okay there we go so this is the Board of Health meeting of February 5th 2025 everyone on the board is present and we also have as our guest Megan chin uh from the collaborative and Meg we don't want to take a lot of your time so I want to just jump right to you over any other thing that we have to do and you can uh you can tell us what we need to know about safe 2.0 sure so 2.0 was passed it it was we were trying to pass
it for about 10 years or so the fur Cog worked really really hard um on getting this passed so it's to plan for public health spending um forone to be equal so this is like Governor hey is going to start putting this in her budget so shsb might not be able to afford a health inspector at $50,000 a year but we expect you to do the same amount of services you still
have to do housing and things like that so this is part of this survey that we're doing is so that the governor knows what we're lacking that you know shury doesn't have their own inspector and um and you don't have your own public health nurse we have it because of the grant but that's going away so when that goes away um how are you going to be able to provide the same Services as those in Boston because your residents deserve the same services that that they get out east so the governor is going to now fund with um when she
comes up with her yearly budget she has to include spending for local public health that's what safe 2.0 is um along with that some things are required um so the inspectors have to have certain training like fit training within the first two years of hire or um fit is um food and housing training they have to have their lead determinator with a certain amount within a certain amount of years um they have to have they have to get
their RS within six years of hire um so there are a set of Standards nurses are supposed to have their bachelor's degree some things they will allow waivers for which we're really pushing because it's also not we also push equity and it's not Equitable to say that somebody who's going to get paid you know $50,000 a year or so has to have a master's degree and you um you know which just especially around here you know we don't have all
the opportunities to for big colleges and all the scholarships and things like that that they might have in other places transportation's always an issue here you know you can't do online classes in some of these smaller towns because of the internet access so we really push for those waivers to be accepted um so in order for the governor to figure out what we need she's got to do this survey the survey is called Foundation of Public Health Services um it's an extensive survey where they
ask what your town is providing they ask what your Town's providing they ask who your partners are um and not just the collaborative the collaborative does their own and we'll just automatically answer yes to yours like whatever I fill out in the collaborative is automatically going to go over to yours like public health nursing services and things so for a lot of shots faes I'm going to be answering no because you don't have your own public health nurse and and things like that but when I go into the collaborative part I'm going to say but they do have um or into the
partners I'm going to say like life path is available to us we have moms do care that will service um chsb and Leverett and places like that um we there's lots of the SE the Council on Aging and you know all sorts of different partners that we can drum up support for and so those all go in there so we're not going to answer that we don't provide any Services because you do with with all of the other partners around
um but it might be it might look more like 25% or 50% things like that in Greenfield I only have maybe 4 100% in Greenfield that that we have coverage for our whole Community one of them is M mement coverage and communicable diseases but almost everything else in Greenfield I only have 70% 75% I did do deer fields and they're ranging around 50% um for most of their answers so I think
that we're definitely I know that we're definitely lacking in Services here because we just don't have it so if you wanted to do your own survey there's a woman named Kyla who will do a zoom meeting with you and there's a it's a training it takes about two hours to figure out how to do the survey once you do the survey it's been taking me about eight hours just to fill in all those blanks that I was just telling you about they're questions like you know how do you provide communicable disease
coverage do you um how are you with Equity um do you provide inspectional services um some of them are are much harder to answer they you know there might be four or five sentences long um it's it's just it's really I I can't even describe how extensive it is that really it takes about eight hours and that's just for the part where it's saying what you provide I haven't even gotten into the cost section in the cost
section maybe spray might be easier because really you only have I believe you only have the inspector that you're paying for um is that right do you have any other um out of pocket expenses well right we have we have the um the health agent services that we pay for um and I guess our regular budget line really only
covers covers you know office type things so I don't we don't provide any services with thato I'm sorry Garrett keto control we pay into the mosquito control district right we have that right okay yeah we have we we may we may have a little bit more than you think but but not very much okay so that section is going to be I think easier for me to fill out in shutesbury because
it you know I think that we just have maybe those two line items I don't know do you guys have purple Air Center air sensors Garrett air sensors yeah that I know of okay that's another thing that a lot of the towns have um to monitor for environmental health um so yeah that part might be a little bit easier but again that's another training the cost tool is a separate training with Kyla um so I'm happy to help out with this if you want me to but
if you guys feel like you can do this and have the time Absolutely I'll I'll it over I would love it if you could help us with this um if you already know how to do it so that we can skip the training part and go straight to providing the answers and that would be enormously helpful for us and I did tell nen too that if if somebody wants before I hit the submit button if somebody wants to come over to my office and just look on my laptop with me and just kind of review the answers I'm more than happy to show you what I put to um
because that would be easy for you just to like look over and things I can't print it it's not it's not a screen that I can like that I can print out it's it's like lots of dropdowns and things like that but if you guys want to see it that's totally fine yeah I think we should I mean that's the least we can do right at least come over and make sure that we've given you the right information yeah so how should we
proceed um you don't have to do anything else right now um I'm just finishing up sunderland's I'll probably finish that one this week next week I'll start shoots berries and then as soon as I'm done I'll send you guys a message and whoever wants to come over we can set a meet date in in the office and and just show you what it looks like okay and you don't need any um you don't need any preliminary information from us the cost tool I if if there's one person who
knows how much you pay into the the yeah I know that we just got we just did the budget for that so I don't have it at the of my mind but it but I know but I have it if you could send me those those two numbers that would be fantastic um two numbers what was the first one um the mosquito and the Easter and then if you could tell me about how many like do you pay for a certain
amount of hours of service for the control the um the Franklin County the Eastern Franklin County thing like do you get like say Claudia for 10 hours a week or is there an expected Service uh yes yes there is um it's I think it's more than 10 hours all that is on the budget sheet and I'll just send that to you great great and then I think that's all I'll need from you guys okay okay well that's that's fantastic I
can words cannot express my gratitude for helping with this or for basic responsibility for it that's just great so so I will I will send you the numbers and for for the mosquito control district and I'll send you the whole budget sheet that we did in the meeting the other day of the district and um that should seems like that should be enough for now yeah sounds good and I'll reach out if I have any other questions
all right well that's excellent thank you so much no worries thank you all and I'll send you an email about the other issue Yes sounds perfect can I ask one more question Megan absolutely maybe we need to bring it up at the collaborative and in here too is there any information I know I think we got something from the state this week on bird flu but should we be paying attention to that do you have any quick things to say about that so in in my opinion is we go through
this every single year um every year the variants change every year they tell us you know we're one step away and it could get into humans and be a pandemic um at this point I wouldn't be too too concerned with it um just because it's it's been I've been here for five years and at least four of those years I've heard the same things um so I wouldn't be too nervous yes we have it in the wild birds but it's it's just like the human flu it comes every year um it can
always mutate and then my answer would totally change if it mutates um but as of right now it's it's fine um we don't have it in any of our dairy cattle in Massachusetts which is fantastic some other places do but in Massachusetts we also practice better practices we're not throwing our animals on top of each other um same with our poultry we don't you know it we just don't put an on top of each other so we're not as at
risk as some of the other um you know factory farm type States so you know as far as it going to humans I think the risk is very low right now okay great thank you anything else we want to ask Meg before she signs off we're glad you're there Megan yes we are very much so thank you so much I'm happy to help take care M thank
you okay well that sounds a little bit less worse than less worse yeah than it was sounding when I first heard about this I um if they sent us a a message saying that this was coming um I didn't get it so this came a complete surprise to me this whole survey thing and I was
appalled to hear that that they designed a survey that you actually have to take a training to fill out I mean who thinks these things up really but as usual they didn't ask my opinion it always happens that way so while I've got you here um last meeting was January 15 and the last meeting before that was in
December and that would have been the 18th I think and we have not um we have not um approved those minutes so oh okay can we approve them I move that we do so I hear a second here at
second okay um are there any objections to approving the minutes as written and distributed hearing none I'm going to consider the minutes approved for those two meetings um so noren and Garrett you weren't here last time um so you didn't hear or you maybe were not so much aware that we now have our own Zoom account so um and no we don't have to
share it with anyone so um and there are numerous new accounts so but some of people share but we get our very own which means a couple things one Garrett I'll have to kind of get with you and get you in the picture so that if I can't do it you can back me up and um two it means that basically we could have our meeting anytime we want as long as we meet the the postering
requirements right so that if we need an extra meeting or if we have some reason to want to change it we have the ability to do that because we won't be you know um dis accommodating somebody else you mean we can meet five nights a week we could and I think we [Laughter] should we practically did during Co if you recall that would get people talking yeah really the Board of Health meeting
every night this week boy they must be really busy yeah um um as you see whim is invisible but here and um I had totally forgotten that he had surgery two days ago and he told me earlier that he on a scale of 1 to 10 his pain is 10 oh so we
we appreciate your being here wh too and hi wh and that's a knee right his that's his knee I think so I forget the surgery I think it's his KNE that's my yeah do you need anything whim no I've got I've got everything I need than thank you but it's uh it's
just well you know so but I my experience was that day two post up was the worst yeah and it got better from there so hang in there all right okay what what day are you whim two two okay well that yeah makes total sense yes yeah it's pretty yeah I'm sorry sorry to hear it but but if you need anything please reach out all right we
we're all uh we're all available to some extent how is Polly doing with the arm thing she's she's well along with her recovery can't she can't really use that arm a whole lot but um yeah we're we're we're sort of a rehab hospital right well you sound intelligible
perhaps a little bit drugged but but but listen if if it's if poly is not supposed to drive I'm sure we can manage among us to get you to your PT appointments yeah you're very nice I we arranged um all of that beforehand oh very good yeah and I have the first uh two to three weeks it's in home in home oh excellent y yep that was true
for me too and I'm sure for Norine yes that's that's great that's genius to have somebody dropping by yeah yeah except they hurt you yeah they do not too much yeah I'll send you an email whim about some other stuff like things I can lend you if you need it that kind of thing all right than I think our advice is going to be do your PT and you'll be back
doing what you want to do you will be up and Adam any anytime soon yeah in no time yeah very good okay that's great um I have a couple of things to tell you um I did get a cryptic communication from the owner of 56 wendle Road about um he said that basically it's lawyers now that lawyers are are
involved in getting the getting the demolition permit and so on I didn't I didn't ask for the details this time I just you know clearly something is happening took a while for me to be able to actually even make contact but I'll I'll look into it you know between now and the next meeting and see what okay what more we can find out also we got um we got an email today from the belir toown Board of Health
from one member of it who wants us to adopt our board to adopt a resolution supporting um Let me let me look and see exactly what supporting some kind of tobacco free initiative and uh Gmail
it's kind of weird of course because we don't we don't have any place where we sell it but they amended their tobacco regulation in Bel toown and they included something called nicotine free generation changing the egg age for nicotine sales to those born before um before 2004 so I guess that's raising the age
and they wrote a resolution for us it says the shutesbury Board of Health resolves that other Massachusetts communities and the legislature are encouraged to enact nicotine-free generation regulations creating a generation that is free from nicotine and helping children and young people avoid nicotine products and that the Board of Health would itself consider a nicotine free
generation regulation if the town of shuberry has any licensed retailers I would change that to if the town of shsy had any licensed retailers since we don't um and I don't know if you guys would like to to adopt such a re regulation or what or if you want to think about it and talk about it next time regul
resolu go ahead nor sorry is it a regulation or a resolution I it's a resolution it's a non-ending resolution right so basically it's simply offering our support for this um this initiative I was just going to say if such a resolution supports our surrounding communities then I'm all for it um although I don't see that it impacts our community directly but you know
people don't people interact with our surrounding communities all the time so right and our and our children go to the schools down ex too that's what I mean yep fine with me so what would you like me to do is there language for the resolution I just read it to you oh excuse me I understand
um um I I would support adopting such a resolution any other thoughts on this I think the only question I have is would we need to advertise would would have to be posted as part of the agenda that we were considering this I think it would be good if we put it on an on the agenda posted and so that it would be out there yeah okay so what was it nicotine free
generation I will put that on the agenda for our next meeting okay which will be like the 19th of February right because we need to advertise it before we adopt it right I think we should okay agree all right um Garrett do you want to say anything about well two things about um the drill
today which thank you for taking that I was trying to find my way around Big Y which is being totally reorganized when I got that um when I got the message and I knew that I had very little chance of making it on time well I was sitting in front of my laptop and had the uh window for web EOC open anyway so I thought I'll just do it um want so I logged in pretty quickly and
discovered that what the message was asking you to do you couldn't do because they hadn't set it up right right drill for them and they failed the email that I sent you later today scratch that because I went back and I saw our my previous notes about how you are supposed to enter that incident and anyway scratch what I sent to you earlier so I quickly messaged person at dph who organizes the
drills and said that's not it's not there what you're asking to do just so that you know and I don't know maybe about four or five minutes later I got a message back saying oh it should be there now um so I was able to do it the way that they wanted us to do terrific so we're all set for that for the for the quarter at least excellent thank you for doing that thanks Garrett yeah thank you and you did some other kind of framework
survey or something would you want to tell about that yeah so for the public health emergency preparedness Grant one of the deliverables this Bud well there there are two deliverables that relate to this um one of the deliverables is that um the coalitions the public health Coalition Statewide have to develop or update a public health emergency preparedness and response framework that gets
integrated into emergency plans there's there with with zero guidance there's zero guidance or guidelines about what that means uh neither from C neither from CDC or or dph um and the second deliverable is to do A needs assessment also with no guidelines or guidance about our need is for guidance right um what
is meant by needs ass um in region one western Mass they've interpret interpreted that to mean training needs assessment um and other coalitions Statewide have interpreted it differently so at the region one level so the hmcc has organized all of the public health coalition and they developed a a survey another
survey um around com uh what's the best way to describe this aspects or components that might make up a framework you know so that could be um infectious disease investigation in the case of Maven it could be um inspectional services around housing or food and restaurants um and so the survey B it's
very repetitive unfortunately and it's being done across all of the coalitions so all of the coalitions in region one whether it's Hampshire hamton Franklin um and it you know it basically asks you know do you have a plan for a plan that addresses this element of a framework is if so is there someone specifically with
within your board of health or Community who has an assigned preparedness and response role related to that um and then it asks for contact information for that person so I went through the survey and you know in many cases because we don't necessarily do that or there isn't a plan for us to do that you know like a good example is um
around isolation and quarantine we don't specifically have a plan for that um aside from what regulation says that we can do so you know in many cases I had to say no there is no plan and in in you know like limited cases I could point to you know Claudia as being as having assigned roles and
responsibilities related to certain things um you know as it related to coordination with Emergency Management I pointed to me because I I go to the EMT meetings um there were some uh administrative questions that I pointed to you cat as having roles and responsibilities on the board related to
it I think it's more of a it's it's somewhat like the the survey we were talking about earlier um that Megan's completing for us it it's more fact finding than and I think I think basically they're going to use it to try to inform is are is there an existing response framework uh across Franklin County
um and are there people who have assigned roles and responsibilities related to it okay okay I often feel that the whole idea of all this planning kind of misses the mark like planning for is a and quarantine what what's the plan I guess you just have to plan to have somebody
who's going to do it if it has to be done that's that's the ex really the extent of planning you could do I think yeah and then you know I think what like in that example there's you know planning around um barriers that individuals might face who have to go under isolation or quarantine you know and like accessing prescription medications or you know food or or um other
services um you know my my gripe with the whole thing is that if there's not you know sort of state level organization and guidelines and and criteria that they're you know not that they're trying to force on us but you know trying to have some standardization um yeah or or even to just Define what it is that they mean
yeah yeah well as always as always they they don't get Western Massachusetts um and they never they really never um make any don't they don't even make an attempt to meet the needs of all these small towns out here where it's it it's all volunteers and it's basically Community oriented and Community Based and if people need
anything ad hoc little support groups um spring up it's not like we have a hierarchy right but that doesn't look that great on paper that's the [Music] thing well thank you thank you for working on that is there anything else that we would need to talk about is
there anything I'm supposed to be telling you just by way of general information yesterday I heard from the chief of police that she's hoping to um to put in all kinds of recreational space behind the fin station but in I mean there used to be apparently quite a lot of stuff back
there you know a softball diamond and a equestrian ring and some you know Horseshoes and other stuff and um and she wants to bring some of that stuff back oh so that'll be a nice thing I'd like to bring back I'd like to bring back my ability to play softball again well we can work on that is Kristen working with the recreation committee on
that she's she's planning to it's very early days yet but I think she was waiting for a call back from from them and she's gonna you know um it's a great way to spend some CPC money sure okay but she likes to get all her ducks in a row before she starts talking about it but it's not a secret either okay um let me just look for a minute at the at the Board of Health email and
make sure there isn't anything that we're supposed to talk about we did get um we did get a message [Music] from somebody oh from the commission of Public Health about staying the course and
um the problems with the uh the current Administration and oh yeah I see that yeah I'll I'll send that to you if you don't have it I do have it but go ahead I mean just send it to all of us if you need yeah I mean I don't know if anybody if everybody has it or what but this is the first time seeing it I haven't read it yeah I haven't actually read it all the way through either okay but yeah
we're just going to have to try to hold the line somehow did did I hear earlier in this meeting that the grant is it the grant that funds our um uh uh Health collaborative is expiring soon did I hear that correctly I think it's like got like a 10year life is that right Garrett do you know maybe even uh less than that huh think it
might be five yeah and that's why they're trying to set up a a a long-term fun funding [Music] stream okay so it's not imminent but no no no we should be forward thinking about it okay right yeah I thought it thought it had a longer life how long has it been running just like a year two
years I'm going to say two and a half maybe uhhuh well oh well it's been it's been running longer in other parts of the state it's just that we've just joined the collaborative process later we this whole area western Mass was later to to join it so see so maybe it has it might have been 10 years in other areas of the state oh that reminds me um they they um they
have raised the the fee the annual fee for the mosquito control district a little bit they put a I think 10% so it's not it's not huge but um but there you go and I saw something in the Board of Health email about how they're looking for a new person to head that up looks like there's some staffing changes going on in there but the mosquito Control District um I might I might be misspeaking I would
yeah there is something um about a health director oh no Health director input sought for tick and mosquito research is that the thing that you're oh maybe that's what I'm thinking of um from wmp yeah because the the director of the mosquito District was just new last year wasn't he I think yeah just I think the year before okay so two years but yeah
yeah's he's he seems to be quite good he is good um and uh although strangely strangely he got the idea that I had retired and he sent a he sent an email to Sarah asking to meet with her and she sent it on to me saying you know I don't know what to think about this is this guy trying to sell me something or what and I no no it's good but then I sent him a thing and said I'm still
here sorry I am um trying to find the thing that I'm referring to and I'm not finding it so I don't know what I'm talking about sorry it happens right yeah where is that anyway okay anyway anyway John's still firmly in place if I come up with another question I will relay it on but okay okay all right is there anything else
that needs to come before us at this meeting sounds like a no for me all right well let us adjourn and um see you again in two weeks by that time I probably will have had my have had my nomination papers thoroughly signed and turned in oh good oh so the one rolling off I am and let me tell you I before
last November I kind of thought maybe I'll start cycling off like maybe I won't run but I'll I'll stay on as a clerk or something like that but um it seems it would be cowardly and Craven to bug out now when when uh there's opposition we all put on our puppy eyes and looked at her and she no I had already decided
right right however three years from now probably not I mean come on so let's be thinking about about trying to bring somebody else on okay there are some good people in town that might uh might be interested but if you have suggestions please pass them along I will okay I will and same and YouTube yeah okay are we done all right well um wh should be feeling quite a bit better in another two weeks whim whim
you're going to be feeling great very soon hang in there yeah good luck whim I'm sure you'll feel better soon he's asleep yeah well I hope so that's about the best thing that could happen to him at this point okay you guys good night everybody good night night all