December 15, 2025 – Board of Health – Video & Transcript
December 15, 2025 - Board of Health
This is to start the Florida Health meeting for December 15, 2025 at 6.30 p.m.
This is a hybrid meeting in person or Zoom.
One may watch or may participate remotely with the meeting link.
It can be found at...
Town website.
Town website, pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025.
This meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means
in accordance with the football law.
And then we just need to call in each board member's name.
We need a roll call.
Brett Morris.
Here.
Genevieve Anand.
Here. Kate Stiff. Here. And John Storer. Here. Perfect.
And then the first agenda item... First agenda item is public comment. And I don't hear or see anyone. So, the next is public health nurse update. Hi, everyone.
So, I have a somewhat lengthier report for you this evening, but only because I added in a bunch of just updates for Massachusetts and nationally. So, starting with the November muniple disease numbers, a few cases of tick-borne illness between Borrelia, the emotoi infection, and Lyme. Three cases of enterovirus, one of Gerbe streptococcus. There's another tick-borne human granulocytic anamplosmosis, some influenza, one case of tuberculosis, latent not active disease, and COVID-19 cases as well. So, nothing unexpected there. Any questions about the November numbers?
So, I put in just a little bit about the recent ACIP, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and their recent vote on 12-5. So, I won't read through all of this, but the vote basically was a shift in national vaccination policy, and basically, it rescinded the universal recommendation for hepatitis B birth dose vaccine for infants, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health with Governor Healy did denounce that vote in a statement, which I've linked to as well. And then, the National Infectious Disease Weather Report. I put a graphic there and some numbers, basically showing that common cold has been driving nationally, the majority of nasal symptoms, but starting to decline, while flu is certainly on the rise, which is, of course, typical for this time of year. And I'll get into Waylon's numbers more recently in just a fit. I'm still watching a new strain of flu that's been hitting other parts of the world, and COVID-19 levels are still low. So, I've also included information about, nationally, about COVID-19 and flu vaccination rates. I wish I had more Waylon-specific information for you in terms of summary. The hope is that we can work with one of our regional epidemiologists to be able to better gather that for you all. But just showing the national lower rates of vaccination this year compared to this time last year and what that looks like for different age groups, basically the overall message being that with lower vaccination coverage, we could have a more severe winter respiratory season with increased hospitalizations as we see transmission of illnesses ramp up. So, the idea being still promoting vaccination and that it's not too late to get vaccinated, we still have vaccine information up on the website for the health department, and there is information on mass.gov's website about all the many things that can still be done to protect yourself and others around you from illness. So, I did add in the Waylon-specific information just to say that we are certainly seeing, and I'm sure some of you are seeing this in practice, but we are certainly seeing that uptick in flu A. In Waylon, we've seen now up to 29 cases of tested folks, not including, of course, any at-home tests that have been done, but tests in offices or hospitals or other clinics, just for these two weeks of December is up to 29 when it was just six for the month last month. So, that shows a significant increase there, and we are up a little bit in COVID-19 cases, too, with eight so far during that period of time, whereas last month, we were at six total for the month. The seasonal vaccination update, we've given now a total of 457 vaccines through and including today. Folks are still coming in for flu and COVID-19 vaccines, just at a much lower rate, and so we've given some COVID vaccines as well since those office hours started only last month, and they'll continue at least through the end of this month. So, I did reach out to the five summer combination independent assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing, hospice facilities in Wayland to try to connect with those directors of nursing and to pull them on their vaccination practices for residents and staff and also to extend those vaccine office hours to their staff if that helps to increase access and I did want to add just a little bit about the regional opioid abatement survey. So, Julie and I are part of the Wayland Opioid Settlement Working Group, and we meet monthly to discuss opioid abatement fund use, but also we are supporting the Great Meadows Regional Opioid Abatement Survey, which has been out for a few months, and hopefully maybe you've seen an advertisement or two for that, and if you haven't already filled out the survey, please do. There's a link on the main page under news, but so far, Wayland has received 124 survey responses, at least as of December 9th, and the region has 943, and focus groups are ongoing with key informant interviews upcoming, so still working on that, and the expectation being that the survey will close very soon, likely at the end of this month, although the date will probably be determined at the next meeting tomorrow.
Unfortunately, the grant that we had applied for in an effort to enhance public health communications in Wayland was not chosen for funding. They did have a record of 42 applicants for the Emerson Health grant session, so that is not as great news, but something that we can still find ways to work toward in other ways. And then a bunch of school health service updates, allergy awareness, and EpiPen training is something that I'm on the schedule to do with school bus drivers as part of their education, and we'll be doing that later this week. The nurses have been working to promote education on communicable disease, especially flu and COVID-19, for prevention. They've been working hard at Winter Sports Clarence, clearing over 300 athletes for participation, and then work through the high school has been done by our nurse there, Tim, on education surrounding sexually transmitted infections.
Period Equity, a partnership with Mass Now, has provided menstrual products in all schools to eliminate barriers to access and ensure that students are not missing school due to menstruation. And then the school health team did have a professional development meeting with the current school physician, Dr. Ellen Mahoney of Weyland Pediatrics. And lastly, just of note, we do have a school nurse opening at the preschool, the Children's Way. So we are promoting that now. And that is all I have for you. Any questions? Moira, can you send a link to the opioid survey again? You said that closes next week? It likely closes by the end of the year. And if you want to direct anyone to it, we can certainly follow up and send the link. But if you want to direct anyone to it, if you go to the main Weyland homepage and look under news, last I checked within the last day or two, it was still right there on the main page. But sometimes it gets knocked down by other things. So, but I can absolutely follow up with that.
So it looks like we're down COVID cases from last year, this time. Maybe up a little bit with flu cases. Nationally, COVID cases have been pretty low. And I think it's hard. The most recent predictions, I think it's hard really to predict where we'll end up with COVID. There's predictions of waves during certain seasons, but then sometimes things don't go as predicted. And so we are just waiting and seeing and sending messages of prevention. Still, the tools that we do have in terms of vaccination, where appropriate, and other tools like staying home when sick. Yeah, the vaccination rate has really surprised me that, you know, less than six in a hundred children are vaccinated. And these are the national numbers too. Oh, they're the national. They're not Weyland numbers. Correct. And I wish that I could give you more Weyland-specific numbers. Massachusetts does tend to have some higher vaccine rates compared to much of the nation. But unfortunately, it was difficult for me to put together from the Massachusetts Immunization Information System. But we're hoping to do that to better support the drive for education and any, you know, campaign toward vaccine hesitancy for next year. Yeah, I have to say, we had an uptick of cases in clinic today. Like I had one and the staff who was checking, they check right near me. They were like, positive, positive. I think it happens after Thanksgiving, like a week or two after Thanksgiving, everything upticks. And the patient I saw was extremely sick and she, a lot of patients are refusing the COVID vaccine. I would say 50% of my patients who do vaccinate for everything else just think they don't need to be vaccinated for COVID anymore because it's been mild. But the reason it's been mild is because everybody's been vaccinated, which they don't get. So I just saw somebody who was very sick and I'm pretty sure next year she's going to be vaccinated. So it might be one of those things where the population is just feeling like it was an epidemic or a pandemic, a pandemic, and it's gone, right? So they're thinking like it's going to fade out, but they don't realize. When you say it's like flu, then they're like, oh, you know, it's going to keep coming back. So anyway, I think next year, it'll probably, depending on what happens this season, it's going to take one more wave of like bad infections for people to really think they need to be vaccinated every year. That's my kind of sense of it.
Not hopefully never as bad as we started, but just, you know, bad enough that people get really sick.
I don't want them to, I mean, if it fades out and to be like a little common cold coronavirus, that would be great, but I don't think we're there yet.
Yeah. There was a patient also today whose son was sick like a week and a half ago. I think a bunch of them got the flu at school, but she only had symptoms and they were pretty much gone by today. So, but I think, yeah, I think it's about to ramp up a lot more.
And the question with the kids is like, who do they infect, right? They get well and then they're bouncing back to school in two days. And then like the grandparents who I see are, or you see, you know, they're sick for like two weeks. Yeah. So the older patients, the seniors start tending to get the COVID vaccines. But like middle-aged and I don't do kids, but 18 to 65, like much less.
Thanks, Melora. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. I was just wondering if you could, I know it's not asking for this, but norovirus, you could have been kind of around. Any things? So, well, no cases have come through to me in Wayland recently.
Only a matter of time. I expect to see some. And I do think a lot of times, at least from what I've seen, when I know norovirus is in the community to a degree and, you know, we see it in other towns and the reality too, is that a lot then are experiencing infection, but not going in for evaluation and or testing. And so then there are a lot of infections that are out there in the community that we just don't have any proof of through the virtual epidemiologic network. So it's certainly very possible that there's norovirus in the community, but we just haven't seen it coming through through test results yet. Do they check wastewater for norovirus as well? Like they check for COVID?
Because we rarely send stool. I mean, we rarely send stool samples for norovirus, right? I mean, so I don't, I'm wondering how they get the data. It's interesting. Right. I've often seen it when people do have, you know, either for a lot of the GI illnesses, they're getting testing depending on the severity of their symptoms or if they have a prolonged illness. So a lot of people who are improving quickly then are not seeking that care or end up with testing. I read in the news that the strain this year is more virulent, more nasty. I think it's already started in some parts of the country. So it's undergone some mutations and it's worse. So we have that to look forward to.
Highly transmissible. Well, that's not true. I forget what it was. Are you starting it? Medford School was shut down for like a couple days or so. And they like cleaned the whole school and yeah. What happens on cruise ships? Oh, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Update on high logical peer review for 169 Rice Road. Yep. So we received the peer review and it was shared with the applicant and their engineer. And we met with the applicant and their engineer. Darren and I met with them Friday,
I believe it was, and just kind of talked through what we typically see in this kind of peer review, which is a response in writing typically if they have any feedback or comments regarding the peer review. And so they were preparing that and actually I saw something come through right before the board meeting. So we'll be looking at that probably in the next couple of days to move to the next step, you know, probably see what their responses are, connect with the peer reviewer, connect everyone together. And, you know, it will be likely an agenda item to just circle back and conclude at our next board meeting in January. I read what you wrote and I mean, I don't have a septic plan showing where all the testing took place on it, but they didn't seem like they did any test deeper than what, eight or nine feet, ten feet.
And you'd think for a site like that that there's going to be groundwater mounding, bottling, that they would need more extensive testing than what you'd do for a house seven, you know, just, especially given there's a little edge on it.
So, right.
Well, so we'll be looking at that and talking about it and we'll bring the feedback to the board and we'll probably discuss it at our next, that's what our plan is to, you know, sort of conclude it at our next board meeting.
Tenshore Drive, we have an inspection this week, which is good news for us on Thursday. Our regional health agent will be participating in that inspection and they'll be probably putting something together for the board after that. Potentially, we would discuss it at an executive session likely. But we're pretty pleased that the owner is cooperating with us on that. So, that's a positive thing.
The health department fees review and recommended increases. I don't know if anyone has had a chance to look at. We don't have to make a decision tonight, but we could start at least at some of these numbers.
And Ann, Lurie, again, our regional health agent and inspector actually put all this information together. I was looking for at least our seven towns in the collaborative and then some other communities that I thought would be helpful. Newton, Framingham, Maynard, Acton, Franklin, Natick, were added as other comparable fee structures which are not always easy to follow. So, some of these fees are handled much differently in each town. That's what the challenge is. They may have a fee structure that's completely different than ours or depending on the category type. And so, you know, she went through and pulled out what things potentially were comparable and some notes and basic information from her perspective which I think was helpful because she's familiar with what these fees are for and usually what they involve and, you know, how to sort of pull them out from town's different fee schedules which can be also a little confusing but this was a huge help without doing a pretty complicated calculation to figure out exactly how much it costs us to do these administrative tasks or inspections which I think probably was already addressed initially at the very beginning, you know, when these fees were established or at least at some level we can get a general idea of where we lie, you know, within some of these other towns and so after looking this over quite a bit getting some feedback from Darren and from our food inspector and also from Anne, our regional inspector, I plugged in the areas that I thought could use an increase and what the increases were. So on the septic hauler, is that a company buying a 150 license for as many trucks as you want to put in the town?
Yes.
Okay. So I think the reason why we put the refuse hauler at a higher number, there's a few reasons. One of them is that some of these haulers are very difficult to track down and get them to actually pay or have a permit renewal and pay for it. And so there's actually a lot of time spent on chasing people around that haven't renewed their refuse hauler permits. Septic haulers, not as common, you know, because a lot of them we know and they're local folks and so I'm sure there are some and, you know, our number isn't really that high but I don't know that we need to go from 100 to 200 or 250, although someone else might disagree. I plugged in 150 and I plugged in 200 for the refuse hauler because I see that as being more time consuming for our admin staff, you know, where we're checking up on it. Did you renew, you know, following up and emailing or phone calls and things like that and we do have a lot more, you know, I think different refuse haulers that come into town where, you know, we have to inspect the truck and things like that whereas septic haulers are sort of the same ones for the most part. So what do you inspect on a refuse hauler truck? I mean, in general, it's just the basic condition of the truck and if it's, you know, how it's taken care of and, you know, ask them a few questions. Do they have to have two separate areas for recycle and waste or can they just haul waste or how do you do it? that is something that Dan handles so I'd have to check with him. I know you don't have to. Well, I mean, it's a good question, you know. Okay. Yep.
For well permits, you know, I find that they do require a lot more time than what would be covered by $125. I mean, there's a lot of ports that are generated by the well drillers that are usually something that we need to look at. We have to find the file. We have to look at, you know, did they install it where it was supposed to go and did they provide an as-built of the well location? You know, so, and that could generate more work down the road, but that's another story if the state ever adopted like a across-the-board well, potable well private well regulation. That would make it a lot different for us, but right now, I think, you know, an increase from $125, I think, would make sense for wells, because I think it's mostly irrigation. But is it like 10? There were a lot more at one point in time. Like, it sort of ebbs and flows. Right now, no. I'd have to look at the permit numbers, but there was a time when we were getting a ton of requests for irrigation wells. It seems to have died back a little bit, but it's still potential. You know, it could kick up at any time. Sorry, I had a related question, Julia. So, you know, when there's a water ban and they say you can't water your lawn, are those private wells also subject to the same rules? Not to my knowledge, no. So, that makes no sense to me, because they're drawing from the same water, water, water, water, trough in the earth. Because I see these green lawns and then I was thinking, oh, how come they're not getting caught? And then I was thinking, you know, because we talked about the irrigation wells, and they probably have one of those, but if they're drawing from the same aquifer, it's not fair, it just makes no sense. So, that is water that's been talked about before as a broader topic by, I think it was the DPW at that, at one point in time. I don't think it went anywhere because, to my knowledge, when there's a water ban, if you have a private irrigation well, the ban does not apply to you. Yeah, but they're not getting water from some cloud, they're taking it from the same place that we take the water, you know what I'm saying.
So, it's probably not our purview, but I was just wondering if there was somebody to just find out why they don't do that. I just have a strong passion for water conservation.
I've grown up in a country where there are water shortages and I think people here don't appreciate the value of just being able to turn the tap on and have water all the time. We do conserve that with some gusto because it's going in the negative direction quite rapidly in a lot of the country. We are fortunate in the northeast but we won't be if we don't manage it well. I think the reason why people get these irrigation wells is because they want to use the water during water bans and water their lawns as much as I agree with the concept that I mean I have a house that has sand for a lawn and I have no intention to have a turf lawn you know but some people want a turf lawn and it's important to them and that's why they actually want an irrigation well so they can water their lawn. It does happen. Well it's not just I mean part of it is during a water ban but I think for the most part it's significantly cheaper because you're not paying the water it. That's the other part. But if you're going to have a nice lawn it needs water and it's nearly free and to pump it out yourself because it's not having to be treated and go through the town's pipes and all that. Right. And as a private home owner with their own private well that's their right to use their water but yes it's the same aquifer. it's not water it's the water of the earth I mean which belongs to all the communities it's not their water. Anyway. It's kind of a gray area. Yeah.
Yeah. Well in some parts of the country like in Nevada and Arizona and all that they're not even allowed to have grass on their lawns anymore. San Diego they just have to have the desert gardens you know. I mean it'll come to that eventually here but it's sad that it's like getting squandered you know. My personal feelings.
Yeah. We need water for drink. You need water for drink. Yeah.
I'd definitely rather live in a grassy forested area than have one person have a nice lawn and it'd be desert everywhere.
Animal keeping. I proposed an increase to the new applicant because it does take a significant amount of work. There's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of questions. I'm happy to take care of those things but it does cost more than $50 for an animal keeping permit and they have to come to the board for renewal. I think $50 is fine just to have the administrative paperwork covered. That was why I proposed an increase there. I didn't see much. We had looked at camps not that long ago. However, going down to tobacco sales, there is a lot of time spent on tobacco but that's another leg of work that's done through a regional grant that we're involved with. It's not a direct cost to the town but it is work that's done through the health department and board of health. we have a leader of the tobacco work, Perry, who works through Framingham. He's our tobacco coordinator and he's very knowledgeable and I just feel like $100 is a pretty small fee for that type of permit.
Moving on to the next page where we have a couple of there's one question mark here on retail food that I'm still looking into. We were looking at potentially for the bigger supermarkets like Donland's and Stop and Shop that we could consider the square footage of the retail area which I need to check into a little further to get actual numbers for that. For the temporary event host we had discussed that at a prior board meeting and that was a number we agreed upon, $150 to help pay for the administrative work that's done for some of these temporary events that take place at Russell's and then we've got $150 and then we've got temporary food vendor. We've got two different fees that we also had already talked about at the same time as this.
$75 for the food vendor who's a smaller vendor and then $125 for a larger vendor where there would be more work done to review potentially what they're selling at the event.
The DWI's disposal works installer test fee which we were looking at $100. I was looking at proposing an increase to $135 based on there is a lot of back and forth and planning that goes into when are they coming in and making arrangements reviewing the exam and checking the answers and things like that and then there's a conversation about the results and that's why I proposed to increase that fee.
And then going down to the HACCP food plan review on the next page which is the sushi permit that we just went through which to me clearly was more than $50 to do all that work have a board meeting Beth reviewed the plan I think twice two or three times I was involved in it I think $150 would be a reasonable increase for that considering you know Sudbury actually has $200 for their fee and they're pretty savvy with food so they have a good idea of fee costs as well and then increasing our re-inspection fee to $75 and then going down to food service establishment we were looking at a fee for establishments that are greater than 50 seats and we have a number of them we have the Villa Takara Coach Grill China Rose and Jindu at this time Terrain will also be one of those so we were looking at potential increase to $510 for greater than 50 and leaving the under 50 at $310 and on the last page for a seasonal pool I was recommending that we increase that fee to $150 I thought $100 was pretty low for the amount of work that goes into doing pool inspection and the paperwork and the certifications and things that are involved with that so that was why I proposed an increase there and I mean the board can take some time and think about these numbers we could reconvene at our next meeting and look at it again maybe take a look at some of the other fees on here that you might have questions about I can find out more about the refuse dollar so is the goal of the fee to cover 100% of the cost of the board of health person that's doing anything to deal with it or I think it should cover costs for sure yeah so I or is it is it just sort of an arbitrary number that really doesn't have much to do because we don't want to necessarily disincentive these farmer markets and things like that and having vendors come in if they're a little guy trying to do something and it's yeah it's $75 for a weekend or one visit and they're only going to make $250 there and it just
no but it's just it's the philosophical is are the fees there to try to cover costs in entirely basically yeah if you ask Brian Keveney yes that's why they're pushing for us to look at these fees and make some recommendations over increases he's asked me numerous times about this list that I have been looking at but other things have come up so once we have a decision on this which could be at our next meeting then our recommendation will go to the assistant town administrator she will look at what our recommendations are and bring it to the select board for their vote and that's happened with some other departments already the building department has increased their fees significantly I don't know what was done to look at fees to figure out where we lie I'm sure that some work was done on that I wasn't involved with that but we've done homework here so I think now is the time to look a little closer maybe my numbers could be adjusted a little bit I'm going
looking at for Jenna myself there's so much time spent on this there has been I appreciate that and they all put that together you know so we have spent time trying to do diligence and you know we didn't just randomly pick every single fee and increase them all we picked the ones that
look across the board and you look comparatively we're kind of middle of the road or maybe towards the high end for some but it really depends on how much work you're doing and just being on the board for the last whatever four years that I've been I know how much time goes into some
and I agree with the tobacco sales price too because that one jumped but that's that's fair I think they get them so fast and you never know someone may drop their tobacco sale if they decide that they don't want to pay that fee that's always a
he came here to our health department on December 3rd and we talked through some things that he was working on those things have been straightened out as far as a couple of establishments in town we ironed some things out we currently have sorry Julie do we want to vote on the fees or do you want to keep that can down the road another month if the board would
rush you through that I know sorry so he is pretty motivated to make some modifications to our regulations that will be recommended for edits and re establishing a new regulation and I'll highlight those changes one of them would be no vapes being sold in Wayland which actually when Governor Baker had the ban remember the temporary ban on vapes it was like I forget what year it was but it was like COVID times and people weren't doing inspections but we were like some towns weren't as far as the vape part we went out and made sure that no one was selling vapes and a lot of these are still not selling them because they don't think they are allowed to which is fine with me I'd rather not have vapes sold in Wayland and it it's something that I would be recommending although the board would have to vote on it so that's one thing that he's proposing and also no pouches those new pouches that you put in your mouth that a lot of them have flavors and different things and we had talked a little bit
are identifying these hidden flavors by smelling these products and then making rules that way which is really hard to do and I think creates a lot of work and time for board members which I don't know if it's productive but another way to do it
as well those were two things that I was in favor of that the board would obviously have to vote on once we have a draft regulation to look at which he's working on I will share it with the board we can talk about it at a board meeting he probably will zoom in I'm sure and we can have a discussion about it and then figure out if we want to move forward with a public hearing which can get a little contentious but it's something that we can consider I had a question about the SNF test you did you mention board members and SNF tests so you bring it to the board to
there's products that you would sniff yes and make a decision on whether they're flavored or not based on sniffing them so it's not written on the ingredients that flavoring I see that's how tricky it is these days that's how they get around it and I had a young patient who was doing and they think it's like I mean it's almost like candy you know it's just awful right so how do you know one person could say it smells like mango another one says it smells like strawberry and I mean I have heard at a bigger meeting we had probably just prior to this meeting with Perry we had a meeting of all the towns that he covers and the state was there and they were just talking through some of the work
sniff test and they were not saying that it was a good way to go about it because it's just not really objective or consistent or you know like I don't have a sense of smell there you go that's another problem if someone has a cold what do you I have allergies I'd be just like sneezing the other thing I think is kids this I think this kid in particular he thought this was a step up from smoking which maybe it is but mouth cancer is not any more pleasant than lung cancer you know yeah so yeah I would I mean to me like just banning it they can go to Framingham or
get stuff online they can always order Amazon delivery or they like fake they fake IDs the kids who look more grown up get fake IDs it's just yeah for an older sibling I mean there's lots of ways they figure out how to get around it unfortunately wow he was in middle school Gigi I'm sorry he was in middle school the year no no I'm just saying for banning it in the town that's when they start right that's when the habits start and where did I I just heard it on a recent thing if they get addicted at that age it sticks like for life more than if you were exposed to it in say college so blocking it if you can whatever you can do like if they can walk over to the local 7-11 from middle school and have some older sibling or somebody it's right there it's very easy for them to do if you did it
have the draft once we have it and there will be like a separate page that kind of highlights the changes so they're easy to look at I don't you know know what all the changes are because there will just be some updates in there as well that cover things that
yeah oh yeah they'll have to look at the final draft right and also he's talking about this is a separate idea just a thought the I don't know what other towns are looking at this but a regulation to prohibit the sale of craton I have no idea what that is Gigi I actually and it was pretty severe it's it's a synthetic equivalent for is it for marijuana right I forget it's a synthetic drug and it's easily available and it's cheap it's either it's either marijuana or benzos or it was but he he was full blown addicted to it it was he he had to go to a like an outpatient he had to go to an addiction specialist basically I just I just looked it up it's an herbal substance from the leaves of mitra gyna tropical tree in the coffee family and it
doing it four five times a day or something and if he didn't it would be like he would start shaking sweating it was like pretty he didn't realize what he was doing too he just got it at a gas station somewhere at one time and that's how it started I guess at lower doses the truck drivers probably use it for as a stimulant right it's a non like a non prescription stimulant at a low dose oh yeah so you know we know that that craton is and I'd have to look into it further to see what all the problems are that are going on with craton but they're out there and obviously you know Dr. Mortis has experienced a patient with some issues with that and so Perry was talking about ideas that towns can propose to deal with craton I don't know what would be involved with that that has nothing to do with our tobacco regulations that would be a separate regulation so just something I wanted to mention because I know it's a public health issue that's going on out there and other towns are talking about it as well how is it classified I'm sorry how is it classified like in you know how like your drug classifications and scheduling of I guess it's an herbal product so I don't know I think it's an herbal product yeah let me just pull it up but so is marijuana so I don't even know I don't think it even is class I think it's not FDA approved okay I'm looking it up here
so she was in rehab this is years ago at least 15 years ago she was in rehab so she had lost access to her street drugs like stronger opioids and then she took this thinking like oh this is like this is fine and this will get me by but then she also got addicted it was a long time ago that was that was the exact same story as the guy he yeah he saw he was he was like he heard about it or he saw it in the gas station because I
this is a drug fact sheet from the DEA it says kratom is not controlled under the controlled substances act however there may be some state regulations or prohibitions against the possession and use of kratom the FDA has not approved kratom for any medical use in addition the DEA has listed kratom as a drug and chemical concern and so I
capsule or extract leaves may also be dried or powdered and ingested as tea the leaf may be chewed increased alertness physical energy and talkativeness can lead to addiction several cases of psychosis resulting from the use have been reported where individuals may exhibit psychotic symptoms including hallucinations delusion and confusion some states have banned julia from what I'm looking at this is just like a quick AI search like Vermont close to us Alabama Arkansas Indiana Tennessee and Wisconsin have entirely banned it which is good way to go I think yeah so that's the state apparently the state hasn't gotten to
they called it gas station heroin never heard I don't know if it's in Wayland I don't that I'm not sure about it may he may have been addicted to heroin it's that I'm reading it's also marketed as a remedy to help you quit opioids so you basically transfer your addiction maybe it won't kill you I think it was especially for him he was in sort of like a high stress kind of like very talkative type of job so he was like so once he started doing it he when he tried to go off it he was like he was saying he felt empty and he like and he like just couldn't do his job I have some other I have something I can hand out or share with you via email regarding that as well just some additional information on our budget review I've heard will begin next month we did meet with the finance director last week and we had met with him over the summer as well because they were sort of looking at numbers really early because of the concerns for an override which for this fiscal year where we appear to be okay with our current budget that's in place the next fiscal year year as well as where things start getting a little tighter but it's the year after that the FY28 is where they think that there might be an override where they think will be an override they did recently have a special election which I'm sure you all heard about which passed providing the town with the permission to move the debt from the DPW into excluded debt which I think based on the work that was done by the finance department and the town manager they
vote at our next town meeting potentially the next one so since that passed I don't know exactly how that impacts everything but I'm sure they'll be talking about how that change will either if not I think that they felt that that change would have a positive effect on the
budget coming up the animals inspector appointment we have through Jennifer Boardman's company she's our animal control officer she has proposed Brenda Monaco to do our barn inspections and so the board just needs to appoint Brenda Monaco and then we provide that information to the state and her name is added to the list of animal control officers who are doing the animal inspector appointments that are working for Jennifer Boardman for the Wayland Board of Health and Jennifer she responded to me that
and had some notes on she has worked as a dog groomer for 20 plus years and has gone through all the testing requirements to be an animal control officer so the board just needs to make a motion and then vote on Brenda Monaco as animal inspector I make a motion to accept Brenda Monaco for animal inspector I second okay so we're going to have a vote for the animal inspector appointment of Brenda Monaco Brent Mortis here Genevieve or no it's yes or no yes yes okay thank you yes Katie step yes John store yes thank you very much and board meeting dates so does this night work for everybody for the most part I mean unless we have a holiday I mean sometimes that throws it off a little bit but today was the only day that was sort of sort of touch and go but I think usually today is fine okay they're doing the quality meetings on Mondays also oh right okay I heard that I'll be going to those meetings I know yeah Julie's gonna have to take this that's okay so January is a little tricky for me um I have a conflict on the 12th um let's see although I might well I've been bringing my mother to her eye appointments she has um you know macular degeneration and these appointments take three to four hours they make you wait in the waiting room so every time I go it's a long process and that's the day that I have the lucky coin my sister is not able to bring her so the 12th is not a date I can have a board meeting and the 19th we have a holiday so I mean we have is the fifth too soon um we have some votes that we have to do for the budget updates and then uh so yeah 10 short drive we could do the fifth does that work for
you guys can feel free to if everyone else can do it then I don't mind we probably should have a meeting on the calendar for for a number of reasons and so we could have another meeting later in the month if we need to because we might have a lot of things to talk about um but if there are other folks that could do the fifth does that night work I can do the fifth okay um whoa do we want to put another date on the calendar just so that we have um in february 9th oh in january is is the 26th a date that works for
francesco you know because he's not here so okay and then we've got february 9th is water quality okay a holiday so we might end up with the 23rd i'm not i'm traveling okay is anyone else available on the 23rd or i'm available yeah i'm
um so march we could go back to our middle of the month we've got march 16th um i don't think that's a holiday so does march 16th work yes yes yeah and then april um probably the 13th i'm thinking possibly i'll have to look and see when town meeting is i think it's in may though so that might be fine i don't mind doing other days of the week too but whatever works okay do you have um a different day that works better for you brett no no
no you you have room availability and things like that um so that's probably good for now i mean it's a good chunk but they do like you to have them on their calendar early so that we have an idea of how many meetings are happening on on a potential night um okay who knows i may get beaten out not be at the main meeting so that's the next thing um john i know i gotta pick it up i gotta i gotta pick the paperwork in yeah but just some january 6th yeah so and then you know you might need some help with those signatures yeah because i don't have any interest to get me in front of the supermarket and getting them this year so you can split up the sheets and people will help yep thank you that's um something the board has done before um we got your back minutes we have our minutes from june and we're working on the next couple of sets as well has everyone had a chance to look at the board meeting minutes i didn't look at them at all because i didn't think i was talking here okay but i don't i can not vote because you still have uh yes we do you could abstain i'm moved to approve the meeting with us from june 16th 2025 second second great okay so then you're abstaining but i have to make a roll call on the vote right that's true yes so um we're going to vote on the uh accepting the meetings meeting minutes from six 1625 uh brent morris yes genevieve anand yes katie stiff yes and john storer upstage from bowie okay great and does anyone have anything else that they'd like to ask for any topics of um unexpected topics not reasonably anticipated is is the um veritas school they were all approved and they they just had a meeting today to talk about construction i was not able to attend the meeting but darren was there and they went over some of the um things that they're doing to get ready to start and um the carol school um darren has reviewed the septic design for that the um we're waiting on the mounding report which is different than the one for the other projects because the flow is um less than 5 000 gallons per day it's not as a in depth review of the mounding although it's still a review that's required for the septic design so once we have that information we'll um be able to move forward with the permit okay um trying to think if there's anything else not that i can think of or yes we just need a motion to close the meeting make a motion to close the meeting on december 15 2025 i second okay we're going to propose the meeting on 12 15 25 brett mortis yes jenemy vietnam yes katie stephan yes and john storer yes
Here. Kate Stiff. Here. And John Storer. Here. Perfect.
And then the first agenda item... First agenda item is public comment. And I don't hear or see anyone. So, the next is public health nurse update. Hi, everyone.
So, I have a somewhat lengthier report for you this evening, but only because I added in a bunch of just updates for Massachusetts and nationally. So, starting with the November muniple disease numbers, a few cases of tick-borne illness between Borrelia, the emotoi infection, and Lyme. Three cases of enterovirus, one of Gerbe streptococcus. There's another tick-borne human granulocytic anamplosmosis, some influenza, one case of tuberculosis, latent not active disease, and COVID-19 cases as well. So, nothing unexpected there. Any questions about the November numbers?
So, I put in just a little bit about the recent ACIP, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and their recent vote on 12-5. So, I won't read through all of this, but the vote basically was a shift in national vaccination policy, and basically, it rescinded the universal recommendation for hepatitis B birth dose vaccine for infants, and the Massachusetts Department of Public Health with Governor Healy did denounce that vote in a statement, which I've linked to as well. And then, the National Infectious Disease Weather Report. I put a graphic there and some numbers, basically showing that common cold has been driving nationally, the majority of nasal symptoms, but starting to decline, while flu is certainly on the rise, which is, of course, typical for this time of year. And I'll get into Waylon's numbers more recently in just a fit. I'm still watching a new strain of flu that's been hitting other parts of the world, and COVID-19 levels are still low. So, I've also included information about, nationally, about COVID-19 and flu vaccination rates. I wish I had more Waylon-specific information for you in terms of summary. The hope is that we can work with one of our regional epidemiologists to be able to better gather that for you all. But just showing the national lower rates of vaccination this year compared to this time last year and what that looks like for different age groups, basically the overall message being that with lower vaccination coverage, we could have a more severe winter respiratory season with increased hospitalizations as we see transmission of illnesses ramp up. So, the idea being still promoting vaccination and that it's not too late to get vaccinated, we still have vaccine information up on the website for the health department, and there is information on mass.gov's website about all the many things that can still be done to protect yourself and others around you from illness. So, I did add in the Waylon-specific information just to say that we are certainly seeing, and I'm sure some of you are seeing this in practice, but we are certainly seeing that uptick in flu A. In Waylon, we've seen now up to 29 cases of tested folks, not including, of course, any at-home tests that have been done, but tests in offices or hospitals or other clinics, just for these two weeks of December is up to 29 when it was just six for the month last month. So, that shows a significant increase there, and we are up a little bit in COVID-19 cases, too, with eight so far during that period of time, whereas last month, we were at six total for the month. The seasonal vaccination update, we've given now a total of 457 vaccines through and including today. Folks are still coming in for flu and COVID-19 vaccines, just at a much lower rate, and so we've given some COVID vaccines as well since those office hours started only last month, and they'll continue at least through the end of this month. So, I did reach out to the five summer combination independent assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing, hospice facilities in Wayland to try to connect with those directors of nursing and to pull them on their vaccination practices for residents and staff and also to extend those vaccine office hours to their staff if that helps to increase access and I did want to add just a little bit about the regional opioid abatement survey. So, Julie and I are part of the Wayland Opioid Settlement Working Group, and we meet monthly to discuss opioid abatement fund use, but also we are supporting the Great Meadows Regional Opioid Abatement Survey, which has been out for a few months, and hopefully maybe you've seen an advertisement or two for that, and if you haven't already filled out the survey, please do. There's a link on the main page under news, but so far, Wayland has received 124 survey responses, at least as of December 9th, and the region has 943, and focus groups are ongoing with key informant interviews upcoming, so still working on that, and the expectation being that the survey will close very soon, likely at the end of this month, although the date will probably be determined at the next meeting tomorrow.
Unfortunately, the grant that we had applied for in an effort to enhance public health communications in Wayland was not chosen for funding. They did have a record of 42 applicants for the Emerson Health grant session, so that is not as great news, but something that we can still find ways to work toward in other ways. And then a bunch of school health service updates, allergy awareness, and EpiPen training is something that I'm on the schedule to do with school bus drivers as part of their education, and we'll be doing that later this week. The nurses have been working to promote education on communicable disease, especially flu and COVID-19, for prevention. They've been working hard at Winter Sports Clarence, clearing over 300 athletes for participation, and then work through the high school has been done by our nurse there, Tim, on education surrounding sexually transmitted infections.
Period Equity, a partnership with Mass Now, has provided menstrual products in all schools to eliminate barriers to access and ensure that students are not missing school due to menstruation. And then the school health team did have a professional development meeting with the current school physician, Dr. Ellen Mahoney of Weyland Pediatrics. And lastly, just of note, we do have a school nurse opening at the preschool, the Children's Way. So we are promoting that now. And that is all I have for you. Any questions? Moira, can you send a link to the opioid survey again? You said that closes next week? It likely closes by the end of the year. And if you want to direct anyone to it, we can certainly follow up and send the link. But if you want to direct anyone to it, if you go to the main Weyland homepage and look under news, last I checked within the last day or two, it was still right there on the main page. But sometimes it gets knocked down by other things. So, but I can absolutely follow up with that.
So it looks like we're down COVID cases from last year, this time. Maybe up a little bit with flu cases. Nationally, COVID cases have been pretty low. And I think it's hard. The most recent predictions, I think it's hard really to predict where we'll end up with COVID. There's predictions of waves during certain seasons, but then sometimes things don't go as predicted. And so we are just waiting and seeing and sending messages of prevention. Still, the tools that we do have in terms of vaccination, where appropriate, and other tools like staying home when sick. Yeah, the vaccination rate has really surprised me that, you know, less than six in a hundred children are vaccinated. And these are the national numbers too. Oh, they're the national. They're not Weyland numbers. Correct. And I wish that I could give you more Weyland-specific numbers. Massachusetts does tend to have some higher vaccine rates compared to much of the nation. But unfortunately, it was difficult for me to put together from the Massachusetts Immunization Information System. But we're hoping to do that to better support the drive for education and any, you know, campaign toward vaccine hesitancy for next year. Yeah, I have to say, we had an uptick of cases in clinic today. Like I had one and the staff who was checking, they check right near me. They were like, positive, positive. I think it happens after Thanksgiving, like a week or two after Thanksgiving, everything upticks. And the patient I saw was extremely sick and she, a lot of patients are refusing the COVID vaccine. I would say 50% of my patients who do vaccinate for everything else just think they don't need to be vaccinated for COVID anymore because it's been mild. But the reason it's been mild is because everybody's been vaccinated, which they don't get. So I just saw somebody who was very sick and I'm pretty sure next year she's going to be vaccinated. So it might be one of those things where the population is just feeling like it was an epidemic or a pandemic, a pandemic, and it's gone, right? So they're thinking like it's going to fade out, but they don't realize. When you say it's like flu, then they're like, oh, you know, it's going to keep coming back. So anyway, I think next year, it'll probably, depending on what happens this season, it's going to take one more wave of like bad infections for people to really think they need to be vaccinated every year. That's my kind of sense of it.
Not hopefully never as bad as we started, but just, you know, bad enough that people get really sick.
I don't want them to, I mean, if it fades out and to be like a little common cold coronavirus, that would be great, but I don't think we're there yet.
Yeah. There was a patient also today whose son was sick like a week and a half ago. I think a bunch of them got the flu at school, but she only had symptoms and they were pretty much gone by today. So, but I think, yeah, I think it's about to ramp up a lot more.
And the question with the kids is like, who do they infect, right? They get well and then they're bouncing back to school in two days. And then like the grandparents who I see are, or you see, you know, they're sick for like two weeks. Yeah. So the older patients, the seniors start tending to get the COVID vaccines. But like middle-aged and I don't do kids, but 18 to 65, like much less.
Thanks, Melora. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. I was just wondering if you could, I know it's not asking for this, but norovirus, you could have been kind of around. Any things? So, well, no cases have come through to me in Wayland recently.
Only a matter of time. I expect to see some. And I do think a lot of times, at least from what I've seen, when I know norovirus is in the community to a degree and, you know, we see it in other towns and the reality too, is that a lot then are experiencing infection, but not going in for evaluation and or testing. And so then there are a lot of infections that are out there in the community that we just don't have any proof of through the virtual epidemiologic network. So it's certainly very possible that there's norovirus in the community, but we just haven't seen it coming through through test results yet. Do they check wastewater for norovirus as well? Like they check for COVID?
Because we rarely send stool. I mean, we rarely send stool samples for norovirus, right? I mean, so I don't, I'm wondering how they get the data. It's interesting. Right. I've often seen it when people do have, you know, either for a lot of the GI illnesses, they're getting testing depending on the severity of their symptoms or if they have a prolonged illness. So a lot of people who are improving quickly then are not seeking that care or end up with testing. I read in the news that the strain this year is more virulent, more nasty. I think it's already started in some parts of the country. So it's undergone some mutations and it's worse. So we have that to look forward to.
Highly transmissible. Well, that's not true. I forget what it was. Are you starting it? Medford School was shut down for like a couple days or so. And they like cleaned the whole school and yeah. What happens on cruise ships? Oh, yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Update on high logical peer review for 169 Rice Road. Yep. So we received the peer review and it was shared with the applicant and their engineer. And we met with the applicant and their engineer. Darren and I met with them Friday,
I believe it was, and just kind of talked through what we typically see in this kind of peer review, which is a response in writing typically if they have any feedback or comments regarding the peer review. And so they were preparing that and actually I saw something come through right before the board meeting. So we'll be looking at that probably in the next couple of days to move to the next step, you know, probably see what their responses are, connect with the peer reviewer, connect everyone together. And, you know, it will be likely an agenda item to just circle back and conclude at our next board meeting in January. I read what you wrote and I mean, I don't have a septic plan showing where all the testing took place on it, but they didn't seem like they did any test deeper than what, eight or nine feet, ten feet.
And you'd think for a site like that that there's going to be groundwater mounding, bottling, that they would need more extensive testing than what you'd do for a house seven, you know, just, especially given there's a little edge on it.
So, right.
Well, so we'll be looking at that and talking about it and we'll bring the feedback to the board and we'll probably discuss it at our next, that's what our plan is to, you know, sort of conclude it at our next board meeting.
Tenshore Drive, we have an inspection this week, which is good news for us on Thursday. Our regional health agent will be participating in that inspection and they'll be probably putting something together for the board after that. Potentially, we would discuss it at an executive session likely. But we're pretty pleased that the owner is cooperating with us on that. So, that's a positive thing.
The health department fees review and recommended increases. I don't know if anyone has had a chance to look at. We don't have to make a decision tonight, but we could start at least at some of these numbers.
And Ann, Lurie, again, our regional health agent and inspector actually put all this information together. I was looking for at least our seven towns in the collaborative and then some other communities that I thought would be helpful. Newton, Framingham, Maynard, Acton, Franklin, Natick, were added as other comparable fee structures which are not always easy to follow. So, some of these fees are handled much differently in each town. That's what the challenge is. They may have a fee structure that's completely different than ours or depending on the category type. And so, you know, she went through and pulled out what things potentially were comparable and some notes and basic information from her perspective which I think was helpful because she's familiar with what these fees are for and usually what they involve and, you know, how to sort of pull them out from town's different fee schedules which can be also a little confusing but this was a huge help without doing a pretty complicated calculation to figure out exactly how much it costs us to do these administrative tasks or inspections which I think probably was already addressed initially at the very beginning, you know, when these fees were established or at least at some level we can get a general idea of where we lie, you know, within some of these other towns and so after looking this over quite a bit getting some feedback from Darren and from our food inspector and also from Anne, our regional inspector, I plugged in the areas that I thought could use an increase and what the increases were. So on the septic hauler, is that a company buying a 150 license for as many trucks as you want to put in the town?
Yes.
Okay. So I think the reason why we put the refuse hauler at a higher number, there's a few reasons. One of them is that some of these haulers are very difficult to track down and get them to actually pay or have a permit renewal and pay for it. And so there's actually a lot of time spent on chasing people around that haven't renewed their refuse hauler permits. Septic haulers, not as common, you know, because a lot of them we know and they're local folks and so I'm sure there are some and, you know, our number isn't really that high but I don't know that we need to go from 100 to 200 or 250, although someone else might disagree. I plugged in 150 and I plugged in 200 for the refuse hauler because I see that as being more time consuming for our admin staff, you know, where we're checking up on it. Did you renew, you know, following up and emailing or phone calls and things like that and we do have a lot more, you know, I think different refuse haulers that come into town where, you know, we have to inspect the truck and things like that whereas septic haulers are sort of the same ones for the most part. So what do you inspect on a refuse hauler truck? I mean, in general, it's just the basic condition of the truck and if it's, you know, how it's taken care of and, you know, ask them a few questions. Do they have to have two separate areas for recycle and waste or can they just haul waste or how do you do it? that is something that Dan handles so I'd have to check with him. I know you don't have to. Well, I mean, it's a good question, you know. Okay. Yep.
For well permits, you know, I find that they do require a lot more time than what would be covered by $125. I mean, there's a lot of ports that are generated by the well drillers that are usually something that we need to look at. We have to find the file. We have to look at, you know, did they install it where it was supposed to go and did they provide an as-built of the well location? You know, so, and that could generate more work down the road, but that's another story if the state ever adopted like a across-the-board well, potable well private well regulation. That would make it a lot different for us, but right now, I think, you know, an increase from $125, I think, would make sense for wells, because I think it's mostly irrigation. But is it like 10? There were a lot more at one point in time. Like, it sort of ebbs and flows. Right now, no. I'd have to look at the permit numbers, but there was a time when we were getting a ton of requests for irrigation wells. It seems to have died back a little bit, but it's still potential. You know, it could kick up at any time. Sorry, I had a related question, Julia. So, you know, when there's a water ban and they say you can't water your lawn, are those private wells also subject to the same rules? Not to my knowledge, no. So, that makes no sense to me, because they're drawing from the same water, water, water, water, trough in the earth. Because I see these green lawns and then I was thinking, oh, how come they're not getting caught? And then I was thinking, you know, because we talked about the irrigation wells, and they probably have one of those, but if they're drawing from the same aquifer, it's not fair, it just makes no sense. So, that is water that's been talked about before as a broader topic by, I think it was the DPW at that, at one point in time. I don't think it went anywhere because, to my knowledge, when there's a water ban, if you have a private irrigation well, the ban does not apply to you. Yeah, but they're not getting water from some cloud, they're taking it from the same place that we take the water, you know what I'm saying.
So, it's probably not our purview, but I was just wondering if there was somebody to just find out why they don't do that. I just have a strong passion for water conservation.
I've grown up in a country where there are water shortages and I think people here don't appreciate the value of just being able to turn the tap on and have water all the time. We do conserve that with some gusto because it's going in the negative direction quite rapidly in a lot of the country. We are fortunate in the northeast but we won't be if we don't manage it well. I think the reason why people get these irrigation wells is because they want to use the water during water bans and water their lawns as much as I agree with the concept that I mean I have a house that has sand for a lawn and I have no intention to have a turf lawn you know but some people want a turf lawn and it's important to them and that's why they actually want an irrigation well so they can water their lawn. It does happen. Well it's not just I mean part of it is during a water ban but I think for the most part it's significantly cheaper because you're not paying the water it. That's the other part. But if you're going to have a nice lawn it needs water and it's nearly free and to pump it out yourself because it's not having to be treated and go through the town's pipes and all that. Right. And as a private home owner with their own private well that's their right to use their water but yes it's the same aquifer. it's not water it's the water of the earth I mean which belongs to all the communities it's not their water. Anyway. It's kind of a gray area. Yeah.
Yeah. Well in some parts of the country like in Nevada and Arizona and all that they're not even allowed to have grass on their lawns anymore. San Diego they just have to have the desert gardens you know. I mean it'll come to that eventually here but it's sad that it's like getting squandered you know. My personal feelings.
Yeah. We need water for drink. You need water for drink. Yeah.
I'd definitely rather live in a grassy forested area than have one person have a nice lawn and it'd be desert everywhere.
Animal keeping. I proposed an increase to the new applicant because it does take a significant amount of work. There's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of questions. I'm happy to take care of those things but it does cost more than $50 for an animal keeping permit and they have to come to the board for renewal. I think $50 is fine just to have the administrative paperwork covered. That was why I proposed an increase there. I didn't see much. We had looked at camps not that long ago. However, going down to tobacco sales, there is a lot of time spent on tobacco but that's another leg of work that's done through a regional grant that we're involved with. It's not a direct cost to the town but it is work that's done through the health department and board of health. we have a leader of the tobacco work, Perry, who works through Framingham. He's our tobacco coordinator and he's very knowledgeable and I just feel like $100 is a pretty small fee for that type of permit.
Moving on to the next page where we have a couple of there's one question mark here on retail food that I'm still looking into. We were looking at potentially for the bigger supermarkets like Donland's and Stop and Shop that we could consider the square footage of the retail area which I need to check into a little further to get actual numbers for that. For the temporary event host we had discussed that at a prior board meeting and that was a number we agreed upon, $150 to help pay for the administrative work that's done for some of these temporary events that take place at Russell's and then we've got $150 and then we've got temporary food vendor. We've got two different fees that we also had already talked about at the same time as this.
$75 for the food vendor who's a smaller vendor and then $125 for a larger vendor where there would be more work done to review potentially what they're selling at the event.
The DWI's disposal works installer test fee which we were looking at $100. I was looking at proposing an increase to $135 based on there is a lot of back and forth and planning that goes into when are they coming in and making arrangements reviewing the exam and checking the answers and things like that and then there's a conversation about the results and that's why I proposed to increase that fee.
And then going down to the HACCP food plan review on the next page which is the sushi permit that we just went through which to me clearly was more than $50 to do all that work have a board meeting Beth reviewed the plan I think twice two or three times I was involved in it I think $150 would be a reasonable increase for that considering you know Sudbury actually has $200 for their fee and they're pretty savvy with food so they have a good idea of fee costs as well and then increasing our re-inspection fee to $75 and then going down to food service establishment we were looking at a fee for establishments that are greater than 50 seats and we have a number of them we have the Villa Takara Coach Grill China Rose and Jindu at this time Terrain will also be one of those so we were looking at potential increase to $510 for greater than 50 and leaving the under 50 at $310 and on the last page for a seasonal pool I was recommending that we increase that fee to $150 I thought $100 was pretty low for the amount of work that goes into doing pool inspection and the paperwork and the certifications and things that are involved with that so that was why I proposed an increase there and I mean the board can take some time and think about these numbers we could reconvene at our next meeting and look at it again maybe take a look at some of the other fees on here that you might have questions about I can find out more about the refuse dollar so is the goal of the fee to cover 100% of the cost of the board of health person that's doing anything to deal with it or I think it should cover costs for sure yeah so I or is it is it just sort of an arbitrary number that really doesn't have much to do because we don't want to necessarily disincentive these farmer markets and things like that and having vendors come in if they're a little guy trying to do something and it's yeah it's $75 for a weekend or one visit and they're only going to make $250 there and it just
no but it's just it's the philosophical is are the fees there to try to cover costs in entirely basically yeah if you ask Brian Keveney yes that's why they're pushing for us to look at these fees and make some recommendations over increases he's asked me numerous times about this list that I have been looking at but other things have come up so once we have a decision on this which could be at our next meeting then our recommendation will go to the assistant town administrator she will look at what our recommendations are and bring it to the select board for their vote and that's happened with some other departments already the building department has increased their fees significantly I don't know what was done to look at fees to figure out where we lie I'm sure that some work was done on that I wasn't involved with that but we've done homework here so I think now is the time to look a little closer maybe my numbers could be adjusted a little bit I'm going
looking at for Jenna myself there's so much time spent on this there has been I appreciate that and they all put that together you know so we have spent time trying to do diligence and you know we didn't just randomly pick every single fee and increase them all we picked the ones that
look across the board and you look comparatively we're kind of middle of the road or maybe towards the high end for some but it really depends on how much work you're doing and just being on the board for the last whatever four years that I've been I know how much time goes into some
and I agree with the tobacco sales price too because that one jumped but that's that's fair I think they get them so fast and you never know someone may drop their tobacco sale if they decide that they don't want to pay that fee that's always a
he came here to our health department on December 3rd and we talked through some things that he was working on those things have been straightened out as far as a couple of establishments in town we ironed some things out we currently have sorry Julie do we want to vote on the fees or do you want to keep that can down the road another month if the board would
rush you through that I know sorry so he is pretty motivated to make some modifications to our regulations that will be recommended for edits and re establishing a new regulation and I'll highlight those changes one of them would be no vapes being sold in Wayland which actually when Governor Baker had the ban remember the temporary ban on vapes it was like I forget what year it was but it was like COVID times and people weren't doing inspections but we were like some towns weren't as far as the vape part we went out and made sure that no one was selling vapes and a lot of these are still not selling them because they don't think they are allowed to which is fine with me I'd rather not have vapes sold in Wayland and it it's something that I would be recommending although the board would have to vote on it so that's one thing that he's proposing and also no pouches those new pouches that you put in your mouth that a lot of them have flavors and different things and we had talked a little bit
are identifying these hidden flavors by smelling these products and then making rules that way which is really hard to do and I think creates a lot of work and time for board members which I don't know if it's productive but another way to do it
as well those were two things that I was in favor of that the board would obviously have to vote on once we have a draft regulation to look at which he's working on I will share it with the board we can talk about it at a board meeting he probably will zoom in I'm sure and we can have a discussion about it and then figure out if we want to move forward with a public hearing which can get a little contentious but it's something that we can consider I had a question about the SNF test you did you mention board members and SNF tests so you bring it to the board to
there's products that you would sniff yes and make a decision on whether they're flavored or not based on sniffing them so it's not written on the ingredients that flavoring I see that's how tricky it is these days that's how they get around it and I had a young patient who was doing and they think it's like I mean it's almost like candy you know it's just awful right so how do you know one person could say it smells like mango another one says it smells like strawberry and I mean I have heard at a bigger meeting we had probably just prior to this meeting with Perry we had a meeting of all the towns that he covers and the state was there and they were just talking through some of the work
sniff test and they were not saying that it was a good way to go about it because it's just not really objective or consistent or you know like I don't have a sense of smell there you go that's another problem if someone has a cold what do you I have allergies I'd be just like sneezing the other thing I think is kids this I think this kid in particular he thought this was a step up from smoking which maybe it is but mouth cancer is not any more pleasant than lung cancer you know yeah so yeah I would I mean to me like just banning it they can go to Framingham or
get stuff online they can always order Amazon delivery or they like fake they fake IDs the kids who look more grown up get fake IDs it's just yeah for an older sibling I mean there's lots of ways they figure out how to get around it unfortunately wow he was in middle school Gigi I'm sorry he was in middle school the year no no I'm just saying for banning it in the town that's when they start right that's when the habits start and where did I I just heard it on a recent thing if they get addicted at that age it sticks like for life more than if you were exposed to it in say college so blocking it if you can whatever you can do like if they can walk over to the local 7-11 from middle school and have some older sibling or somebody it's right there it's very easy for them to do if you did it
have the draft once we have it and there will be like a separate page that kind of highlights the changes so they're easy to look at I don't you know know what all the changes are because there will just be some updates in there as well that cover things that
yeah oh yeah they'll have to look at the final draft right and also he's talking about this is a separate idea just a thought the I don't know what other towns are looking at this but a regulation to prohibit the sale of craton I have no idea what that is Gigi I actually and it was pretty severe it's it's a synthetic equivalent for is it for marijuana right I forget it's a synthetic drug and it's easily available and it's cheap it's either it's either marijuana or benzos or it was but he he was full blown addicted to it it was he he had to go to a like an outpatient he had to go to an addiction specialist basically I just I just looked it up it's an herbal substance from the leaves of mitra gyna tropical tree in the coffee family and it
doing it four five times a day or something and if he didn't it would be like he would start shaking sweating it was like pretty he didn't realize what he was doing too he just got it at a gas station somewhere at one time and that's how it started I guess at lower doses the truck drivers probably use it for as a stimulant right it's a non like a non prescription stimulant at a low dose oh yeah so you know we know that that craton is and I'd have to look into it further to see what all the problems are that are going on with craton but they're out there and obviously you know Dr. Mortis has experienced a patient with some issues with that and so Perry was talking about ideas that towns can propose to deal with craton I don't know what would be involved with that that has nothing to do with our tobacco regulations that would be a separate regulation so just something I wanted to mention because I know it's a public health issue that's going on out there and other towns are talking about it as well how is it classified I'm sorry how is it classified like in you know how like your drug classifications and scheduling of I guess it's an herbal product so I don't know I think it's an herbal product yeah let me just pull it up but so is marijuana so I don't even know I don't think it even is class I think it's not FDA approved okay I'm looking it up here
so she was in rehab this is years ago at least 15 years ago she was in rehab so she had lost access to her street drugs like stronger opioids and then she took this thinking like oh this is like this is fine and this will get me by but then she also got addicted it was a long time ago that was that was the exact same story as the guy he yeah he saw he was he was like he heard about it or he saw it in the gas station because I
this is a drug fact sheet from the DEA it says kratom is not controlled under the controlled substances act however there may be some state regulations or prohibitions against the possession and use of kratom the FDA has not approved kratom for any medical use in addition the DEA has listed kratom as a drug and chemical concern and so I
capsule or extract leaves may also be dried or powdered and ingested as tea the leaf may be chewed increased alertness physical energy and talkativeness can lead to addiction several cases of psychosis resulting from the use have been reported where individuals may exhibit psychotic symptoms including hallucinations delusion and confusion some states have banned julia from what I'm looking at this is just like a quick AI search like Vermont close to us Alabama Arkansas Indiana Tennessee and Wisconsin have entirely banned it which is good way to go I think yeah so that's the state apparently the state hasn't gotten to
they called it gas station heroin never heard I don't know if it's in Wayland I don't that I'm not sure about it may he may have been addicted to heroin it's that I'm reading it's also marketed as a remedy to help you quit opioids so you basically transfer your addiction maybe it won't kill you I think it was especially for him he was in sort of like a high stress kind of like very talkative type of job so he was like so once he started doing it he when he tried to go off it he was like he was saying he felt empty and he like and he like just couldn't do his job I have some other I have something I can hand out or share with you via email regarding that as well just some additional information on our budget review I've heard will begin next month we did meet with the finance director last week and we had met with him over the summer as well because they were sort of looking at numbers really early because of the concerns for an override which for this fiscal year where we appear to be okay with our current budget that's in place the next fiscal year year as well as where things start getting a little tighter but it's the year after that the FY28 is where they think that there might be an override where they think will be an override they did recently have a special election which I'm sure you all heard about which passed providing the town with the permission to move the debt from the DPW into excluded debt which I think based on the work that was done by the finance department and the town manager they
vote at our next town meeting potentially the next one so since that passed I don't know exactly how that impacts everything but I'm sure they'll be talking about how that change will either if not I think that they felt that that change would have a positive effect on the
budget coming up the animals inspector appointment we have through Jennifer Boardman's company she's our animal control officer she has proposed Brenda Monaco to do our barn inspections and so the board just needs to appoint Brenda Monaco and then we provide that information to the state and her name is added to the list of animal control officers who are doing the animal inspector appointments that are working for Jennifer Boardman for the Wayland Board of Health and Jennifer she responded to me that
and had some notes on she has worked as a dog groomer for 20 plus years and has gone through all the testing requirements to be an animal control officer so the board just needs to make a motion and then vote on Brenda Monaco as animal inspector I make a motion to accept Brenda Monaco for animal inspector I second okay so we're going to have a vote for the animal inspector appointment of Brenda Monaco Brent Mortis here Genevieve or no it's yes or no yes yes okay thank you yes Katie step yes John store yes thank you very much and board meeting dates so does this night work for everybody for the most part I mean unless we have a holiday I mean sometimes that throws it off a little bit but today was the only day that was sort of sort of touch and go but I think usually today is fine okay they're doing the quality meetings on Mondays also oh right okay I heard that I'll be going to those meetings I know yeah Julie's gonna have to take this that's okay so January is a little tricky for me um I have a conflict on the 12th um let's see although I might well I've been bringing my mother to her eye appointments she has um you know macular degeneration and these appointments take three to four hours they make you wait in the waiting room so every time I go it's a long process and that's the day that I have the lucky coin my sister is not able to bring her so the 12th is not a date I can have a board meeting and the 19th we have a holiday so I mean we have is the fifth too soon um we have some votes that we have to do for the budget updates and then uh so yeah 10 short drive we could do the fifth does that work for
you guys can feel free to if everyone else can do it then I don't mind we probably should have a meeting on the calendar for for a number of reasons and so we could have another meeting later in the month if we need to because we might have a lot of things to talk about um but if there are other folks that could do the fifth does that night work I can do the fifth okay um whoa do we want to put another date on the calendar just so that we have um in february 9th oh in january is is the 26th a date that works for
francesco you know because he's not here so okay and then we've got february 9th is water quality okay a holiday so we might end up with the 23rd i'm not i'm traveling okay is anyone else available on the 23rd or i'm available yeah i'm
um so march we could go back to our middle of the month we've got march 16th um i don't think that's a holiday so does march 16th work yes yes yeah and then april um probably the 13th i'm thinking possibly i'll have to look and see when town meeting is i think it's in may though so that might be fine i don't mind doing other days of the week too but whatever works okay do you have um a different day that works better for you brett no no
no you you have room availability and things like that um so that's probably good for now i mean it's a good chunk but they do like you to have them on their calendar early so that we have an idea of how many meetings are happening on on a potential night um okay who knows i may get beaten out not be at the main meeting so that's the next thing um john i know i gotta pick it up i gotta i gotta pick the paperwork in yeah but just some january 6th yeah so and then you know you might need some help with those signatures yeah because i don't have any interest to get me in front of the supermarket and getting them this year so you can split up the sheets and people will help yep thank you that's um something the board has done before um we got your back minutes we have our minutes from june and we're working on the next couple of sets as well has everyone had a chance to look at the board meeting minutes i didn't look at them at all because i didn't think i was talking here okay but i don't i can not vote because you still have uh yes we do you could abstain i'm moved to approve the meeting with us from june 16th 2025 second second great okay so then you're abstaining but i have to make a roll call on the vote right that's true yes so um we're going to vote on the uh accepting the meetings meeting minutes from six 1625 uh brent morris yes genevieve anand yes katie stiff yes and john storer upstage from bowie okay great and does anyone have anything else that they'd like to ask for any topics of um unexpected topics not reasonably anticipated is is the um veritas school they were all approved and they they just had a meeting today to talk about construction i was not able to attend the meeting but darren was there and they went over some of the um things that they're doing to get ready to start and um the carol school um darren has reviewed the septic design for that the um we're waiting on the mounding report which is different than the one for the other projects because the flow is um less than 5 000 gallons per day it's not as a in depth review of the mounding although it's still a review that's required for the septic design so once we have that information we'll um be able to move forward with the permit okay um trying to think if there's anything else not that i can think of or yes we just need a motion to close the meeting make a motion to close the meeting on december 15 2025 i second okay we're going to propose the meeting on 12 15 25 brett mortis yes jenemy vietnam yes katie stephan yes and john storer yes