 first thing is that we're going to look at our minutes from last meeting the March 12th meeting and if anyone has any comments didn't see anything nor did I how about anybody else okay by me does someone want to make a motion to accept them as written I'll move to accept the minutes from last month's meeting as written second second okay great John thank you all in favor I I any nays no so all in favor sir accepted thank you next on the agenda is the ceiling height variance for 15 blue hills road and we have all these these information from Ed Smith with the pictures and do you want to weigh in on this I didn't have any reservations about recommending that they be allowed to have a variance for the ceiling height it's reasonably modern construction it appears dry part of the basement had already been finished out and they have already gone to steps to remove or have testing done I don't know that they had any asbestos but they did testing and then they had a professional removal of some of the old materials you can see in some of the pictures where tiles were removed from the floor the heights I put on the different pictures which yes probably see those and I think they're reasonable there weren't pipes hanging down that will make a great effect on the usability of the space so it's not like you know you have to watch out for something they're gonna bring yourself with as you go across the room so you know at your discretion I think that it's a reasonable request anyone have any questions for Ed what is the usual minimum height for ceilings 70 okay and if you were to build a house you know new today you would probably have that in mind you know we have requests for rental rooms and houses going back to the 1800s and earlier at times and you know less than seven foot ceilings especially on upper floors is not uncommon there was this for a rental or is this for just personal use in their house no this is for personal use this is my house on where else are we talking about half an inch half inch are we talking about half an inch difference from seven feet um the two other rooms yeah for right but these are unfinished heights so they're we padded down you know furring and plaster sheet rock could be another inch inch and a half maybe two inches in places so for the shortest ceiling I think was six nine and a half that could be as low as six seven and a half it seems reasonable to me I have a cousin who had his peak was 611 but he's 81 now and shrunk a good bit but he would struggle with that but that's a that's out there on the extremes this family appeared to fit comfortably within the ceiling okay any other comments would someone like to make a motion I'll move that we approve the ceiling height variance for 15 bluehills road I'll second that motion all in favor hi any nays any abstentions okay so we have five in favor that passes next the well application lot see leopard road to especially our engineers comments on that I I just said Ed can you give me something that I can look it up on Google Maps lot see doesn't do much for me on lever road but is there some I go to lever road can you give me something to look for yeah three you actually can search by the parcel numbers if you want 3a dash 21 on Google Maps I can oh no I'm sorry I'm I was thinking of the town maps right I'm on just it's 200 lever road it's very it's at 200 level level road although I'm not sure which side that's thank you I didn't see that let's it's it's on the west side yeah this is part of the the Ketridge estate if you will it's been broken up into lots okay got it got it just one second so I have it in GIS if you want to see it yeah I was surprised that we didn't get a lot a plot with our I can be sure to do that next time oh thank you I was muted I was asking you a question is it on the east side yeah on the west side west side yeah so I know if you're heading away from Cushman on the left side of lever road okay 200 okay so it reaches all the way down to the train tracks and street go out lever it okay okay and there's the train over there got it got it okay the parcel anyway this one is a new looking at the map the septic system map but where is the well on the map I was trying to locate the well on the either the septic system or the site plan and I wasn't succeeding I wasn't succeeding let's see let me get back to that is it in the front of the I think it shows actually on the septic plan oh there it is I got it I found it I found it yeah there's a hundred I just didn't blow up enough proposed well location got it yeah got it so the the road then is to the to the right on this plan right or to lever road bottom I gotta I gotta find a north-south arrow on this map are you looking at the septic plan I am okay so the north-south arrow is at the bottom right corner and so lever okay okay it's it's it's not oriented north out got it okay yeah so the hundred foot arc and then the septic system so that a hundred feet is on it so the edge of lever road is actually not shown on this site plan or no it's not it's a little farther got it down the border there okay plot plan if I go that does it also show yeah it's got lever road I got it I got it okay so that doesn't show the well but the well is close to there so those are all downhill contours for this proposed driveway yes yeah downhill downhill to the house site then there's wetlands and somewhere the railroad shows oh I got okay all the way down to the road get it strange lot triangle okay so now I can go to Google Maps and see if I can picture this a little bit better got it where is it where is it that triangle hitting the railroad relative to the building that's next to the railroad down there there's a building and vehicles is it south of that or north oh it's south of that yeah yeah that's a maintenance building that was used by mr. Ketry just as the people that maintained the property it's still back there there's a greenhouse a large greenhouse that I believe just sold with another parcel and I think that's gonna get built on later and there's some interest in lots that are south of this one along Leverett Road okay so this is a dividing of a larger parcel this thing it is yeah yeah I didn't look at the town maps okay yeah it's kind of a rolling piece of probably pasture land yeah but this piece is just south of those buildings that are near the river yes yeah that the triangle point is the triangle point is yeah okay line of trees got it all right um so I should know this but obviously I'm guessing the town our town Waterman doesn't go up Leverett Road there it does not yeah no we stop on East Leverett there yeah it's all it's all septic I'm not sure how far the water may go out there yeah are these contours they're relative they're not real contours yeah okay the elevation starts to challenge the water system there so we're gets too high to be served by our water sure so it looks you saw your letter everything looked fine to you and land use yeah yeah yeah what's the meaning of the the line of water it says the highest water mark or something like that is there actually standing water there part of the year where is that comment that that's on this that is on the site that site yeah to the right of the driveway into the proposed house yeah there's there's a dotted line going around and it says where the water comes to I think that really cool wetland delineation yeah see it yeah it's 200 feet from that to the right of the driveway to the high water to the wetland to mean high water 200 feet so I believe the Water Protection Act or Tim I don't remember the right name attorney anyway you the riparian zone you can't do stuff within 200 feet of certain water courses in wetland so it just seems like there's no water source there where does that water come from there's no stream apparently or no standing water that I could see on Google Earth or here it is it just spring runoff or spring for an vernal pool or something like that well you see the little line dotted line in March that's that's wetland the edge of wetland designation by somebody okay by Ward Smith yep and so it's just 200 feet from there yeah I don't know what it is drainage easement so there must be a low spot there I'll see you Google Earth what it looks like yeah it certainly doesn't doesn't jump out jump out at you anyway it's 200 feet it's it's conforming so no big deal I'm just curious what that was but yeah you can sort of make out if you zoom in on Google Earth you can make out the path of the low-spot drainage basically low-spot going along the edge of the property there you can see how that exists anyway I don't see any issues with it I wonder what the overburden is there do you know how much depth the bedrock is in that area no I don't yeah I don't yeah I don't either no I know that you know the per tests when we did the deep holes for the soil evaluation we I believe reached the pole 10 feet down or nearly that yeah okay I don't have any more questions myself it's fine yeah anybody else have any questions it's hard for me to look on my looking on my iPhone at it yeah it's not that easy you can't bring it up on your screen I've got 30 files open at the moment on my computer so I can't do all that okay so you think it's okay John I think so Tim you have any comment okay Timothy you think it's okay it's okay I just wanted to check on one question that is Eastman brook that's what you you know the high water table is talking they're talking okay yeah is that right is it I see on the GIS map Eastman brook is like marking that high water table Eastman brook on which kind of map I'm looking at Oliver it's a GIS map okay I'm not so is it is that the brook that's mainly on the right hand side of the road the east side of the road yes the wetland edges there and the north side of the road you mean oh east side of left side of the parcel right boy if it's a brook it's not I mean when you look on Google Maps it's sure hard to pick out a brook yeah if you look at the thing that's south of it what I see a little thing south of that the towns mapping is showing a clearly a brook on the east side of levered road which then sort of fades into wetland yeah you know these are from yeah on the north side of the parcel that we're considering right yeah you can you can make it out in the Google in the Google Earth or Google Maps so that's what word Smith was flagging and measuring from yeah yeah now you can see from the vegetation where the wetland outline is so that 200 feet is still enough even if it's a little brook or whatever so is this all is this all south of what used to be earth earth care earth you know Fletcher Gordon Fletcher house property is this south of that property I'm not familiar with that okay I think it is just look up that's the that's the stuff 3a 11 3a 50 I believe that's so that used to be Gordon had a landscaping business and he developed the property into some pretty gardens and that I believe that's that piece yeah 3a this is is right north of that and there's a pond beyond it yeah no retract yeah and that's what the greenhouse is right next to that too yeah so that used to be all Gordon Fletcher how and not if what your house properties okay got it now I can completely visualize it it seems like the easement distances are okay right Timothy did that answer your question yeah I think you know it's far from the easement broke within those limits of 200 and it should be fine I think so I move we accept the well permit application for a lot see in Leavitt Road I whatever we say a second I could second it okay all in favor I right any opposing any abstaining okay so unanimously voted okay thank you then well application an eight four six east pleasant street that map up that was easier to find yeah I found anyway oh dear yeah that is yeah the cutout is it is yeah that is a funny cut out around it big it's a big field so this one I the only question I have here I'm curious about is why they are drilling well and not using town water I believe what I was told is expense expense okay though to run the service line in from east pleasant street yeah interesting they are cooking up to town sewer though I'm not being asked to review a septic plan yeah they don't have a choice on that one right Hampshire Hampshire house got a waiver and for a special pilot or the Hampshire but the living building stuff but yeah the rule if you have access to the town sir you have you must connect looks like they might be running a greenhouse or something there in the future so maybe they think they need water yeah right it's agricultural land so maybe yeah yeah I actually will have to check on that I wasn't aware that you had to connect to town sewer if it was available I believe for any new construction okay in other words if a sewer goes by I live on a street that had septic and sewers go by you don't have to connect right if you have an existing title five compliant septic system but if you go to sell your property and the title five systems on compliant I believe then you have to connect I don't know that you can fix a failed title five if there's a sewer available that's a nuance I can't remember okay I'll check into that because I have been operating different well that's my understanding of it okay because and the and the reason I'm so it's in my head is because of the living building challenge the whole thing at Hampshire College is yeah you can't have a title five system if you can hook up to a sewer for a new construction right and they were allowed to to bring the sewer line right there but not connect to it they're all that's it's on a campus so there's already a sewer around I mean they're the property of butts and available sewer to connect to so that means they could have could have attached to it right in Canada anytime yeah I assume this one you know I don't know the trend what's probably be a pumped connection but it's it's a long way from the road it is them and and not uphill if it's downhill of anything I think I'm pretty sure it's down yeah it's it's pretty flat there okay yeah but not not uphill which is what no no not up because there's actually a pump station not far in from on Grant would oh sewer pump station anyway and no no responses from the butters or anything no problem with that yeah none that I know of good you know we got all those copy of all the letters that got sent out yeah the burden of certified letters for this property was considerable I think they had like 63 letters went out wow oh my gosh yeah and it was they still wanted to do this instead of look up to the town waters or yeah the town water okay so anybody have any further questions my only question was about the town water part and I we've actually been the waters by protection many been asked to some new regulations but I don't think there's any requirement to connect to town water I'm pretty sure about that yeah I'm not aware of it yeah it's never come up tell me do you have any questions so that it looks like there is an approximate location of the well how far is it from the proposed house they're going to build it says something like a 30 feet or something that's is there any restriction from the existing buildings no you could I I think you can be as close as 5 or 10 feet off of a structure you need to have clearance above you know for access but they're well away from the house I mean they're sufficiently far away from now now I'm looking at the well regs that was nice that we have here for the for the distances yep 15 feet from property 10 feet from property the centerline of a well shall have extended vertically clear any projection from an adjacent structure by at least five feet so that's it so you could have a pretty tight location to a building yeah yeah you can they should they should when they gotta look at this site plan again I guess so this is a new new greenhouse new house yeah I mean the provisions are in there and anybody who puts it in should know but the the new the the pumped sewage line out to the street which I'm going to guess it can be a needs to be sure to be below any supply line of water coming from the well into the house right so when they neck it's these lines aren't shown on here but just guessing they don't necessarily cross each other even at all here and probably don't need to so but you never know depends where the sewage leaves the building and the water goes in you know that parcel the other parcel certainly fits the definition of carved out of the other like it's a beautiful old colonial that it's being carved out of hmm so the barn went with the other house the old the barn must have been part of the farm that was that parcel yeah it's now part of the new house parcel yeah interesting and that's a constructed pool huge big pool there or it looks big from here on the pool anyway on the I'm not the new thing but the old the carved out parcel has a pool yeah yeah right yeah okay interesting so it says some trenches like 9 feet 140 feet 170 are those sewer sewer connections or what where are you saying that I'm seeing at the proposed well map proposed well map okay just next to the driveway you have a trenches different I don't know what what they mean by wait a minute not the well not the one with the big circle no next to it now you see trench 90 140 I don't know what I think oh sewer electric cable Internet 170 um electric and parts that sort of the shape double line oh okay that is yeah it's you tell it's a utility transfer sewer electric and cable I didn't even see that before so that's a utility trench for sewer electric and cable so the one goes out to the town sewer line yeah and that that's just a trench for for all those lines it's that more than it's gonna be more than a trench hopefully it has pipes or a box in it or something but it's it's where all the pressure sewer line would come out electric conduit and whatever carries the cable and internet yeah oh you know and now that you say that I'm remembering what the great expense was with connecting with the waterline yeah you see how the waterline is on the east side of East Pleasant Street oh the road cut they were gonna have to put a considerable amount of money into repairing East Pleasant Street yeah the road cut to get there yeah because it's I think the paving was done within the last couple years or something okay yes yeah that it was okay oh interesting um yeah that is the water main coming up okay yeah I hadn't seen that utility pole to electric so that's a moot made my question about the water and moot point so the sewer it goes around the well so it is an interesting point but yeah it's far away that's all right okay I don't have I don't have any more questions anyone else have any more questions oh no what's someone like to make a motion sure I move we accept the the part well permit application for the proposed well for 846 East Pleasant Street all second it okay all in favor I any opposing any abstention okay so it was unanimous thank you thank you Ed yeah thanks Ed thanks no happy to do it is I'll exit and hustler some reason that you need me to stay on no no that was great thank you all right take care what's next okay COVID-19 yes okay so yeah I don't really know where to start since I'm it every day I yeah so let's see so you know that we have a health department web page and then the town created a COVID-19 page and hopefully they've been properly linked now the idea was you know we had started with the health department page and then we were looking at what Princeton and New Jersey did they had this great page where a lot of things could be located together so we kind of mimicked that I went on and looked at I want to say it was excellent information it's updated and I think that's really good yeah so thank you are you and Jen doing it Jen does it all okay well tell her she's really doing a great job oh that's great I will especially and she puts the date and time when she updates it she updates it in the morning and she gives and she even lists the cases here in in town and I've been tracking the cases state and county-wise so it's it's very helpful to see that so tell her it's good I will so the infrastructure that we created about a month ago is we have a core COVID-19 team so that's myself the town manager assistant town manager Dave Zomac the fire chief Scott Livingstone no wait did I get that but fire chief and emergency management director Tim Nelson Guilford mooring superintendent of Public Works Sonya Aldrich who is our interim finance director I think that's our whole team there so we meet daily for a while it was for two to three hours we've kind of scaled back to about an hour a day and we do that seven days a week and we are we have an incident command structure where we're looking at all the information coming in from CDC DPH the governor also seeing what's happening in town Brianna Sunrid and Dave Zomac is also our public information officer as well as assistant town manager and Brianna Sunrid handles communications with him so she along with a few other folks from town created that new website but she's the one who we saw when you had the the meeting what was it like I've gone on to several of your zoom meetings with Mike Morris you know the the superintendent yes yes yeah so Brianna is our communications director she's been with the town for a few years and then of course Sean Hannon who's who's posting the meeting for us tonight is he's our IT director and everyone in IT has also been working as many but seven days a week to to to transition us all to these remote platforms and get us all up to speed on on zoom and teams which is the Microsoft version of zoom and all the equipment that we've needed to do that and everyone's really been working hard at that so Jennifer Brown our public health nurse is doing the contact tracing and all the surveillance that has to happen around an initial case she's managing the website and a myriad of other things so at our meetings we review what actions we need to take in town what things are popping up in the community as potential issues things have gone smoothly I think that there haven't been any big problems if there were I would have let you know about them one of the things the town manager keeps working on is these different ways to communicate out with the public so the idea is that every Thursday at 2 we'll have this it's it's a what he calls it a radio show I'm not exactly sure how it exists but it's out there it's advertised on Facebook it then gets put on to a CTV so on Thursdays I'm on there with him for us to answer questions from the public and to present any new information and then on Tuesdays he'll be bringing in different folks so you saw last week we had the school superintendent myself from the town manager next week it will be I believe it's the police and fire chiefs on Tuesday so that people can call it dial in if they have a question there or a concern we're trying to do communication that way we're working really close sorry what time on Tuesdays it's 2 o'clock on Thursday and I believe it's noon on noon okay the website says is he's the town of Amherst community chats yes every Tuesday and Thursday at noon they're both at noon that's what says yeah I have probably got that wrong there thank you for correcting me there but yeah going to the website is the best the best way to see how to how to dial into those things in the times and the topics okay yeah um yes can I ask a question or I don't know if you want to go on for a while and no I don't go for it I'm curious of I'm curious of the discussion that might have taken place in deciding to put counts related to our town on the website which is not required by anything state that's an individual town by town decision and I'm curious what you went through yeah question about that yeah thank you that thank you for that question so initially the Department of Public Health had issued guidance that just guidance that they didn't want towns to put their case counts up on for individual towns to just do it by county so we were doing that up until I believe it was Monday of this week perhaps we got many requests from residents to share that information and so we talked about that quite a bit and it felt like the community was concerned that if we weren't sharing that that data that we weren't being transparent that we were perhaps holding back information and while I didn't feel that way I could understand that that people were concerned about that and we're trying to be as forthcoming with everything as we can be and so we did make that decision to to post the number of actual tested cases I had a few concerns of with that but one of them was that because the number isn't very high it really doesn't represent the disease burden in the community or in the surrounding community because as we've seen the different issues around getting tests actually done not not as many people are getting tested as are sick in any way so it really all represents those who got tested and then the test came back positive so it's not I worry that it gives a slightly false impression that there's not much to be here I was expressed that caveat on the website that's really true that it's a probably a fraction maybe a tenth maybe knows what that fractures right did you also discuss posting how many tests have been conducted because that that I think I think is important to share and and you know DPH is doing that you know eighty thousand fit seventy thousand and how many are positive and I think it's good to know the number of tests yeah we don't seem to be able to get that piece of the data I can look into that more but at the time we weren't it's not being down down split it's up aggregated so they know how many quests did and how many this lab and how many that lab yeah yeah and you can imagine with 351 towns in Massachusetts that would take unless there was some easy you know way to just pull that down from the data I guess it I guess it's just too hard to do though I don't know a hundred percent if that is true so I can look into that because of course that's helpful to know too yeah it's just building a huge database right where each row is a human and and it's a question what you want to include or know about that human and I think people want to know how many have that person been ten not the specific human but humans in general you know you've been tested and then how many tests have been done and then like yesterday I look at I look at four things every day myself I tend to look at the US the state and I haven't looked at the town actually but and the for example race and ethnicity just started to pop on the the pop the state daily report so that you know that's a column in that human's row in the spreadsheet and the town where they live could it should be a column the age is like they're reporting age sex right there's a row there's a row in some data file for every human that's gotten tested so yeah I don't think it's as hard as any it shouldn't be that hard yeah it's just that it's just a data query and a huge database but yeah can be done correct we can teach millions of people by zoom every second in the country I think we can do that yeah yeah I have a question related to the testing and not testing reports of people with presumed COVID-19 based on clinical symptoms from their primary care provider or others and are you having to do isolation and quarantine with those presumed cases that's another good question so the answer is no health care providers and facilities are so busy and so overwhelmed that they make the presumptive diagnosis a quash a clinical diagnosis if they don't have access to testing or they don't feel the person has means the criteria at that current time to get a test then they're doing a clinical diagnosis and they are advising people to isolate and then instructing their own patients on who around them should be quarantined so of course it's not as robust a system as when they come through a public health department and you're doing all of that tracing but yeah we literally get no reports of clinical diagnosis unless someone calls us a patient a case themselves and people do that and then you know we informally without documenting it are walking them through the important pieces of isolation and quarantine okay thank you I have two questions sort of related to that Julie first of all do you plan the you and Jen do you plan to continue to contact trace no matter how many people might be getting sick and do you have the resources to do that it's a good question so I have I do no contact tracing I am so involved with policy and our emergency planning meetings and outreach that Jen is doing the contact tracing and we the school nurses who are not working I believe almost all of them have come forward to say they'll help with contact tracing so we've got two people onboarded who have been trained in Maven our electronic surveillance system surveillance our electronic system system for disease control and so that's been working really well we also you've probably heard about that the state is opening up a thousand person contact investigation command center that they're doing that in partnership with partners in health and so we are in the pipeline for that so when we do need that we will be able to deploy some of our our cases and contacts back to them to do the investigation if things ramp up to huge numbers so the state has done a really good job in creating that as they begin to realize that we weren't going to be able to towns we're not going to be able to handle like tens of thousands of contacts yeah especially in Massachusetts so again when we're looking at CDC creating policy and almost every other state in the country has large county systems and in Massachusetts we have our little 351 pound system you can imagine all the towns that don't have any staff one other question there's a special population like on Amherst College campus there's 200 students they're all packed into three dorms they moved the students that had to stay so they're in absolutely the worst almost prison type conditions there have any of them come down or would you be allowed to tell us this if you know and do you know anything about that population and are there similar populations at UMass I don't know the UMass dorms completely empty or 500 students on campus yeah okay yeah about 500 students on UMass campus they have also consolidated down I think to one dorm or one building I've worked very closely with Amherst College from the very beginning and I actually think they've done a phenomenal job every step of the way we're still in close contact I wouldn't be able to say yeah we had a case in any particular environment but I think that the choices they've made actually around where to cluster the students have been done in a really what I want to say methodical safe manner so while I haven't been in those particular dorms we talked at length and continue to talk about all the implications or an infection control I've met with the head of their emergency team with the president of the college I've really been impressed with how proactive they've been and how how deep their attention has been to caring for their students and faculty so it's really been something good thank you yeah yeah more questions please has there been thought given to places for isolation or quarantine outside of the home I know the the unhoused population there is a plan to use Hampshire College but I just wondered if there were other sites for other populations well that is a good question what we started with is our individuals experiencing homelessness and how we could care for them if they become positive if they need quarantine but before that also how we keep them healthy and that has been that has gone very well we've had screeners in at the shelters at the shelter for over three weeks medical screeners who volunteer their time and check every guest every night take their temperature and really have helped the shelter staff in keeping that environment really socially distanced and disinfected so that's the population that we've started with we are thinking about other populations of folks who may not have the capability to especially to isolate at home if they're sick because they might not have someone to care for them and we don't have a specific answer for that yet but it's part of our planning and our thinking at the same time the state is thinking along these lines so the state has been has done an assessment all around the Commonwealth of colleges and hotels and so they are identifying places where if someone was positive and did not quite meet the criteria for being hospitalized but needed a place to go that they would be able to identify some of those sites for example for families where you may know that I think it was as recently as two years ago we had over 2,000 families living in hotels around Massachusetts homeless families that was completely turned around and those folks now live in family shelters which is not a good place to to be sick so for example families like that if someone was was sick they would be brought to probably some hotel site where people could have individual rooms I don't know how it works interlocking suites or something for families so the state is also looking at this because this is a hard thing to grapple with town by town and because we don't have a county system the state has really stepped in to help with coming up with solutions for these issues that's good to hear yeah yeah now what's happening for well homeless I used to go through walks through town to see what was happening and I did some talking at great distances and they told me how they were monitoring things at Craig's place but during the day where are homeless people able to go and go to the bathroom and they haven't been outside of CVS in the past few days so yeah I don't know where they are one thing we're really grateful for is that it's warmer weather now so that it's not brutal to be outside a few weeks ago we've got two porta-potties with a sink that were put on the prairie street lot so that there wouldn't be open and accessible public bathrooms during the day for folks because once all the buildings were closed down you know bathrooms were a problem we have just today or yesterday moved another porta potty with us a sink either one or two porta-potties with a sink over behind where Craig's doors is there's a trailer in the back of the parking lot so also bathroom facilities right there some people's belongings are stored in the trailer at first Baptist and sometimes people are staying around during the day in that area because there aren't that many places to go so now there there are bathrooms and hand-washing facilities there and rainy days I saw a few huddled under umbrellas been in little little places in town one day so I'm concerned like today wasn't very good for part of the day yeah yeah and they're huddled very close under umbrellas then yeah certainly not social distancing yeah we we spent quite some time before the buildings closed to see if we could come up with some type of place for folks to go during the day and we weren't successful for that with that one of the things that happens whenever you try to create environments is that everywhere people are needing staff for things whether it's medical staff or shelter staff or you know safety staff and so and then so many people because they fit criteria where they really need to stay home in so many of our other people aren't able to volunteer so we don't have a number of volunteers who can do meals on wheels or the survival center so that volunteer pool let alone the worker pool has been so decreased and so we weren't able to come up with a solution for that okay question say we're without questions you're talking about the volunteer pool being quite defeated and I deplete it yeah yeah so yeah it's yeah so as as we look forward I mean I think food security is one of the other big things that we're worried about because as we see the impact of people not having employment the impact of food stores that were available at the food bank at the survival center being used there's going to be more and more need for for food and then for people to be getting it out to people as we have people who are sicker and unable to get their food or unable to leave their homes because they're in quarantine so that's one of the other big issues our senior center director Mary Beth Oglevitz has been doing a really great job with the senior population and and I think that Maureen actually is a has been a volunteer meal deliverer I haven't during this time no before this time or I was but because of my age and and the whole system changed because it's no longer coming out of UMass right it's coming from Highland Valley so I haven't continued yeah yeah no I was thinking that maybe you were so I'm glad to hear that you're safe because it's really tough I mean when you think about the fact that we have an aging population it really is affecting us all across the board now you know whether it's folks experiencing homelessness or people in jobs or you know many of those people were people who were volunteering and now I had to draw back from that yeah so the question do you have a sense of what the population in the Amherst is now with the students gone like about what are our numbers well so as John was saying there's about 500 students on campus right and there was the thought that there were maybe like 7000 living off campus now that doesn't mean that they're all in Amherst right I see them I good thing with the students I never see them in more than groups of maybe four walking together which means it might be all kinds of roommates I've seen a little bit of soccer at the Amherst fields but it's under 10 I've seen a little bit of maybe a couple of people of soccer on the UMass fields but it's only like two or three so I really I think the students are trying I have not the university has worked really hard to get messaging out to them and I think we we had a sense that not as many students came back as we're currently living off campus and then there's been sort of this sense that some of them even if they came back they've left now so we don't seem to have account there are a lot of cars at the on the big white house in the corner of Amity and Lincoln and when Mark and I went for a walk the other night there were a lot of cars they have to hear a lot of noise I don't know if there was a party going on the other thing we're trying to do is you know if people have been concerned sometimes we get calls about their big groups of students congregating so the concept is if that happens the police will take a spin by and try to explain to them how important it is for them to social distance you know just trying to get that message out it's hard you know for many reasons that we all know I mean one is originally it was like oh don't worry you know that population is going to be safe so having that kind of messaging turning around it's difficult and then it's an age group where you know they're young and healthy and they feel fine and it's hard this is a very invisible thing for all of us right unless it's actually touched someone you know so it's tough and I think the the university is working really hard to try and reach out to students to help keep them safe I have two wishes I think downtown looks pretty good I used to do regular walk-throughs and it's quieter and quieter I do I think big why need some education I don't know if governor Baker's new edicts have come out I think the store people trying hard but people we left I had one time there was this guy with a car parked of food at the end of an aisle gapping on the phone for about 10 minutes he didn't come in and go out yeah so I think they might be pacing it better Trader Joe's is doing a good job even all these so yeah so the governor's order came out about yesterday having only having 40 percent of occupancy load etc etc so our health inspectors are going to be calling all of those facilities and going over it with them we're creating some documents to send out also of course we don't have any oversight in Hadley right or Trader Joe's target Walmart all of which are places that have food because they're national chains they're actually coming out with some of their own really good policies so I think that that's a good thing and then another concern and I don't know Jen should put it up on the website or if we should post it places is when people use masks and gloves are they doing it properly and taking you know so you wear a mask you wear a mask and then you drop it off you wear gloves and then I see gloves in parking lots and when I was out today we go once a week to go grocery shopping and we we grocery shop for our 95 year old neighbor and so those are I don't know if Jen can find something simple about you know using our old nursing or and isolation techniques of a little bit of how to properly use yeah I mean and gloves I think the problem is while people do go to our website you know I don't think having information there is really going to impact people it's it's all over the internet it's right you know we want to make David the Gazette is that yeah excuse me I wonder if getting signs posted or something but not enough people get the Gazette or the Bolton I don't I don't know it's just a thought yeah I would if Jen needs help doing something like that or if you need decide with a little handout that gets posted on buildings I'd gladly bring that around okay okay that's a great idea you know it's not big high on the list but when more and more people are wearing gloves and wearing masks um just yeah so that false sense first of the litter the false sense of protection so if people are yes you know using those things and then not changing them and not washing the mask standing too close yeah so I see people braiding with their gloves on and their mask on and then you know where have they been it's all over the steering wheel and then you answer your cell phone yeah a lot of a lot of complications here yes and if Jen needs any help or if anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to help and anything like that with education if Jen wants help or you want help just let me know okay thank you thank you you know it's an amazing job Julie thank you oh thank you you know it's just like everything else right in public health or in nursing where we have a message and we want people to take certain actions but what do you do how do you say it you know in such a way that it actually causes someone to modify their behavior right so um also it's the lack of knowledge in the false sense of security with gloves and masks yeah yeah that's true so more questions yeah Julie I don't know if you started this conversation yet but I think the whole country whether at a university or a town or school system the conversation about planning for and thinking about implementing a return to interaction and work and things like that on what way or what ways what are people throwing out there as ways to do this and on top of that I guess the question that goes along with it because I think it's important is are you getting information about the status of being able to to rapidly test for antibodies in any in anybody because I think we have to know exposure to allow interaction so just those two questions strike me I mean they're obviously at the heart of what Tim and I do with you know will anybody be coming back to you my zammers in the fall or not that's a big question that nobody can answer just yet um but you know um yeah but I'm curious at what sort of discussions are if anything's come up in within the town as a workplace or the town as a how do we we've been focusing on on distancing and decreasing the rate of transmission of this uh in fact anybody's for so we either gotta we either gotta get it or get the vaccine the vaccine's far out so I don't know just curious how yeah I guess we're all curious um you know I what what we do at the time and what I you know really focus on is um looking at the science looking at what CDC is saying looking at what the Department of Public Health is saying and in terms of a return to work I think um we can't really predict that yet um it's really going to be based on when we see um the predicted surge in Massachusetts and when and how well we're able to contain that and how quickly it it drops off so um yeah I'm not really asking about the when question the data's going to drive the when it's it's how it's how we make decision making because I'm not going to be do it on the basis of there is no coronavirus a person who's infectious existing okay everybody's okay yeah that's not going to happen so what's in between that and knowing everybody having a card or a label say I've got the antibodies or I don't have the antibodies yeah yeah you know I don't know the answer to that and when and your question about antibodies is fascinating because um while we know currently that if people have antibodies they have protection for a certain period of time we don't know how long so um no but we I mean there's no reason to think it's going to behave drastically differently than a lot of other envelope viruses or other viruses right there's we that's all we can go on because we haven't done the testing of this virus very much for reinfection right I think there is some study there's an ER docket based aid on my street we were talking about this the other day and um I guess there's been some monkeys monkey studies for reinfection for for resistance you know that's the kind of thing you have to do you have to have infected mammals and see if they retain it so right anyway so yes I don't know anything about what the parameters will be for return to work I haven't heard anything about that I don't um yeah I don't I don't know and in terms of antibody testing um we did talk about that at the Department of Public Health Tuesday and um we're not there yet for that being something that's being done widespread it's being worked on you know all over the world so um yeah only time will tell yeah it's always the the notion of people throwing out dates this is just it's just it's just it might as well just take a pick a random number because it is kind of we take numbers so that people can sort of hang their hats on them yeah because it's you know just psychologically the concept of well we're just waiting is it's just unbearable for it is yeah it's difficult so you know we look at when the shelter closes or we look at when school would normally be out and you know we're sort of Jen likes to use the term chunking like we're just trying to see you know um yeah yeah a bunch of our students at UMass the undergrads really got hurt the I think UMass is doing a great job and um I happened to go there two days a week because I'm teaching out of a room that has a lot of technology there's only a handful of people doing it but I'm able to get access I don't see anybody you know hey yeah yeah there's nobody around um but uh the before spring break the sequence of the two announcements were bad for students because a lot of them got caught leaving UMass with their belongings in their dorm room and they can't get back and that's you know the chance the announcement on Wednesday of that week from the chancellor just most of us shook our head was like what do you mean they're going to come back in two weeks and then to change the mind about 10 of five on Friday is kind of brutal so that was the one mistake I would fault of the whole thing yeah yeah there's certainly have been moments when all of us have been like oh should have done that earlier right you know it's it's so hard it's really pretty fascinating you know especially now as time goes by and you're looking at making another decision and now what we have to say as well you know Andrew Cohen is thinking about it doing it now you probably should have done two weeks ago now so that's kind of what we're we're using I mean I just yeah yeah it's the decision making is very hard as we want people to be able to be educated we want people to work and um yeah it's often really complex decisions yeah trying to think if there was something else I wanted to tell you oh I guess I should be tuned in tomorrow morning isn't it eight o'clock you're going to have a session with Paul yes I'm doing a cup of joe with Paul virtually we will have people can call in and ask questions so yes if you have more questions tomorrow then you have access to Paul too that's right should we have like a short check-in meeting in two weeks on zoom do you think that would be beneficial I don't know I mean I know I haven't kept in good touch with you all um because it's just so busy um yeah but uh I don't know I think maybe if you just reach out and I'm happy to you know give me a nudge and then I can send you all emails because um I don't know unless unless the unless you all feel differently well Julia the other thing you could do is just let us know like if there's one of those Tuesday or Thursday sessions that you think might be informative to us you just might remind us by email to check it okay yeah because I did the one with you and Paul and Morris um and that was helpful I agree I did that too it was I kind of I read about it in the gazette that's how I found right yeah but maybe you keep us posted because I do go into all these websites and then after a while I think I can't do this anymore I've been doing COVID-19 from the APHA and whatever the new Institute of Medicine is and I there had been a weekly Department of Public Health for boards of health that I've gone into and I just after a while I just said okay I'm just sitting here and I'm I'm just being an old lady keeping myself healthy no yeah no I have you all in the back of my mind and it's just it's um you know it's kind of this bottleneck of us of us trying to well if it's anyway we can take some pressure off of you yeah no I appreciate that I mean you know really so much of it is just um just all the all the work we're doing to think about protecting the homeless that's been and really the whole country has been very focused on that all states you know it's just such a such a big issue uh because it's the definition of crowded living quarters no resources you know when we look at those things that affect people's health so North Hampton has set up something at the uh at the high school 75 beds to view um yes do you communicate with uh with Meredith at all yes Meredith the health director in North Hampton communicate all the time and the two towns did work together for a bit on the possibility of um collaborating with that um that did not come to fruition um so what happens is every every community is struggling with what to do with their folks who aren't healthy so she's got a large shelter for healthy folks they're one of their shelters and probably both of them were very small so the ability to do any social distancing was was really not there we are we have been lucky at Craig's stores that um there is six foot distancing between cots for example which um the guy who I talked to in town told me yeah yeah other shelters other shelters are often bunk beds and lots of people in my room very close together so um really they and we and other communities also are up against how to handle isolation and quarantine so we are trying to work together on that um on various aspects of that um and I don't know if I said this but the state has come up with why I was explaining the hotel solutions yeah so anyway now as I know it's in Hadley but the tent city behind Big Y I didn't drive back there are people back there has anyone driven back there there's a small encampment back there um the last for quite some time there haven't been people there I don't know if there are now now that it was better um we have outreach but that's Hadley well but we have outreach workers um from Elliott homeless services who do work in Northampton Hadley Amherst so they go out to different tent sites to work with folks so they're um aware of various places that people are living that aren't shelters okay and they engage with those folks um and help them to stay healthy yeah yeah and we've also worked with healthcare for the homeless and um yeah Julie what's the um sense of is there any particular community or location in eastern Massachusetts where um currently ICU ventilator and ventilator capacity has been challenged I mean up against the wall or are we still is the major facility still okay for COVID patients yeah yeah um I don't think I can say I think they're getting pretty pretty filled up um I don't think I could say specifically okay if they're at their tipping point my neighbor uh said base day this was three days ago was okay from uh beds and ventilator perspective but it was really respiratory therapists and ICU nurses that they were short a lot of people trying to get retooled to uh learn new skills yes yes they are definitely pulling people from other types of specialties and and putting them in those spots yeah and getting them up to speed I've heard that about two weeks ago I sat in on a Cooley Dickinson presentation and I was impressed that they were able to go from basically seven ventilators to 35 whether they have the staffing to man those all I don't know but um and I think I read some recent numbers and of course the Gazette where they were I've forgotten how many people were patients maybe 25 but only a small fraction on ventilators um so um that was ramping up that I didn't expect to see honestly but yeah yeah yeah we've kept in close contact with Cooley Dick too and yeah they've really been able to kind of re-figure some of their reconfigure some of their units so they've got a lot more bed space and um they increased the ventilators they they created um a special respiratory clinic for folks to go to so they're not all going through the ER um so yeah they've been able to do a lot of really good things I have a a young friend who's an ICU nurse in Melrose and Wakefields and they're having trouble with PPE but one of their doctors is Chinese and he had friends send them suits from China so they're using them but they don't have enough PPE and some of the older hospitals don't even have partitions just just curtains between ICU beds yeah and the nurses are getting very very nervous and very tired and they all have face rashes um they put in these 12 hour shifts and um yeah Caitlin has a big rash on her face and some people are thinking of getting RVs matter her husband said maybe we should get an RV that you stay in because she feels compelled to work and she has two small kids so people are are looking into getting RVs so that they're family member can stay in it and stay at home but not be near their family members yeah I have two doctor daughters and one daughter and they are also looking at extra spaces if if one of them should get sick you know there's an empty apartment across the hall there's a empty apartment upstairs or whatever they're kind of talking to their respective landlords I don't have a wedding is that being posted how are you that is only off that's that must be April 25th that is right I can't even get a marriage license never mind to get together though yeah uh wow so that'll be another time that's okay that's no big deal but um it you know you hear different different reports from different people from all walks of life from how this is affecting them and uh you know but yeah but Julie given maven and given what I get from the dph and governor baker and you I don't want to have a false sense of hope but I feel that we're doing a better job than lots of other areas in the country and so I want to give a lot of kudos to you and whoever you talk to that I'm anxious and I'm worried but I have a sense of okay we're doing the best we can and and people are really working hard such as you so I I just want to message you that is doing a good job I do feel that way I think um yeah I mean we had great infrastructure because we already had maven maven is such an incredible tool it's recognized nationally as being one of the best um virtual epidemiological tools people often want to mimic it and um so and I think we it's interesting I think we're a very collaborative state people really work together um and uh yeah I think that we have a lot going for us here yeah the cvc hasn't even been able to come up with anything for tracking like maven yet a lot of money and a lot of expertise and they're still from what I read in here they're still grappling with it I thought well come on up and talk to maven here yeah I just feel there's a little disconnect between what I read about the numbers you know online even in this area and it's reassuring there haven't been many deaths in in Hampshire county and the case numbers aren't rising too terribly fast but also hearing about you know people with families younger people with younger kids where the whole family had it or and you know a couple of those totally anecdotal but it's like it's out there but we're not seeing it in the reports right we're not capturing it and because really the two ways we have to capture it are the tests which are you know woefully under underperformed and then deaths yes so yeah you know deaths is is a horrible blunt instrument and the inability to test whether whether we don't have enough of the swabs or the medium or the the tests were getting clogged up around the country so the turnover rate was so slow or we don't have enough providers to even perform the test whatever it is it's it's all very frustrating the the I heard about the test site in Lowell with CBS and the rapid test is there that's something in Hampshire county like yes be happening there are thoughts that might be happening very soon yeah I just heard it was they were to set it up and I think in west brings you know I just read that or heard that from the mass department public health they do they have um I don't know if it's a rapid test or not maybe it is rapid test for first responders fire police and GW and yeah that just got started so that's happening yeah so there's this real push to make sure that all of those critical infrastructure folks are able to be at work and and be well taken care of because they keep us all going mm-hmm and a big thing in coming back is is being able to have enough tests and contact information and tracking and if we're not having enough tests but we're getting there with the test you know like UMass is making a medium um there's I mean we're really getting there people are all pitching in to to make that happen oh good I truly are you um but do you hear from people that tell you they they weren't able to be tested yes all the time and that's because the tests are being prioritized so um it's it's understandable to me that that they're not getting tested um they're still getting care you know their their PCPs are are diagnosing them and and they're told to check in with them and yeah but definitely that happens a lot one of our graduate students went home to San Diego I think it's about the spring break time came back and her advisor just informed me that that she she uh had symptom was sick and and knows a family member sick but she was was deemed too young to be tested we're not a priority so she never got never got tested there you go yeah yeah it's yeah it's something and of course it will change every every hour every day it changes the whole picture changes one of my colleagues a faculty member was had symptoms early that that made you wonder about things but he uh he got tested by driving up to UH University Health Services got a nasal swab and got tested he's negative but um but did did manage to get tested he's he's 70 and had symptoms so yeah I thought that was good to hear that the process that process worked yes yes we good I think so I think that's all I have for you I have a question and it's about the tobacco regulations yeah we have to go like right after our last meeting which seems like God knows when um I started to look at them and make some you know edits or cuts and paste and I I'm really bad at managing documents and I kind of lost some of the page numbers and some of the you know the the the whole book of the thing so I saved it as a separate uh yeah I saved it separately so it didn't interfere with Steve's version yeah at some point is it appropriate for me to send that to you and just send it out to people or you can just send it out to everybody I was going to say whenever you guys have something you want to send out as long as there's no conversation just send it to everyone okay and I have I have documents to be sent to and then when this whole COVID came they're just sitting on my computer but I'll send them all out tomorrow I will look at I have to probably go back to the beginning and try to figure out what I was trying to do with that and it probably wouldn't be a bad thing for for anyway so yeah if anyone wants to work on that because you know you're at home and you want to work on it awesome not me but I went from there to to sewing masks cloth masks oh that's great so that was like yeah remember that when you when you send something to everybody you probably should either use the bcc when you just send or else remind everybody don't reply all because we'll soon get into yes okay yeah don't reply all yeah why is there no conversation yep okay okay thank you okay all right so is that it I guess my horse isn't open huh oh yeah I wanted to ask that close I think that's a moot point now what do you think Julie well Susan you know she did her due diligence she reached out to them she said Julie what do you want me to do I said you know we can't do anything about that right now they appear to be closed um and she didn't hear back from them so and their license is not is expires may 31 it will expire I mean I think that I just didn't feel like that was something that we could deal with during this yeah you know if they come back later at some point and say oh we want to talk we want to reopen you know whatever we'll just deal with it then I think okay yeah okay yeah okay thank you all right thank you Julie all right Jane thank you everybody everybody stay safe and healthy happy Passover happy Easter whatever yeah thank you bye bye