Hey, I'm Rick. Hey. Hey, Rick. Hey, Kevin. Hey, Kevin. Calling mobile. Hey, Joan. Hi. Hey, D. Hello. Hi.
[Music] [Music] I think we're just waiting for Carrie. Um Sophie isn't able to join us tonight. Hi Addie. Hey Addie. How's it going?
Welcome. Thank you. Good evening. Hey Addie. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you all. Okay, we'll probably give Carrie one more minute and then we'll get started. All right. Um, so why don't we why don't we
go ahead and and get started. Um, so gonna let me just call the meeting to order and we'll do our usual roll call. If you just state your name. Um S here Kevin
Kevin Kevin Saxton Joan Joan Wetzel Ai Ai Bengali and Rick Rick Lopez. Um before we get into it we wanted to
welcome our new member Ai. Um is uh on a work related trip and so he's only going to be able to be with us for the first 30 minutes for tonight. Um I thought what you might do is is actually
just um kind of go around and introduce yourself. you know, your name, maybe uh how long you've been on the board and one sentence about kind of your what you do on your day job. Um so, uh and so
I'll start. Um I'm Rick Lopez AI. I'm the chair of the board and um I'm a retired physician. I was a primary care doctor internist. I also had significant uh administrative responsibilities at Atrius Health and Harvard Vanguard
when I where I practiced for about I don't know 35 38 years. Um so we'll just kind of go around. S you want to Sure. S Banti I've been on the board about a year now. Um I've been
in the wholesale seafood industry for 40 years. Um I'm in charge of operations and quality insurance for $330 million company right now. So um charge of all inspections and you know
regulatory aspects of the company bought it. Great. Thank you Kevin. Hi Kevin Ston. Um so I have been on the board I'm trying to remember now since I want to say 2018 maybe. So yeah. So I've been on the board for a while now. Um um
I'm a realtor by trade, but I have a a strong uh background in town government. Um I was on the board of selectman here for one term. Um as well, I've been a town meeting longtime town meeting member. So I I'm kind of on that side of the aisle, Addie, as far as the uh you
know, procedural issues go. Wonderful. Joe, hi Addie. Um I'm just starting my second year on the board. Um I'm retired from um lab work. I worked in a hospital for
12 years and then I worked at a very large uh local pediatric practice in their lab for 27 years and uh and I'm joyfully retired now. Awesome. Uh Liv,
hi Addie. Nice to meet you. I am the public health nurse for reading. So I work under a day and with the board. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. And Adday, I think you've already Right. So, I'm going to introduce myself and then introduce the health department as well. So, my name is Adai Salarin.
I'm the public health director for the town of Reading. Um, since 2021, um, I've been in the field of public health for 17 years. Um the health department the health department has a total um number of we have seven employees four
full-time employees and three independent contractors. Our full-time employees include Amelia who who is the health inspector leave who is the public health nurse and Haley Morphy who is the admin staff. Uh, independent contractors
include Kevin Nichols who is the animal control officer, John Ferrer, who is the weights and measures inspector, and Morin Busby who is the tobacco compliance inspector. Uh, it's good to be here and we're looking forward to working with you.
Same. Should I introduce myself or Yes, please. Of course. Uh, thank you. By the way, I am excited and you guys are look fantastic and everyone has ridiculously awesome experience. So, I'm very humbled
to be here actually. Uh my name is Adi Bengali. Um it's pronounced Adi. Uh and I've been a reading resident since 2017. Um you know, I have a young family here as well. And just uh last year I I got elected as a town member. Uh I actually
wrote myself in and and somehow that worked out. Um but just to see what happens behind the scenes and all the passionate discussions and everything uh really really uh overwhelmed me in a positive way and so that's when I decided I want to do more uh just
outside my work life and find my real passion and and talking about work um I actually work in a very relevant field um I work in a company called Vacite uh so I'm actually in California right now just visiting the head office I'm fully remote in Boston or in Reading um and
I'm a program manager for for the company um and Vaxite is uh they're making newokcoal vaccines you know for infants and then all the way to older adults um so it'll be like prevar and capac and so for me um you can you can
tell it's it's a it's a very close ma matter to my heart just in in terms of uh public health and whatnot so excited to learn and just hear you guys um your experience and your wisdom so thank you again for having me great great welcome Um
I'm sure you'll add a lot to uh the discussion. And I I just want to acknowledge um Haley who's uh on our screen as well. Haley Detta. Hi. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, Haley.
Um okay. So, in terms of tonight's agenda, um we're going to review the minutes from our June meeting. We didn't have a July one. um public comment although right now I don't see any
members of the public on um we want to uh do a final vote if possible on the wildlife regulation that we discussed in June and then um a day has uh a number of updates around the
road contract the MBTA um uh we need to do a board of health reorganization U vote um and we'll kind of explain that when we get there and then um the usual
reports and uh and wrap up. Is there anything um not on the agenda that we need to uh bring up at some point? Uh any other? Not really. The only thing I would like
to point out is that um the board already voted on the feeding of wildlife regulation. So it's not it's not a vote. Oh, okay. It's just more of, you know, to inform the board. Um y Okay. We voted on that in June,
correct? Was that a final vote? Okay. Really isn't. All right. Um, in terms of the minutes from June, are there any edits, comments, changes?
[Music] I didn't see any. Okay. Okay. Um, great. So, I make a motion to uh approve the minutes from uh June 13th.
Do I have a second? Second. Second. S. U. Roll call. S. Yes. Kevin, yes. Joan, yes. And Rick, yes. So, those minutes are approved.
Um, in terms of uh public comment, I don't see any members of the public presence, so we're going to move on. Um, a day, you want to talk about the feeding the
wildlife? Absolutely. Maybe in my ear, excuse me. [Music] I don't know where that came from. I don't know where that came from either. Okay. There's no member of the public that I
see. So, hopefully nobody's sneaking in here. Yeah. Yeah, that was what happened um the last time. Yeah, that was how we started. Yeah. Okay. Um why don't you go ahead day?
Okay. So at the June Bville meeting um the board moved to approve the feeding of wildlife regulation with a revision to section 26.3C reducing the response time to remove or contain an attractant from 7 days to 2
days after a notice of violation has been issued. Um the board also requested I you know review it with town council and I did. Um, she revealed that the board's amendment to this section is reasonable
as long as there is a valid explanation for wanting to shorten the response time. Um, at this point, everything looks good and I believe the next steps will be to publish a summary in the local newspaper and send a final copy to
the town clerk for publishing on the town website. Hey, um there were just two typos on the document you sent just you know before you publish it. Uh one minor one on section 26.2
um in terms of attractants. Um you say uh um actually uh I take it back. I'm looking at it
now. I thought there was an extra comment and then take that back. And then the the other one was in 26 uh.41E. I um that the cause of the public safety threat a nuisance the bird feeder and I
believe it was seed debris not yes we we were supposed to change that from the last last time other than that looks good okay I actually may have been what you were talking about Rick in 26.2 2. It was raccoon was misspelled.
It's spelled with one C and it should be two C's. Okay. Very minor under W under wildlife, right? And under Yeah, I didn't note that down. I just 26.2. Okay.
All right. I also had another question under 26.6. I just wrote down that it says regulations are constructed and I thought I wondered if it was supposed to be construed.
Of course, now I don't have the document in front of me so I can't read off the line. Regulation shall be yes it is construed. That's right. 26.6 sits under severability. You have that a day.
Yes, I'll make those changes. Okay, terrific. Um, all right. A day rodent, the rodent contract. Yes. So, I'm just going to give a brief
uh background regarding rodent control. Um, we started at the beginning of the year with 15 smart boxes using the remainder of the APA funding in the amount of $21,000. Um, an additional $35,000 in funding was
approved at April Town meeting. With the additional funding, we were able to procure 35 additional smart boxes. So, we signed uh a new contract on the 30th and we now have 50 smart boxes
around town with a total of 294 catches since we implemented this program at the beginning of the year. Uh so things are looking good. Um this number is expected to rise through the warmer months and then decrease
as we go through the winter months. Were there the new boxes um were some of them uh situated in the Pineville area where we've had issues? Yes, absolutely. And then we also looked
at the DPW construction map and schedules and uh some of those boxes will be moved as constructions u continue. Perfect. How are the reports going going down?
Sorry, say that again. Are the reports going down? Well, we haven't received as many complaints as we would for this time of the year. So, I'm I'm very happy about that. I know we had one one um resident that
was really upset. She came on a couple times just wondering if her problem went down at all. It did. It did. We we deployed a couple of smart boxes over there and uh we haven't heard from her since then. Right. That's awesome. Good.
Nice thing about those smart boxes is um you don't with the poisons or even the um contraceptive approach, you have to assume that there's some activity, but you can't actually get a specific count of
the rodent. And with these boxes, you can actually get a number um of catches. So, that's great. Not to mention, it's safer for the environment. Yeah. Get data. Data is good. Data is good. Absolutely. Yeah.
All right. Should I proceed to the MBTA update? Okay. So, um, the assistant town manager, Jane Wellman, and the reading delegation had a preliminary meeting with the MBTA at
the beginning of the month. Um Jane's understanding is that the MBTA will be uh meeting with the police chief and the fire chief and then plan to hold public engagement sessions in early September. These sessions will include a remote
session as well as an in-person session for residents who do not want to attend remotely. Um after public engagement process uh the MBTA will come back to the select board with a more narrowed focus and answer questions um the select
board may have. Uh once that's all set the MBTA will file a notice of intent with the conservation commission. Uh from my understanding the reading delegation is actively engaging with MBTA to get as many as much information
as possible. Um the delegation is also encouraging the MBTA to have as many meetings as possible with the residents. Um that's all I have for now and um I'll
update the board in the future. Great. Um, great. And it and we we had a lot of discussion around the sound study and hopefully we'll get more information over the coming weeks around that and
how they're doing that. Okay. In terms of uh if there no other comments in terms of we're flying through this, it's this is not the usual uh we we we might be done by the time you have to leave at this rate. But um
but this is not as usually this short but in any case uh reorganization. So, the town bylaws require boards and commissions to every year sometime in the June to August time
frame to um re uh reorganize meaning vote for chair, vice chair, and any other offices that um are necessary. So, it's an annual kind of process. And so the way we've conducted this in the past
has been to have anyone um nominate anyone and people can nominate themselves and um we can take a vote um on that. And so uh the two offices that
we've traditionally done here have been the chair and vice chair. Uh, currently Carrie Denell is the vice chair, but I'm not sure why she's not here. I Adday, you didn't hear anything that she wasn't able to make the meeting.
I don't believe so. Okay. Um, so in any case, uh, with that in mind, um, we'll start with the, uh, chair position. Are there any nominations for the chair? I like
the way Rick runs meetings. I'll nominate him. Oh, thank you. Second. Okay, we have a second. Um, any other nominations? Uh, roll call. Um, I'll vote. S
Kevin, yes. John, yes. And Rick, yes. Thank you for your confidence in me and we'll try to keep things moving along. Thank you for your time. It's been great behind the scenes.
Been really great. Thanks for Yeah. Well, it's been a very good experience for me and I've learned a lot. Um, and they don't teach a lot of public health in medical school, so this is the end of my career. I'm learning a lot about public health. Uh
and in terms of the vice chair uh position, um do we have uh a nomination or nominations? Should we should we do that next week? Next at at our next meeting. Well, excuse me. At at our next meeting
when Carrie's here because I'd hate to nominate Carrie if unless somebody else wants to nominate themselves, but I also want make sure she has an opportunity to nominate That's a good percent. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep, that's a good point. If we only need a chair reorganization technically,
so the vice chair is something we could do at a different time. I would wait. I would wait. I'd vote for waiting. I agree. Sounds good. We can wait on that. Um, okay. In terms of monthly reports,
yes. So, uh, we'll go ahead and, uh, present and then, uh, leave would present the nursing updates after. Okay. Um All right. So for the month of June,
um our health inspector Amelia conducted 14 food inspections, three camp inspections, three pool inspections, four food complaint investigations, eight nuisance complaint investigations,
one housing complaint investigation, and issued one temporary food permit for the month of July. She conduct she conducted 15 food inspections, four pool inspections,
four nuisance complaint investigations, one housing complaint investigation, and one footprint illness investigation. All all of the 18 keeping of animals permit have been renewed.
And then I would like to give a quick update regarding the MEPC. Annette no longer works for the Middle Sex SX public health collaborative. This means the shared services the shared services coordinator position is now vacant.
Um we're in the process of conducting interviews for prospective candidates. And I would also like to share a few items that um I would like to propose to be on the agenda for the September
meeting. Um I will include the dumpster regulation for a final board vote. Um I'll go over the newly created uh haulers regulation and then I'll give an update on the fee schedule increase.
And that's that's what I have for now. Um, leave, please go ahead with the Can I can I just ask one question before we leave? Um, at at the June meeting, we um delegated
to you. We we uh gave a permit for the YMCA summer camp, correct? Before the inspection was done. Yes. Was the inspection done and was that satisfactory? Yes, it was done. Everything is satisfactory. Okay, great. Thank you.
Go ahead, leave. Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and share my screen. All right. All right. Thank you everyone. Um, happy August. I can't believe it's the end already of the summer, but here we are.
Um, all right. So, here is our disease report for last month, the month of July. We had a calm month for the flu, um, under five cases, which was great. COVID, we had 16 cases last month. This new variant is called Stratus. Um, and it's now the third most common COVID
strain. So, if you have symptoms, consider getting tested. Lyme disease is starting to pick up in town. Please always remember to check yourself for ticks after any time spent outside. Also, make sure you're checking your pets and your kids for ticks. Um, we
have tick removal kits courtesy of MEPC, the Middle Sex Essex Public Health Collaborative, over at Town Hall. So, if you would like to pick one up, they are um right at the clerk's desk. All right, these are my blood pressure screenings for the month of August and
September. Um, next week, next Monday, I'm going to be I'm g I'm adding a third location at the library. So, I'll be on the third Mondays of every month, I will be at the Reading Public Library at 2:30 p.m. Um, so that'll be this upcoming Monday, the 18th. And then next
Thursday, I'll be at Frank Tanner at 10:00 a.m. And then in September, I'll be at uh Pleasant Street Center on September 4th, the library on September 15th, and Tannerville on September 18th. Just some awareness month topics for
this month. It's uh August, which is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. Um promoting the health benefits of breastfeeding for both babies and mothers and the importance of support for breastfeeding families. Uh it's also um children's eye health and safety
month, reminding you to protect your eyes as um from the sun as well as during play. We have three vaccine clinics coming this fall to the town. Um they will be held at the Koolage Middle School. So that's 89 Birch Meadow Drive. We're
going to have them on September 26th, October 17th, and November 7th from 2 to 5:00 p.m. That code um will get you there uh as well as the link below. I also have this posted um this will be
posted on the town Facebook page as well. All right. And just as a reminder, I still have my takeback programs going on. They are very popular right now, but if you have any supplies, we have some awesome places that will take everything.
And that is all. Thank you so much. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Leave. Well, I I should mention that um we still have free COVID testing kits at town hall. Okay. Um, and people are welcome to come
by and take one or two as needed. The other the other thing I just mentioned, I've talked to today about, I'm sure Lynn has also knows about this, is that um, a lot of the work that is
being done that you just saw, fits in nicely with our community health improvement plan. Um, and I'm hoping that over the next couple months at a meeting, uh, Liv can live can come and um, really structure the the clinical
program report, um, as it as it relates to our goals and objectives for a community health improvement plan. So we can see where activities are being done that are meeting our goals around this and where
maybe where there's areas where we need to focus more on. So I'm looking forward to that at some point over the next two or three months. Absolutely. Thank you. Any other comments, questions, discussion? It's
got to be a record. I know, right? This is a wreck. I definitely Add is a good luck charm. Seriously, I don't know. I do meetings for work, guys. So, hopefully I don't bring the bad news here. I don't think we've ever done one under 30 minutes. That's That's crazy. That is
incredible. So, I just got a message from Carrie. Uh, she's about to join. You may you may want to let her know that we're we're done. About to adjourn. Um,
well, we we might have time to nominate her as as vice chair. We could That's okay. So, all right. It was nice meeting you guys. Take care. Nice meeting you today. Very nice. Oh, she's here.
Hello. I am so sorry. I I'm I'm so sorry. Here I am. Um Um Yeah. No, you made it. I made it. I I thank you. I'll looked at you all sitting there patiently. Oh,
hi. Um, what do you need me to do to to keep us going? Well, actually, um, we we're all done. We're done. We've gone through the agenda. However, we were going to um delay, you know, we
have to do our annual reorganization um and we were going to delay nominations for vice chair. Um, until next month when you could join us. But now that you've joined us, defin you can make those nominations. So, do I have a nomination for vice
chair? So, the question I would ask is Carrie, are you interested in retaining vice chair? Because I would nominate Carrie for vice chair if she is interested in continuing that.
I I am I don't want to if anyone else is interested in assuming that role I would not want to stand in their way. I second. Oh, okay. I have a nomination from Kevin second by
S. Uh roll call. Um S. Yes. Carrie. Yes. Kevin, yes. Joan, yes. And Rick, yes. Great. Congratulations, Carrie. Very much. Thank you. I appreciate your
um Thank you. I like I really enjoy this board. I like serving with y'all and and I I appreciate the opportunity. So, thank you. Great. Thank you. Okay. Um and with that, um I'll make a motion
to adjourn. Do we have a second? Second. Second, John. Uh we'll take a roll call vote. S. Yes, Carrie. Yes, Kevin. Yes, Joan. Yes,
and Rick. Yes. Thank you all and uh we will see you in September as the song goes. All right. See you in September. Have the rest of your summer. Bye everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.