okay so here we are officially in session this is the board of health meeting of um April 16 2025 there are four board members myself Katherine Hilton Arlene Reed Garrett Simson and Whim Lavine and we also have
some guests um we briefly had Frank McInn but he's gone and Katherine I think that you accidentally renamed Frank as Whim yes I think you did too oh
okay sorry Frank or Tom whichever one you want that might have been a compliment [Laughter] to you or to him do you think either one i Okay yeah you know when I go to do that it sometimes it jumps
so there's iPhone and that's Whim okay now we got it and so okay so there are the four board members who are here we have Frank McInn and we have Samsung
SMG99U and I don't know who that is will you tell me who you are unmute yourself hello well it's a mystery person all right um things on the agenda
the minutes from last time any objection to accepting these minutes as written none none okay let's just go with them um the the one
real business thing that we have on here is 30 what is it what did I put 31 or 36 i think it's 31 merryill Drive anybody have the agenda in front of you okay 31 that's the one that I
thought we were talking about last time that's the one that's been boarded up for a hundred years and um what's going on now is that the current owner has a disposal works construction permit for a
septic system replacement and that um permit has expired just it has just expired like within the last month and the way that this works the um a permit for new construction is valid for three
years and um a permit for a replacement or a repair is good for two years because obviously we want it to get done quickly um in this case it's kind of moot because the house has been uninhabited
for a very long time um so we are at the at the where we are now is the current owner for personal reasons has been unable to do the project he's selling the property he has a buyer buyer wants to acquire the house and the permit
right i've been in touch with both the buyer and the seller um so what I suggest that we do is extend that permit for another year from its original expiration date which was
sometime in March so that they will have time to actually get the septic system in finally and no other circumstances have changed over the course of time since we permitted it in the past apparently not
i looked um I looked at the permit at the plan the plot plan for the place across the street that we permitted recently and um there's no there's no impinchment okay so So that should be fine so I
wonder if I can get um a motion to extend the permit for 31 31 right 31 Merryill Drive for another year from its original expiration date i move to extend the permit for one year
for 31 Mel drive for permitting of the septic second okay all in favor arlene yes garrett yes whim yes cat yes so
there it is i will um I will amend attach a There's somebody here attach um a note to the original permit or send a letter saying that we've extended it for one more
year okay another another thing that has come up that's not entirely within our Bailey Wick but we got the call someone over on the west side of the lake called
the board of health to say that some of her neighbors seem to be feeding the wildlife i mean not just not just birds which is bad enough but other wildlife too and she's you know seen foxes and bears and all kinds of other things and this is like over you know over there
it's very it's very tight um she originally got in touch with um uh the police chief and the police chief told her to call the environmental police and the environmental police told her to call call the board of health and I told her to get back on the phone with the
police chief because there I didn't really see what we could do um and she said she would would do that um but I wonder if there is anything that that we ought to do do you have any
ideas well does it fall under the category into the category of um nuisances she's attracting animals i wonder if it would qualify as
a as that is a real possibility especially if she's attracting raccoons and the like yeah garbage garbage eating animals mhm um or bears for that matter yeah yeah true um that's a that
certainly is a thought um I was kind of thinking um how about animal control do we don't do we have an animal control officer
i think we do i'm not sure um I got the impression that our animal control officer might be resigning at a meeting I was listening into but I wasn't listening in close i was just waiting for my time to to join the meeting um so
I'm not sure if we have an animal control officer or not let me write that down as another possibility i am looking on the town website and I
don't see anything no I don't see any animal control as an active board or committee or department or town official is there unless it's something I'm just unless it's alphabetized under something other than
animal but so the police department it says animal control calls should be made to the department interesting you know 4132591279 which
is the that's a landline yeah um Huh yeah this has been a problem for a lot of years um having an animal control officer andor dog officer um that is actually responsive you know I think we get
basically um um veterinarians and they're you know they're busy with their own profession years ago Paul Latch was a dog officer but that was many many years ago um I al
also had been thinking of either we could put out or maybe Kristen could put out a town announce um just urging people to not attract animals to their yard to take in their bird feeders if they haven't already and
so on and so forth especially if they live in crowded neighborhoods i I have when I searched further under a list of appointed officials I found
um Nancy Long is named and however um her term ended it looks like um 123124 so she I think it was she was at this
select board meeting last week and there were apparently new additional requirements on the animal control officer and I think that she was not going to not going to continue but I'm
not positive that that is the case this may be something that should be brought up to the select board because uh it seems like if they're going to collect fees for permitting of domestic
animals there should be an animal officer that seems fair isn't it yeah but if it's back in our laps I mean I question where do you draw the line about feeding wildlife like
bird feeders are okay but putting out a pan of meat is not okay um but I mean we what what about I don't know what this person is doing to feed animals but I'm
not entirely clear on it either i think it's partly the bird feeder but I think there there seems to be also something else going on and and you know some people put out pet dishes full of cat food for stray cats and
is that any different from you know putting out meat scraps and letting the raccoons come i presumably raccoons are eating some of that straight cat food too um right so I didn't want to like come
down and like make rules or anything but just to kind of get a little informationational thing out there that one it's not very smart to feed wild animals because it's not good for them and two especially if you live in a a a
close neighborhood it's not good for the people either to be attracting wild animals that could harm somebody's child or pet and just leave it perhaps foolishly to people's good judgment and just kind of remind them that there
are problems without because we don't I don't think that we really unless we can document a nuisance as you suggested we don't really have any right any real leverage here so I was thinking I would talk with
Kristen about it okay see see if she has some ideas and also find out if she was asked to go back and talk to the people who are doing this okay okay thanks for your thoughts on that
[Music] um Oh here's another thing um you know we've got this Beaver Dam situation down there at the Fisk Brook Culver and
um I went to a meeting the other day with Beth Wilson and the new town administrator Haley Bolton and Dave Green who Dave Grineer rather who is the highway superintendent and what we one
of the one of the upshots of this meeting was that they're going to reach out to Beaver Solutions and um get them see if we can hire them to take down the Beaver Dam because the highway superintendent
does not want to do it and he doesn't want his guys to do it and he doesn't think it's his job um so because we're coming down to the end of the fiscal year um um paying for this
could be problematic and I'm going to ask Elwack to be willing you know if we're asked to kick in some money because they've got a thousand dollar budget and I we haven't spent a single penny of it and I don't think we're
going to um and we've got more than $1,000 left in our line item budget for this year so what would you think about our volunteering to share some of that cost from our budget if it's needed
i'd be for it yeah I would be as well any objections to it or concerns about it um just as long as the contractor then um keeps up their end or delivers a report or if we have to then do we have
to go observe to make sure they're doing it or uh I don't think so i mean I would certainly like to go down and see it gone but um I don't I don't I don't think that we would have it would entail
any other obligation on our part you know this group Beaver Solutions yeah they've they've done they've done work all over town they're they're the really they're the top um purveyors of this
kind of surf service and they have they've put in probably I think they said four or five um diversions diversions water diversions um throughout town and and broadly elsewhere i mean they're quite
respectable it's not no reason to not trust them yeah yeah okay well um is that something we need to vote on um why let's cover the base okay i guess um
in case it is something that I mean it sounds like you know an action with our budget within our budget so so I would move that we um how shall I word this authorize an expenditure I guess yeah
yeah that we authorize an expenditure from our remaining fiscal year 25 budget to share in the costs of uh removal of the beaver dam at Fisk Pond Culver if if
if needed if it's if it is needed yes okay second okay all in favor arlene you're in front of me yes garrett yes whim yes cat yes okay thank you
now what do you guys have to tell me anything so I tried really hard to stay on top of Randy Cardell's emails oh god there are so many
oh I have I I will be the first to admit I have a hard time there are so many acronyms and they bounce around with one another and I I can't say I make sense
out of every one of his emails but I did um I was particularly um baffled by uh the MAFCO budget period 2 priority areas and funding anyway
there were a lot of them that that I just didn't get so I would ask that if anyone has Okay um some bullets that I really need to pay attention to to um you know if is there something you
really need to zero in on here so unfortunately you should all be prepared to receive many more emails from Randy U because what is happening is that we are at a place where the end of one budget period
and the start of a new budget period are colliding um so he's in the process of closing out a bunch of things for this fiscal year and uh DPH has some pretty aggressive expectations
uh of the uh public health preparedness coalition statewide to prepare for the next budget period despite the fact that CDC has given very little information about
what may or may not occur mhm so normally in this process of going into the next budget period CDC would have released you know a 40 or 50page document that says uh here are the deliverables here are the expectations
this is the funding they released a three-page document and so each of the coalitions are being asked to prepare work plans off of very little to go on and to
assume level funding except for in the case of MAFCO mafco will be the only if if funding continues MAFO will be the only coalition in the state that receives a decrease because
Williamsburg is transitioning to Hampshire County i see okay to the Hampshire County Coalition okay um yeah so you're you're going to see when when emails when we use the term
coalition are we referring to our participation in MAFCO or are we also referring to the Valley Health Collaborative so that that's separate that's all state funds um and that that should be relatively safe
um for now because it's it's largely state funds okay but um all of the cuts that came around uh CDC pulling uh CDC and HHS pulling back the a lot of the COVID funding
um and uh some of the HIV AIDS uh funding is is really having pretty significant impact within DPH um and unfortunately what that also has meant is that while CDC isn't
communicating with the states communication from the state also has kind of decreased uh because they don't know anything they don't know anything yeah um and so it's it's kind of this very very unfortunate situation but in
in terms of of the communications from Randy and Mafco um I'm trying to as best I can keep on top of those and if there are specific things that I think I need from the rest
of the board I'll please call or raise a white flag whatever give a shout out yeah yeah i noticed that one of the things in the one of the emails was a was this framework training for framework to do
that survey but we don't need to do that right because Megan did our survey exactly so that that's um that's related to the foundational public health services initiative which comes out of that blue ribbon or the governor's report or
whatever that was from uh a number of years ago so that is separate so this the framework workshop that Randy is talking about is a CDC deliverable for this budget period so DPH has asked all
of the coalitions to either update or develop a public health preparedness and response framework that can be integrated into local plans whether that's the comprehensive emergency management plan that um the fire chief
maintains as the emergency management director or some other plan um so um so when you see the thing about the framework workshop I mean you're you're all welcome to to join that as well um I
I will attend that okay well by me you'll be attending it on behalf of our board and uh I don't I don't know that we need everybody or how do you feel about that do you want other
people to to join in or I mean based on what I'm seeing from um replies from other communities uh from the email that Randy sent it looks like there's like I was surprised to see um Northfield had
responded that they were going to attend and you know they haven't been as active recently so um so that was an encouraging thing you know I mean if if you're interested um welcome
okay yeah it does seem like we're being asked for a lot that's um uh fairly complex and I uh I kind of don't know how to cope with it
hi Norine hello everyone i'm sorry I'm late we thought you were off someplace oh no not yet so we're kind of winding up here [Music] um we just uh we're just now talking
about all these emails we get from Randy Cardell and that um so the date of that workshop Tuesday the 29th at 5:00 um is a difficult day for me i have um relatives coming arriving
uh that day for a couple few days stay so that's a tough one for me mhm do do we still have visitors here on the meeting do they have anything they want were joining for a purpose or
yeah um I just I just saw an email from the from the guy who owns the permit that we just extended saying that that was him but he couldn't figure out how to unmute himself or something oh dear so we know who that was yep
yeah i just came on to hear what was going on with the beaver and all that that's I heard there was going to be a site visit so I actually went to the Culver but I guess the meeting was at town hall huh yes that's right it was a town hall and
it had to be brief because it was at the end of at the end of the workday um one of the things that we that we talked about at that meeting was this whole business of having to keep the
the channel open for navigation by by canoes and kayaks largely for the b but not entirely for the benefit of um Camp Anderson and um because uh
Dave says and I do no reason not to believe him that basically the dam won't really hold back any significant amount of water it'll raise the level in that that upstream spot but it won't keep the water from coming through
um anyway the point was was brought up by somebody that if we're if we're going to all this trouble for Camp Anderson they should be part of the solution so I think that Haley is going to reach out to them and see if we can get them to either contribute some money or do some
other thing or at least be involved in this since um it's largely their access to the lake that um is at issue here well one thing I'd mention is that everything I hear a lot about the beaver
and Fisk Pond and the beaver from Fisk Pond building all this um there is a beaver in Fisk Pond and there's also there's more than one more than one but there's also uh two beavers that live at the east end of Lake Wyola and since I 2018 since I've been
here I see him all the time in the night of the site visit it was like glass one came out on this side of the my side of the lake and other one belied straight down you could see the wake going all the way to the end end of the lake so I
don't know if anyone can say specifically who built the dam the east side beavers or the west side beavers that's that's a very interesting point so in other words when you come down to the whatever it is I know Elwack and Mark Rivers has always said you know the
beavers are doing that up there but I watched a beaver go to that end of the lake so that's I just wanted to bring that up it's there's a beaver since I've lived here and there's also otter that I saw the otter yesterday morning we have them both at this end of the
lake right and all winter we have the um uh uh what what do you call that uh those little weasly things yeah the weasel the weasels there you get to watch them all winter it's a lot of fun the fishers the fish yeah when they have
they come up the we not the we either weasels or otterters i forget but they it's fun to watch um and the other thing is access to the lake i know that you're trying to keep it open and Haley will probably reach out to them um and someone mentioned Beaver Deceiver
at one of the meetings keeping the dam that way um you know that we still have access there's a kayak launch across the street a new kayak launch so there's that's another access true i just they'd have to cross the road but they could still get into the
lake so I just Yeah that's just wanted to mention that yeah the the the the knowledge of the beavers is you know I see the the pair come out every night i haven't seen them yet they'll be coming out so it's easier to see them when they're when it's like glass it's too windy and I've also seen the pair up at
or at least one of them i've seen one of them at um Fisk Pond but I haven't seen two but I don't live up there so I just wanted that I wanted to mention that there are more beavers living in the lake right yeah those those beavers have been up at that end for a long time i didn't
realize that they were in communication with the other ones but I think the I think that the pressure on this is in fact coming from upstream at at Fisk because there are there's at least one lodge and possibly two on Fisk Pond and they've got that beaver deceiver but
what they're doing now if you've looked if you've gone to the end of the pond and looked down where the outfall is they're they're completely colonizing that area underneath the the pond so where it used to be trails and stuff now
it's it's a big mosquito ranch i wish you know Bob I was with Bob Douglas from the conservation he thought it was going to be there too uh the day before um the town he works for he's a beaver expert he would have been had some great insight to this i didn't know
that oh yeah uh he told me some weird things but anyway he's a he gave a talk on beavers to something uh the day before the site visit um so um and maybe I don't understand beavers that well but
I my understanding is that they build dams in order to flood their hunting areas their fishing and hunting areas so why would a beaver on the east or
southeast you know the the downstream side of Lake Wyola why would they make a dam at Fisk at Fisk at the culvert coming from Fisk Pond because what they want to flood is that upstream area that sort of
shallow pool there they have at least one lodge there they and they want to keep the water level high enough so that they But the Fisk Pond beavers would want to do that the beavers leaving Oh yeah lake Wyola would not have that same right
unless they were traveling by land to go get to Fisk Pond which they're not going to do which No yeah no that's a good question they might be related to them or who knows maybe they like to fish over there i don't know so I mean they might be doing something
there but since they have their own um rather elaborate setup at the other end of Wyola I it's it's doubtful to me at least that they would actually be doing the construction but what do I know but who knows right
okay thank you thanks Frank thanks so is there anything else that we need to talk about tonight no um progress at um 56 Wendell Road the last I heard about it was a legal thing
and that was a while ago okay the temptation to just go down and burn down the rest of it is really strong god it's been years it has been years that looks awful it does and it looks worse all the time it
does talk about nuisances yeah really and I've I've kind of given up because it seems like there isn't anything we can do you know short of of taking some kind of drastic action
and basically taking the house away which you know I I don't want to be the chair of a board that goes around dispossessing people right even people who are driving me crazy [Music]
yeah but the alternative of just letting it rot there is Yeah it's loathome it's you know right i'm not sure
what steps short of hauling him into court i don't know if um did did we ever bring Donna McNichol into this in at least a advisory role you know I I consulted Donna about you know receiverhip or
something like that and it it seemed to be so much more drastic and also so much more complicated and expensive than I thought it was going to be that I just backed off sure i I could possibly talk with Claudia and see if she has some other suggestion
because at that inspection that occurred a little more than a year ago her last one of her last words to Greg was "Well keep us posted." Yeah yeah that doesn't happen if I ask him he might tell me something
maybe we should let Claudia know he has not kept any of us posted and it's continues to just Yeah maybe I'll ask Claudia to to send him a letter as if he paid any attention to that
but but it might be something oh speaking of Claudia I I think this was since our last meeting but maybe we maybe we already any did we um I should know because I read the minutes but
um Claudia is going to do the inspection of um Morris Hill morris Hill yes she is going to do it and so I got in touch with Megan and said you know things are
a little bit weird here and I know there were differences and so on and she told me what the things were that were sort of left undone previously and it wasn't it wasn't too bad um and she also sent
me what I think is a new check off form that's quite extensive so I forwarded that to Claudia great and um you know with a few tactful suggestions and uh said "Oh you probably know all this
anyway blah blah blah." And so I'm hoping that that they'll be kind of on the same page with this it'll up her game okay yeah apparently what I gathered from Megan is that like everything else in the state there are
now new requirements basically new reporting requirements for this kind of thing so it may be that Claudia was just um not up to speed or it may be that Megan happened to be doing it right at the moment when things changed okay so
um so Claudia is on it and um Okay i'm gonna I'm gonna just hope that she's doing it right okay very good thanks for doing that anything else we want to talk about i guess not um so our next meeting
will be when uh May 7th [Music] okay okay so I'll see you all then if we're if we're ready you won't see me oh is that when you're going to be away on
your trip yeah with the babies yes the first first two both meetings in May most likely okay and remind us where you're going i am going to hike to the Scottish Highlands that's right and then
we're going to um Ireland and then we're getting on a boat and going to Northern Ireland that sounds wonderful yeah so three yes a lot of moving parts but very exciting sounds great and Whim how's the knee
it's all right i had to fill out a questionnaire at PT they asked if I feel better than I did two weeks ago and I had to say yes i hope you said yes but not very much all right
how many weeks is it now Whim 10 10 okay well I'm glad you're see feeling some better yeah for sure yeah thanks all right you guys thank you and uh we'll meet again and some of us on May
7th okay norin yes fun have fun thank you