 Okay, so I've started the webinar and it's being recorded. Awesome. So I'll read the preamble. So pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021. And renewed by governor. Mora Haley. This meeting of the Board of Health will be conducted via remote means. Members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by following the instructions on the Board of Health. Posted agenda via zoom. No impulse in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted. But every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access proceedings as soon as it is technologically possible. After this meeting. All approved board, Board of Health minutes are posted on our website. Once they are approved by the board. I will now open the October 12th Board of Health meeting. At 530. With a roll call. Marine. Here. Pramila. Here. Risha. Here. And Timothy and there is here. So we will go through the agenda. Our first. Item in the agenda is to review the minutes from September 14th. Meeting. I wanted to see if we have any edits or comments on that. I noticed a few typographical errors. One is. On the second page. Third paragraph. Tim, your name is misspelled once in the middle of that paragraph with a G at the beginning. And I'm not sure Risha. If your name is spelled right. It's the last paragraph. Maybe you don't even have that because you weren't here. How do you spell your first name? It's R-I-S-H-A. Okay. Cause there's an extra E in there. That often happens. I guess. And it actually at the end of that paragraph says I, I will share this meeting. I guess that was true at the time. I asked him afterwards if he would. So we'll let that go. But, but that's the content. Seem. Accurate to me. I noticed those spelling mistakes as well after they went out. So we'll make sure to correct those on our end. Any other edits to the minutes? If not, we'll, we'll have a, can I have a motion for accepting the minutes? Motion for accepting the minutes. So I'll call for individual votes. Marine. Aye. Prambilla. Aye. Risha. I don't think that you are not in the meeting. So. I don't think that you are in the meeting. I don't think that you are in the meeting. I accept the minutes. Aye. So minutes are approved. With the, with the corrections. Which are identified by Marine. All right. At this time, we'll be having. A period of public comment. I want to see if anyone in the public. Have their hands raised. I, I something popped up on my screen that said someone with a phone number had their hand raised, but I don't see. I don't see anyone else except the five of you. The five of us rather. It does say six participants though. If you say full attendee list, there is one. Okay. Elephone number. But it doesn't even. Yeah. I think I have to. Now, for some reason, see, this is what I was concerned about. My screen's not showing me how to access full attendee list. I don't know. Where do I, how do I do that? Cause I know I'm the one who has to promote. If you. I don't know. I found if I clicked on the participants. That number and at the bottom of the pop up that came was a beautiful attendee list. Ah, okay. Okay. I ever noticed that before. I see now. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to allow them to talk. Okay. Your line is open. Please make your comment. Hello. Hello. We can. Hello. Oh, yes. Hi. It's Lauren. Oh, it's Lauren. Yes. I know. Jumping around. Yeah. I'm on my phone. For now. I'm trying to connect. Sorry, Lauren. This is Kiko speaking. I don't know if you can see us. We can't see you. I don't know if you can see us. No, no, no. I'm on my phone. Okay. So I didn't have you joined sooner. I was fumbling with the zoom, but you're here now. No, it's okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sure. I don't see anybody else then in terms of somebody wanting to make public comment. Can you promote Lauren into the as a panelist? I think Lauren is listed in the attendees. Yeah, let's see. Well, let's see. I'm hovering over that. Let me see if I can figure it out. Sorry that I'm a little bit zoom impaired. It's only giving me the option. To mute, remove permission, hide non video participants or remove. I don't know what I'm doing when I roll over her. Let me see what I can do. I can text Kyle to ask for technical assistance. And then as long as you can hear Lauren, I'll try to get you into the panelists section, but do you want to go ahead with the meeting while I'm doing that? Yes. Okay. Thanks. I don't think I can be upgraded to panelists, but I can just listen from here and I can raise my hand. But I have a comment. Or. Okay. I mean that, that certainly works. I think. Yeah. All right. Given that there's no other attendees. We'll move on to our next item. Next item is all business. We have to finalize the body art regulations draft. There are any comments on the draft edits. I think we, we looked at the most recent. Version in August. And I remember Tim had some comments. And we updated those and so I think it's was up to date. I thought this was a quick process and we'd be like doing a hearing in September, but as Kyle and Nancy have informed me, it's quite the process. And I, I did get the updated. PDF to Kyle. Monday or Tuesday. I don't know if he was a holiday. I thought it was a holiday Monday, but Monday or Tuesday, and I think it was going to get into the newspaper and go through that process. The one question I had is we, we didn't make a decision on, on the fees. And the, the, the document actually says the board will set a reasonable fee. So I don't know that we have to have that settled before. It's the approval and the hearing. But, and I had tried to reach out. Jennifer suggested a person in, I don't remember the department. I think his name was Stephen McCarthy. And I emailed him to see if he any comments on how the process of setting fees that we could take into account. I think Tim had the reasonable idea of just dividing it into. For the guest artist, you know, with, if the full fee is 250 we divide it by 12 for up to 30 days. I didn't know if there were other thoughts about, you know, because each guest artist has to be bedded. Like any other full time. Artist and is there a, is there a balance somehow that the work that's involved for the inspection services or the people who do that this setting. So, I don't have I didn't get any response and my thought would be to follow the reasonable. idea of just dividing it by 12 and come up with a round number close to that number. But again, I don't know that we actually need to do that today. I think we might need to have a thought about that for when we approve it and go ahead then go ahead and set the fees. I don't know if anybody else has been thinking about this at all, but we'll have any ideas. I don't particularly have ideas on that so if anybody wants to respond I can see a, an argument for bumping it up a little because the work is still there to to vet them but I don't have a strong opinion on anything. But I have other comments when you're ready for other comments about this body art. Yeah. Okay. We can decide it. We can decide it later. But I think this is a question for Kiko you know if you're having a public hearing. Should this information be available for the for them to have so maybe we could go with dividing, you know, based on the time you know the number of months and it looks like we don't have any other alternative suggestion you know so maybe I think that should be reasonable for now. And then maybe we could revise it later on if you know if you want to change it. I don't know if that will work. That seems reasonable to me. Maybe to round it up into a number that's not like 2395 or something but like to $25 or something per month would be reasonable to me. And then the, the other one is that the, the apprentice licensure or I don't even know what we call that after, after all, but I think it is an apprentice license. I thought should be lower than a full license as those folks aren't earning much money. And I thought the normal license for just doing one type of body art is $250 a year. And for doing both piercing and tattooing I believe is $375 a year. But $100 a year would be a reasonable thing. And again, that's just a thought. Yeah, I mean I can certainly do some investigation on my end as you suggested Tim to find out, you know, do we need to have this available and time for the public hearing is there something that we have some advice perhaps about how to structure the therapy that some process that we follow internally. So I agree we don't need to make a decision now, but I can work on it. Okay. The amount you mentioned 250 and 375. Is that what we're charging now. Yes, yes. And that's higher than like some places. Yeah, well I was just going to say it's higher than a nursing license. It's probably annually higher than a medical license. So it's, so I don't know where these numbers are coming from you know, but they are what they are we have them do I know. So that's what exists, and it's higher than some other other areas like North Hampton. Yeah. I was struck by them as well. Yeah, it's actually timely because I did get an email, you know in my first nine days on the job here about how they are there reassess the fee structures for all of the fees that the town charges for various things and one way in on them. So maybe it's an opportune time for me to do that. So, again, I'll look into it and get back to you all. Okay. I appreciate that. I apologize because I didn't participate in the August review of this so I'm coming in with fresh as I just had two sort of questions slash comments. The first was on autoclaves and talking about the sterilization of them. I just wanted to know in the context that I've worked in in the past, people use autoclave tape to show that the internal temperature has has reached the required amount as a way of proving that it's still operable. And that it, it's effective is that something that's used here and could that be added in. If so, could that be added in as a. I know some of the conversation here around, you know, that they have to documentation of autoclave's ability to destroy pores is received and how often and would take it count as that and is that a simpler process at all. I was looking into this because I, I'm a little bit familiar with autoclave that work in a student health center where we used it. And I thought we just use the tape because that just tells you it got to temperature right doesn't prove that it killed the sport. So there was actually a backup, another method where you incubated some spores, and you had one little vial that went into the autoclave and one that's didn't and then you incubated both of them and so you had a control and a test one. And so that's better but some places, I think, like Northampton actually send these out to a lab to have them verified so the, and I think, honestly, nobody uses autoclaves anymore because everybody uses disposable items and so it's kind of a moot issue. It takes so much work and expense that I think that it, it isn't worth trying to reuse, you use cleanable reusable implements, but, but there is that option. So I think this, this text is partly comes from a model standing model orders that came from the state originally and some were in like, made more detailed to be more effective and assuring the safety of those implements by adding adding other, other methods to prove that they really are sterilizing the implements. So, so I think you're funny, I don't think it mentions the tape anymore but that doesn't the tape was always on as there was a little thing inside a little piece of paper and it turned black, I think. But I think that's generally used as well but this, this is a level. And then my only other question is about gloves at various points in the document it refers to medical gloves or disposable gloves. And I'm wondering if we want to be consistent or if they're if, if we're actually asking people to use two different types of gloves at different parts. I think that's kind of an oversight. I think we're a little late in making a change right now I think this is okay. Okay. And maybe if there's concern about that, after we go through the hearing we can make some small changes. Okay. But I appreciate your careful reading because I fresh eyes are always a good thing. This came up because the local tattoo artist wanted to have a guest artist and that was the main thing to put we want to add and then opened up this whole whole regulation to review and it really ended up taking let's been about a year or so. What happens. Thank you. Any other comments before we move on. So I believe we have scheduled the public hearing for November. And I think it's, it'll be within the typical board of health meeting meeting time. So it will start with public hearing. And then once that is done, then we'll move into our regular meetings. Yeah, I think so, and then we decided to have the public hearing at 530, which is the time that this meeting normally starts to an eight, you know, not to mess with anybody schedules. But then I think the question is, what time do we want the board of health meeting to start because we have to post that. So is 630 reasonable 645. Seven o'clock. I don't know how long these public hearings take or, you know, it depends on how many people show up, I suppose. Yeah, I don't. We haven't had a great deal of concern or interest in this changes in these rules. I would think half hour tops, but I don't know what other. Tim, you've been through this. I think we had with the tobacco regulations we did a hearing at the 530 time. And it was very brief. Yeah. And that had more interest from the seller, you know, the tobacco sales outlets, I think then this regulation might have. We could we could say. Six o'clock, you know, our board meeting can start. But if the public hearing, you know, it's a little bit longer we could always delay the start. But for now we enough for official reasons could say six o'clock. I don't know if it would work. Yeah, we, I think that would allow enough time. But we still would probably might have to delay starting the public health meeting a little bit. Or, or wait, you know, we might have to be waiting for the time time to start, you know, we don't want to start it earlier before people expect it to start. But it's only a guess. The other option would be to say, you know, if you think it's going to take half an hour, maybe the board of health meeting starts at 615, people get a chance to get upstretch their legs for a few minutes. But if it ends at 545, that means that we're waiting half an hour for it to start. So, you know, it's safe to say six o'clock. Six is safe. Okay, great. That sounds good. I'm just, yeah, based on one experience of one. Okay, I'm noticing that there's somebody else who's joined. I know we're past the public comment period but do we go back and take public comment then when someone joins the meeting. And let's, yeah, I don't know if the, the, the comment is related to body art regulations draft or why don't we check, you know, what, what's the reason they want to comment on that because if it's going to be related to this, we could do that, you know, we just, you know, just to wrap up that public comment period but you know it's okay, you know, there's only one person. Okay, I will promote to panelists then. It's Arthur keen. Hello, Arthur. You can go ahead and make your comment. Hi, can you hear me. Yes. I'm not here to comment I'm here covering the meeting for the indie. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for your interest. All right. Our next item in the agenda is toxic chemicals regulation. I want the input from the health director. Yeah, so I have talked with the staff about this and I talked with you also Tim about the conversations that you've had in this meeting and I looked over the document that Tim you and Kyle had worked on a little bit. I think you've all come to a really good decision to make a resource page. And I think we can definitely put that on our website so I looked over it briefly it's absolutely not my area of expertise, but I think it's a good starting point, and I feel like it's the right way to go. I would just wonder I think we just want to add it to our list of things to do, you know, I'm making a list since I'm new in the job of things to work on to get this resource page finalized and fleshed out and I sort of imagine it being akin to there's an air quality page underneath the public health department section on the website. So it would be something along those lines. So it's something then again that our staff would work on, get a final version back to you for comment, and then we can get it up and on the website knowing that it will very much be living document and be edited as you know things change or as new information becomes available. Does that sound right. Any comments from the board. I think that sounds reasonable. I feel like I think we talked about this before and that is what the board does and what the health department does and that's more of a programming issue and it might become something more than just a website but kind of a, you know, disseminating information in other ways to people about consumer products or how do they avoid, you know, different kinds of public activities that the, that the department participates in but yeah I think it's a good place to start. I also agree. Thank you Kiko. I think information is very powerful and providing that information for everyone it's always a good way to encourage alternatives and clean products. So, Kyle mentioned that your department gets some sort of emails or inquiries about this. And there's another option is to actually direct them to this resource page so that they can get more information on what you know on, on, on different types of contaminants so. Yeah, it sounds good. Any comments from others. Can we lose Lauren. I see Lauren in the list in the attendees list. Okay, because I don't see her I guess I'm not seeing the telephone. I think it is because I don't know for sure again apologies that I'm new to this zoom webinar format, but I think Arthur I promoted you to panelists because I didn't know that you were just cutting the listening in. So I think what I need to do is put you back in the other room, the panelists room and in order to do that. I'm clicking on this it says remove so I'm going to remove you Arthur I hope that doesn't remove you from the entire meeting. If it does you can just call back and we'll keep you in the panelists room so I'm going to do that. No, it says you can't remove says you can't rejoin the webinar. I don't want to do that. Is there an option for moving to attend the list or it just says change panelists appearance which is not the right thing I tried that. It's okay I think we can move along. So our next item in the agenda is Board of Health chair succession. Hello. Oh, hello. I know this is difficult beat on the phone. But before we move on I know that there's some consensus or whatever to just do the resource page. I just wanted to note that I was listening to the conservation commission and they were going over community gardens and the policies for that and they were discussing what like pesticides. To use like for gardeners to use, and you know, that sounds like rules that pertain to gardening and so I just, you know that like in my first year on the board, we kept saying that the Board of Health. You know, is about doing regulations and so I'm kind of still not sure why we're going in the opposite direction. And as far as like toxic chemicals, and I know that we may need like some more expertise or more research as to what direction we want to go. But I do think that it's important for us to like have some some ideas on what is important to us as far as like what what people use and what the town uses in different departments that deal with. You know, a land land land use where where young children are and where, you know, people recreate and so forth. So I just, I just think that I, it sounds like we don't want to go in that direction right now but I do think I see other committees and commissions like discussing this and so I just think it's an important thing to come back to help you. Thank you. Thank you. I think I don't think we are going in the opposite direction, I just want to correct that because we are actually also concerned about that and, and the agreement is to what is the best way to actually minimize toxic chemicals as well as have some sort of alternatives available. If it's going to be a garden use, I think maybe some link related to from the organic agricultural associations usually have some very good resources for gardeners, and I think that is something we could add to the resource page. The idea of community garden and it's something I think we haven't thought about, you know, it's it's a different use of town land by people who are not employed by the town. And that it brings up a couple of questions about who's responsible for that I feel like the town itself has been very responsible about avoiding toxic chemicals on public lands and schools and the parks and everywhere, but this does open up a different avenue for people I don't and I don't know if I, I hadn't thought about it. And it might be something to think about a little bit I don't know if the conservation commission is already dealing with that. As they, yeah, they are supervised, right so this it's just kind of a different different user and a different model, because I, there aren't really other places like that where the public are using chemicals on town property. So, so that's something that is worth checking on. North Hampton Community Gardens, is that town land? In North Hampton. Yeah. I'm not sure. Yeah, yeah, I think this is in time in Amherst, but I don't know either. In Amherst, I think you're right, it is town land it's a it's an important issue that you're raising Maureen but I don't know about North Hampton I don't know if it's town land that the community garden is on. So it's a good question. It is a good question. Yeah. I wonder Kiko if you want to raise that with town manager or whoever decides these things in terms of where the boundary lies about our responsibility and the conservation commission for example in this case, and because it's a community garden does that then mean that the commission comes in but I think it's worth clarifying. I totally agree and it's also really timely and I feel good about the orientation that I'm getting because assistant town manager Dave Zomek took me on a tour today and we went right by the community garden that's on town land. So I saw this garden and I think this issue that you're raising is really an important one. So I will follow up. Are these the Mill Lane, Mill Lane Gardens? The dirt road? It's a dirt road? I think it was behind, oh gosh I'm not remembering now. It's near a school, it's on the other side of the school. Is it the Fort River Garden? Yes, that one. Okay, because I think there are also some on Mill Lane which could be Amherst Park, you know I don't know what land that's on. Yeah, okay. But yeah, it's an interesting question. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think that's a good point. If we can work with, you know in terms of when usually the community garden is contracted with individuals who are going to grow, I mean they probably have some sort of a checklist of things they can and they cannot do. Right. And that's where I think some specific review should can happen. Yes, right. I definitely want to say, but I think the commission is coming up with a set of criteria and rules and that's why I'm saying I don't understand why the Board of Health can't come up with some rules around toxic regulations. I, if other commissions can do that, even though we're not a commission, I'm just saying that other groups are setting rules so I just don't understand why the Board of Health cannot. There is a clear user there where they can develop some sort of a guidelines because when they are entering into a contract there's a clear person they could identify on developing those guidelines or regulations, you know, what you could do and what you cannot do. And our preview is on the public use of toxic chemicals and we had invited a lot of our officials to give us a, and most of them, primarily they don't use the, you know, the any of those toxic chemicals, you know, so, and that's where the question is, you know, who are we going to regulate. And if he could answer that I think that will be a good way to step forward, you know, to developing a regulation. Yeah, I guess when we spoke to different people from the Department of Public Works and from the procurement, procurement department, they follow rules that are promulgated by the State Department of Public Health with environmentally. It was EPP I think I can't remember what it meant but the better products you know they're kind of approved products. And so I don't know that what I guess the question was what we would add to that if we thought we could add something to that that was important for our town. I think we should do that but I guess I was having a hard time imagining what what what we would add to it. So, so I guess that's where that my thought comes from it's more of an education for for the town itself or because you know, the normal citizens of the town are following those guidelines of the state part, you know, all the time. And it would help people to know what they're using around their homes and their houses on their faces in their when they brush their teeth, you know, it's like, you know, there's a lot, a lot to think about, but it's not something we that kind of thing we can't regulate. So, I'm still thinking about this. And I think we can all still think about it is there's an opportunity to make a difference for the town and for our population. And if you can think about something that you that that makes sense, Lauren, we want to hear about it. And I think about it is like, what could we as the Board of Health add, you know, what is some area that we want to focus on within this so keeping the conversation like on on the radar. Sounds sounds right. We should do you have any comments on that. No, okay. We're ready to go to the next item. I'm just curious about the chair succession. So what are your thoughts about that. I'm just going to share if I can so marine you and I did speak a little bit about this. And that you know marine has offered to sort of be in this chair role for a while. And if I'm not misrepresenting our conversation I think he would said that you were willing to continue to serve as chair and this interim capacity until June. Okay, which you know that you don't have a lot of time outside of the meetings but you're certainly able to work with staff to prepare the agenda and to share the meetings from here until June, which is when your term ends. Correct. So I think that's wonderful offer that marine has made. And I was, I was kicking and screaming on the way but I think it's clear that that part of the job isn't too big and anyone on the board can suggest items for the agenda. And one of the only issues and that would be discussed with Kiko and also just to make the meeting manageable it might depend would it be on the agenda this month or the following month but just to kind of keep it, keep the agenda in a reasonable length. So that part wasn't as challenging and running the meetings is not my favorite thing to do but it's okay. Well, I just want to say thank you a big thank you Maureen for agreeing to do this I know that you weren't entirely sure that you want it to but I think it's really good to have consistent leadership until, you know, until your term ends and you've been terrific so far. I talked about doing a co chair or some other kind of splitting it but I actually, I think it was Tim who kind of advocated for not doing that. And I think he's right about that because it just makes things probably more work and harder. And this isn't that complicated right now and it would. And anyone can make suggestions so doesn't keep anyone off the agenda or you know it's just just to manage it to manage it I think it's somewhat easy. I don't think it's appropriate to any of us as well. Right and that's the other part is that's not the person who does all the work in terms of, you know, new regulations or researching areas either so we all get our chance to do those things. I think the consistency of Go ahead. Yeah, I know that we've had this conversation a couple of meetings. I kind of differ. And again, I feel that we, you know, bring different strengths to the table. I am just a community member but I feel like there are issues that we haven't yet kind of gotten into. And so I just, I feel like in this time in the town that we need like to share like processes like share how we do things. And so that's why I was for like a co chair. And I believe that, you know, Tim, Tim is like chairing this meeting and so it just to me there could be anything that could come up so I just don't understand why we can't have a chair and a co chair like if we're going to delegate if we're going to like share other responsibilities that the chair does, why can't we just elect a co chair and also I think like other town committees, there needs to be maybe a student voice or a young person voice because I feel like we're kind we kind of get stuck like in like doing things, you know, in a certain way or seeing things in a certain way. And I really feel like perhaps we need to open up, you know, perspective, and I, I'm, I don't know if I can make a motion or propose or something like that but I just feel like, even with the new board member, I don't know your name off top of my head, but I just feel like there has to be some kind of student representation or, you know, just a perspective from like maybe a next generation that's coming ahead. I kind of just feel like that's missing. So I, and I also want to know if we're going to actually vote because it just seems like we're trying to do everything by consensus and I don't. I don't think we did that last, last year. Those are my thoughts. Can I. So, I moved from the affordable housing trust to the Board of Health, and they had co chairs. And I found it really difficult because of open meeting laws to have two chairs because every time you talked. If you wanted to have, you know, if you wanted to send a message to the chair. That's three people. And you've already violated open meeting laws. And so I found that particular bit to be really challenging. And I just put that out there as a, as a comment I have no comment on how this board has been run or or any of the other things that we're talking about but I found that to be challenging. Yeah, that's a good point. What do you folks think about the other thing that you said more and about student voice student representation. So I don't think we exclude students or anyone else. I think anyone can nominate themselves. Right. They have to just go through the application process I think that's a great idea to, because we have a huge student body. And as a comment is they have to be a resident of Amherst, which, which we have many students here. Yeah, I think if we, you know, any student who's willing I think we should always, you know, especially in areas where we could make use of, you know, like public health or a voice of an end. I think that's a great idea. So how do we open up the, because I know we are only, I think, five. Yeah. And so, I mean, if we wanted, if we felt that it was important now, would we be able to expand the number of members on the board. Because I have, I mean, I know that, like you said, there's a lot of students who are majoring in public health and we had the students who did the public health survey, or, you know, help with gathering information. So I know that the board has involved students in the past college students from UMass. And I just, I just feel like we have spent a lot of time on particular topics. And there might be, you know, other people who have other perspectives and other things that are important to public health that that we're not really addressing. So I just, I feel that even if we have an emergency co-chair, it would be better than just, just having one person as the chair. I feel like I just, I just feel strongly about that. So, Lauren, I like what you're saying. Is it possible to have some, something like a backup co-chair? A backup chair? Like you're saying an emergency chair? Yeah. Is that what you're suggesting? Is that something that could work potentially? I don't know. Just asking. So that would mean to have one person kind of designated as that. I, I asked him, I was going to be away. I was out of, I was out of the country for two or two weeks during this last month. And I just thought I wasn't going to be around to do the things that normally have to be done about two weeks before the meeting. So I just asked him because he's been on the board a long time as I have. But if, if someone's, you know, if there's a will to designate that person, that would be a reasonable idea. Would that then be an vice chair versus a co-chair? There you go. Co-chair implies the same position. So, you know, it seems like it would be more appropriate for it to be a vice chair who can step up if the chair is unable to for some reason. And yeah, although I do think that, you know, we, we all still have input. Right. It isn't limited to the vice chair. That was the word I was looking for vice chair. Thanks. So what do you think? Is that something that we can propose? Do we need to check that out in any way? Can we propose that and vote on it here? You all a chair vice chair idea. I'm just not sure about procedure. I think when, when we spoke about this when Dave Zomek was here, I thought I got the message that we could do either of those things. Okay. I think he, he said, I think, I think I'm right about that. That's what I remember from. Yes, I remember he said that. Yes, he did say that it's up to the board. Okay. I, in terms of adding people, I don't know if that is up to the board. I think that might be at a different level. Yeah, I agree. I think that's more complicated, but I can also ask about that. But I'm glad that Dave, you know, you all heard, or at least Lauren and Maureen are saying that you heard Dave say that it's up to the board to decide about the chair structure. But I think the number of board members is probably a different story. But I, again, will look into that. Are all the board positions are all filled. Right now they are. Yeah, I think it's five and they're all filled. And now come June, it's going to be a different story because both Tim and Maureen are their terms are ending. So we'll have two vacancies. So perhaps we want to focus, you know, or plan ahead for that time or close to that time and, you know, broaden the scope maybe advertise or, you know, let people in the School of Public Health if that's who you think might be particularly interested and encourage them to apply because that Amherst has its application process, but we do have time to be able to do that. Yeah. And I agree that it makes sense to be intentional about that if that's a group that we want in because I don't think they're going to know that it's open to them or think that they are and so I think, you know, intentional outreach would be required if we really want to get applicants from that pool. You mean from college student. Yes, yeah. I mean, the other thing that I'll just offer on this, I think maybe you want to move to a vote. I'm not sure if I just wanted to offer one thing, which is that I've been talking. So Lauren, you and I didn't get a chance to talk before this meeting I reached out to everyone and I, I got to talk to three of you, but not all of you. But one idea that I had sort of had before talking to people, but talk to a couple of folks about was sometimes the Board of Health purview is rather restricted, you know, it's about some of like the body art regulations, tobacco regulations, it's very in the weeds sometimes and some students might just love that and other students might not be so interested in that. But I do like the idea of having sort of a program advisory board, you know, like a programmatic advisory board to the health department that would be separate from the Board of Health which is really focused on regulations. But which would help us and our staff to think about how we're really engaged with the community how we're listening to community voice about what people need what their health needs are including students and other folks. So it's really in currently marginalized groups people whose voices are not often at the table. Could we do something like that, an advisory board that's kind of an adjunct to the Board of Health, and that might be a super important place for students to be. So it's just something that I'm thinking about so you know Lauren, and we can talk more if you and I get a chance to sit down at some point, maybe in the coming weeks. But it's because it does address exactly this point that you're bringing up about the importance of hearing from students. So it seems like a good way to broaden the input in general. And not that we shouldn't try to get students on the Board of Health because some students might really like it I'm just cognizant of the fact that it might not be the best fit for all students and different different ways they want to weigh in on what we're doing as a health department I think. So it's good, it's good feedback, good things to consider. So we are we ready to move to a vote about succession. I think you know we should vote first on, you know, having marine as the chair until June. Just for consensus and then if you want to change the structure we could actually vote after June you know we can, we can see if we can have a white share or something like that. Or are we proposing something like white share right now. We're proposing that. Should we decide on the structure first or the, or the. I thought you guys wanted a chair and vice chair. If we were to have a another person or back a person it would be a vice chair. I guess the question is the order in which we just take a vote I guess to decide the vote on the structure of its chair vice chair, the people after that. So that would be my thought. Yeah let's vote on the structure first. And then we'll vote on the second one is to actually fill those positions in. So, so can anyone make a motion for a chair and a vice chair. As a structure of leadership here. I can. I moved to have the Board of Health. Consist of a chair and a vice chair. I second that. Any discussions. We discussed that I think. No, I think usually after the. No, I know I think I don't have anything to add now. We're ready to vote. All right. Prameela. Hi. Risha. Hi. Maureen. Maureen. Hi. Myself. So it's. The motion is passed. So we'll have a chair and a vice chair. So. I would like to make a motion that Maureen will serve as a chair. Chair for the Board of Health. Until June. Second. Any discussion. All right. Prameela. Hi. Risha. Hi. I would like to make a motion that Maureen will serve as a chair. I would like to make a motion that Maureen will serve as a chair. I would like to make a motion that Maureen will serve as a chair. Risha. Hi. Lauren. Hi. And Tim. And the right. When you said. So. You're the chair. Okay. So for the next for a co-chair. I'd like to see. Vice there. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. Vice chair. I'd like to nominate you if you're willing. I don't know. You know, I didn't ask you ahead of time. So. Yeah, I could serve no problem. I need a motion. I have to make a motion. Yeah. Okay. I. Make a motion to. A point, Timothy Ronder as vice chair of the board of health. I'll second that. discussion. Any discussions? That's your job. Okay. Lauren? Hi. Lisa? Hi. Maureen? Hi. Pramila? Hi. I can add word myself. All right. So we did it. Yay. All right. Can I just ask Maureen that also means that you'll be chairing the public hearing in addition to the board meeting on November? Yes. And I'll need some help on how that gets structured. Okay. As other different rules. Yep. Okay. We'll figure that out. Yes. Is that, that's a Zoom thing, right? That's still thing, right? I've just got thinking because I'm not going to be for the next many Thursdays, not going to be, you know, almost. That's right. Okay. Next to note agenda is new business. I have something I want to ask about, but I did not, I did not put it down as subject to be discussed. So is that okay? Is this where we do that? I guess so. Yeah. Or topics not anticipated by the chair? Yeah. Yeah. We're not in that section yet. That's where I thought I would, okay. Oh, okay. I can keep it. Yep. I mean, in just in general, any new business we have, I think maybe Kiko can help us out and, well, before we get into the director's update, should we discuss anything or? I definitely have some updates, but I don't have any new business to introduce right now. I know that I think there was an issue on one of the inspectors had, but then it didn't end up coming to fruition. But I know that often that this is a place where Ed and Susan might have some new things to discuss with the board related to food inspections or something. So, but not today. Excellent. I don't know why we have like 45 minutes for new business. No agenda items under new business. Anyway, we'll do the director's update. Kiko, if you want to do that. Yeah. So I mean, again, I've only been here for less than two weeks, but I'll tell you what I know so far, which is that, and apologies if I'm telling you things that you already know, in terms of what's happening with the COVID vaccine now that it's it's commercially available. And so, you know, CVS and stop and shop and all of those places are doing vaccine clinics. So we're not getting much vaccine from the state. We used to get a lot of it. So we only have 80 doses right now of COVID vaccine. However, we have this great partnership with through the public health excellence grant with the city of Northampton Department of Health and Human Services, and they are helping us to organize three COVID flu clinics in the next six weeks. So we have, we have wait, I have to look at my spreadsheet here. So I have this committed to memory. We have on the 26th of October, we are scheduling a COVID and flu clinic at Clark House just across the way from us here. Housing, I think everyone knows where that is, right, housing complex for folks. So we're working with the building management to schedule that clinic specifically for residents and staff at Clark House. And we anticipate that some people from Ann Whalen, the building right next door will also be coming. So we're doing that in collaboration with the PHE group from Northampton. So they're providing the vaccine, the staffing and all that's really helpful. They're also helping us to organize a clinic on the 2nd of November. And that's at Craig Stores at the emergency shelter at Emmanuel Lutheran Church. That'll be in the evening from 7 to 8 30. And so those two clinics are considered private clinics. We're not advertising them widely. But we, if someone were to show up, we wouldn't turn them away. And we want to prioritize the residents and staff and both and all those, those two places at Craig Stores and also at Clark House. And then on the 7th from 9 to 12, we're holding another clinic, COVID and flu at the senior center here in the Banks Community Center. And that one we are putting in the senior newsletter. We're advertising more widely. Again, we want to make it available to people who use the senior center, but we will happily give the vaccine to anybody who comes and we're promoting it fairly widely. And we have some flyers that we're getting out and things like that. There's people can register themselves online. So link is on the flyer. People can also call us and they can call. The easiest thing for people to do is to call the public health excellence staff at city of Northampton Department of Health and Human Services. And I'll just say that number. So it's recorded for this webinar, which is 4135871314 would be the number to call to register for that clinic on the 7th, which happens to be election day. And the senior center is a polling place, so it'll be interesting to see how crowded it gets and whether maybe it's a good thing it will help to drive additional traffic to the vaccine clinic if people are coming to vote. We can also get a vaccine if they haven't had yet. So that's the COVID vaccine clinic. COVID flu vaccine clinic update. Any questions about that? Is this information on the website? The phone number? Wow, good question. I don't know that it is on the website. I think it should be. So yes, I'll make sure that it is on the website. I don't know how to update the website yet. That's not something that I've learned how to do. So I need to figure out who does that for us. And there are other clinics throughout the valley through that same organizations. Yeah, yes. They really are open to the general public. I think maybe what we can do is put that information also on the website because they hold them, you know, they're doing them in Hatfield and they're out in some of the Hilltowns as well, which is obviously not convenient for people in Amherst, but Northampton is having a number of clinics so people from Amherst can certainly go to those. So we'll make sure to get that information updated on the website so the general public knows about these clinics that are happening. About people who don't have insurance or all insurance is kind of required to cover this, but are there provisions at like the Walgreens and the CVSs to take care of those folks? I know there are through the clinics, but I just wondered about if I just had that thought. I didn't know if they had any requirement to administer a vaccine for people with who didn't have insurance or not. Yeah, we're trying to, because people with insurance can more readily get it in other places, we are trying to prioritize people who are uninsured or underinsured for these clinics. If people do have insurance, we take that information because the PHE folks can bill insurance to recoup some of the costs, but they're also really want to see people who don't have insurance. And then the vaccine that we do have, we are absolutely prioritizing. In fact, it's mandated that we use that for uninsured or underinsured folks. And so we're using that for some homebound. Olivia is making some visits to people who are homebound and other just sort of as needed basis for those people who don't have insurance. Olivia is our public health nurse. I don't know if everyone's met her, but she's the one doing all the vaccinations. So that's that. I have a couple other things. Should I go on? One quick question, you know, I know you have limited like a space for people to sign up. And I'm just wondering if there is any reserve funds for if there is a sudden increase in people who wanted to get a vaccine, but they don't have insurance. And so do we have any funds in the in your department to actually satisfy that, you know, so that we could vaccinate them too? Well, so first of all, with the Northampton clinics, these three that I've talked about, they set the number of appointments at a number like 60. But if that fills up, they will expand it and they'll just bring on more vaccinators. So we're keeping track of how many people are enrolling. And I think they always come prepared for a number of walk-ins that might arrive. So they won't turn anyone away. And then we do have vaccine 80, 80 doses here that we can also use for uninsured and underinsured folks. And I think that we can order more of that as well if we run out. So I still don't know about our budget. That's not something I have learned yet. How much you know, just income we have, I mean, what our funding is like to be able to buy things like additional doses of vaccine since we're not getting a lot of it. But I think the state is parceling it out in small amounts, but hopefully can give us more if we use all of what we have. So we're just kind of taking that one step at a time. On the subject of COVID, I also wanted to mention that we get a lot of requests about COVID tests. We used to give those away. We had them out on our table here in the bank center for folks to take. And there's also been a shift there where we're not getting as many of those for free. But the state is giving some tests we just found out. We ordered some before we found this out. So we have now currently three boxes of COVID tests in our office, which again, we are giving out sort of limited amounts to tests per person who comes to ask. Really kind of saying to folks, we're trying to prioritize people who really can't afford to buy these on their own. So if that's you, here you go, but we're not going to ask you for proof of income or anything. We just want to make sure that people understand that we're trying to keep these for folks who don't have other means to buy them. And then we'll be ordering an additional 1800 test kits through the state that will be coming to us for free. So we're really pleased about that because at first we thought we're going to have such limited amount of tests. We'll have more than we thought, but we're still not going to give them out, you know, rampantly. We're going to be careful about who we're giving them out to to prioritize folks who need them the most. So that's what's happening with COVID tests. I also just wanted to mention that about West Nile virus, I think Tim, you wanted to make sure we covered that. I don't know if you wanted me to give a brief summary or if you had a particular question. Yeah, if you can summarize, you know, how the town is responding. Yeah. So I think everybody knows that we are now just since May, the Town of Amherst Public Health Department is a member of the Pioneer Valley Mosquito Control District. I know Jen made that happen. I don't know, sounds like it was quite a big effort. So it's really great to be part of them because they do all this tracking and monitoring for us and they put reports on their website and they communicate with us regularly. So in the middle of October, middle of last week, I think it was the fourth, we got a phone call from the state saying that they had one positive mosquito for West Nile virus from a pool in the northeast quadrant of the town. And so that's on the, you know, they maintain these risk maps. The state does, you can link, we have a link to them from our website. And the risk is still very low. So even though one mosquito with West Nile was found, it's not, you know, it's not cause for concern. We don't anticipate an increased likelihood of infection or anything like that or transmission. But it's just nice to let people know, hey, there was a mosquito that tested positive. So the testing program actually ends today. So no more testing because the weather is changing. And with temperatures being below 50 in the evenings, the risk of, you know, fighting mosquitoes being out there from dust to dawn, which is their prime time to be out and about is less. And then once there's a hard frost, then we don't have to worry about mosquitoes. But the message just was it was a bad mosquito here. And it took a little while to wind down. And I sometimes you still get cases late in the year of West Nile. So when we got this positive mosquito, we wanted to just let people know if there was mosquitoes about, be careful, still wear long pants and long sleeves and repellent and all that sort of stuff until it really gets cold. So that's, we did put an alert on the website, which I think I shared with all of you. And I spoke to a reporter from the reminder, Bill Zito, because he wanted to know what the deal was. So I spoke with him and he might just run a general story about mosquito borne illness and how it's important to be vigilant until it really gets cold. So that's, that's what I know about that. Again, I'm new, so I might have missed something, but that's fine. Sounds pretty good. Okay. I guess the other two quick things. I think you also know that we get these wastewater COVID wastewater reports. And we post those on the bulletin board out here. It's a way of monitoring, you know, the infection rate in, in the community. And there was a spike back in September, but it's coming down again now. I imagine I'll probably spike again in the winter months, but that is still something that we get and then we're tracking. And I think we put that a link to that on our website as well in on the COVID page. And then the final thing I just got today is because of our affiliation with the public health excellence grant, they send us every six months on infectious disease report that they collate and put together for us. So they give us our numbers of various infectious diseases and compared to the region. So I did just get that today and I wasn't sure if you all wanted me to send it to you or what if you've got, if you've seen those before, because I think they have produced these before and if they've been shared with the board. So I just wanted to let you know that that's a resource available to see it. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I guess I could try to share a screen if that's, if that's interesting to you or maybe you don't want me to do that. No, but you couldn't see it anyway, Lauren, because you're trying to- I can't see it. Yeah, I can't see it. I mean, I would like to see it in an email. I bet you're going to like email it. I will. I totally won't email it to you. I'll email it to everyone. I mean there's, and there's nothing, it's not like Amherst has higher rates of anything that we should be concerned about. It's all just, you know, some tick-borne illness and cases of COVID and it's nice to see it all in a report. So I'll send it to all of you and if there's something that you want to discuss further, we could put it on the agenda for next time. So that's my update. Any questions from the board? I don't have a, I kind of have a question and kind of a comment. I wanted to know kind of how the department like scales the needs of, you know, the town, you know, the populations in the town or people in the town, like what the needs are, because I still don't have a grasp on that. And I came across like the eighth, the adverse childhood experience, like the 10 question quiz, and do we have like any kind of things or survey or questions that kind of help us understand like what are the needs, the public health needs for the people in the town? Because I'm not sure if I really have a grasp on what the health department uses to like get that information. Should I take a stab at that answer in that, Tim? Yeah. Okay. So what I know, Lauren, so far is that, and we've mentioned it, I think you even brought it up, there was this needs assessment that was done that UMass Amherst students put together. And I know that was presented to all of you in a board meeting a couple of months back. So, and that's not comprehensive, you know, it's just a snapshot of some things, you know, I think it's a, and I've looked at it briefly, but I haven't sort of dived into it in a lot of detail. So I think that for me being new, it's the starting point to look at that. I also think that part of my job as the new director is really to understand better what the needs are. And I, I'm thinking about how to do that. We don't have, you know, there isn't a comprehensive way that we do that regularly. It's not like we send out a survey to everybody every three months or something like that to find out what's going on. So, I mean, I definitely would welcome, Lauren, it sounds like you have some thoughts of how we can, and I as the new director can really think about how to find out what the needs are in this community and how we can develop plans and programs to address those needs. So I'm open to ideas that you and anybody else has about how we do that, how I do that, especially as a new person. Okay. Okay, great. So do we have that report on the website or does the community needs assessment reports they had been developed? I don't know if they are available on our website. So I don't know if that's been posted to the website. Maureen, do you know, does anybody know? I don't know. I know we all received a copy, but I don't know where else it might be. Whether there was just a summary, I can't remember. I'd have to go back and look. Yeah, I mean, an executive summary would be nice because most people aren't going to want to slog through the whole document. So maybe that's something we can. And I think Nancy, I think the students worked on a summary, but then I think she was going to try to edit that or take a look at that, but I don't know exactly where that is. I think they presented it. That was one of the suggestions to develop an executive summary so that it synthesizes the whole big picture of the document. But even if you can have that executive summary on the website, but have a link at the bottom, the full report in case someone wants to go and look at it much more deeply. So any other questions on the board? If not, we can move to our next item, which is topics not anticipated. Pramila, do you want to? Yeah, thank you. So this is really, it's a question and it's a question more for Kiko than anything, although I do think at some point it might be worth the boards while to look at how these services are integrated. I noticed in the Gazette that there was announcement that the senior center will hold its second annual health fair on Tuesday, October 17th. And it says residents, it's organized by the senior center and residents can talk to local providers and learn about ways to take steps towards a better lifestyle. And they list who is going to be represented at the fair, but I was very curious that the New Sandy Health Center is not on the list. And it almost seems to me like that would be, maybe there's a reason there could well be, but I'm pretty sure they didn't know anything about it. And I just feel like it's a resource that we should use more. So it's so interesting that you're asking that because I was in touch with Debbie DiStefano, who is with the Hilltown Community Health Center that is like the umbrella over the Missanti Health Center. She came by my office just the other day, reached out to me, I'm going to meet with them as part of my Getting to Know People in the Community. And she said, oh, I'll be there for the health fair on Tuesday. And I thought, what health fair? So I didn't know about it. So thank you for enlightening me that it's actually here at the Senior Center. But she said she would be there. So that's interesting because the health center is not listed. And that's glad. That's perfect. I'm very glad to be represented. I just thought it was odd if they weren't represented. So I agree. Yeah. And so, I mean, it sounds like she's going to be there. I imagine other staff from the health center would be there as well. But you know what, I'll ask her just to make sure that that, you know, just to make sure I understand who's going to be there from the health center. So that's great to be aware of. Yeah. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Any other topics? Excellent. So I think we are almost the end of the agenda. So can I have a motion for adjourning the meetings? Make the motion. Okay. I'll second it. Okay. I'll take a vote. Pramila. Maureen. Hi. Lauren. Hi. Risha. Hi. And Tim. Hi. Our meeting is adjourned. Thank you all. Thank you everyone. Bye. Good evening. Thank you. Bye. Bye.