February 23, 2026 – Board of Health – Video & Transcript
February 23, 2026 - Board of Health
um okay we'll start it over call the meeting at 646. um i guess we can
so this is uh remote access and uh one may participate remotely with the meeting on the
link that can be found at www.wayland.mass.us public body meeting information virtual in person and
hybrid uh when required by law allowed by the chair persons wishing to provide public comment
or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location what would be remote at
this point public comment will be limited to two minutes per person so um so i understand julia
the our first item on the agenda is been cancelled is that correct that's right um you still have to
just do the roll call first and then um yes but you're correct so the first item has been removed
so we will not have an executive session okay i'm not showing much on my screen so bear with me on
everybody uh we'll do a roll call is dr brett mortis here yes okay dr genevieve nunn here she is not
here um she's right yep is katherine stiff yeah okay and john stoyer he's here okay and dr bob d francesco
is here okay to reiterate our executive session has been cancelled so we'll start uh to public comment
uh i'd say no one online okay so we will start with public health nurse laura carter hi y'all it might
be helpful if i share my screen if that's okay sure i don't know if i could see it but i'll do my best
all right so for january we're looking at flu uh certainly predominantly and a few cases of lyme
disease um and some cases of covet 19 one case of latent tuberculosis infection so influenza technically
was down from the 89 total cases reported in december and then last week uh when i totaled uh where we
were at as of 217 we were at 35 cases for this month so far with many of the recent cases due to uh
influenza b so as you know there was a cluster of gastrointestinal illness at the residence at
pain estate and so that was uh managed uh between the third of the month and the 11th um with control
measures as advised by me working with um the massachusetts uh state epidemiologists as well
and so that um came under control a few other highlights i did add uh this map if you were to go to this link here the map is now updated by another week so we have one more yellow square here as of now but it just shows uh what the peak and severity has looked like for the flu season thus far
and this again is from when i put this together last week so as of now uh when i checked today there were i believe 282 total uh influenza deaths uh for the state and um seven of which have been children and then we messaged a little bit about uh great meadows has been really good about sharing all of the different uh programming that can be attended by any of our participating municipalities and so um something that we learned about understanding the teen brain and how adults caregivers parents can help foster um decision making etc um so we advised on that within the all schools newsletter um we have a plan plan uh to try to better promote the vaccination guidance aligned with the massachusetts department of public health and the american academy of pediatrics um and so working on uh that now the the draft um both for the schools and for um the community in terms of a statement to still promote uh the importance of vaccinations and there has not been a change uh to state guidance and required vaccines this link here if you were to click on it does bring you to the updated um school immunization requirement form or document that outlines required immunizations and it now links to aap instead of cdc and asip as the previous versions uh this seasonal flu update is not dissimilar to what you've seen in previous reports i haven't had anyone inquire about more vaccines since the last report i gave but i put it here just as a summary um and to introduce uh some of these graphics that i put in just to give an idea um again this information is from uh this web page here but it shows the immunization uh rate of immunization for the communities in massachusetts and so uh you'll see uh that wayland um it's a little hard to appreciate it on this particular map um because i highlighted wayland to show that 59.5 percent as of the time that this was available had been vaccinated so well above the state average but still certainly room for improvement and this map here shows vaccination uh rate for uh wayland residents for covet 19 so still well above the massachusetts average and you can see a little better in this graphic here that wayland is one of the the communities that's considerably darker uh than uh much of massachusetts uh our vaccination rate uh is definitely higher um but we would like to uh make sure that it's not falling further and uh to promote it uh all the more so um part of that messaging would then go towards that mission and then just another uh you'll see this i took from state data although it doesn't align and you can see here it says 2023 to 2024 but that uh is in error um the correct dates of the season that it's reflecting our 25 to 26 and then you can see the percentage uh state versus wayland residents for vaccination although i will point out that the massachusetts the the school records which i have here um for students um and the percent vaccinated as of um last mid last month is higher than that so i just wanted to point that out based on the data that we had locally and just a couple things from school uh on the school on the school health service side of course schools were closed this past week for break but i did want to mention that uh we did get together with the school so julia and heather yates the school nurse leader uh and i worked with uh the assistant superintendent betsy gavron to come up with uh a draft school physician consultant agreement or memorandum of understanding um to have something um to have something official dr ellen mahoney uh pediatric physician of wayland pediatrics has been serving voluntarily as the school physician uh for several years um but we put it uh into writing and that document is available in um the e-packet contents as well if you would like to look at that um and she is getting a stipend now through uh the that's paid out through the public schools and then uh one piece of news uh that we only just shared uh with our team here is that our school nurse leader uh will be stepping down from her position at the end of this school year and so uh we'll be working creatively to figure out how to best sustain that school nurse leader position uh going forward and so we will be working hard at that uh over the next weeks and months and that is all i have for you
board members have any questions okay i think we're good thank you maura thank you all stay well take care all right let's move on to one 17 sylvan way so 17 sylvan way um did not respond to our um request for a remote meeting and so um they'll probably be going on the agenda for the next board meeting um but we do have uh folks from 22 south street here um and they are um waiting so we can probably move to that item okay let's move on to 22 south street period they should first install new septic system after building project construction okay how you doing i'm good for the record my name is brian nelson with metro west engineering and i believe sarah woodside is um one of the property owners justin and sarah woodside may be with me in attendance tonight as well um is it okay if i share my screen sure excellent thank you
so we're here tonight just to ask for um a waiver from the local regs um we're in the process of designing a new septic system for the property at 22 south street and i think everybody can see that correct yes okay so just to um kind of give you a quick uh orientation to the site we are located at 22 south street which is south street is located at the bottom of the page um so we're located on the north side of south street and we're kind of a unique lot because we have frontage on south street hill street to the east and center street to the north so a corner lot in um really two different places uh it's a 20 000 square foot lot um the existing house is located um it's roughly rectangular in shape located pretty close to south street um there's an existing driveway that comes off of south street there is a detached garage in the back of the property which actually has a driveway access off of center street um what the applicants are looking to do is install an addition uh which is kind of rectangular in shape to the northeast corner of the house so they'll be removing part of the existing house and removing the existing deck and replacing that with a new addition um and what we're here tonight is just to ask relief for from the requirement of installing the septic system um basically prior to construction of the addition uh the site is is fairly constricted between the existing garage and the house uh so i think it would be uh much better for the health of the new septic system which is shown just north of the house in this location here to be able to um basically at least get the foundation work and the heavy work done for the new addition uh without construction vehicles necessarily passing over storing materials in this area um and then being able to construct the addition i mean the septic system after and if i may just um chime in a little bit um darren and i had been in conversation um about this project and basically we agree that it's better to install the system after the building construction and and we are still reviewing the septic design and we haven't reviewed the um building approval yet either so those parts are still um in the works but it's basically you know the um chain of events and how things transpire um for this particular lot because of you know the complications that brian explained so so julia where can you share the screen again the door okay i think you can see that correct do you want me to zoom in a little bit yeah how's that much better so with the with the with the test was the testing pretty uniform it was there's um there was a little bit of fill in a couple of the test holes and then we had a layer of sand um and when you get below the sand uh there's a restrictive a siltier layer down a little deeper um so testing was consistent in the fact that there was um a beautiful sand up high you get down to varying depths you know anywhere between say five and eight feet below that and you get um you get into a siltier layer groundwater is relatively high at this site um i think probably on average of about four to five feet below grade so you don't think you're going to find ledge anywhere i don't think so uh i think this whole neighborhood i looked at some of the other the plans for the abutting lots um the abutting property um here and you can just kind of see the tail end of it there's a relatively new system that was installed over here um that also had a less than two minute per inch per crate but i don't think we'll find any refusal due to bedrock okay any other questions for the board members
julia do we have to vote on this at all are we waiting i think the board um could vote um could vote this evening if they're ready um to take a vote it's um basically regarding you know when installation occurs and you know we would write a condition in our approvals when when those are ready and um you know that the septic system would be um installed after the addition is is uh constructed okay um so i i make a motion to allow um septic construction after addition is completed do we have a second i'll second okay let's do roll call uh dr brett mortis here katherine steph yes john stoyer yes dr bob de francesco that's approved okay thank you very much have a good night thank you thank you brian thank you have a good night all right uh julia on the agenda the next item i don't have um it's not can't get it on my computer i don't know what's happening so sure so the next uh agenda item is to um basically go over the budget um unfortunately i can't share my screen with that but um i did share it in the e-packet so i can go over it and um see if anyone has any questions is really not um any big changes in our budget uh is that okay with everyone or yes i read it so okay we can start out with um our non-salary budget and really um the town manager um the guidelines were you know really they wanted to um not have any additions to our budget this year and you know that due to concerns for um you know funding and um future possible overrides in the next probably in the next year when we're working on the budget next year but um you know so i can go through um our line items for our non-salary budget which we did comply with that after meeting with the finance director patty and i met with brian keaveney at least twice maybe three times just to you know go over um our budget answer questions that they had and and things like that so um professional services which is a two thousand dollar line item um is you know still these are all the same as last year so i'll just go through them um professional services which is often used for um sometimes projects and um reviews that might need to be done that we might might need help with or um possible other um needs in the department for professional services that we may not be aware of at the beginning of the year um food inspector 15 000 that's for our our contracted food inspector beth grossman mental health services that's hrs that's the same as last year 75 625 mosquito control services um did go up a little bit um based on a um you know cost of living increase for their services so that's uh 30 000 959 and then for catch basin treatments which is um basically in the spring when we buy our bti and um you know whatever we end up buying for catch basin treatments we purchase the products and then they put them in the catch basins which you know is a huge help so that's basically covering that cost for 10 541 and then we've got um training and education which stays the same at 6 500 that covers you know any training costs for um health department staff and that includes the community health nurses as well vehicle repairs is 500 hopefully we don't have any major repairs but we think that will cover you know whatever we might need for the town vehicle that we have um and then we've got groundwater mounding which i'm sorry groundwater monitoring which is an item that we um asked we we met with recreation a number of times because that item is actually has included the lg shipping costs um or rather um not lg shipping costs um to be more specific testing for cyanobacteria the shipping cost that when we're sending it to the lab which is in connecticut and um because recreation is also um involved in that um process because it's their beach you know we we actually were supposed to meet today to talk about this and um figure out um a more you know effective way to handle this because the the shipping was pretty expensive the way we were bringing it over to whalen pack and ship but recreation is going to pay for some of that shipping cost and so i um worked with them and we ended up reducing that number from 4850 to 2850 and so um hopefully that works out and recreation can cover that portion of the shipping costs and then we just need to cover the actual testing of the cyanobacteria by the lab and that line item also covers some of our um water testing of ecoli at the town beach and so and also at deadly pond so it's you know a combination of water testing and shipping and also the public health nuisance account which is the next item um also is the same as last year at 4850 and that you know nuisance account is something that we've used to cover water testing and cyanobacteria testing as well but it's just called something you know it's just called nuisance account just because it could be for a number of things that come up but it is primarily for water testing for the most part and then supplies is also the same at 2000 uh nursing expenses is the same at 9 000 and vehicle gasoline we reduce that from a thousand to seven hundred um you know based on having a little bit of extra money left over that was turned back last year and so the total um that we had for our non-salary budget was a 175 525 and does anyone have any questions about um any of those line items um my first question would be should it be relabeled surface water monitoring versus groundwater monitoring
it probably could be renamed uh that's a really good point um i can ask brian about that uh uh yeah it seems like you call it groundwater monitoring when it's surface water sometimes um it's difficult to get those titles changed and yeah it is definitely not necessarily groundwater mounding it's probably more appropriate to have maybe even just water monitoring you know what i mean so but um i can ask brian about that it would be their department that would change it those are just the actual titles that you know were given through the um probably for through the finance department it's it's fine i just was didn't know it was a simple yeah i'll just take type that in differently or it just it's sort of misleading to think that it is groundwater yeah so um i think it's historically been that and you know for whatever reason they haven't changed it but i can certainly ask you know and find out don't don't waste your breath okay and um anything else no sounds good okay and so um for salary um basically you know we're going on a union contract and the contract has not been negotiated yet um that will begin this coming week um we you know assuming the town building will be open i believe there are some meetings coming up that have been arranged with the town and so um you know once cost of living is figured out then that will be adjusted and there's also a compensation study that the town initiated so we don't know the results of that yet but if there are adjustments to um salaries then that would be reflected also so um you know basically this is just um a tabulation of all the salaries that are in the apps me contract and um you know any steps uh and increases based on um you know what grade level you are or um we only have a few people that are still you know getting step increases so we would just add those in and then um the uh sub nursing line item um is going to be hopefully the same as it was last year we do rely on that quite a bit when we don't have grant money and so you know we did talk about that quite a bit because um they're interested in making cuts wherever they can and so you know given the fact that there are concerns for potential grants not being awarded for a certain thing that we've been able to use for sub nursing in the past and um um you know that's why we were we were asking to keep our line item for sub nursing the same as it was last year which is 24,693 and that basically covers um you know when we've got someone you know out on leave for some reason or someone's out sick or you know screenings things like that at the schools so and we do have um a couple of you know actually several people out on different leaves for medical reasons and so you know this year we probably won't have any turn back and that's what they look at you know oh did you turn back this year and then they you know try to shave back the number so but um pretty sure that we're going to be uh holding that number that 24,693 so that was good and then um the total that at the time that i you know was what had tallied up was it's a one million two sixty four six oh nine um and you know that's really because we've got a lot of staff we have all the community health nurses and um our health department staff and so that's why our number is high um as far as salary goes so does if anyone has any questions um you know i can certainly try to answer them um but you know as far as what the changes will be when we have union negotiations um concluded you know those will be just adjusted based on whatever the the agreements are between the union and the town
and then um just mentioning um you know the what maura had mentioned regarding the uh school nurse leader position which is very important to us and um we are you know sad that heather is stepping down from that position but you know she's got other things that she is um focusing on which you know i certainly can understand that but we really need to make sure that we find a way to have someone do that work so that will be something more and i will be working on and hopefully we can figure something out and get that squared away we do have some time here and so we're happy to know about it in advance um heather is agreeing to continue on through the end of the school year so you know we've got some time to figure that out but so you know i don't know if the board wants to make a motion to support the budget um that would be helpful for our purposes when we probably meet with the finance director a fourth time i'm guessing you know because once the compensation study is presented then there's probably going to be another discussion about the budget because i don't know if they've accommodated for that i don't think they have there's no one's seen the study yet so so we need uh somebody to make a motion to support the board of health uh budget i'll make a motion to approve or support the board of health budget proposed 2020 2026 correct julia and uh a 2027 budget or 2027 okay let's do a call uh dr brett mortis yes yes yes john he's on mute i think he's muted yeah god you're muted i don't think so oh there he is yes i i um yes yes and then dr bob b francesco that support is approved thank you very much
and uh just oops sorry go ahead we're moving on to the health director updates yes so um we have a new uh senior tax work off person who's um we actually have several um that we sign up for every year and we're very thankful to um have our senior tax work off folks help us with different things in the office and we have a new person this year who is helping us with board of health minutes and so i'm expecting to have a couple of sets for our next meeting i know we're a little behind but we are working on that and i'm very excited to have someone who is um able to do minutes and so that's um a little bit of an update on that um as far as the carroll school and the carroll school dosing and mounding review and the rice road coptic church hydro geo uh review will probably we're expecting those to be on the agenda for the next board meeting in march um and housing complaints we've had a couple uh one was at 55 knollwood lane which we're uh actively working on with the tenant and the owner and we have a re-inspection coming up i believe this week maybe next week sometime soon and we also had uh the housing issues wrapped up and a re-inspection completed at 16 oak hill um let me see we had
um an update from our food inspector regarding um all the schools we had some things that she was working on with the schools most of them were related to um you know some pests uh issues that they needed to ramp up on their pest control and some of their um exclusion uh processes like for door sweeps and things like that that um can be problematic for um rodents getting in and stuff like that so those were worked out which was a good thing um also at einstein's same thing that was um also uh they had an issue with pests i mean this time of year is typical for that especially with the cold weather weather we've had which has been pretty extreme you know these critters are trying to get in anywhere they can to find shelter and um the trade show which was at russell's um that was also a good amount of work for um reviewing all the items being served at the trade show as well as you know making sure that everything was um you know meeting the requirements for um safe food handling and whatever items they were serving you know the ingredients that were reviewed and and whatnot and handling of um those items at the trade show also uh china rose i know bob had asked about that at our last meeting they did comply you know with all the requirements that the board had voted on a while back now although they have not had um a lot of um i guess um business with sushi since they have gone um you know into that area um of serving sushi so you know they're still uh serving sushi although you know it was reported that there's not a lot of a lot of business yet so i think they're still trying to you know make that a little more lucrative for them um and let me see oh also for um six and eight damon road and 76 main street that was also a uh project that was before the board last year actually it's not a project it was a um legal order that we had sent to the owner last year for um two failed cesspools and the report that i have for you is that they have been they have submitted a septic design that darren is reviewing so that's good news and we're happy about that so um you know he's working with the design engineer on you know coming up with a plan you know probably some revisions at the time but um that's the report i have for that because the deadline was recently i forget what the exact date was but it might have been even at our last board meeting because i think it might have been in january um does anyone have any questions about uh any of those items but one thing i did want to ask was um how are signatures coming along
sorry i missed the email that you had sent earlier in the week uh last week um i have some signatures and i was planning on going to get more on saturday for i'd like this one meet well let me know if you guys need help just i can take a sheet for you i can get some signatures for you thank you close to what i need so yeah i have the office um john had dropped off a sheet for bob to pick up so bob i don't know if you're going to be around um but uh there is a sheet for you that he was hoping to get some help for and you know i'm sure katie um i don't know if you need help but basically you have to sign the sheet and then um you know because according to um john bob knows a lot of people
well just sheets i can i'll get them filled out what's the deadline the deadline is march 10th okay so we got to work on it so that's why i just want to make sure you know that um because if there's any signatures that are on there that aren't you know verified for whatever reason you really need to get some extra ones that's what they always say you know but i know it's been tough with the cold weather and now the storm but you know there is still some time but it's basically down to crunch time now so i just want to make sure that everyone has it on their radar okay yeah i'll drop off a sheet tomorrow at the with the town clerk if that's okay yeah oh i don't i'm pretty sure we're open tomorrow but i haven't heard anything if for some reason we're not or we're you know opening late i will um let you know i'll email you schools are closed tomorrow oh really okay everything's closed to what i just i mean i'm guessing if anything you know they might do a delayed opening tomorrow i i'd be surprised if they close the building again but um let me take a look and see i will i'll let you know though katie um i could just do anything if it simplifies it okay yeah that's fine wednesday's fun too okay yeah because i'm not um so there's no school tomorrow and you guys are open uh i can come by um i'm working at 12 30 tomorrow so that or maybe wednesday i could possibly come by to get that because then i'll be away for till monday oh okay so um maybe you can text me tomorrow if katie can bring that sheet over some time and then she's down or i'll have my yeah pick it up for me okay i will um i'll get in touch with both of you once i hear about um whether there's i'm guessing that we're open tomorrow but you know all this snow they might have trouble clearing you know finding places to put it that's the only thing i can think of you know so um but i haven't heard otherwise so um but i can both i can email you both once i have a chance to look through my email and see if there's any new information okay thank you yep thanks all right what do we have left yeah we can't do the bills so we have any other general business julia um i think that's it uh there has been um so our our item for 10 shore will be on our next board meeting um there was an email from a resident that had gone to the board regarding um 25 holiday road um development that's uh being initiated by the select board which they were asking the board to you know request that um let me just take a fresh look at it you know uh this person andrew carpenter had asked for the board to you know ask the town to do septic feasibility and um you know write a memo although since that time there's actually a warrant article that is proposing to do um engineering work to study the feasibility of um this development at 25 um holiday road it's for an engineering study and appraisal so um it looks like that's being taken care of already okay anybody have any other questions what's the date of our next board meeting i don't have it in front of me i'm just curious okay oh let me check my calendar just so we have it on record our next board meeting is march 16th okay well snow will be all gone by then so we have to worry about it yeah another storm it's good for us to practice um remote though because you know it's a totally different and if we needed to do it you know it's um it is a little different i i definitely had some technology issues today so um i'm going to have to figure out addressing them not a big deal but all right we need a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn the meeting today okay dr brett mortis yes yes john stoyer yes dr bob de francesco de francesco meetings adjourned thank you thank you very much
and so that um came under control a few other highlights i did add uh this map if you were to go to this link here the map is now updated by another week so we have one more yellow square here as of now but it just shows uh what the peak and severity has looked like for the flu season thus far
and this again is from when i put this together last week so as of now uh when i checked today there were i believe 282 total uh influenza deaths uh for the state and um seven of which have been children and then we messaged a little bit about uh great meadows has been really good about sharing all of the different uh programming that can be attended by any of our participating municipalities and so um something that we learned about understanding the teen brain and how adults caregivers parents can help foster um decision making etc um so we advised on that within the all schools newsletter um we have a plan plan uh to try to better promote the vaccination guidance aligned with the massachusetts department of public health and the american academy of pediatrics um and so working on uh that now the the draft um both for the schools and for um the community in terms of a statement to still promote uh the importance of vaccinations and there has not been a change uh to state guidance and required vaccines this link here if you were to click on it does bring you to the updated um school immunization requirement form or document that outlines required immunizations and it now links to aap instead of cdc and asip as the previous versions uh this seasonal flu update is not dissimilar to what you've seen in previous reports i haven't had anyone inquire about more vaccines since the last report i gave but i put it here just as a summary um and to introduce uh some of these graphics that i put in just to give an idea um again this information is from uh this web page here but it shows the immunization uh rate of immunization for the communities in massachusetts and so uh you'll see uh that wayland um it's a little hard to appreciate it on this particular map um because i highlighted wayland to show that 59.5 percent as of the time that this was available had been vaccinated so well above the state average but still certainly room for improvement and this map here shows vaccination uh rate for uh wayland residents for covet 19 so still well above the massachusetts average and you can see a little better in this graphic here that wayland is one of the the communities that's considerably darker uh than uh much of massachusetts uh our vaccination rate uh is definitely higher um but we would like to uh make sure that it's not falling further and uh to promote it uh all the more so um part of that messaging would then go towards that mission and then just another uh you'll see this i took from state data although it doesn't align and you can see here it says 2023 to 2024 but that uh is in error um the correct dates of the season that it's reflecting our 25 to 26 and then you can see the percentage uh state versus wayland residents for vaccination although i will point out that the massachusetts the the school records which i have here um for students um and the percent vaccinated as of um last mid last month is higher than that so i just wanted to point that out based on the data that we had locally and just a couple things from school uh on the school on the school health service side of course schools were closed this past week for break but i did want to mention that uh we did get together with the school so julia and heather yates the school nurse leader uh and i worked with uh the assistant superintendent betsy gavron to come up with uh a draft school physician consultant agreement or memorandum of understanding um to have something um to have something official dr ellen mahoney uh pediatric physician of wayland pediatrics has been serving voluntarily as the school physician uh for several years um but we put it uh into writing and that document is available in um the e-packet contents as well if you would like to look at that um and she is getting a stipend now through uh the that's paid out through the public schools and then uh one piece of news uh that we only just shared uh with our team here is that our school nurse leader uh will be stepping down from her position at the end of this school year and so uh we'll be working creatively to figure out how to best sustain that school nurse leader position uh going forward and so we will be working hard at that uh over the next weeks and months and that is all i have for you
board members have any questions okay i think we're good thank you maura thank you all stay well take care all right let's move on to one 17 sylvan way so 17 sylvan way um did not respond to our um request for a remote meeting and so um they'll probably be going on the agenda for the next board meeting um but we do have uh folks from 22 south street here um and they are um waiting so we can probably move to that item okay let's move on to 22 south street period they should first install new septic system after building project construction okay how you doing i'm good for the record my name is brian nelson with metro west engineering and i believe sarah woodside is um one of the property owners justin and sarah woodside may be with me in attendance tonight as well um is it okay if i share my screen sure excellent thank you
so we're here tonight just to ask for um a waiver from the local regs um we're in the process of designing a new septic system for the property at 22 south street and i think everybody can see that correct yes okay so just to um kind of give you a quick uh orientation to the site we are located at 22 south street which is south street is located at the bottom of the page um so we're located on the north side of south street and we're kind of a unique lot because we have frontage on south street hill street to the east and center street to the north so a corner lot in um really two different places uh it's a 20 000 square foot lot um the existing house is located um it's roughly rectangular in shape located pretty close to south street um there's an existing driveway that comes off of south street there is a detached garage in the back of the property which actually has a driveway access off of center street um what the applicants are looking to do is install an addition uh which is kind of rectangular in shape to the northeast corner of the house so they'll be removing part of the existing house and removing the existing deck and replacing that with a new addition um and what we're here tonight is just to ask relief for from the requirement of installing the septic system um basically prior to construction of the addition uh the site is is fairly constricted between the existing garage and the house uh so i think it would be uh much better for the health of the new septic system which is shown just north of the house in this location here to be able to um basically at least get the foundation work and the heavy work done for the new addition uh without construction vehicles necessarily passing over storing materials in this area um and then being able to construct the addition i mean the septic system after and if i may just um chime in a little bit um darren and i had been in conversation um about this project and basically we agree that it's better to install the system after the building construction and and we are still reviewing the septic design and we haven't reviewed the um building approval yet either so those parts are still um in the works but it's basically you know the um chain of events and how things transpire um for this particular lot because of you know the complications that brian explained so so julia where can you share the screen again the door okay i think you can see that correct do you want me to zoom in a little bit yeah how's that much better so with the with the with the test was the testing pretty uniform it was there's um there was a little bit of fill in a couple of the test holes and then we had a layer of sand um and when you get below the sand uh there's a restrictive a siltier layer down a little deeper um so testing was consistent in the fact that there was um a beautiful sand up high you get down to varying depths you know anywhere between say five and eight feet below that and you get um you get into a siltier layer groundwater is relatively high at this site um i think probably on average of about four to five feet below grade so you don't think you're going to find ledge anywhere i don't think so uh i think this whole neighborhood i looked at some of the other the plans for the abutting lots um the abutting property um here and you can just kind of see the tail end of it there's a relatively new system that was installed over here um that also had a less than two minute per inch per crate but i don't think we'll find any refusal due to bedrock okay any other questions for the board members
julia do we have to vote on this at all are we waiting i think the board um could vote um could vote this evening if they're ready um to take a vote it's um basically regarding you know when installation occurs and you know we would write a condition in our approvals when when those are ready and um you know that the septic system would be um installed after the addition is is uh constructed okay um so i i make a motion to allow um septic construction after addition is completed do we have a second i'll second okay let's do roll call uh dr brett mortis here katherine steph yes john stoyer yes dr bob de francesco that's approved okay thank you very much have a good night thank you thank you brian thank you have a good night all right uh julia on the agenda the next item i don't have um it's not can't get it on my computer i don't know what's happening so sure so the next uh agenda item is to um basically go over the budget um unfortunately i can't share my screen with that but um i did share it in the e-packet so i can go over it and um see if anyone has any questions is really not um any big changes in our budget uh is that okay with everyone or yes i read it so okay we can start out with um our non-salary budget and really um the town manager um the guidelines were you know really they wanted to um not have any additions to our budget this year and you know that due to concerns for um you know funding and um future possible overrides in the next probably in the next year when we're working on the budget next year but um you know so i can go through um our line items for our non-salary budget which we did comply with that after meeting with the finance director patty and i met with brian keaveney at least twice maybe three times just to you know go over um our budget answer questions that they had and and things like that so um professional services which is a two thousand dollar line item um is you know still these are all the same as last year so i'll just go through them um professional services which is often used for um sometimes projects and um reviews that might need to be done that we might might need help with or um possible other um needs in the department for professional services that we may not be aware of at the beginning of the year um food inspector 15 000 that's for our our contracted food inspector beth grossman mental health services that's hrs that's the same as last year 75 625 mosquito control services um did go up a little bit um based on a um you know cost of living increase for their services so that's uh 30 000 959 and then for catch basin treatments which is um basically in the spring when we buy our bti and um you know whatever we end up buying for catch basin treatments we purchase the products and then they put them in the catch basins which you know is a huge help so that's basically covering that cost for 10 541 and then we've got um training and education which stays the same at 6 500 that covers you know any training costs for um health department staff and that includes the community health nurses as well vehicle repairs is 500 hopefully we don't have any major repairs but we think that will cover you know whatever we might need for the town vehicle that we have um and then we've got groundwater mounding which i'm sorry groundwater monitoring which is an item that we um asked we we met with recreation a number of times because that item is actually has included the lg shipping costs um or rather um not lg shipping costs um to be more specific testing for cyanobacteria the shipping cost that when we're sending it to the lab which is in connecticut and um because recreation is also um involved in that um process because it's their beach you know we we actually were supposed to meet today to talk about this and um figure out um a more you know effective way to handle this because the the shipping was pretty expensive the way we were bringing it over to whalen pack and ship but recreation is going to pay for some of that shipping cost and so i um worked with them and we ended up reducing that number from 4850 to 2850 and so um hopefully that works out and recreation can cover that portion of the shipping costs and then we just need to cover the actual testing of the cyanobacteria by the lab and that line item also covers some of our um water testing of ecoli at the town beach and so and also at deadly pond so it's you know a combination of water testing and shipping and also the public health nuisance account which is the next item um also is the same as last year at 4850 and that you know nuisance account is something that we've used to cover water testing and cyanobacteria testing as well but it's just called something you know it's just called nuisance account just because it could be for a number of things that come up but it is primarily for water testing for the most part and then supplies is also the same at 2000 uh nursing expenses is the same at 9 000 and vehicle gasoline we reduce that from a thousand to seven hundred um you know based on having a little bit of extra money left over that was turned back last year and so the total um that we had for our non-salary budget was a 175 525 and does anyone have any questions about um any of those line items um my first question would be should it be relabeled surface water monitoring versus groundwater monitoring
it probably could be renamed uh that's a really good point um i can ask brian about that uh uh yeah it seems like you call it groundwater monitoring when it's surface water sometimes um it's difficult to get those titles changed and yeah it is definitely not necessarily groundwater mounding it's probably more appropriate to have maybe even just water monitoring you know what i mean so but um i can ask brian about that it would be their department that would change it those are just the actual titles that you know were given through the um probably for through the finance department it's it's fine i just was didn't know it was a simple yeah i'll just take type that in differently or it just it's sort of misleading to think that it is groundwater yeah so um i think it's historically been that and you know for whatever reason they haven't changed it but i can certainly ask you know and find out don't don't waste your breath okay and um anything else no sounds good okay and so um for salary um basically you know we're going on a union contract and the contract has not been negotiated yet um that will begin this coming week um we you know assuming the town building will be open i believe there are some meetings coming up that have been arranged with the town and so um you know once cost of living is figured out then that will be adjusted and there's also a compensation study that the town initiated so we don't know the results of that yet but if there are adjustments to um salaries then that would be reflected also so um you know basically this is just um a tabulation of all the salaries that are in the apps me contract and um you know any steps uh and increases based on um you know what grade level you are or um we only have a few people that are still you know getting step increases so we would just add those in and then um the uh sub nursing line item um is going to be hopefully the same as it was last year we do rely on that quite a bit when we don't have grant money and so you know we did talk about that quite a bit because um they're interested in making cuts wherever they can and so you know given the fact that there are concerns for potential grants not being awarded for a certain thing that we've been able to use for sub nursing in the past and um um you know that's why we were we were asking to keep our line item for sub nursing the same as it was last year which is 24,693 and that basically covers um you know when we've got someone you know out on leave for some reason or someone's out sick or you know screenings things like that at the schools so and we do have um a couple of you know actually several people out on different leaves for medical reasons and so you know this year we probably won't have any turn back and that's what they look at you know oh did you turn back this year and then they you know try to shave back the number so but um pretty sure that we're going to be uh holding that number that 24,693 so that was good and then um the total that at the time that i you know was what had tallied up was it's a one million two sixty four six oh nine um and you know that's really because we've got a lot of staff we have all the community health nurses and um our health department staff and so that's why our number is high um as far as salary goes so does if anyone has any questions um you know i can certainly try to answer them um but you know as far as what the changes will be when we have union negotiations um concluded you know those will be just adjusted based on whatever the the agreements are between the union and the town
and then um just mentioning um you know the what maura had mentioned regarding the uh school nurse leader position which is very important to us and um we are you know sad that heather is stepping down from that position but you know she's got other things that she is um focusing on which you know i certainly can understand that but we really need to make sure that we find a way to have someone do that work so that will be something more and i will be working on and hopefully we can figure something out and get that squared away we do have some time here and so we're happy to know about it in advance um heather is agreeing to continue on through the end of the school year so you know we've got some time to figure that out but so you know i don't know if the board wants to make a motion to support the budget um that would be helpful for our purposes when we probably meet with the finance director a fourth time i'm guessing you know because once the compensation study is presented then there's probably going to be another discussion about the budget because i don't know if they've accommodated for that i don't think they have there's no one's seen the study yet so so we need uh somebody to make a motion to support the board of health uh budget i'll make a motion to approve or support the board of health budget proposed 2020 2026 correct julia and uh a 2027 budget or 2027 okay let's do a call uh dr brett mortis yes yes yes john he's on mute i think he's muted yeah god you're muted i don't think so oh there he is yes i i um yes yes and then dr bob b francesco that support is approved thank you very much
and uh just oops sorry go ahead we're moving on to the health director updates yes so um we have a new uh senior tax work off person who's um we actually have several um that we sign up for every year and we're very thankful to um have our senior tax work off folks help us with different things in the office and we have a new person this year who is helping us with board of health minutes and so i'm expecting to have a couple of sets for our next meeting i know we're a little behind but we are working on that and i'm very excited to have someone who is um able to do minutes and so that's um a little bit of an update on that um as far as the carroll school and the carroll school dosing and mounding review and the rice road coptic church hydro geo uh review will probably we're expecting those to be on the agenda for the next board meeting in march um and housing complaints we've had a couple uh one was at 55 knollwood lane which we're uh actively working on with the tenant and the owner and we have a re-inspection coming up i believe this week maybe next week sometime soon and we also had uh the housing issues wrapped up and a re-inspection completed at 16 oak hill um let me see we had
um an update from our food inspector regarding um all the schools we had some things that she was working on with the schools most of them were related to um you know some pests uh issues that they needed to ramp up on their pest control and some of their um exclusion uh processes like for door sweeps and things like that that um can be problematic for um rodents getting in and stuff like that so those were worked out which was a good thing um also at einstein's same thing that was um also uh they had an issue with pests i mean this time of year is typical for that especially with the cold weather weather we've had which has been pretty extreme you know these critters are trying to get in anywhere they can to find shelter and um the trade show which was at russell's um that was also a good amount of work for um reviewing all the items being served at the trade show as well as you know making sure that everything was um you know meeting the requirements for um safe food handling and whatever items they were serving you know the ingredients that were reviewed and and whatnot and handling of um those items at the trade show also uh china rose i know bob had asked about that at our last meeting they did comply you know with all the requirements that the board had voted on a while back now although they have not had um a lot of um i guess um business with sushi since they have gone um you know into that area um of serving sushi so you know they're still uh serving sushi although you know it was reported that there's not a lot of a lot of business yet so i think they're still trying to you know make that a little more lucrative for them um and let me see oh also for um six and eight damon road and 76 main street that was also a uh project that was before the board last year actually it's not a project it was a um legal order that we had sent to the owner last year for um two failed cesspools and the report that i have for you is that they have been they have submitted a septic design that darren is reviewing so that's good news and we're happy about that so um you know he's working with the design engineer on you know coming up with a plan you know probably some revisions at the time but um that's the report i have for that because the deadline was recently i forget what the exact date was but it might have been even at our last board meeting because i think it might have been in january um does anyone have any questions about uh any of those items but one thing i did want to ask was um how are signatures coming along
sorry i missed the email that you had sent earlier in the week uh last week um i have some signatures and i was planning on going to get more on saturday for i'd like this one meet well let me know if you guys need help just i can take a sheet for you i can get some signatures for you thank you close to what i need so yeah i have the office um john had dropped off a sheet for bob to pick up so bob i don't know if you're going to be around um but uh there is a sheet for you that he was hoping to get some help for and you know i'm sure katie um i don't know if you need help but basically you have to sign the sheet and then um you know because according to um john bob knows a lot of people
well just sheets i can i'll get them filled out what's the deadline the deadline is march 10th okay so we got to work on it so that's why i just want to make sure you know that um because if there's any signatures that are on there that aren't you know verified for whatever reason you really need to get some extra ones that's what they always say you know but i know it's been tough with the cold weather and now the storm but you know there is still some time but it's basically down to crunch time now so i just want to make sure that everyone has it on their radar okay yeah i'll drop off a sheet tomorrow at the with the town clerk if that's okay yeah oh i don't i'm pretty sure we're open tomorrow but i haven't heard anything if for some reason we're not or we're you know opening late i will um let you know i'll email you schools are closed tomorrow oh really okay everything's closed to what i just i mean i'm guessing if anything you know they might do a delayed opening tomorrow i i'd be surprised if they close the building again but um let me take a look and see i will i'll let you know though katie um i could just do anything if it simplifies it okay yeah that's fine wednesday's fun too okay yeah because i'm not um so there's no school tomorrow and you guys are open uh i can come by um i'm working at 12 30 tomorrow so that or maybe wednesday i could possibly come by to get that because then i'll be away for till monday oh okay so um maybe you can text me tomorrow if katie can bring that sheet over some time and then she's down or i'll have my yeah pick it up for me okay i will um i'll get in touch with both of you once i hear about um whether there's i'm guessing that we're open tomorrow but you know all this snow they might have trouble clearing you know finding places to put it that's the only thing i can think of you know so um but i haven't heard otherwise so um but i can both i can email you both once i have a chance to look through my email and see if there's any new information okay thank you yep thanks all right what do we have left yeah we can't do the bills so we have any other general business julia um i think that's it uh there has been um so our our item for 10 shore will be on our next board meeting um there was an email from a resident that had gone to the board regarding um 25 holiday road um development that's uh being initiated by the select board which they were asking the board to you know request that um let me just take a fresh look at it you know uh this person andrew carpenter had asked for the board to you know ask the town to do septic feasibility and um you know write a memo although since that time there's actually a warrant article that is proposing to do um engineering work to study the feasibility of um this development at 25 um holiday road it's for an engineering study and appraisal so um it looks like that's being taken care of already okay anybody have any other questions what's the date of our next board meeting i don't have it in front of me i'm just curious okay oh let me check my calendar just so we have it on record our next board meeting is march 16th okay well snow will be all gone by then so we have to worry about it yeah another storm it's good for us to practice um remote though because you know it's a totally different and if we needed to do it you know it's um it is a little different i i definitely had some technology issues today so um i'm going to have to figure out addressing them not a big deal but all right we need a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn the meeting today okay dr brett mortis yes yes john stoyer yes dr bob de francesco de francesco meetings adjourned thank you thank you very much