 being recorded. Meeting's being recorded 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 by logging in through the Board of Health website. 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 in real time via technological means. In the event that we are unable to do so for reasons of economic hardship and despite best efforts, we will post on the Board of Health website an audio recording and the minutes of the proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting. Meeting will open and with a roll call. So, Lauren. Are you here? Yes, I'm here. Great. Tim. Here. Steve. Here. Maureen. Here. Nancy here and we're joined by Jen Brown and Ed Smith. So the first item is to view the minutes of the November 18th meeting. And I had two comments. One is on the, and I don't know where to put it, the second to the last paragraph under the refuse collection of mandatory recycling that it was pointed out that Amherst residents can already choose to have biweekly curbside pickup and recycling of organics. But it was noted that it is not advertised by the USA company. So people have to know about it. It's not well advertised. That was brought up. I don't know how to put it in there. I get that again. That was true. Yeah, I'll fix that. And then the other one is under the board of health statement on racism. So it was health director Jen Brown and Nancy Gilbert. We'll meet next week with members of the UMass. It was both Jen and I were meeting. Got it. Got it. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yep. That was all I saw. Minor things. Anybody else? I did see a few typos, but I don't think I don't know if we're supposed to comment on those. Yeah, tell Steve if you see a typo. Well, you're muted. You're muted. Sorry, I have to find it again because I don't have it open right on my computer. So if you just give me a minute, but I could just let I could just email it as well, not to hold. No. Okay, but I think it was. It was at the end. Okay. So let me know as soon as you can. I'm not going to get it open. I usually like to get these out, you know, like the next day, just so I get a deal with them. So let me know as soon as you can. And I'll accept. May have a motion to accept the minutes. I'll move to accept the minutes. Second. Second, I'll second it. All in favor. Maureen. I. Tim. Hi. Steve. Hi. Lauren, Lauren and Nancy. Okay. Yeah. Yes, it's good too. Yes. Next on the agenda is the recombinant DNA regulation, the update. From Steve and Maureen and Steve sent out. The, the. How would you describe it? It was with what we want to change possible. It's a list of sort of possible proposed changes, although, you know, we're still trying to work out exactly. What we should be doing here. It's not, it's not simple. I mean, I think a case could be made that if we didn't have these changes, we wouldn't be putting them in now. Because, you know, there's that situation has really changed quite a bit since they were put in. On the other hand. There's a reason or the risk is not zero. And so, you know, I guess. If we take them away completely, it kind of suggests that. We don't care about it. And so I suppose we're going to keep them in some form. But then the issue is that really there's only one institution now that's not effective and that's Amherst college. And Amherst does some work at what's called BSL two. So, you know, they're these four levels. And BSL two is a case where there are pathogens or, you know, there's the potential for disease, but it's low, you know, there. If a lab worker were to get exposed, they might get. It might have some slight problem, but it's not life threatening or anything like that. That's the highest level that is now being performed. And so, you know, I think that would be very welcome. Any institution that we have control over in Amherst, but then you could say, well, what if a company, you know, what if a pharmaceutical company wanted to start up here? I think that would be very welcome by the town. For you to say a research branch of a pharmaceutical company. And in that case, they might well be doing something at level three, which is that those are, those are pathogens that could cause a serious illness, and so if that were the case, we would want to make sure that that organization was conforming to the national guidelines. So I guess you can make the argument that we need it for that reason. And if so, there are still are some changes that we were thinking of putting in, which are in this list, and we're not going to vote on them today, but I just thought before going through all the work of really redrafting the entire thing and including all the definitions, we would just give everybody a chance to look at it and either make comments now or sometime in the next couple of weeks. And then if, then we would incorporate that or consider that in trying to draft the complete set of revised guidelines. My concerns have been if we have these regulations, we should be following them. You know, I think we had, I don't know what's happened. And I don't know that they are have been the inspections the requirements to get minutes from the, the biosafety committees at the colleges. So I think it's probably worse to have a regulation that's not being followed. And then also, I mean, if we, you know, we, Steve and I talked about, well, what maybe we shouldn't require inspections or reporting, but if we're not doing that, we don't know anything either. So I guess it's kind of a balance is do we, I feel like the colleges are generally trustworthy. We're the agents with their, that are risk averse, but should we be making sure that they are following these federal guidelines in addition to that and just being aware of what's happening on the campuses. You know, if there was a fire in a lab or if there was, I don't, I think it's sort of a remote issue that could come up, but I think we need to think about whether we want to have them. And, and if we do, then we need to think about how we would follow up on them. I just want to add something about the inspection so that the current regulations say that they would be inspected every year. And, you know, the inspections are something we would not, you know, I'm sure that our wonderful health inspectors could learn to do this, but it's a huge technical issue. They have lots to do. It's not going to be the health inspectors that would do this. So who is going to do it? Are we going to pay an expert and outside expert to do it? The way that, you know, medical labs have to be inspected. And so I think that that inspection thing is very questionable as to what it would really happen. If one of us, even I know something about it, but I'm not, that's not the work I did exactly. So I couldn't walk into a lab and know what I was inspecting. If they were breaking some rule. So it was a very technical kind of inspection that would be needed if we're serious about it. So I just had a couple of thoughts. And one thing is, one, you have the board will monitor labs and I thought, well, how and who is going to monitor it. I think it would be important for us to know where these labs are. And that we have some sense of where they are. In case there's a safety issue. But us monitoring them, I agree. You know, who would do it? I mean, Ed Smith, do you want to start monitoring research labs? And so I, so my thought is let's keep it as simple as possible to know where these labs are. And a report if, if, if something happens to them. And then they make an error, which occasionally happens. The other thing I remember when we were looking at it a while ago or talking about it. When it was with Julie or epi. The thing is, if there are any spin off labs from the university or something that are then in town, but the way they've been going is they've been going to Hadley more than here. They've been going to Hadley more than here. And so if there's a spin off lab that comes out of the university into the community, just to have some, to know where this stuff is. And if there is a breach of safety that it gets reported to us, but you know, us going in and monitoring, we don't have the staff for the knowledge. You know, if I can make a comment, you know, I don't know if it's appropriate or not monitoring, not oversight, but I spoke to the fire chief, Tim Nelson, and I said, how are you guys involved? And he said, you know, we, we meet with them, you know, occasionally, but it's good for them to know where these sites are. So I was thinking somehow, you know, with the fire and health department together, we could be, you know, a partner in understanding where they are. But my idea is to just keep it as simple as possible that we know where they are. And they might send us a little report, even a written one that we've had no accidents or leaks and everything is fine this year. And keep it in a notebook. And if there's a fire, you know, then Tim has, you know, but I've never won a lab other than nursing labs. And that's simulation and bed baths and things like that. Do you have something more? Yes, I probably have more questions and answers. But I think I mentioned last meeting that where does the liability lie, like if we have this information and we're being updated on the information, are we like, is the, is the board of health or somehow the town liable if something happens, like I still don't understand, you know, where that balance is going to be if we monitor, monitor or get information from the colleges. You said Amherst College and Smith College. And then there's the, I looked at the notes that said, the board of health municipal municipalities do not have the jurisdiction over UMass Amherst, but that's a big university here. And I'm just like, well, if we're doing this for, you know, these smaller schools or colleges, like why wouldn't we find a way to monitor what's going on in UMass? So I, to me, I just, I don't, I don't know why we're going into this, this area of monitoring what's happening on a college campus. We might be liable for that. Well, we've had these regulations from two, two oh eight. So that's part of reviewing them. And as I said, the idea is to know where this is going on in case there's a breach and for the fire department to know there's a fire. And it's really, and anybody else can chime in. It's to know where they are and to make sure that, that they're sticking with the government regulations. And to report anything that is untoward. If it happens, but does that cap put it in the capsule? Steve, is that what? All right. By the way, you know, just in terms of reporting, you know, the labs are already under, they are essentially required by the rules they accept to report to the NIH and CDC. Any certain kinds of spills. Now the current regulations say that they would have to report any release, any release. Of course, that is not, you can't detect any release. So any release would be one virus particle or something. You can't detect it. So that's kind of not very serious. But we would want to know, of course, and we'll put that in. If they are required to report the accident or the release to the NIH or CDC, of course, immediately the health department should be informed of that. That'll be in there. I think about liability is, yeah, I just want to say, Laura, that's a very good question. I don't know anything about that. I really don't know whether we, it makes us liable. I don't know. I'm sure there must be some general rule about that for all the regulations that we put in. But I don't know the answer. Tim, are you going to say something? Yes. Especially the research labs are already monitored, managed. They also have, need to have a emergency plan for any spill or even any accidents. And also some of the management plans and even CDC develops a database of all types of research which involves any type of a biosafety agency. So, I think if we are drafting something, it should be some sort of a guidance in addition to what they might be already having from CDC and NIH. What I mean by guidance is, for example, having an emergency plan in place, notifying us as a board of health, if there is any type of an accident or emergency activity, I mean those are some things, you know, like some sort of transparency might be something we could document in this one. Just as a team player, as Jen was mentioning, that transparency need to be there. So, Steve and I talked about this a couple of times. And one point that you've made was maybe we should address things at level BSL biosafety lab level three, just in a stronger way just to have that on record in case there is some sort of institute or lab offshoot of a more commercial type of venture that is an offshoot of the university or a pharmaceutical company here. I suppose that could be developed when that was happening, but maybe there should be provisions in case that might happen. I was looking through some things in Boston and it's always interesting to figure out why and what happens when. And they just allowed some changes at the level four. And the reason was so that they could do virus and vaccine, vaccine research and these mRNA vaccines actually. And this was in 2018-2019. So the BU developed this national emerging infectious disease facility. And so the city responded by changing their regulations and allowing that to happen. So I suppose it could go in that direction, but that was one thought that we had. You know, we don't expect Amherst College or Hampshire College to move to that level, you know, basically because they use students as a lot of their workforce and that is, you know, not something that's realistic at that level. Even level three, you realize there's no level three research under our jurisdiction right now. No, there's no level three. And we, we eliminated the idea of level four in the old, old regulations and probably wouldn't go back there, but that was another thought. So I think if people would look over that list and just if you have any specific reactions, send a marine or me an email within the next couple of weeks, it'll be before January 1st, certainly, and then we'll plan to have a draft of the whole thing in time for the next meeting. Steve, I have a quick question on one of the suggestions you make. Prohibit all work at BSL4. What do you mean by all work? You know, right now most of the work is lab work. Do you think that research in social studies should not be done? No. So in other words, there's two kinds of research. For these purposes, there's just the regular research where you take, you know, let's say a germ and try to see how to kill it or something, but there's also recombinant DNA research where you deliberately put a gene into an organism that didn't have that gene before. So that's this recombinant DNA and the previous existing guidelines say that only recombinant DNA research at level 4 is prohibited. But I was saying, you know, there's no reason in the world we should have level 4 research in the town of Amherst. I don't care how many pharmaceutical companies would come in. It's just not suitable for this area or environment. It's just, it's never going to happen anyway. And it's just clear to say no level 4. If level 4, if there was a breach, people will get sick and die. And we just, there's no reason Amherst, the town of Amherst needs to have that. There's, but my thought. That's like studying Ebola, you know, so it's really high level stuff. And I mean, Boston just, they just changed their guidance in these areas. So we are talking about lab research, not policy research or other type of security type of brainstorming. It's only research, right. Only research that comes under these BSL biosafety level guidelines. So it's entirely biological research. And effectively it is research on germs, pathogens. I just have to say a funny note. When I made the comment before I meant, I didn't mean to say Smith. I meant to say Hampshire and Amherst, but I was coming home when I was coming home today. And I was like, I don't know where I was coming from. I was like, there was like this real strong, like sewage smell in the air. Like when I was, you know, I take the bus and I was coming off the bus and it was like really every, everywhere, like all the way down the street. And so I was just like, that's really odd because I never smelled that before. But I mean things like that could, you know, I don't know where it was coming from, but it was spreading manure. And that comes back. Okay, that was probably it. One question, Steve and Maureen. So under section six, B would remove all that whole section of, about permits. Is that what you were suggesting? Yes, I feel strongly about that. In other words, the current regulations say that the board of health will act like a granting agency. And that's a big part of it. That's a big part of it. But you know, people will be able to do the content. You know, what, what, I spare, but they're trying to do what exactly the chemicals are the whole thing. I just wanted to make sure that. That's what you were saying because. They said, Oh my God. Why is this here? Yeah. So yes. I completely agree with that. Keep the registration, but that away away from the permitting part of it. Yeah. And inspecting. We can't inspect. And if they don't, they report it. Yeah. Okay. So you'll get back to us, but thank you for all that work. Any other comments, thoughts about it. Yeah, I was playing that game of what was what from. Yes. Okay. So the regulations on a refuge. I don't know if we have any guests here today, but. Yeah. Due to the staff in all departments are overtaxed by the poet COVID pandemic and our town's response. I want to rescind my motion of November 18th. And I look back at everything and I want us to take into consideration that we want to move forward and support the zero number of employees coming to us. But looking back again at the board's. Actions in 2009 and 2014. We. What we did was related to related to the refuse and. Recycling. We responded. To town employees coming to us. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything. We didn't do anything with Jen. And I would really like her to talk with Paul to identify the best steps to take to move forward with his pilot project. Maybe Paul should get that recycling and refuse management committee. Going again or a subcommittee of the sustainable committee that works with zero waste. 10 employees are all too stressed out to work on it. So that motion I made is not tenable. Jen, do you want to say anything or anything to respond to it? You know, I agree with what you said. I think this is, I think we've identified or we know it's really important work. I know from my point of view, I need to really be focusing on COVID. Just the next few weeks, months, that's where the focus needs to be in this health department. So I think it's really important what we've done and where we are right now. I think, you know, for us to move forward, what were the next steps? I don't think we know, but what I can do or, you know, with your help, you guys let me know, is what can I do to move this to a good home? So I'll tell you, I did speak to Stephanie Cicerella, Cicerella from the Conservation Commission. And she just listened to me and she's this expert and she's sort of echoed what we said that there's a need, this is such a valid issue. You know, is there a solid waste master plan and where can this important issue live? So I think, you know, listening to her and what you and I Nancy have said, I think, you know, I can move, I can speak to the town manager and Stephanie again and say, look, I think there's a real need for this. Who can work on it and bring it forward? Any other comments? Oops, ooh, I did something here. So quick comment, I know many cities have sustainable Northampton, you know, sustainable Springfield type of committees which are having a much more broader goal of moving the city or town towards sustainability in all aspects. You have a sustainable committee here in Amherst. No, I'm just saying, you know, they might be someone who could take this leadership role, especially in this one, because solid waste is a huge aspect, you know, especially in the future sustainability of the city town itself. And I think that might be someone they could be involved and be a, you know, I think any master plan related to sustainable development should have this zero waste policy into it. So what we want to do is we still want to support this, but we need other people to do the work and bring it back to us the way all the other amendments to the regulations happened. But we did have a kind of formal vote on this. I think we have to do something other than, you know. Right, so I would like to, I can make a motion to rescind my motion of November 18th and have Jen talk with Paul Backelman to identify the best steps to take forward to support this pilot project. Why don't we just, wouldn't it be just easier to just rescind the motion? And then I'll do the minutes, they'll say all the stuff that you just said. If you try to put that into motion, then every word of it goes. I just want to rescind the motion of November 18th due to the everybody being overtaxed by the COVID pandemic and our town's response and then that's our priority right now. I'll second it. Okay. Any further discussion? I would just like to know in the proposal, in the pilot proposal, there's two members of the Department of Public Health. Do we want to talk about that at a further meeting or talk about that now to figure out like, would a member of the Department of Health still have to be part of the pilot or do we want to be part of the pilot project? That's all being rescinded. That's all being completely rescinded. And we'll, in January, we'll try and identify next steps with the help of Jen given that we're dealing with COVID. And we still want to support this, but we look at how we're going to support it. Does that answer your question? Okay. No further discussion? I'll call a vote on rescinding the motion of November 18th. Steve? Aye. Tim? Aye. Maureen? Aye. Maureen? Aye. Nancy? Aye. So it's been rescinded. Okay. So we'll take that up in January. We do want to move forward with it, but how we do it is still to be determined. Okay. Toxic waste, toxic chemical regulation update. Tim and Maureen, you said you were going to get this to us in April. Do you need anything further? Just any comments? So we started off with the old document and we are looking into, we are just starting. We haven't made huge progress on that, but we are thinking about what type of aspects in the schools and what additional changes need to be made. So we should be having something by April. Perfect. Do you need any more support from any of us or Jen? You're just doing fine. Okay. Great. Thanks, Maureen. Not at this time, not at this time. We're still in the early stage. Great. Thank you so much for your work. Now we're moving on to new business, the well application for 389 Bay Road, a flag lock. Nancy, you know, I apologize. I sent a new agenda. I think it was yesterday. And is it item, is there item number four on the new agenda? Yeah, but you put it under director's updates. So do you want me to just move it up? I did, I apologize. I'm looking at it a little bit. Nope, stay on track. Yeah, because I thought it was going to be there, but then I saw it was under director's report. So we'll just take it up there. Thank you. Ed's business and I think the contractor is also on this call so that we can... Right, Rich Gale is one of the attendees. Yes. So I looked at the map. Ed, you want to make any comments? This seems like a very straightforward application. There's plenty of room, no wetlands nearby, no prior history that would be concerning, I think. There is town water down on Bay Road, but it's a long uphill climb, a lot of piping, and the opportunity in the space is there to do a private well. The plans are moving forward for a single family house on the property and they are willing to connect to town water if necessary, but the preferred option is this well. So I really don't anticipate any issues from this. It should be a straightforward installation. There's an abutting property that's already built. Does that have a well or does it connect to town? One I think at the base of the road is connected to town water and I think the immediate abutter has its own well. Yeah, it's way up there too. It is, yeah. And how deep is the well proposed well? Is it going to be shallow or deep? I don't know. I don't think we really will know until it's built. They often go between two and 400 feet, but I didn't look into other wells in the area here to see if there was a pattern or something we could use to answer your question. Yeah, that should be a part of the permit, right? How deep it's great as to go or it doesn't involve. It's part of the reporting afterwards. We get a detailed drillers report from the well company about what materials they've passed through and how much casing they used and at what level do they find sufficient water? And then the testing that shows that the water settles is clear and is insufficient volume for the purpose they intend, in this case, to supply one house. So the pumping rate will be moderate, right? Because it's a one household. Yes, yeah, that's part of that pumping report. There'll be a water test submitted to the board and ultimately you'll grant a, if everything passes, you'll grant a water supply certificate, which will show and prove that it's put up the water for this purpose. Any other questions? Okay, seeing that they know further. I always have questions. I'm sorry. How do you know if the water is drinkable? Like do they, if they're using it for drinking, how do you know if the source is drinkable water? Part of the Amherst Board of Health's regulations require a pretty extensive water test to be done at an environmental lab. And then those results are submitted to you, to the board for your review. But in the north part of Amherst, we have some water sort of aesthetic issues, but no other than that in town, generally we've had a really high success rate with water for drinking purposes. Thank you. Sure. Can I have a motion to accept the well-off application for Bay Road? I can do that. I will make a motion to accept the well application on 389 Bay Road. And a second? I'll second that. Okay. All in favor, Maureen? Aye. Tim? Aye. Steve? Aye. Lauren? Aye. And Nancy? Aye. Okay. That is done. Great. Okay. So anything else you need to say to us, Ed? No, I don't think so. Unless you anticipate that it would be helpful for me to say I'll exit now if that's okay. I think it's fine. Thank you. Thank you for all your work. Thank you. I appreciate it. Happy holidays, whatever one you celebrate or don't celebrate. As many as possible and thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Okay. The director's update. Reviewing food insecurity. The documents from 2013. Yeah. Thank you. So I mentioned this. I just, you know, I'm thinking about being the director where we're going and obviously the focus is gonna be on COVID. But Lauren, I brought this up and I wanted to look into it because you mentioned it last month about food security. And I thought that was such an important issue. And so I think really what I wanna say today is that it's something that we looked at in the past. In 2010, the director had a grant, a social justice grant and we looked at our Merce Market and the electronic benefits card. 2014, we partnered with Healthy Hampshire and we did some really good focus groups. We've been looking at them in the department. Focus surveys in English and Spanish and really saw there was some significant transportation barriers. 2015, there was a report. 2017, 2018, Survival Center came in. So there was some really solid work. I'd like to, you know, my job, I'd like to look at, see what's happened since then. And then maybe Lauren, I can bring you in and we can look at this together if you want with a new racial equity lens. So I just wanted to offer that. Also the Cress Report addresses it and it came up in the listening sessions too. So and I hope hopefully it will come up when we do the community assessment. So that's great. So like these things I don't know, I'd love to get up to speed but I just wanted to offer that to the board. Thank you. Any questions? Okay, next flu. So I'm just putting flu in there because I don't want people to forget flu. Since September, we've had eight cases. So they came in a little cluster about three weeks ago. And, you know, it's respiratory season. We're all inside now. Masks are half on, half off, completely off. And, you know, I just, I would say, you know, to the public, you know, if you're getting tested, you have these symptoms, it's not COVID, we'll get tested for flu because, you know, there's antivirals. So anyhow, I just wanted to let you know that I've started doing some flu shots at Craig's Doors. I went to the ILC and the University Motor Lodge and given some flu shots. And I'll be going to restaurants this week. And I get it, I want to say free from the state for uninsured or underinsured. So that's all I have to report on flu. And your COVID update. Now I think I may have a different agenda. Do you have tobacco handlers quiz there or no? I printed something else out. Oh, you had it in the other, I reprinted this one today. You had it in the other agenda. I was combining yours and mine so next time. Anyhow, I just want to let you know that I'm still working on the tobacco handlers quiz. And I think that's going to be a January project. I had a student working with me and she's unable to help me now, but we're going to dig into that. I think that's a really important thing. Thank you. So now talking about the COVID update. So I think people know that we've had a really substantial increase in our cases here in Amherst. Steve George provided the board with some data, but if you go to the state DPH website, there's that interactive map that's phenomenal. There's a lot of different resources for getting this information. I get our raw data from Maven, the Massachusetts virtual epidemiological network. Then I also check the CDC to see where we are with transmission. But I can tell you since yesterday, we have had 62 cases come in. In the last week, 185 cases have come in. These cases, if we take a peek, I don't know what percentages UMass students, staff and professors, but I'd say two thirds are. I can get better numbers for people, and I apologize for that. If you take a peek, you can see that most people are vaccinated. Also, just to let people know that the age group for Massachusetts, the highest case rate increases in the age between five and nine. So those are young kids getting sick. Hispanic race ethnicity is the highest. And if you look at clusters, it goes through households and through childcare. And I did some contact tracing last weekend, and it was almost to the day after Thanksgiving. It was Thanksgiving's day zero, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, fifth day, people get symptomatic tested on Thursday. So that was a lot transmission after the holidays. Now we might have some cases popping up with people leaving the area and getting tested before they travel. So they may not be symptomatic, but those PCRs stay around for a while. In Hampshire County, our percent positivity over the last two weeks is up 1.4%. In Hampton County, South of us, it's 5.7, and North of us, Franklin County is 4.1. So we're up, but less so. So I'd like to think maybe it's our vaccine rate of 93%. It's calculated at 93% for at least one dose and maybe our masking policies help towards that. Well, I think so because you all know I have this little cottage in Wolfboro, New Hampshire. They had to close the library because of COVID and they had to close one of the two grocery stores because of COVID last week. The grocery stores because of work there? Because too many people who worked there got sick. Worked there got sick. Yeah, they couldn't keep it open. And their positivity rate was 10. something two weeks ago. I think we're doing a good job here. I think we are too, but I'll tell you when you make those contact tracing calls you talk to people and I know we all know this but all those numbers, I've talked to those people that are sick, it's really tough stuff. So with that, the mask order is gonna stay in place. And I have asked Paul Backelman to keep the Zoom, the meetings in place. So the AG's extension of remote webinars like to extend at least to January and we'll see if it goes further. So January's meeting will be remote. Okay. Other COVID topics? We have our community COVID PCR testing with UMass. Thank you so much UMass, they're great partners. We go grab our test kits, our PCR, we bring them back. I think we're going through 500, 600 here at the Amherst Fangs community and the library per week. So very successful. So get your kit in before 9 a.m. you get your tests at 4 p.m. Typically 24 to 48 hours. So we're not doing testing now on Friday or the weekend and UMass is not going to be testing through the, December 25th to January 3rd just to let the community know that. COVID clinics continue. Thank you again, Steve George for the calculations that are, our vaccine rate for at least one dose is calculated to be 93%. I think we're still 60% in the schools. I don't want to say still because that's a high number for the students with the five through 11. We're doing clinics here at the Fang Center and then we'll be doing them to the 23rd off for one week and then we'll pick them back up January 4th. And thank you Amherst College for letting us use your ultra cold freezer where our Pfizer is stored. And the first week in January, like January 11th will be the first anniversary of doing vaccine clinics for a whole year. Oh boy. Yeah. Isn't that something? Because I think Steve and I volunteered at the first or the second one. And it was January 11th. Wow. One really well. We have great volunteers. We downstairs right now, we have the COVID ambassadors that are working. So we're happy to have them. And we have some paramedics from the Amherst fire department and they're still plugging away. I can see the count as a vaccinate going up. So that's my COVID update. Is the demand up for the vaccine? Is your sense? We are seeing some first dose, second dose that vaccine mandate has pushed some folks into accepting the vaccine and boosters. We're only offering Pfizer now. I think we're going to get Moderna afterwards. But we're filling up clinics. So the 62 cases we have right now. You said that they are fully vaccinated. Is that right, Jen? No, no, Tim, I looked. And out of. So that's 62 new cases from yesterday. And I didn't give you this number. There's 160 people in isolation now. So when I looked in Maven, it said 44 were not vaccinated. I don't know if that means that the data has not been entered. But that's what it says. Any other questions for Jen? Okay. So somehow the community health assessment. Plunked down. Jen and I. Met on zoom with faculty and the main coordinator is Amy. I don't, I think that's how you pronounce it. She is the director of internships. So we met with them two and a half weeks ago to talk about. Is this possible and what roles would people have? It's the end of the semester. So it's hard for them to work, but I got an email back from her. I sent an email the end of last week asking for an update. If she could be for our meeting. She's been talking with Eliza Johnson, who's the chair of the health and policy and practice. And Beth cook, who's the director of the MPH and epi program. Program. They're very interested and we're Jen's looking for stipend and they, they did report back to me that two faculty use the University of Kansas toolbox in their program evaluation and that was part of the tool that I use that when I put the assessment tool together. So that made me feel good. They are using it and we were using it. If we have faculty oversight, because I asked if we could have faculty oversight, it costs money. And we can find out exactly how much. I don't know if you opened it. Jen, but it's like 170. I don't know if that's one shot. If that's per hour. I couldn't quite tell from that chart of what it was. And then I thought, well, okay, can they give us a break because town gown. And treat us as if we're faculty and at the university and not a private corporation asking for help. And then I put forward that we could have another Zoom meeting with Amy to talk about it. That's we're moving forward. They want to partner with us with graduate students. Exactly how it's going. It is up in the air. I don't know if you have any other questions for us or Jen, do you want to hop in and say anything that you remember from the meeting? No, you know, I just, I remember sort of thinking how valuable this is going to be. If we can use them incredible, you know, I'd rather use them than, you know, a firm or somebody that we might hire. And whatever form it takes, I'm really sort of open to it. If it's, if it's a class for the one semester, if it's someone's dissertation, they're going to be great to work with and we can figure out what, what we need as it sort of unfolds. And I'm probably going to audit an epidemiology course because that's one of my weaknesses. And one of the faculty teaches one. And I asked her if I could audit it and she said yes. So I might be going back to school auditing so that I have better skills in this process because what we would do is put a team together. That the board. So I would represent the board and anybody else could write the board and we might have some other community members. It's all to be worked out, but we're waiting to find out what level graduate students and other students would be working on this. And then move forward to how we can get this started in January or February. So for grad students, if you can find some sort of a practicum or independent study possibilities, so we need some sort of a willing faculty to just to supervise them. And that will be the much cheapest option for us. And then the students get great for it. So it's not, you know, so I think that, you know, that is possible. The only thing is we need a willing faculty to just to supervise that, you know, the practicum of. Yes, we have willing faculty, but we have to pay them. That's what they're saying. I don't get paid for doing it. I don't know why someone should be paid for that. Because it's a part of the coursework. Right. Because they are all listed coursework in public health and other areas like independent study and practicums. And I know from nursing and I'm thinking the public health might be using this. A business model where. We're a nursing that kind of like drop students off and have employees of the agency or the hospital or whatever. Do all the teaching and whatnot. And then the faculty member sort of drifts in and drifts out. So I'm not sure. And we can meet and find out, but I got the center. We have to maybe pay this drifting faculty person. From that last email, but we can get. Clarification in another meeting. I think Jen, maybe you and I should just meet and. Then get back to, I just got this email from. Amy and I. And so. Okay. Yeah, I did mention it. To. To some folks here about getting maybe ARPA funds for payment. And they were open to that, but it just needs to be discussed further. We can maybe meet the beginning of next week and then get in touch with Amy. Okay. So that's all I have to update on. That. Then topics. Not anticipated by the chancellor. So. I have a couple of topics to bring up. One is. I emailed Liz. I kind of looked over our minutes of the past year. And. I sent an email to Liz. Why not to get an update on the tapestry van. And she said, she's beginning to go with the vans beginning to go regularly, regularly to Amherst. And they almost have their full compliment of necessary staff. And once they have all the staff, they'll be coming to Amherst. Every week. And then she's trying to schedule meetings in mid-December. With key stakeholders. Such as Craig's doors. She's been in contact with survival center, Elliott homeless services. To introduce people to the service and work with them on how the tapestry van can go to those sites to provide services. And so that's where the van is. I don't know if you know anything else, Jen. Yeah. I think this sort of ties into me thinking about the Amherst human service network and kind of kickstarting that again. I thought that was such a valuable network of people. I know how important they were during COVID getting supplies to people. So I'm trying to decide, figure out what's out there. And you know, I don't think this is a duplicate of services, but you know, what services do they offer? Is there anyone else doing it? I'd love to just find out more about everything in Amherst. So I'd like to speak to them. They used to be here, right? Wasn't there a tapestry? No, it's always been in North Hampton. I thought there was. There was one on pray street. There was an office. I didn't know that. 20 years ago or 17. Maybe not even that long ago. I don't know. I don't know. Everything's mixed. Yeah. I mean, I'm used to trying to refer students to tapestry for various services and. You know, they're little bits of time in different places around, around the valley at one point in time. They're great. I want to support them. And I'd love to meet with. I'd love to meet with them. I'd love to meet with them. I'd love to meet with them. Liz. Why not. And the other thing I wanted to bring up is now that the town council is changing. I don't know, Jen. If you ask Paul, or if we write a letter or contact Lynn. For our new liaison. Because George Ryan had been our liaison. And I'm unaware of his. During COVID. And I think it's important to have a liaison. Who will go back and tell the town council what we're doing. In the past, when Diane Stein was a liaison as a select person, she came to probably three quarters to maybe 90% of the meeting. And also with Connie. I can't remember her last name. She came to most of our meetings. I know it's on zoom. And I remember last winter, George came to a couple, but I'm unaware of him. Seeing him as a participant. Maybe he listens to the recording. Sometimes I don't think so, but really. So that the town council knows. What the board of health and the health department are doing. I think it's important to have a. More proactive liaison to get our. What's happening with us to the town. Town council. I don't know what other people think about that. You know, George is my neighbor. So we've, I've talked to him a few times, but you know, he, you're right. He has not been coming to the meetings very much. I don't think so. Yeah. I think after January one, just contact. They're assuming she'll be the chair. Of the council and. Remind them. A role. I can do that. Yeah. Okay. I think that the board has reached out to you. As our agent. To make sure we have a more. Proactive liaison. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't just new. I mean, a new. Newly. Because you're just not. Right. Yes. And then, uh, I should have brought this up when Ed was there. I read in the newspaper that there was a house condemned on Allen street. It was a fraternity party. Do you know anything about, and I, I missed my golden opportunity when it was here to ask him about it. I saw it in the newspaper to. It was sort of an offshoot fraternity party. And that's all I have for topic. It's not anticipated. And public comment. I don't know if there are any participants who. There are, but no hands are raised. No hands are raised. Okay. There we go. Our next board of health meeting is the second of. The second Thursday of the month, which is January 13th. And that we always meet on the second Thursday, unless it's a national holiday. And anything else before we adjourn. I want to make a quick question. This is not a topic is not anticipated. I know the winter cold weather coming up. I'm just curious how our resources for handling. Homeless and other shelters. Needs and I'm just wondering if we usually keep in touch with that. So are you referring to, you know, I'm, I'm speaking with Bob Horowitz who's the physician with Craig stores. I'm not sure if I'm going to communicate maybe twice a week. So I'm going back for COVID and flu shots next Thursday. So, you know, I'm aware of what's going on there, the number of folks there and at the UML there was something, and I'm sorry I didn't bring this. I don't know, but they're looking to have a warming. Center at the VFW. I think they're still looking at if it's. I'm sorry, standards. But I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. No, I'm just asking for general needs that we could help help them. You know, in terms of there is a critical resource need or space needs or even any type of a specific things we could do to help them out and especially during this time. Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. You know, I could, I could certainly, you know, put some feelers out, you know, we could speak to Amherst survival center. They're so supportive of our whole community. I could also call either Kevin Noonan or Jerry Weiss. I know I've been going through clothes and washing coats and getting boots and cleaning them all up and bringing them to the resource trailer and women's clothes to the university lodge. And I put them in bags with what it is and the size of it. And they've been very receptive to that. Last year I bought gift cards for everybody there. This year I'm not going to do that. But I can, I can also contact them and ask them if there's anything that we as a board can do. I know the beginning of the week I was in Holyoke and there was this person with a sign and I handed them a dollar. And then I said, do you know about, I said, do you have a place that's warm to stay? And he said, well, I have a tent. And I said, do you know about Craig's doors? And he said, no. So I drove around, wrote all the information on the piece of paper in the, in my car and I handed it to him and my husband said, I was a sucker. I gave him five dollars and take a bus to Amherst to get to Craig's doors. But I saw him, he was reading all of it and he said, thank you. He didn't know about Craig's doors. So, I don't know. And I walk around town with hand warmers and toe warmers and, and hand them out and ask people. Oh, yeah. I don't know. And I said, it's really close cold and I asked them and sometimes I have granola bars and asked them if they have a warm place to stay. And then my husband says, well, what are you going to do if they say no. I'll say, well, go to Craig's doors and he's, well, what if they say I won't go there? And I said, I don't know. I'm just doing the best I can. So, but that's a good idea, Tim, and I'll contact Kevin and Jerry Weiss. Okay. Yeah. If I could just add. Again, trying to gather information just like all of us. You Jennifer. As well. Is there, is there as the board of health is there like as we do the public health assessment. Is there like a particular clinic that we work with or. I know personally I go. To the Masante clinic that's in. The senior center in the banks center. And like, to just kind of get a. A more like just understanding, I guess, of what. The town is going. What's going on in the town health wise. Like, is there. Like if we're concerned about the homeless or concerned about people getting access to. Health care is there like. Like a way that we can connect with like these health clinics that can give us some understanding of, you know, it has COVID impacted people going to seek care or, you know, because I think for me, that's really where. You know, things are important for me is that, you know, we have social circumstances like food access or homelessness, but that can impact someone's house. But, but do we know like how to make that connection to like. Providing actual health care services to, you know, to these difficult, you know, life circumstances. And I know we're putting the zero waste thing on hold, but if, if, is there a way like when we have the, the pilot program, is there a way to like work with one area of Amherst, like maybe North Amherst or South Amherst, like I, I know I seem to like kind of go off on a tangent, but I just, I feel like I haven't seen the, the data. And I know that the health assessment is like something that's in the works, but I just don't know where are these, where are these places that we can actually get like the actual like information to know that people are accessing health care or acts or not accessing. I don't know if that made sense, but. Lauren, your heart is in the best place ever. Part of this will get the data from the community assessment also Jeff Harness from Cooley Dickinson hospital because of the Affordable Care Act. Cooley Dickinson has to do every five years a big community health assessment, but it's very broad and it just tells us a lot of what we already know it doesn't go down. And with the health assessment that we're doing would be doing it by census tracks in small geographic areas. So like we would look at South Point, but we would also look at the census track that South Point is in. And I think there's, I can't remember off the top of my head. There's seven, seven census tracks in Amherst. So we would be doing small group analysis in the town and then bringing that all together. But as you said me, Santy is a big issue. And there was a problem. I think they don't have the person who helps with insurance. It came out at the listening session. There were big gaps during the pandemic. And I don't know if they've pulled anything more together. It's a tremendous resource. But COVID really made everything very difficult for providers. Do you have any more comments? Quick question. I know that there is an infrastructure bill which usually is going to pump a huge amount of money into the state. I'm just curious if you are prepared for some sort of a proposal or anything. Keep it ready because I think they might be looking for shovel ready projects. There's going to be a huge amount of money coming in. I'm just curious because we had a proposal last year or the year before. So it would be good to actually keep something ready. This is for Jen's idea. I'd love to have a big infusion of money. I'm ready. Okay. Well, thank you, everybody. Any more comments before we have a motion to close and I want to wish everybody a thank you for all the work you've done during this past year. It was very difficult. Whatever holiday you may celebrate, may you have a wonderful holiday. So may have a motion to close the meeting. Move that. Okay, Steve has a motion to close. I second it. Thank you, Tim. Tim. Hi. Maureen. Hi. Lauren. Hi. Steve. Hi. Nancy I. And thank you, Jen, for all your work. Thank you. Get in contact for meeting next week about the assessment. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all so much for all the work you've done this past year. It's been a real difficult year. And I really thank everybody for all they've done. So thank you very much. Okay. Happy holidays. Bye. All right. I'm going to stop recording.