is totally. Dependent on the board. So you guys can create a system. One share each meeting or rotation or co-chair, but all that just is available and acceptable. Just has to be decided amongst all of you. Okay. I can think in essence, the chairing, the actual chairing of each meeting isn't the problem that I, I feel. That. So I feel like I could share the meetings that are coming up. I will be available at this particular particular predictable time. I guess. I guess my hesitation had been just the responsibility of it, sort of hanging over for, for times when I'm, I'm otherwise occupied for two or three days a week during the fall. And out of town, you know, for two or three days a week in, in September and October through. Mid January. So I don't know if people want to take a turn it. We would get assigned and rotate like a running the meeting. If people want, if somebody's interested in doing that. But it's just, I guess, having a backup. It was the thing for me that I didn't feel like I, I. I could hand. I think that should be consistent in the flow process. I mean, I, I, you know, if someone wants to, I mean, having like a monthly changes, I think the, the whole decision making and whole types of organizations will start to be very chaotic. Yeah, I agree with that. So we, we had some sort of a discussion about this before when Nancy was there on succession. And I think everyone agreed that, you know, you'll be ideal person to actually need it. And so if in, I would suggest that, you know, we should continue with one person. And if that person is actually, you know, you're an experienced person. And, and if you're going away, probably you can call in certain to someone to chat. And that is the best process to be consistent, you know, or else testing it out and everything, it would be very, very chaotic in terms of the long-term process. Yeah. Now we have a very, we have a quorum here tonight, but it's pretty limited without Primal and without the new person. Do we, I guess I would say yes to being the chair. I would say yes to being the chair. I would say yes to being the chair. I would say yes to being the chair. But one of me to do that. And with, with the caveat that I might really call on others to, to help out when. At different times. I think I agree. Out of the country. That's not that, you know, it's not like I'm going to be far away, but I might. You know, be otherwise occupied. With things that are. I think we have a, a three month old baby, which doesn't allow for predictability. And one in the, in the day. So. I don't know if they can. A sleeper. That's a hand-raised. What? David has his hand-raised. I just jumped in. So yeah, sure. I just wanted to reiterate what Kyle said, which is kind of normal process and procedure for committees and procedures. And I think. You really should vote on. You know, have a quorum tonight. If you're, if the group. Wants to, to. Move for a chair and or a vice chair. You could have a, a chair and a vice chair. You could have co-chairs. I've seen that happen or see that, seen that used. But I think somebody would need to make. You know, I don't know if it's appropriate for you to be the chair. Maybe you have a vice chair. Maybe you have a rotating vice chair. But those could very well could work. I think the other thing I know Lauren and asked about. About in-person meetings. And I just wanted to comment on that. I think. The guidance we've gotten from the town manager in the short term is that. I think he is strongly encouraging. I do think that we need to make sure that we have the power to be in the town. In part, because we can't. We can't support. Hybrid meetings. That's our challenge. I think we just don't have the staff and the IT capability. Have all the boards and committees. Meeting in hybrid. Meaning some people could be at home and some people could be in person. So. I think right now I believe we're only doing that with the town And, and I don't know when that might be, but I think that's the guidance we've gotten from the town meeting from the town manager. But I, you know, I just wanted to recommend you're ready to vote or somebody wants to nominate you or somebody else who's on the board. That could happen tonight it could happen at your next meeting, whatever your preferences. Is it okay for you. Hello. Hi. Can you hear me. Yes. Yeah. Okay, I, I feel that we should do something like a vice chair. Or co chair, because the. You, you stated that you, you know, there, there are, there is going to be some time that you feel that you can't fully or prepare or however, you know, you may feel about those certain months. I feel like it's better to set it up now so that there's another person if we want consistency, there's another person in place. Whatever happens, I feel we should either do a vice chair and a vice chair or a chair co chairs. I feel like, you know, there's, you know, maybe we're, we're there's some hesitancy, you know, for whatever reason. And, and you, maybe it's just like the pressure of, you know, you feel like you can't be in two places at one time. I just feel like it would be, if we want consistency, it would be better just to set it up. Whoever that vice chair or the co chair is it could be the, I don't know how long we're going to wait. Like I said, in the last meeting for the new board member, but I would feel more comfortable. Even if it's not me, I would feel more comfortable with a vice chair and a co chair and I think you might feel more comfortable that way. I was a little more worried but I don't want to speak for you. Again with this small group today. I mean, do, do we want to have a the discussion, which hopefully next month would include a new board member and tremolo as you know so because I think when we first spoke about this I said I could, I would be able to be the chair for this these three months I don't think we voted on it, but we have been acting on it. I think the structure of having a vice, I don't know the difference being a vice chair and a co chair but, but maybe a vice chair that would step in when, when needed would be something that would be be helpful. I think even the idea of co chairs I think who's doing what sometimes get makes things confusing. What, what, what tasks are how the tasks are divided. So, so I think the idea of someone who would be ready to step up if needed that would be the idea that I would think would be helpful. So here's a suggestion. I'm thinking. We wait for you know much more number of members. Because right now we are only three here. So maybe next month will have five. And we could make a decision about who you know, voting up on a chair, and then decide upon whether what type of backup options we have for leadership. And do you have any interest in being a vice chair or co chair. No, I, I can stepping I think as I was saying you know, I don't want a formal type of a vice chair report thing is if if if the chair calls in and say, Oh, I'm going off this month. Can you just lead the meeting I'll be glad to do it. So, I mean it's not a big deal. But I think I'm not very much into positions you know. This is my. I get that. So I think what the benefit of that is, we have it, I think the main main focus should be voting for a chair. And for the of the as a backup leadership I think it should be left to the every member of the board to have an option opportunity to become a, you know, step into the leadership and the chair is not there. So the chair can actually call in, you know, because we don't know who will be around, you know, the white chair is also gone at the same time and then we'll be back to the square. All right. So September I think we can work on it. All right September is going to be a more a lot to do in September then. So are you sorry you're going to be the chair for the September meeting. Yes, I will be. Yes. All right, so where are we on our agenda here on new business, any new business. I guess we didn't have any. So if we move now to the director's update. We're welcoming Dave Zomek as our acting public health director. Yes, thank you for having me tonight. I do have to kind of apologize right up front that I have a double schedule tonight so I can only be with you now for a few more minutes before I need to be at a housing trust meeting in 15 minutes or so. But no happy to be here with you tonight just wanted to say hello. I'm feeling in hopefully very, very short term in this role. For those of you who don't know me I'm the assistant town manager, and I oversee a number of departments in town. Planning community development zoning inspections conservation. I've been in this acting role with the recreation department, a number of times through the years. My background is actually in biology conservation biology. I've had a lot of project management experience I do most of the land acquisition for the town and by golf courses and conservation land and conservation say in North Amherst things of that sort so I'm kind of do a lot around the edges here and there and I really my main goal in this interim period this acting period is to support the staff. There's a wonderful staff wanted to acknowledge Jennifer Brown who you all worked with for a long time and and through the pandemic and a friend of mine and and I have great admiration for her. My main goal now is to support the staff to support you and be a liaison for the staff and for you to the town manager in the event that some situation arose that was needed your attention and my attention. I did want to update you briefly on the search. Thank you to Paul Bachman late this afternoon I've been part of the search. And I'm, I'm optimistic, I would say about how the search is going. I think we have some excellent candidates, and I'm optimistic that that Paul will move forward with that process very quickly so I am happy to be helping you all but I would very much like us to hire a new health director who can begin to work with you and get situated in the bank center with with the staff and begin to start a new a new period here with with the health department. Let's see what else I'm going to say. Oh, I would also encourage you all to be thinking as I'm sure you have. You know how you want to interface with the new director what are some of the priorities that you see in the town in the region in the state. And I'm sure with all of your professional backgrounds you've already been thinking about that what are some of those areas that you would like to see our health department work on in the in the coming years so that's really all I wanted to say tonight again I'm feeling very optimistic about the search and I hope that sometime in early September. Again I don't have an exact date on that and I don't have a crystal ball but my hope is that we're moving quite quickly swiftly with the search. If there's any questions I'm happy to take them. I've already met with the staff twice and had some good conversations with them and, and again my role is to support their work and to support you during the month of August and perhaps part of of September and then hopefully we'll have a new health director. I have a comment. So here I think the health department needs a lot of resources, especially budgets I think we had been. I would say constrained on times of resources when we have so much of needs out there. There should be some sort of increase in budget allocation and I think everyone agrees you know I think Nancy was also asking for that but I think since you are here as a, as a leader of the town I think, I think this is something we are, we need so much of needs and we need those resources you know increased budget and staff and that type of investment. Nancy did some work in comparing us towns like East Hampton and North Hampton and the resources that they have in their health departments and considerably more than than Amherst has. And, you know, I've forgotten the numbers but multiples of, and it's sometimes hard to career things look like apples and oranges but I think she did a good job of, you know, respecting the fact that inspections are, are not in our department but just really looking at the resources and what Amherst has and it's for a town its size and complexity is pretty limited. While you have me. Thank you, Tim. While you have me are there. You know, could you be more specific about resources to be directed toward what kinds of priorities do you see. I don't want to take too much of your time. I'm thinking, you know, so we have the health director and we have a person helping couple of them, and they are some sort of a facing huge amount of demand in their workload. I think this came out during the pandemic you know so how much work they have to actually ask for volunteers and sometimes they are not I mean they were working and everything so, but I think having a town which has some sort of a really health demands environmental demands and everything I think having more than just the health director taking on multitasking of everything, having staff and also some sort of budgets you know, which they can actually spend on education I think we thought we proposed education but looks like there is, you know, we have to look, look for UMass students or anyone but having some sort of a dedicated staff people to actually invest in those types of fundamental changes in the health I think that's what even for the the access of underrepresented communities to health care, all these are very important ones, the emerging health issues. So in order to have that in a having more staff having more budget I think it's always a good investment for the time for the town to invest in the health department you know. If I could just add I don't know if you can hear me. Yes. I don't know if the, the board is able to find out how the health department is using the opioid settlement settlement. And how we can have initiatives like create initiatives around youth and mental health. And I know that the health department was a stakeholder and some of the ARPA funds that were allocated but it's like I don't know if we are given a report or if you can update us. But my interest for the Board of Health doing initiatives would be around mental health and youth involvement, whether I don't know how exactly that would look but just outreach initiatives and helping them learn more about safety or learn more about preventative measures to, to, to have more of a healthy outlook. You know, and basically mental health, mental health, any, any initiative that would support mental health that doesn't necessarily have to do with like counseling but maybe like initiative around more movement, more physical movement, more physical activity, or like the, the impacts of using electronic devices like just things that are impacting them and how they can navigate and prevent those things from impeding or, or preventing them from doing the other things that they need to do. So, no good. Thank you. Yeah, and I think this is a real opportunity for the board I took some notes here now. You know about the status of any of the ARPA funds that were allocated before Jennifer left. And I don't know specifically the status of the opioid settlement but I can look into that. And all of these are good to be pulling together your, your hopes, your, your, your vision, your concerns, i.e. funding the size of the department to bring to the new director. When they joined the town service to really help that person to orient to the town's needs and you know, take a look at what are the strengths of the department in the town. Certainly what I've heard in some of the interviews. This may sound a little cliche, but collaboration that that we need to collab we say the health department. There's so much opportunity for collaboration between the health department, the senior center, the Musee anti health center, the recreation department and many of the nonprofits in our, in our community not to say that we haven't been doing, but it's a potential growth area that we can really capitalize on. I'm not sure why I'm getting that feedback. But anyway, so collaboration with other departments, there's so much going on with, with, as you said, Lauren with with concerns about mental health, but also physical health and, you know, we have a relatively new recreation director relatively new senior center director and now we will have a new health director so I think there's so many opportunities for, for collaboration and working together to, you know, broadly work on the, on the health of our community and those people who live here so I think it's an exciting time to kind of reset and I, I trust you all will be working with the new leader of the department so it's an exciting time. Thank you. Kyle, did you have your hand up. Oh yeah I just wanted to quickly mention that Martha from the town offices came over to the health department, a couple days ago and she's kind of in charge of our funding I believe and she was just kind of checking in with us and letting us know that she'll be looking into that so hopefully by next meeting I can connect with her again and maybe we'll have an update on update on that. Thank you. Yeah, I guess just a day that we Nancy, we working with you some UMass students and faculty member did get a good start on a community assessment for Amherst and I think that will provide some additional information to, to, to work with and in terms of issues around transportation, food, food access to healthy foods and underserved population so I think there is a lot to work with. And hopefully we can make some progress and, and making us a healthier cow. And I'm excited to even mention, you know, the connections that can be made and hopefully will be made with sustainability I know, you know, as we as we think about the situation we all find ourselves right now with climate change. And the conservation department as well as Stephanie Chickarello our sustainability director. She is working on, you know, increasing the number of community gardens in in town, working on with a number of groups on food security. So there's so many opportunities for our health director and new health director and health department to to work collaboratively and, and, you know, I know there's also a number of grants out there to kind of bolster some of those efforts so again I think there's lots of reason for optimism here so I do apologize I do have to run to this other meeting but thank you for allowing me to join you here for a few minutes and my hope is that we might, you know again I'm just being optimistic here, perhaps at your next meeting we can introduce a new director. And I can do a nice hand off and and support that person as they get acclimated to the position so I'll have an update for you in the weeks ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Have a nice evening thank you. Our next agenda item is topics not anticipated by the chair. I don't think there are any. I think we're ready for a motion to adjourn. I make a motion to adjourn. I'll second it. Lauren. Okay. Tim. Hi. Maureen. Hi. So we meet again on September 14. Thank you. Bye.