 All right. So the webinar has started. Okay. So welcome to the January 12th Board of Health meeting. And we will open the meeting with a roll call. But first I want to introduce Premalena our new member. Who brings a lot to the board. She's a nurse. And some of her assets that she has public health knowledge and has worked with a community agencies in Springfield. And she's multi lingual. So welcome Premalena. Thank you. And now I will do a roll call. So Premalena. Here. Lauren. Maureen. Here. Nancy here. Tim is away and absent. And Jen is our staff member here. So the first item of business is reviewing the minutes from our December 8th meeting. And I just saw one typo. I had something I wanted to correct as well. I saw one typo under new business. And it was Tim's last name. It's rad here instead of grand pier, whatever. That was a typo. I didn't see anything. Oh, I see that. Yeah. I saw something correction page two under item B, the second paragraph. It should be responsibility, not responsibly. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And that's sentence. I'm not sure if it needs to be retooled. There's a period after pollution, if it should be a colon. But it may be okay the way it is. Okay, the way it is. Okay. Anybody else see anything, Maureen or Lauren. No. No. Can I have a motion to accept the minutes as presented with the. Typo corrections. I'll move to accept the minutes of the. December meeting with the corrections as mentioned. Do you want to second it? Sure. I'll second. Okay. So all in favor. Lauren. Maureen. Maureen. And Nancy. Okay. Thank you. So now we have public comments. So is there. Any other. Let's see. I'm looking at the attendees. No hands are up. Okay. Attendees. Have all this stuff. Okay. Thank you. So the first old business was artificial church. And I sent out these letters that we received from Kevin Collins. He was responding to the motion that we sent our motion that we passed. That we sent to town. Town counselors. And in it, we just said, Massachusetts general law. So to clarify that it's Massachusetts general law. Chapter 111. Public health. It has over 300 sections. So given that. I often refer to the Massachusetts association of health boards. And they have a summary of. Their duties of local boards of health. And that's also used in our orientation material. And that was also used in the. Department of public health orientation material. So just to clarify that. So it was chapter 111. And the duties. That the Massachusetts association of health boards has clearly delineated from. Those multiple sections of chapter 111. Does anyone else want to move on? Yeah, I think part of that was like the question of who. You reported this to and what the, what we were asked to do. And whether the Gazette got it right. And. I'm not 100% clear on that myself. Okay. Sure. Does anyone else want to make comments before I make anything else? Did you all, did you. Maureen and Lauren, did you read Kevin's letter? Yeah. I think part of that was like the question of. You reported this to and what the, what we were asked to do. Yeah. Okay. Sean. Straighten that out because it was the finance committee. Of the town council. And it was the whole town council. And because we weren't at that meeting. We just got it via the regular communication loop that it got to Jen. And it was the finance committee. When you look at it, it was the finance committee. But the whole. Town council was present and. And it was asked for, and they asked for our opinion. So whether we say the finance committee of. Town council or the whole town council that was at the finance committee meeting. I don't know because I didn't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I just went back and, and view the whole. Video recording of the meeting. But Sean answered it and said. That that's what happened. Okay. That helped. Mm-hmm. Lauren. I really don't have much to say. I just know that they. In their. Statements. They. Said that they reviewed our. Our emotion or our opinion. But it really didn't seem to. Affect their vote. So. I don't really have much to say. Right. And we use the toxic use reduction institute. At the university of. Massachusetts low. And the. I'll give you. I did research on this. So the toxic chemical. Reduction act was passed in. 1989 and went to effect in 1990. And it was really to. Prevent pollution of toxic chemicals. Focusing primarily on. Manufacturers. And that act established. The toxic use reduction institute. At the university of Massachusetts law. So the state formed. To worry the institute. To be consultants too. And I'll tell you women. I wrote it down here. Well, and their role. And I wrote everything down. I thought. Oh, the toxic use reduction institute. Provides resources and tools to help businesses, municipalities and communities in Massachusetts. Find safer alternative. To toxic chemicals. And that was a lot of what we used. Plus other research. And we use the. Percautionary principle. So I think. I don't think we need to do any more. What are your other thoughts? It didn't seem to me like there was anything to do with. But because he asked for all these references and all that, and it was because it was a board motion, I felt. I couldn't answer. I have to just use the board. So that's, so that's, I think that's all we have to do on that. And that can be reflected in our minutes and people can. Go to our. Video recording. Okay. Now I use traffic things. So that brings us to the toxic chemical regulation updates. I've gone in circles about this and I know Lauren, you have done a lot of work on this. So I went back. To the beginning. And I've mentioned. We have this. Massachusetts toxic use reduction act of 1990. And. We have that. But then I thought, let's go back to the original. Motion for this regulation. So Jennifer nicely got out and Nancy nicely got me the minutes. So then we have a resident, Deborah, cum bolts, who still lives in town, presented a draft of a brochure to the board. And the brochure was, there's no place like a healthy home. And it's about using healthier products in the home. And she asked that we have a bylaw. Past in the town. and be presented to the spring town meeting. So then it went to Barry DeCastillo, who was our town manager back then. And he said, he didn't think in bylaw incorporating the precautionary principle into town purchasing really was the way to go and he asked that instead of a bylaw he would like to see a regulation. So in April of 2001, we have the regulation that we have with the aim of getting healthier products in buildings in town. So I think we have to wait until Tim comes, but I don't think we need this regulation. No other town in Massachusetts that I could find has this regulation. I asked Cheryl Sabara about it and she said she didn't think anybody had this regulation. So I don't think we need this regulation. I don't know if people want to do more research on it, or what their thoughts, but we need to hear and hear. But I think we can bring him up in our February, February meeting, just get rid of this regulation. What are your thoughts. Well, I hope you can hear me well. I am. I thought when you brought up revising the regulation, it was also to ensure that there was no toxic chemicals around like public buildings on the outside and in areas where you can play. And so, I'm, I know that I'm first at a lot of things so I'm not quite sure why we would not go ahead with the regulation. Because I thought it was, like I said, to ensure the safety around areas where children are and also toxic cleaning products or use around public buildings. So I thought that was pretty important. We'll have to find out the town possibly is doing that. We need to find out this. This goes back from a brochure in 2001. And no other town has this. I don't know if, if what products are used in the school is really our purview. I think there's a whole broader category with PFAS and all that which would be a whole different regulation. What are your thoughts. Actually, I don't know. I don't know what's in the, the state law about toxic chemicals like you're saying it's really focused on industry. I know I looked, you know, it's always the easiest way to figure out how to revise a regulation is to see what other towns are doing and I agree I couldn't find a one. It's not a one. And, however, you know, to encourage use of safer products in, you know, for employee town of Amherst employees and buildings and whatever, I agree with Lauren it seems like a good idea. I don't know the best way to encourage that or to, to. Yeah, just to encourage that. I think I'm not sure what's been done over the years in terms of any kind of cool enforcement of these regulations I, I would suspect very little, and it's kind of a hard thing to get a handle on. The enforcement regulations, what you think we could, and we could have Tim and more in contact the toxic use reduction Institute at UMass Lowell, and have them, because they're supposed to provide resources and tools to municipalities and communities, and have them give us guidance. But I don't. You know, when I went back and traced it, it, it all goes back to there's no place like a healthy home brochure. And there's the minutes. Nancy, your minutes are great compared to these minutes. I'll hold them up to see if you can see them. It's like, we can't even see them. It's like a bullet. It's a cautionary principle presents a draft brochure. And there's one sentence so Nancy do a wonderful job on I mean it so you can't really trace. And should it be a bylaw versus a regulation. No town of Massachusetts has this regulation. And it affects purchasing, which we don't have that much control over. So, Jen, can you give us any help criminal if you have any ideas. I'm putting you on the spot. Oh, probably you're muted. Yeah, yeah, I just saw that. What I wanted to say was, you know, it's, I don't know about the history of this except what you've just described, but it does make sense. And I have to say I don't know whether it's the purview of the board in this town or not but it does seem in general to make sense to have some statement about the use of toxic chemicals, preventing the use of toxic chemicals just in terms of protection of employees. Right, and the environment. So, Jen, is there any way to do research on what the town is doing about this. It is this regulation that no one's enforced ever. So I can say it's not enforced from what I'm aware of here in the health department, never have I been consulted or asked about a regulation. I can tell you, and this is information I spoke about before when I spoke with Jeremiah the plant who's the facilities maintenance manager. He said that they have these standards through summer through state purchasing that they have to use these green seal requirements. So these are green products and companies and they list compliance and restrictions. So the MSD the material safety data sheets are all on file. So they really, you know, they really do strive to keep these things green purchasing, not so much the least toxic that's not how it's stated on these on the sheets when you purchase. So we're going to find out if Turi has approved what's being purchased. What Turi the toxic use resource Institute. Yeah. So I think it's, you know, regulated at a higher level. Then, then us, I, you know, I sort of like, I don't know, Marine or primarily you said it's a statement I mean, it's not up to me it's bored but you know I can't see it sort of filtering through the health department that's my my worry is the implementation. And that's mine too if we have a regulation that we don't follow and we don't enforce. Why do we have this regulation. If no other town has this, and I'm not saying that safe buildings and safe products aren't an issue but is that the way to address it. It might be if we're concerned about buildings, you know building maintenance and the school school building maintenance and what they have in the past when use of roundup has come up, and we've traced it down roundup is hardly ever been used. If I remember correctly once on a patch of poison ivy at grove park and once up at Mill River on poison ivy when they tried hand removing and it grew back but it was, you know, just so limited and very well used. And it was used because they thought of kids getting poison ivy was worse than using the chemical on the patch that was close to where kids were. And that was several years ago that that was explored. I think until February and asked him for his input and if, Jen, if you could check out how the chemicals and more about those green chemicals. And if, if it's gone through that story that toxic use resource institute that that's the state level for making sure things are using safer alternatives to toxic chemicals that's their role. Yeah, so I'd be glad to do that. I know there may be a wait. There's, there's one or two people out right now. Okay, okay. I don't say it's not important but if we have a regulation that we don't follow we don't enforce. We want might want to but it's really been going PFAS has been going in by town bylaws hasn't been going through health, health boards in in Massachusetts. Yeah, that's a whole other issue. I just had a question about on the state level, I guess, there's some things I just don't quite understand. But if the state had, is that a recommendation or is it a regulation on toxic products or what is the Yes. Oh, local ways to, you know, give, give an expectation, or, you know, if there's no regulations and that's kind of to me saying that there's no expectation. What is the town is considered, you know, you know, something. From what I found out and Jennifer you can add to this, the Massachusetts toxic use reduction act was really was developing a plan to prevent pollution with a primary focus on companies that use large quantities of specific toxic chemicals. Whereas the toxic use reduction Institute and we can ask for help from them provides the resources and the tools to help us find safer alternatives to toxic chemicals. And if we found out that either one of them were approving things then that would be the state's approval. So, is that does that make sense, Lauren. There was this law that this act that was put in place in 2000 in 1990 that developed this Institute and that Institute is to help companies, businesses, towns and communities. Does that make sense to you. Lauren. Okay, okay. So that I think using the toxic use reduction Institute would be our best bet in going forward with with all of this. I think, and ask them do we need a regulation. I mentioned that someone mentioned the green guidelines to purchasing and those are coming from the state is again is that that's a requirement for all towns. It's collective purchasing. I believe. Yeah. So that's one way maybe the state is acting for local towns. Yeah, let me see what I can do. I mean all these questions may be answered if I can. Yeah, I think Jen if we can find out if the green items have been approved through to array that toxic use reduction Institute, then we're okay. Or something like that. And then how does the town make these decisions, you know, used in the parks and the schools and other buildings. It's, it's to decrease exposure. Any other statements. People happy with putting that into February and getting more information. Yes. Okay, mental health awareness updates. So, I asked to put this back on the menu because the menu. Listen to me. Because when we spoke about in December I said I would check in with North Hampton and see what they were doing around mental health. And I'm not sure if Lauren has anything else she wants to add but I, I put this back on. So one of the things that Amherst has is we're involved with the public health excellence. We have shared services with North Hampton. So it's the big grant looking at regionalization. So the nurses there who have come to Amherst and help us out have educational programs. So I, they don't have anything about mental health. I called and spoke to them. They said they've identified mental health as an issue and are thinking about what they can do in the future but they don't have anything now. So that's what I wanted to report back on. But the other thing I wanted to say is, I hope I don't meander too much but Nancy, when you finish up the town of Amherst community health assessment, then there's a next step to it's like what are we going to do with it. So I was thinking and I don't know where we, we are going to land on this, but really maybe we need something and this is public health and CDC, but like chip, you know, community health implementation plans sort of what are we going to do formally. When we identify what the main issues are. So there's lots of program planning, you know, the one that I've used in the past and I like is map and what is map mobilizing action through planning and partnership. So I think what I really want to say is that I think there's going to be a lot of room for mental health awareness that's a big thing that's been identified. So it may not happen now we're in January but I can see us starting to get going on this in end of March or April. Thank you. Okay, any other comments. Okay, so now we're going to go to. I didn't, I didn't, I can't see you. Okay, Lauren, what do you want to say. Um, I was, um, it's that's kind of surprising that there isn't more services, or, as you said, the through the public health. Um, the different organizations that deal with social services don't have, you know, more educational and I guess just, you know, services that mental health. I was trying to focus my comments on some of the organizations that I looked at the national alliance on mental health and of Massachusetts and someone got back to me and said to go to the public health. Yeah, you're, you're fading more. Sorry. The public health. Lauren, we're not hearing anything now. I think I muted myself I tried to turn my camera off instead. Now we can hear you nice and clear. Okay. I mentioned the National Alliance on mental health, mental illness sorry of Massachusetts. They reached back to me and they said that I could go to the public health Institute of Massachusetts reports and or more information. And also, I was looking at a Lancet study that was focused on climate anxiety. I thought that was interesting climate change is a topic that is, you know, important to people in the town. And I had invited someone from that's based out in Washington her name is Jasmine Pierre. And these are just, you know, ideas that I have addressed like particular topics on mental health she has a app called the safe place and I got that information from the UMass UMass resource page for students on mental health so I think there's a lot of information and I think there's a lot of resources out there. So, you know, I just think, you know, Lauren, you are touching upon a very important mental health and mental health services locally and there's a lot of information on severely lacking. We can't address this with a regulation, but we can move it for some implementation or something through Cres or through the health department. So that's going to be the place to put this. I don't want to diminish the importance of it because it is, and also if we get more information from the community health assessment. That will help us do some identifications of implementation roles so that's where it's going to be very important. So now we have to find the right place to put this. It won't come under a regulation for us, but it is part of the health of the community that's very important. Does that make sense to you. Yes, you said that I believe the last meeting, I, I guess my confusion comes when the community or residents in the town bring forward a concern or, you know, something that they want to see the on, you know, tell them to write, tell them to write to the health department so it comes to the board through through channels like that. Right. Okay. And if it comes, if it comes in a written request. Then the appropriate department will, will, will look at it. Is that correct, Jen? Yeah, I think, you know, you know, I'm, again, I'm sort of thinking like in the spring, you know, when we start bringing these subjects up like, you know, I don't want to misrepresent that we're not looking at mental health issues because we are looking at infections being tracked and suicide and you know, Spiffy has stats on substance abuse that comes from mental health issues. So I think there's going to be real input what I'd really like to see is a lot of input from the community. So Lauren, like you said, how do people, you know, get involved in Amherst, you know, the health department, you know, right now we're still in COVID and we're sort of coasting beginning to coast out of it and it's been a, it's, so it's a time for us to start thinking about other things and mental health is a big thing post COVID. So sometimes when people can email the, or talk to the health department, we have, we're able to, it's sort of shovel ready, we can get out and help them right away with something. Someone had like a question about, you know, teaching CPR to, you know, the public because they're worried about choking in restaurants. Like, wow, you know, that's a great idea how can we work on that. So again, bring into the board of health meetings, email me, some things we can get going some things we can start talking about. But Lauren, you know, I look forward to working with you and other people on this. I just, I think it's the, it's timing to. So I think two months from now we're going to be in a different place. Yeah, I see that we did we lose Scott. No, Scott is here. Oh, good. Oh, I still see his name. Okay, so now I'm going to move on. So next it's firearm safety overview, and I've invited Scott Livingstone to come and talk to us with the increase of violent gun use. And this leads into mental health to Lauren. But I'd like to have Scott tell us what steps are being taken on firearm safety in town and what are the risks because we want to prevent any risks. So if we can let Scott in and let him tell us what's being done the last time he spoke to us was shortly after the Sandy Hook. And I was very impressed with what the what the fire the fire the police department was doing so thank you Scott and if you can give us an overview of firearms in town how people get them what's being done for safety and greatly appreciate that. So thanks everybody for having me tonight and hello, I think I know everybody here tonight. If I don't come visit with me and have a chat because I'm always available. So yeah from a perspective I'll start with a perspective of the town itself our town. We're relatively actually we're very a very safe community, especially when it comes to gun and gun calls. You know I did a quick check this morning. It's been pretty consistent like each year will average around 100 calls that come up in our CAD system is gun related most of those, if not all of them usually involve incidents around things like a gunshot it turns out not to be a gunshot it turns out to be fireworks or something or will receive calls about complaints, mostly during the hunting season. Somebody will hear gunshots not realize it's this deer season or somebody will hear gunshots often a distance and not realize some of the other hunting seasons are going on so the majority of any calls that we get specific to gunshot are related to things of that nature. We have very few gun calls where there's actually a shooting involved, not to say we haven't over the years. You know the calls that we do get for gun issues are usually after the fact where an incident has happened and somebody's been assaulted with a gun or somebody's pointed a weapon at somebody and we follow up with those. And where where necessary criminal charges are brought but overall, in the town of Amherst very few incidents of weapons being used, specifically guns being used in the commission of any crimes, and that sort of thing. When it comes to things like licensing for people. About 5% of our populations have licensed to carry which means they're legally allowed to have weapons in their homes are on their person. And so that comes out to about 1500 15 or 100 so licensed individuals in the town of mess in a town of Amherst. That does not include students who don't consider Amherst to be their town their residence town. And we know that there are no weapons allowed on campus even if somebody is licensed to be able to carry it for student as they're not allowed to have license or weapons on campus even if they're legally licensed to do so. But if somebody's just renting up at. You know townhouse or one of the residential complexes, and they have a license to carry we would not necessarily know that. You know the lot of not a large number of people who are licensed in town again about 1500 total. We don't have the ability to track, but the ATF the federal ATF alcohol tobacco and firearms agency does is if somebody has a license to carry how many actual weapons do they have. You know if they're a hunter they might have five different types of shotguns. It's just somebody who wants protection of them themselves, we wouldn't necessarily know how many weapons are actually at each individual's home. You know, I think Nancy you would ask specifically about what we can do to ensure people are abiding by the law that all weapons in your home have to be locked and secured. You know that is a state law it's also a federal law. And typically where we would see violations or something like that is if we're at somebody's home for another reason, for instance a domestic disturbance or something of that nature and then follow up with a report of a 209 a violation something of that nature. So we do not just go into somebody's home randomly. The authority or you know the US Constitution still, even if somebody's license doesn't allow us to go into somebody's home to make sure that somebody's weapons are are securing their homes. You know we do offer free locks to people who who wants one if somebody needs a lock to secure their weapons we have the ability to give them those. But we don't go into individual homes Nancy to to inspect to ensure people are compliant with the law on that end. Interestingly, I think it was in this morning's news report, both in mass live it was in the Boston Globe for sure in the Boston Herald but the new governor elect Maura Healy is making gun safety and gun enforcement a priority or her administration. She's going to actually. I think she's considering calling it a public safety or public health issue. So, I think you're going to see more discussion and conversation about the overall violations of gun safety and people who are in possession of gun safety and handgun violence in general, being more of the forefront of this administration. You know she's only been in office for a week and she's already discussing that. So that's a good thing when it comes to the governor's office. Trying to think I wrote some notes here to what else maybe oh as far as licensing itself so it's pretty stringent in the state of Massachusetts. A number of background checks for people who want to become licensed. It includes in person interviews and then background investigations. We suspend a number of licenses of people is are involved in domestic situations or are in violation of laws that are specific to guns. I have the ability to suspend those license and I've taken that action before. People do have the right to appeal to judges I think this past December I had three hearings before a judge for licenses that I suspended. So it happens. The good part the good thing about that is. You know there's a there's a mechanism for me to suspend licenses. And for those people who feel like they were treated wrongly there's a mechanism for them to appeal that. And it's before a judge in a court of law. So it's pretty unique to Massachusetts that we have that ability to do that's not. That's not something that's very. Not many other states have that that process involved in their licensing so I probably covered a lot of stuff already but I'm if there's questions I'm happy to answer them for you. Does anyone have a question for Scott. There was a change in the law, I guess sometime last year where the, where the applicant for a license no longer needs to have a special reason to need a gun. I wondered if that has changed anything in the number of licenses being sought or in your process. How do you evaluate those applicants. We haven't. Thanks for that Maureen. We haven't seen a big uptick in the number of people that are applying for licenses. Usually when we see big upticks is when there's concern about a presidential change. So, in that four year cycle, you know a lot of things get written about the possibility that, you know, a Democratic candidate is going to change the laws when it comes to being able to get a license that sort of thing so. But even in hammers, we don't see a big change in the number of applicants. Again, though we, you know, our background investigations are pretty in depth, not only in the state of Massachusetts but here in Amherst again, you know, we'll call an individual in for in person interview, and then the background invest in the background follow up is pretty intense before somebody is legally licensed to carry. Thank you. No more. Maybe I should know this but I don't. Does a license pertain to only one weapon, or any number of weapon is the number of weapons to be like stipulated I guess. So no there's no, there's no regulation on the number there are regulations on the type of weapon that, you know whether, you know you can't get a machine gun or automatic firing license that involves a license in order to get one so even I can't issue those two people. You know so it's more the type of weapon, not so much the number of weapons. So with the license you could, as long as it was a type that was allowed you could have any number of weapons, theoretically. That's correct. Thank you. I'm sorry I think I missed from the beginning of your comments. If you want a license you have to go through the police department. Yeah, that's correct so in Massachusetts the licensing authority are the individual police chiefs in that community. So there's every now and then there's discussion about changing that law but nobody really wants to take that burden on. So there's a lot of police chiefs who would like to give that that up but there's really no other entity that's looking to take fulfill that that role or take the responsibility and the liability because when I sign off on an individual license to carry that liability really does fall on me. You know if something were to go wrong and we miss something in a background investigation and then something bad where to happen with that individual that liability would fall on on me in the town of Amherst. I have a question here with all these crazy mass shootings is there anything that the board can do to help you to increase gun safety and decrease risks. So I think it's going to be important Nancy to follow what types of information is going to come out from the governor, because she's making this a priority. And she's going to be looking for input from town managers and health departments and, you know, some of the areas she's looking at to do more work as is in the mental health field right there aren't enough mental health workers and you know it's not and everybody reads the news and it's not. In almost every case in these incidents of mass shooting. There's been red flags, you know somebody should have picked up something somewhere along the line. They weren't consistent with almost all of the young, the people involved in these active shooting situations where, you know somebody was seeing a mental health professional but they weren't able to see them or, you know, it almost always falls back into mental health issues and I don't think I can tell you that we as a state and we as a country are not doing enough to serve those individuals that have are struggling with mental health issues. I mean, I don't know how we're going to fix this. And it is something I wanted to bring up tonight but you know, when it comes to licensing individuals to have ownership of weapons you know I think we do a good job with that. There are some things coming out line up now that were people can make their own guns by ordering things online they can order, you know, a barrel for a weapon in Romania and have that shipped to their house and they can order triggering weapons and so you can and these are called ghost guns. So there's no way of tracking them. And I happen to think that that's going to be become the biggest problem in the country. In the years down the road when people are actually, you know, finding that ghost guns were involved in the commission of crimes and that sort of thing. Are you aware of any ghost guns being put together in Amherst. I'm not not we haven't come across them yet. And it's relatively a new phenomenal, but you know we're hearing little reports in England there were a couple that were used by terrorist organizations and they got hold of the weapons and found that they were ghost guns. So you know they're out there. It's new, but it's something that people could have access in doing in the future. So last visit to us about 10 years ago. I know you discussed how you work with UMass Amherst College and Hampshire College that you're away in case there's a mass shooting. Can you just tell everybody how you work together because I found that reassuring to know that that was in place. And I'm sure lots of people question about schools and the safety for that. And that's what you're doing to increase safety and decrease risk, which I know you're, you're, I was impressed on how the police department seems to be handling this. Yeah, it's one thing as police chief I'm very, very proud of with our agency. We have active shooter training. We conduct our own training to anybody who wants it, including all the schools. We have very specific policies with all of the schools about how to react to dangerous situations and as a matter of fact we did one today at the school where officers were over there and it was a more of a refresher course because we have new officers in the agency, excuse me, and they have new employees every year in the school district so you know we hadn't done a refresher course since COVID so we did one today at the high school will be following up with all of the schools in the next month or so. Typically we'll do them over the winter breaks or spring break so that we can get a large group of people together when the schools aren't being used but yeah we have very specific policies and we include the University Police Department, Amherst College, our fire department are all involved in our table talk top exercises. We just can't do enough of this training and we're, I'm proud to say, very adept at the training we take it very seriously. Again, we have officers that are specifically trained in Alice and Asher training. We give trainings to other communities, because we're so good at it. Sergeant Todd Lang is now overseeing that he used to be your Lieutenant Brian Johnson. He has since retired but we do active shooter training for the library. We did it for town hall we've done it for the DPW anybody who's got the bank center, anybody where the public congregates and has people who have free access to a building will do trainings for them so but yeah as we speak we're doing refresher courses with all the schools. Thank you that's good to know. You're welcome. Other questions. Well thank you very much. I see that we are looking at safety, increasing it and decreasing risks and if there's anything we can do watching what's coming out of the governor's office. Thank you very much because as the numbers kept increasing last year. I kept saying it would be good for the board members and for town to know all that you're you are doing for this. You're very welcome Nancy and you know I'm happy to come back anytime. Thank you. You're welcome. Bye Jen, bye everybody. Bye. That was helpful. Next, does anyone want to make any other comments. Next on the agenda are the geothermal well applications. Now, I did a little research today on this, and the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection in 2013 developed guidelines for ground source heat pump wells those are the geothermal wells. And the purpose of us having the us to do this is we want to know the location of the geothermal wells, and to make sure that they are installed properly. And these guidelines recognize the environmental benefits associated with geothermal wells as heat sources, it decreases air pollution, and if they're, and they want to make sure they're properly installed. And in doing that, Ed Smith who couldn't be here goes over and gives the permit he reviews how it's going to be in, in place the well, well drillers name and that they're certified. And then he also checks with the wetlands administrator to make sure that there's not going to be any pollution. And we have three permits before us today, but only to have been cleared by Aaron Jack at the wetlands administrator and that's 554 station road and 34 Berkshire terrace so those are the only two that will be voting on tonight. And 648 station road will move to February, and make sure that the wetlands administrator okays that well. And Jen I don't know if you have any other input on this but I think we can just vote on these because they've gone through all the safety checks. And the main thing is for us to know where they are, and to make sure that they are installed properly and with Ed's review and then they're reviewed while they're being done and after they're done. Questions from anybody. I know Lauren you always have questions. So that's why I went through and looked at all this today. Does this make sense to Lauren. Oh, they're on private land. And so I really don't have a. So I just, yeah, I still don't quite know, you know why the board, you know, I know other boards and committees they do like site boards and stuff like that but since it's on private land I guess that makes the sense or I just, I just really don't have an objection. Okay. Does anyone have any questions on these two geothermal wells that we're going to vote on. So I look through the documents from the company dandelion and also Ed's letters of support and they all seem to follow the guidelines we've been seeing over the last several months with this recent increase in proposals. So they all, they seem to meet the guidelines. I wasn't, you know, we don't have, it doesn't say that it's print approved by wetlands anywhere but put to know that it is. It is. That's why I'm not having this vote on one because it has not been approved by wetlands yet. It's there to be approved so that's why we're not going on. And I guess from my reading, you know that those 2013 guidelines are a little more strict than they were actually amended in 2017 to be less stringent on these closed loop systems that don't, you know, don't interchange any solutions with the water with what is in the ground so it just goes down in a pipe goes up and then comes back up in the pipe and it also was a stay in the pipe. Right. So, so that's, I mean making sure that these people are doing it know what they're doing and they're approved well drillers and on all of that and they're in the right places and they're not going to cause harm to wetlands or a public or access of water or sewer or whatever else. I feel comfortable voting on these. Okay, so should I make the motion. We do like to make a question. Oh yeah, I'm sorry. Um, so the extent to which a decision is made about whether the wells are in store, install properly sounds like it hinges on the, the person or the company doing the installation having a license steps. Yes. Okay. And, and I was just curious about if requirements are met. I'm wondering why this is a board of health issue. Because wells and septic systems come under the board of health, and we want to know where these are located, and that they're installed properly. And this meetings have discussed whether these very straightforward closed loop geothermal wells need to come in front of the border whether Ed could have a set of right here in which he could follow and approve, basically, on his own, but we haven't gotten that far. We're moving there. It had been kind of a movie issues there was a little bit of a flurry of these about 2010 2012. And then I don't there weren't very many being installed but just because of environmental issue consciousness, the higher prices of other sorts of heating and elect is heating. And the fuels that that there's been a substantial increase in these, these permits requests in the last six months. And environmentally they're better for, for the land and the property because they're there, they decrease air pollution from gas and oil, so that they are unless we find anything different environmentally they're the better way. I looked at the materials and two out of three seemed come, you know, completely approved, which is why I asked the question if they were getting all the criteria. Anyway, I get it right. You're right to ask that question. You're learning curve, and I, you're dark so I can't see when you raise your hand so I'm sorry if I. So just holler out if I skip over you. The pictures on my, my screen are small and dark right now. So we need a motion to approve the geothermal wells 544 station road and 34 Berkshire terrace. Should I make the motion marine do you want to make it. Make the motion. Okay. I moved to approve the geothermal wells at 554 station road and 34 Berkshire terrace. A second one a second at Primal. Sorry, I keep forgetting that I'm muted. I see your head. Yes, I second it. It's been motions been made and seconded and now all in favor, premula. Hi, Maureen. Hi. Lauren. I still have same. Nancy I. Okay, so that has been moved and passed. Next on the agenda is the director's update. Alrighty. So I sent out to you all and on the board of health. Web page where you can get the packet. We have the COVID case count. And as we've been saying for quite a while now that these are in are not indicative of the actual case load of COVID. We just don't have the surveillance like we used to right now. We're seeing 21 active cases and the 14 day incidence rate which I always have liked because it's her 100,000 was 7.3 last week. And I just want to compare that to where we were a year ago. And last year at this time we had 320 active cases and the incident rate was 191. So from for some 9.3 last week, last year was 191. So obviously the case numbers, you know, we're expecting some kind of little bumper surge this year, but we're seeing nothing like we did last year. I do want to just point out that I don't think it's written anywhere, but we've had a total of 62 deaths and Amherst and I think that's something that we really need to think about some point. I don't know plant a tree or do something for these folks ages, approximately between 35 and 100 years old 62 deaths. So that's a number we can think about. So just talking about the different variants, one of the websites I like to go to is the CDC and the COVID data tracker. So there you can monitor the different variants and so the dominant variant in northeast right now as the xbb dot one dot five or xbb one five. It's 72% of what's circulating in the northeast in the US is 27.6. You know variants are always changing and accumulating mutations and their genetic code you just don't really know what's going to take hold and what isn't. But we definitely have seen more transmissibility with this. It's more immune evasive more cases. And there's still some question if it's going to be as severe as some of the other variants, but I will just also remind us that we still have deaths daily you know the seven day average and confirmed case counts of deaths is 14 in Massachusetts still that's still a high number. We have about 550 day daily cases per day nationally. And when you multiply that out that's high, much higher than where we would be in a normal flu year. So just want to talk about that. So the case counts as closely but we do as I say have the wastewater from bio bots and we post that onto the town web page. You also can find bio bot on the Massachusetts DPH interactive website. And you can see that we had a little bit of a bump but the case virus concentration is is decreasing right now. And just always precaution and interpreting those results it doesn't actually translate into actual cases someone can have a higher viral levels and somebody else but that's a really good tool. And it's one of the public health tools that we have here in Amherst and we monitor that we get three samples a week and we post them up. I wanted to talk about the other things that are circulating we have the flu and the RSV. The flu was elevated it started out of the gate pretty high and fast and now it's kind of leveling off RSV I believe also had higher numbers and they're leveling off here in Amherst as well as nationally. But still people are getting really sick I just was speaking to friend of mine today, who had the flu and said he had a fever 102.6 and he was really sick for two weeks so just to let people know that even though there are all these three different viruses circulating that the the type of encouraging news is it's the same behaviors that we have the same tools to help fight these so get vaccinated with the flu and with COVID and I'll go over the booster. There's no vaccination for RSV yet. There's no vaccination tests for COVID we just got a new batch in the Amherst Health Department. So we have like 20,000 new kits, and they expire at the end of June so June 2000. Yep, those are those are out now. There are also ways to test for the flu and for RSV. And there also are treatments for flu and COVID but not RSV. COVID is still working very well even with the XB1.5. There is some, some sort of questions people have about having rebound. And also if you have some kind of contraindications with meds about not taking it but I would just say if you have COVID check in with your practitioner. It's a really good underutilized medicine. I'll take it in a minute. Would you take it you guys Maureen as a physician? I would. And as an NP, Kremla do you have any thoughts? No, you know I know that there's this risk of rebound and so on and for that reason that it's controversial but no I mean I think overall the potential benefit outweighs the risk so. And there's rebound without that pack slow with even with regular you know if you don't treat it the risk of rebound is not that different. There's some new information suggesting that. Jen I wonder if the influenza here has been primarily influenza A? I don't have that. And I think I could find it out. I think it would be on the dashboard. Yeah. I think it has so far. DPH has a really good flu. It's new this year I believe and interactive. It's very good. So the bivalent vaccine. It's still effective against the XBB one five. I think it was made manufacturer from the BA two. The actual virus comes from the BA two string but the boosters from the BA dot five, but there's still some antibodies that you can have from the this current bivalent back vaccine. So it's still really worth getting this vaccine, and it's just grossly under utilize it's just the rates are kind of, you can always say abysmal 63% of Americans have not had the recent bivalent booster. So we are here in the health department or continue with our vaccine clinics. We're going to be doing them as office hours every Thursday, 12 to two but we're also introducing starting February. Every Wednesday three to five o'clock, we're going to be having another booster clinic and we're going to be having five plus. So we can get children will have Pfizer will have Madonna. So that's something that will be able to offer. And then I just I've read something that Madonna is having better effects on the, the, the strain, but I just think we should wait and see if that's actual. Let that that sort of flush out a little bit more, because now so people are beginning to talk up that that's actually not the case. So I think just the bottom line is just to get that booster it's really very helpful. The test kits that you received, are they for distribution to the public. Yeah, so I'm going to hold one up. So this is the eye health so we were getting these and we have you know, 10,000 of these ready for distribution. And what we've done in the past is they've been here in the bank center but also we've done a big campaign to move them to some of our different organizations in town, so it can really be sort of more equitable so they go to the Amherst survival center. We've we've distributed into the family outreach of Amherst we've gone to places of faith. Craig stores so we really try to get them out there. If we've missed anyone in the past they just give us a call we really want them in people's hands and getting sent out to the schools at all. So they've had their own supply they're not going to be getting them through the state. This this round but we're going to be sharing some of ours to give, give to the schools. So I think that's what I have just sort of for the regular code and then I just have a few other little things. This is something I'm sort of interested in we all should be but January 26. There's an advisory committee the CDC, it's the vaccines and related biological products advisory committee meeting January 26. And at that time they're going to be talking about the future of vaccination regimens. So we've been getting a lot of questions about if there's going to be a new booster or people can get a second boost. So that's something that we can all be looking forward to to see if they come up with anything. And then I'm always interested in long code. There's a new vaccine. There's a new article out from JAMA as Alini is the principal investigator came out the end of December, but that vaccines are helping. Let me read the summary really quickly. It's a longitudinal longitudinal observational study with real people saying that two doses of vaccine compared to no vaccine with this is associated with with lower long COVID with lower long COVID prevalence. So anyhow, I'm happy to hear that. Other things. Just let us all know that we had a compliance check tobacco compliance check through the Pioneer Valley tobacco compliance committee and that Amherst, we had no sales to minors. So that's great news. Thank you for us. And then something that I've gotten the email today this is from Joe Comaford, and it's bill h dot 5103, and it's about bikes. So people may have known this already but there is some new legislation saying that looks at different things with safe safety around bikes. So this address is safe passing, for example, that motors have to give a wide berth, not less than four feet when passing a vulnerable road users call so wheelchair or bicycle, and that cyclists need to have a red light that back of their bike. So that's my update. Okay, we're gonna have public comment and under topics not anticipated by chair I am going to make a motion mention about zero waste Amherst but before we I do that. Is there any one who wants to make a public comment please raise your hand. Okay. So under, I want to mention that zero waste Amherst is collecting data via survey and you've got a message about that, and that we need to encourage people to provide answer that survey so that they have good data to improve waste and compost collection here in Amherst for the health and well being of our community and also possibly save some money. And also, Jen, sent out we all have to take a conflict of the interest training and Jen sent that email out so that if we can get it done in the next month that would be good. And does anyone else have any other comments. Questions. Nancy did you say something about the time of the Board of Health changing. Oh no. Thank you. Premola. Thank you. I didn't write it down I had it in my head, and then I forgot it. So, Premola works until five o'clock, and she can speak to this so we're asking if we can move the Board of Health meeting till 530. Do you want to say anything Premola. No, just that it takes that long to get from North Hampton back to Amherst if I'm lucky. You know if it's inconvenient for others. I'm happy to stay at work and attend the meeting but what use the meeting used to be at seven o'clock so we moved it to five to make it better so. Does anybody have any thought about moving it to 530 or is that would that be an okay time for people. Maureen. That's fine. Okay, well then we'll move it to 530. And so we can get that out we'll have to get that message out to Tim. So, Premola. We hope that makes life easier for you and the commute is quick. Very much appreciated. So, and thank you Jen I had that in my head but if I don't write it down I lose part of things I have in my head. So if without anything else may have a motion to adjourn to adjourn. I had a question I don't know. I can't hear you. People leaning for can't hear you. Well, my, well my comments and can I send the, the Lancet climate anxiety study to, to the board. Okay. I moved to adjourn the meeting. Man of a second. I'll second it. Okay, so it's been moved and seconded. And I wouldn't just say thank you Nancy Schroeder for taking such good minutes and to adjourn the meeting. Warren. Yeah. Premola, you're muted and Premola. Yes. Okay. Maureen. Yes. And thank you Jen for all your help and support and we'll see you at 530. February 9. I'm just finishing the board of health meeting. So, no, yeah, okay. Bye. Have a good month everybody. Prem, I don't hesitate to ask any questions. If you need any more information.