good evening i will call to order the finance committee meeting on March 31st 2025 at 700 p.m um we have two items on the agenda this evening uh communication from Mayor Dumis with the transfer request in the amount of $41,533.50
uh for the recreation department uh we also have a communication from Mayor Dumis with the transfer request in the amount of $346,51.93 to fund the collective bargaining agreements i'll begin with order number
25-1009392 communication from the mayor mayor with the request for transfer in the amount of $41,533.50 50 cents for the recreation department moving funds from the senior clerk to equipment supplies youth activities to fund equipment and field upgrades i will
begin by reading the letter submitted by Mayor Dumis dear council president Oing and counselors enclosed for your review and approval is a transfer request in the amount of $41,533.50 50 cents from the recreation department
senior clerk salary line item to equipment and supplies youth activities line item uh this transfer will provide additional funding for equipment and field upgrades please feel free to uh uh the attached letter from the director Charleso for details on the al
allocation along with the transfer sheet please do not hesitate to contact me or my office with questions sincerely J christian Dumis mayor and I will bring the director Thibo up if the finance committee has any questions in regarding
this transfer good evening director Theo good evening i have to say you you do have my full support and I I'm in agreement with you on that this will definitely improve the city's appeal at those fields so I'm definitely in full agreement with that
and I'll open it up to questions from the finest team council Fillo thank you thank you Mr chair and thank you director for being here just a quick question i know we had done a lot of work on the William Street ball fields couple years ago um just in terms of the infield being redone is this work here
this is just kind of putting the finishing touches on what's already been done or is this a totally separate project yeah exactly what you said there we're just trying to make the little improvements down there that's going to go a long way um you know to bring in like I said in my letter to to uh to the city council just outlining the
different things that we can do down at that area if we're going to make this a destination to hold tournaments we these little aspects we're doing as far as just these small improvements it's goes a long way um that particular field of Duke field has been neglected for years and to bring that third baseball field
up to where the other two are is very important I mean obviously as I said before bringing in groups teams coming in tourism you know it's going to help us all around and uh if we have these top-notch fields that we do let's get out there and get those people to come in for these tournaments so I think it's
important yeah absolutely i think uh like you said I think we'll see a lot of tournament teams want to use these fields and I think that's a great thing for the city so I'm in full support as well i'll open it up to the rest of finance but thank you thank you C appreciate that Councilor Brown thank you Mr chair um thank you Chuck
for coming and um also I wanted to mention um Ted Scott who's here tonight because I've spoken to both of you being the ward counselor um where Ward 4 has the William Street ball fields um and so
it's really nice to see some attention coming to it um with the boardwalk around Lake Williams and what you highlighted in your letter as far as um what counselor Fill had said with attracting people and
hopefully maybe some tournaments um the Duke field really is in in pretty poor condition compared to the other two fields so that that'll be nice i think they've mostly been using it for like the the little tea ballers for um just because of the condition of it and I've
seen the covers that are being replaced to approve the transfer pending any other conversation motion has been made and I will second that to approve order number 25-1009392 uh with a transfer request in the amount of $41,533.50
50 cents for the recre recreation department moving funds from the senior clerk to equipment and supplies youth activities to fund equipment and field upgrades any further discussion council Orum thank you Mr chair welcome Chuck thanks for all you do it's just little
little league fields i know we keep you quite busy in the summer with Fort Meadow and Memorial Beach but a couple questions i just explain on the equipment what is a home plate 18 ounce weighted cover it goes on the covers of the home plate for rain oh for the rain
okay like we have it we have it at the ball field at Fenway excellent and then just the uh woodless back stop pads eight sections yeah it's the same if you see a Buesfield the back stop with the the back there with the padding it's going to be similar to that it's the
pitches come back just the mat cuz it's been a long time since I've been at little league games yeah we're going to get to more down the road with Grand i just came from Buesville but yeah just the padding in the back it's going to be similar to that so that way if they're going back they don't hurt themselves against the wall okay thank you and I
support this as well and thank you for all you do i appreciate that thank you Mr director welcome Mr tabo uh you and I had talked about this list and and it's and I support it 110% being a commissioner on the recreation uh commission uh I support this but it's a
fine there was a couple things in here that I thought we were kind of touching getting close i don't think this committee should be paying for league equipment league capital equipment yes you know with improvements
to the field the bleaches and so forth but you know a scorer's table is is right there on on the line of are we going to be buying equipment for softball and for you know and all the other leagues we have virtually dozens of leagues in here so we just got to be careful about that but I support this
entirely Mr mr chair thank you Council Council Roby thank you Mr chair uh Director Tibo thank you for coming i guess I I support this too i guess I'm going to ask the question that hasn't been asked if you didn't have money in your line item to transfer from would
you be bringing us this request well I saw an opportunity when money was there to um look into further improving that area um we'll be taking on some major renovations over hopefully over the next few years um working with the DPW and with Diamond Sports to laser
grade the fields and doing mounds over that stuff this was an opportunity where I saw there was monies that were out there me working with the youth groups and saying what can we do to benefit that area obviously with the boardwalk being down there all the location turning into like a hot spot um seeing
those fields and maybe looking at Leuke Field and seeing something that's not up to you know par with the other two fields how can we you know bring this up to making sure that it's like a destination for other groups and teams to come into so I saw an opportunity when this money was available i reached out to youth groups i reached out to my
youth baseball and ask them what are the things the small improvements that we can make and I think it's just important i mean sometimes when you see these small little items it goes a long way in just improving the types of fields that we're trying to do so and I would certainly agree that fields need some improvement and I noticed as I walk
along um William Street that there has been a lot of work new playground some other things that have been done um at least to the visible ones the tournaments coming in using the two fields and having three tournament uh three fields that are utilized you can bring in further tournaments so Marmy baseball working with the New England
Baseball Association bringing in teams from out of out of the city to come in that just brings in like I was saying before feeds into the tourism people go to the Apex go to the restaurants go to the you know maybe go and come and have a beer here or But does does the youth sports get the money from that or does
the city get the money from I think I think it's not something we bring in i don't charge a fee for them to come out for the outside tournaments unless there was two teams say like um there was two outside teams coming into play anytime I do that I charge for that field so if it's um say
it's Hudson against Westboro and we knew that that was going to be it we would charge the field rate which is $50 an hour for the grass field that's what I usually do that would come back into my revolving account i would say the the monies the city is seeing it's just the tourism coming in and just bringing people in to the city to you know coming
to use the restaurants and um you know Apex Center and those type of avenues and is there the same equity for the need for work at the softball field as there is for the baseball field i'm sorry what was the question is there the
same need for work at the softball field as there is for the baseball field every year I meet with each youth group asking what they need as far as um some of these times is like things that we've done in house ted does a fantastic job with the DPW saying what kind of work can we do in-house that we can correct
these issues and every year brings its own challenges whatever that is softball may have this issue baseball has issue you know youth lacrosse has this and then I try to bring all that in so I meet with each youth group in in January each of the presidents I have them come into my office we talk about what worked
last year what works now what can you see from the city to help improve that I go to the DPW what funding do we have to to do these small little projects It's not something on a grand scale so I think me taking those youth groups and saying this is what we can do this year and then I talked to Ted I talked to DPW
what is the monies that we're doing small improvements we reach out to the parks reach out to Ted he says I have these monies what can we fund these other ways that was the only reason why I was saying that I saw an opportunity where this money was there and I reached out and I said how can we do this to
implement something that I can spend this money and it could go a long way and I have no idea how mobile youth softball youth baseball youth football do any of those organizations pay a fee to the city to use those fields we don't charge a use a fee for the fields for
marble sports no other towns do but we don't i take pride in that and if we're able to do that I think that's great um I think I work in concert with the youth with youth groups sometimes it like if uh like I said earlier if youth lacrosse had a tournament or Maui football they brought on outside teams I do charge a a
fee at that time i use outside entities um u that come in to use our turf fields and our grass fields to take in monies from my revolving account that helps offset monies that don't go into my general fund um as you probably noticed I don't come here too often um it's me saying at an opportunity where there's
monies there I jumped on it and said how can I do this just to help out in a small way um taking that revolving account money helps me fund my uh temporary part-time help um so all the years I've been here we very do small increases to my temporary part-time help i try to help the city by taking in
those funds by running programs field fees bringing those monies in to offset um my budget which is uh as you know very limited yes and and the senior clerk will not be in the budget next year i'm sorry will the line that you're
using to take money from yes is that going to be in your budget next year yes it's it's it's been a recurring line item in my budget yeah i just took those monies and put it there to um take those uh monies at that point to say what is beneficial to youth baseball behind the
benches doing the the small improvements that's what I'm doing i'll deplete that fun then I'll put it back in and I have a budget hearing with the mayor tomorrow to discuss um for 2026 all right and the money is available because the position is vacant yes it's vacant at the moment
um I've been working with the mayor's office to restructure the office and I'm sure that'll be something that he'll be in contact with the you know with the city council at another time okay thank you very much no no worries um oh Mr
president thank you Mr chairman so so Chuck did contact me and and I had discussions with the mayor the position isn't filled right now so that you know we could have came down for a free cash transfer they could have put as part of the capital plan uh Chuck was pretty creative saying "Hey I've got this money that funds that aren't filling a
position right now we have some immediate equipment needs." So you know kudos to Chuck and the mayor for saying "Hey let's use some existing money that's in the budget." The capital plan you'll see some items on there to help address some of the needs that we have cuz as Chuck stated we haven't given him all the
funding that he could have used to keep some of the fields updated so we've kind of been a little behind so Chuck's doing his best to identify those and I'm hoping to get those to get those fields up to date because what you see from Chuck in those fields the same thing you see with the sports center and forks brings in hotel nights meals for the
restaurants folks in the city it it's a really really driving the the the what I call the revenue side so helps for the meals tax the uh hotel tax so I want to thank Chuck for looking ahead like that that's well done and hope the finance committee supports this thank you Mr
chairman thank you Mr president and also for the finance committee I'd be asking uh to motion seconded to also add a suspension for the money meeting we're all set with that so motion has been made and seconded and with the suspension all in favor it carries five to zero thank you director thank you
Councilman next up on the uh agenda is order number 25-1009393 communication for mayor uh with the request for the transfer in the amount of $346,51.93 from reserves for salaries to various accounts to fund the collective bargaining agreement with the engineers foremen and patrol unions and I will
read the letter submitted uh by the mayor honorable President Oing and councilors I'm pleased to submit for your review and approval a transfer to fund the collective bargaining agreements between the city and the following three unions laborers District Council of the Laborers International
Union of North America AFL CIO Local 272 Engineers CI uh Local 888 CTW CLC Foreman and the New England Police Benevolent Association Incorporated local 81 patrol um if you have any
questions please feel free to contact my office sincerely J christian Dumis mayor uh also remind councilors that some of these uh uh contracts are still in negotiations um so uh just to let the councilors know on some questions we may
not be able to get an answer on um but uh with that said uh I certainly uh would support the uh the from from the reserve from salaries to fund these agreements i'd like to thank Dumis as well for working out the agreements with these three unions that's a big step
going forward so thank you very much and I'll open that to any questions with the uh finest committee oh councelor Brown thank you Mr chair um I I'm very aware of how much work has been done to um you
know have the conversations about these agreements and you know for the employees of the city who are parts of these unions um I I didn't see anything that particularly stood out to me it
seemed like you know sick leave buyback education incentives longevity um various types of overtime so um I would also be in support of this thank you
Council B mr thank you Mr chair you said that these have not been settled yet no the these these three have been these funds will be coming from reserve from salaries yes other other correct that they're still ne working on negotiating with those those additional
unions yes very good thank you sir thank you no further questions i will entertain a motion motion's been made and seconded to approve uh order number 25-1009393 uh with a transfer request in the amount
of $346,51.93 from reserve for salaries to various accounts to fund the collective bargaining agreements with the engineers foremen and patrol unions any further discussion seeing none all in favor it carries 5 to zero and also we'd like to
add a suspension for Monday night thank you i will entertaining council Brown move to adjurnn motion's been made and seconded to adjurnn all in favor we are adjourned at 7:18 p.m thank you finance
Good evening i would like to call introduction because we are not a committee that meets often i am the chair of the committee um councelor Roi is vice chair and councelor Fillo rounds out um the threesome so tonight we have
one item on the agenda it is order number 25-1000 9383 communication from councelor Presiato regarding proposed ordinance to add chapter 250 animals
um add to it a new section relating to rodents and I will read the letter from councelor Presiato dear President Oang and counselors I have attached a proposed
ordinance for your information and review i respectfully request that the proposal be referred to legislative and legal affairs committee your consideration is greatly appreciated um and so just for a brief overview this
would address the use of second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides also known as SGS um and I'm going to just mention right from the start that we have received um
communication from board of health director um Denwi and he is in full support of the order um with an amendment and the amendment would actually it would move things I believe
further in the direction you were looking for because he would actually um strike the part B from the amendment um which I I think would add more stipulation so I know some other
counselors will have questions and it will address that so I'm not going to go through that whole thing and I also spoke with our conservation commissioner Priscilla Ryder and she is also in full support with the um amendment from the
board of health director so with that um I will open it up to our presenter um will you pronounce your last name for me please sure my name is Alyssa Gauquinto gia Quinto and so you are with
the Gia Quinto Wildlife and Rehabilitation Center all right well welcome and councelor Presiato thank you for bringing Alyssa here i'm going to let Thank you for having us come present sure thank you uh so we have a letter of support for
Mass Audabon um regarding this ordinance um so this this ordinance is very important I think to a lot of people in the city of Marorrow um for many reasons um and I'm going to let Alyssa really get into the presentation so I don't take up too much time um but um she put
in a lot of work for this um and she's been working with our wildlife in Marbor um for many years so she's she's really got a stake in our community and I'm really excited to have her be here thank you so much oh sorry just going to have a sip of water
i apologize thank you so much Malro City Council it is a true honor to be here as a lifelong Malbor resident it is an immense honor to speak in front of you here this evening my name is Alyssa Giao and I'm a wildlife rehabilitator here in Malro so
what a wildlife rehabilitator is is someone who takes in injured or orphaned wildlife with the ultimate goal to release them back out into the wild i also educate the public on how to safely coexist and conserve our native wildlife i hold four separate licenses two
through uh the US Fish and Wildlife and two through Mass Wildlife both for wildlife rehabilitation and wildlife education so tonight we're here to talk about redenticides so quickly what are rodenticides well really they're just essentially pesticides that kill rodents
um they're called bait boxes rat poison mouse poison um and they're all formulated with an attractive substance something like peanut butter or molasses something that really draws that rodent in and keeps them eating that poison um so people pets wildlife we're we're all similar to rodents in the aspect that we
can be poisoned by roenticides too there's different types of rodenticides but we're here to talk about anti-coagulant redicides so anti-coagulants anti-coagulants block or prevent the liver's vitamin K activation which is an essential component to help
the bo the body clot blood properly so once the chemicals are absorbed and take effect into this rodent's body they slowly bleed out and die now this is a very very slow and painful death for these rodents they do not go peacefully off to die it takes place over the
course of several days and it's an extremely slow painful death and in the final stages of that rodent's life they wander around they're sick they're poisoned and they're just a very easy target for predators to consume now I know tonight we're here to talk about second generation
anticoagulant redicides also referred to as escars but let's talk about first generation first because without uh first generation there would be no second generation so first generation anti-coagulant redicides also called efgars they're formulated as bait boxes
they contain one of the ingredients of poison that you can see up on the board um these were the earliest roices to hit the market and they're created as a multiple feed bait station multiple feed bait station what does that mean that means that it that mount lethal dose of
poison to that rodent so again the average time from feeding until death of that rodent is 4 to 5 days so the chemicals are metabolized a lot faster um with efgars in that rodent they are considered less lethal um for secondary
roenticide poisoning in wildlife however they can still cause um a predator that consumes these rodents to become uh seriously ill or or die from them but second generation anti-coagulant redicides also called escars this is what we're here to talk about tonight so
again these are formulated as bait boxes it's one of the ingredients that you see up here on the screen so these are uh designed to deliver a lethal dose after one feeding from the rodent so that sounds wonderful it sounds too good to be true right well it is too good to be
true just because they're delivered uh they're designed to deliver a lethal dose of poison after one feeding that doesn't mean the rodent only eats from them one time so the time from first feed until time of death is 3 to 4 days so if you remember the slide before it
was approximately 4 to 5 days this is literally 24 hours less than that so that means over the course of 3 to 4 days that rodent is going to eat from an escar's bait box multiple times it's going to go back and forth and eat and every single time that that rodent eats
from that escar's bait box it's eating one more lethal dose of poison so when that rodent finally dies it's containing six to seven times the lethal dose of poison needed to kill that rodent it's literally an atomic bomb for our predators to
consume this is just a quick scenario of an escar's bait station let's say day one we order an escar's bait station to Malro property it's delivered there okay so so so night one that rodent goes in it takes a bite from the bait box and it's eating a lethal dose of poison that night the next day it goes back for
another meal it eats another lethal dose of poison that next night maybe it eats two more doses of poison two more lethal doses of poison are now in that rodent day three it comes back a few more times has a few more meals from that bait box and now it has three more
lethal doses of poison in its body night three it's disoriented it doesn't make its way back to its burrow it's wandering around sick and poisoned and now it's just an easy meal for an owl that consumes a rodent containing seven lethal doses of poison for that
rodent's body it's tough to see from this slide but this is kind of the life cycle if you could see the slide what it would show is that there's a house there's a bait box outside the house a rodent goes in it eats the bait and then it works its way up the food chain this is kind
of what it looks like as well well the rack goes in the bait box it comes out it's sick an owl eats it an owl then gets sick and dies but what does rodenticide look like in wildlife well once a predator consumes a rodent that's poisoned uh with rodenticide it's going to have internal bleeding it's going to
bleed out from orphases and it's an extremely slow and painful death for that animal let's talk about some of the wildlife we have in Malro i know we're a city but we have such beautiful wildlife here in Malro and they're all vulnerable to secondary rodenticide poisoning if
you look on your your handout and up on the screen we have so many species of hawks that frequent Malro and call Malro their home we have species of falcons and owls that live here and different species of owls that that visit the area we have turkey vultures and we have
nesting pairs of bald eagles in the Malro area that are all susceptible to secondary redicide poisoning but let's not forget about our mammals we have beautiful mammals that live here in Malro that rely on rodents for a source of nutrition all of the an uh the mammals that you see up on the screen
live here in Malbor and they are all susceptible to secondary redicide poisoning um so some of the next slides are pictures of uh of what wildlife excuse me what redicide looks like when wildlife comes into our care um all of
the animals that you're going to see are animals that we had here in Malbor except for the first one i wanted to show you this photo again this is an iconic photo from New England Wildlife Center this was one of their patients in Weimoth um this is a very young horn owlet and why I wanted to show you this
slide is because you can just see the sadness the sickness the pain that this baby owl is showing um this entire family of great horn owls were killed by secondary redicide poisoning um if you guys have it on your paper it
won't be upside down i'm sorry um so this is a young firstear uh redtail hawk that we had here in Malro this was right outside the Vinbin um this hawk when we got to him was bleeding um he did die within 24 hours uh we were able to get a
blood draw on him the blood did not clot properly properly um clear indication that this hawk was suffering from secondary rodenticide poisoning um this next slide is a adult redtail hawk um here in Malbor and why this is
important if you can see the slides to the right the picture to the far right is a healthy red tail hawk's beak tissue it should be bright yellow the picture to the next of it is a zoomed in image of the hawk that I'm holding there you can see the blue stained the blue dyed
tissue around the beak of that hawk that is a clear indication that this hawk is uh poisoned with secondary rodenticide poisoning uh rodenticides have a blue dye in them so if you find a hawk that has blue tissue around the beak it's a clear indication that it's secondary rodenticide
poisoning and this hawk did die as well this was a barred owl um that was found a/4 mile from this bait box i know it's hard to see on this screen but if you look on your paper and if you could zoom in circled on that bait box it says Briticcom that is a second generation
anti-coagulant redenticide this bait box was outside the Malber Police Department and this hawk was found and this bait box 4 months ago outside the Malber Police Department now why is it important that this B owl was find a/4 mile from this bait box well B owls hunt
within less than a mile radius so it's extremely extremely likely that this B owl was eating the poison mice that came out of this bait box that was at the Malmer Police Department and it did die um the next series of photos you may have to look on your paper to see them
the right way um if they are crooked because this was one of the saddest cases that I've had as a wildlife rehabilitator um this is a family of 3-week old uh red kit foxes um this was the only survivor that lived long enough to have his blood drawn it did not uh clot properly clear indication that it
was secondary venicide poisoning this was what was found under a homeowner's car on Elm Street when she moved it finally it had been there for quite some time an entire family of 3-week old red fox kits parents were nowhere in sight we can assume that they
had been killed by redenticide poisoning as well but all of these 3-week old very young red fox kits here in Malro died from secondary redicide poisoning so let's talk about some alternatives quickly to redenticide biggest thing let's clean up
our dumpsters let's keep them clean where there is no food source there is no rats let's explore rodent birth control this is new to the market it's worked it's been proven to work let's secure the holes in our trash bins let's use some snap traps that are
contained like this they have self-containing snap traps that look like this black box here you do not see the dead rodent in it i know that we did explore electronic snap traps um and I know it wasn't a huge success but given the right situations they can help as
well but let's keep our wildlife healthy raptors really are nature's best pest control so who are we saving by passing this ordinance so if you just give me a moment I'd like to introduce you to someone very special does it like sitting counselors she does
it's her dinner time she's a little hungry so if she's cranky it's just cuz it's time for her to eat dinner i'm the first one this is Bella she's a barn owl she eats two to three rodents per day in one year
she eats 1,000 rodents and a family of owls eats 5,000 rodents they are our silent partners in this rodent crisis we need to keep them healthy so tonight we talked about roenticides we talked specifically about
second generation anti-coagulant redicides and how they negatively affect our wildlife we also talked about some alternatives uh like like rodent birth control and how effective that could be but why is all of this so important well tonight I didn't just come here as a
wildlife rehabilitator i didn't come here as a wildlife education what I came here as a mother of a three-year-old daughter who loves her wildlife and I fear that in her lifetime she's going to witness the extinction of various hawks and owl species that we all take for
granted today and extinct is a really powerful word because extinct means forever but nature is resilient and wildlife is resilient and we have the power to change the future and you all have the power to change the future of the wildlife here
in Malro tonight thank you so much for allowing me to speak to you this evening it's such an honor to speak here tonight and thank you so much for taking into consideration passing the ordinance to stop the use sorry I told you I'd
cry to stop the use of all second generation ant deco rodenticides on Malro property thank you let's save Mro's wildlife together thank you thank you Alyssa thank you Robert and thank you Ambassador Bella um please
join us um so I am just going to read the um the article that's being proposed so an ordinance amending the code of
ordinances city of Malber Massachusetts with respect to chapter 250 thereof entitled animals by adding a new article entitled rodents um definitions as used in this article the
following term shall have meanings indicated um rodenticides in the es is it escars escars ascars that you had mentioned um and so what that would look like is the use of ascars on city- owned
properties is hereby prohibited as of the effective date of this policy this policy applies to all city-owned property including buildings grounds parks open spaces and the public right of way and shall be adhered to by all employees of the city of Malbor as well
as third party vendors and contractors providing services at city-owned properties and the section D this is the one that the board of health is um recommending we delete and that has a piece about emergency waiverss for the
use of escars on city- owned property so um the director of board of health just felt like we could eliminate that part and I would like to open this up to any members of the committee councelor Roby thank you
Madame Chair um I Councelor Presado thank you for being so passionate and uh bringing this to us i know it is important i would like to point out if the city does pass this and I certainly hope we do it will not prevent the
public from using um these same horrible chemicals so it's not going away completely but hopefully people will learn from this presentation tonight or from the information that's out there all the articles talking about
animals that are being killed and found um potentially rehabbed but if not then they're being killed by eating the the rodents that have ingested this uh chemical so I certainly hope that the public that has rat
infestations um does follow the suggestion of the uh board of health who says that you can use snap traps electronic traps CO2 treatments rodent contraceptives and repellents as options um that are
available i guess um I have a couple of suggestions for amending this just they're more clerical than anything i don't know if this got sent to the solicitor yet but I know it would go to
the solicitor but currently in the code there is chapter 250 animals it is a simple one article dogs this one would make it article two rodents um so that would be my first change you have
article 11 in um 250 Roman numerals 12 it should probably just be a simple 12 because it follows in with the numbering of um 2512 through 10 that's currently there
you have 25011 is your definition then 250 the use of the second generation i believe we can delete the as of the effective date of this policy because as soon as it is endorsed it becomes effective um the solicitor can confirm
that i would move that we delete section B as suggested by the board of health chairman i also agree that if we're going to do this we should just make it nope you can't use it they were totally fine with that i don't know for sure if
your intention was to keep the sentence that starts all provisions of the code of the city of Marble as amended I don't know that we need that but again I will let the solicitor determine for sure i would move to strike it um because I think it's not
relevant um and I would move to approve with those changes and then open it up i guess you will open it up for discussion from any anybody else but
thank you thank you Councelor Roby um the motion has been made and I will second that to um approve as amended um and I'd like to open the floor councelor Filla thank you Madam Chair um just a quick question i'm in full support of
this and I was also going to check in to see if you guys are comfortable with deleting section B which I'm glad we are um just really quickly is the city contracting or using any escars that we know of currently i know in the presentation it seemed as if it was at the police station so um originally I
believe the city was using some bait boxes with escars in them um but as of this incident with the owl um the mayor has said that they will no longer be using any secondary redicide in their bait boxes um on city property so regardless of this ordinance the mayor
has um given his word that he would not be using it good enough to know thank you thank you Madam Chair thank you um councelor Vital thank you Kylie madam Chair uh two questions one is um and I'm I apologize because I'm
referencing social media but over the last three or four months there's been a lot of uh insinuation that the death of birds were attributed to the bird flu is there any connection between the death of the birds that you I'm reading about throughout social media and this uh no
so u bird flu is primarily affecting our water fowl so this strain of HPAI or aven flu um it's primarily in waterfall right now we are seeing at some raptors um but it presents itself differently um and they can they conclude that by a
deceased bird when they swab the bird it'll come back positive for HPAI um as opposed to a deceased bird from aide poisoning um or an alive bird that is sick from adventicide poisoning the blood will not clot properly on that but um completely separate but the what you're seeing on the news the huge
influx in aven flu primarily with water fowl uh we had a very cold New England type winter so uh these water foul were water locked in and in tight little areas so they were passing the virus quite quickly um knock on wood hopefully we are out of that right now um so those
numbers will decline but um raptors are susceptible to aven flu um but we're not seeing we have not I don't our animal our wonderful animal control officer is here tonight um who's helped me with so many but I I believe we haven't had any raptors in the city of Malvo with um
aven flu that we know we have had quite a few um you know dozens in fact of waterfall but but no it is it is separate to answer your question I have I have three golden retrievers and they're very loving um but they're always chasing rodents and they don't
catch them too often um but one of them does one caught rabbits and caught squirrels would there be any danger if a a domestic dog found one of these rodents and bit into it yeah absolutely um it is a problem with domestic pets um
just recently this year a um a puppy um boxer in Grafton did die of rodenticide it is common um luckily it doesn't happen a lot but it does happen um especially cats too when they get to the poison mice so it is a huge problem with domestic pets that's a great question
thank you Councelor Vital thank you Councelor Det thank you very much Madam Chair um I'm completely in support of this and thank you Rob for bringing this up um I think one of my cats end up passing away from
getting into some poison near a local store that was using this type of stuff so um I think uh anything we can do to keep these types of poisons under better control is worthwhile so thank you thank you councelor councelor Orum thank you
madam chair uh thanks to both of you this is a very important subject i worked and still work with boards of health and respect what you're doing and I really appreciate the alternatives that you offer offered in your slide presentation
i'm not for sure maybe one of you two know or someone in the audience or the city councilors can I go to a hardware store and buy this product the escars you can i was at Tractor Supply 2 days ago and it was there um Bifaccom and
Berthylene were sold right at Tractor Supply um it it's it's sold very um frequently and and um carelessly and and that's a huge problem do you know offhand because you're probably involved with the state uh have they been looking
at this to ban it completely from the state of Massachusetts yes absolutely so there is a bill right now at the state house they are trying to pass um it's been years now that they are trying to pass this it has made momentum um unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to happen you know in the next few
months and and that's why passing this on a city and a town level is just is so important because this is the fastest thing we can do right now um until you can ban it on a state level um in order to ban it on a citywide or townwide not just on city or town property we would
have to file a bill with the state house to become exempt um it is a much longer process and a much more uphill uh process um you'd all probably know more about that than than I would but it it is a very lengthy process so passing it just on town property or city property
is is much uh faster and it also just spreads the word and awareness to the town um knowing that you uh the city is banning it um just also just spreads awareness i have found in just the years of doing education that really just uh educating people and telling them the
dangers about it a lot of people don't know um you know they they don't know the effects that it has on wildlife humans domestic pets children um and so yeah so it's thank you for that and hopefully
we'll get there someday barn owl maybe it's called Barney but I hate to see them die i live on a lake and we're fortunate to have eagles flying around and it's very nice to have but I will say the city council has been very diligent lord my voice have been
diligent about uh making sure on new projects that there's observation and oversight prior to any dem demolition so we don't have a bunch of mice and rats running around that become an issue stop it ahead of time that's why I really
appreciate your prevention hopefully we as a city can continue to pro promote this type of action through social media might it be through our own city website just so people know the importance so they don't go buying this product thinking it's the world's best
rodenticide exactly and so I support this 100% and I hope to see it go further at the state level and within the education that we do within the city so again thanks to both of you thank you Madam Chair thank you Councelor councelor Roby do you have a question
thank you uh no I don't i I the mass.gov website says consumer retailers are now federally prohibited so if in fact there are consumer retailers within the city of Marbor selling these I think code enforcement needs to know because they
should not be if the federal government is saying you can't sell them right good to know we'll note that thank you counselor any other questions or comments from counselors president Hing thank you Madam Chair uh Alyssa nice job uh thank you very much and councelor
Presiato well done um I guess I'll offer my ser or actually make a request of you one of my other jobs is chairing the MMA Mass Municipal Association Energy Environment Policy Committee and we're always looking at various environmental bills to um move through the legislative
process which can be extremely slow as you're probably aware could I tap on you for a presentation of the group if uh that gets to add on to that i am a member or not the chair but I'm a member of the MMA's
um legislation committee so maybe we could work together if there's a bill at the state house already or if there needs to be one refiled um we can do some pushing for it thank you thank you so much
okay so thank you there is a motion that has been made and seconded there's no further discussion all those in favor that is three none opposed madam chair if I may could I ask your committee for a suspension so this can
be presented at the next city council meeting with the suspended send to the legal department to put in proper format yeah hopefully they can all those in favor
the meeting is adjourned at 8:01 thank you