October 26, 2026 – Board of Health – Video & Transcript
October 26, 2026 - Board of Health
You're ready to go. All right. Okay. I'd like to call to order the Board of Health meeting for October 26, 26. The location for in-person meetings is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations to participate in the meeting, please contact Wayland, ADA coordinator. Two business days in advance of the meeting. Let's see. This meeting may be recorded.
And if recorded, it will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Public will be excluded from executive sessions. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and or via remote access in accordance with applicable law. If this meeting has only remote access, no in-person attendance by members or the public will be permitted.
If this meeting has remote access, one may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at Wayland Mass Public Body Meeting Information Remote. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location. In-person or remote access, public comment should be limited to two minutes per person.
We'll do a roll call. Katie Stiff? Present. Gigi Anand? Present. John Storer, here. And Bob Defrancesco is not here tonight, and John Storer will be chairing the mic. Thank you, John. Do we have anyone for public comment? Don't see anyone. Okay, then just Moira Carter? Great. Would it be helpful to share my screen? Yeah, that would be great.
All right. So as far as communicable, excuse me, just disease numbers, nothing of... Significant concern in September. There was one individual who accounted for three of the GI illnesses on this list and another related to travel. The tuberculosis case is one of latent tuberculosis infection, not tuberculosis disease. Any questions about the
Can you see that? Okay, just checking. Yeah, and we got a copy of an email. And then there is a link to the disease report that's now put out monthly by the Great Meadows Public Health Collaborative's regional epidemiologist. Nothing of surprise there for the region either. Some uptick in respiratory diseases, a decrease in tick-borne illnesses, although we're now really in the second of the biphasic. Response that we see throughout the course of the year. So I imagine we'll see more tick-borne illness cases. As far as community outreach and highlights are concerned, we encouraged vaccination, especially seasonal vaccinations at this time of year in the last Town of Wayland newsletter and broadcast the Vaccine clinics offered to the community broadly. So hopefully you saw some of those advertisements. And we did have two recent large community clinics on the 7th and the 14th. I've conducted homebound visits for those with mobility challenges requesting either influenza or COVID-19 vaccinations at home. And then been doing some smaller flu-in COVID vaccine clinics at each of the schools. So those are ongoing. But in that two and a half week period from 10-7 through last Friday, a total of 522 vaccines had been administered. And then we were able to support tabling at Wayland Fest recently using the MRC. Between the MRC unit coordinator and three volunteers offering health information and resources. So here's a photo of one of the volunteers at the table. So there was Narcan available at the table. We promoted vaccine clinics. We promoted emergency preparedness in terms of Promoting having a kit ready at home, having an emergency supply checklist to work off of. You can see the tick poster that I think some of you pass on the way into the meeting. So that was a big draw, getting some eyes to the table with that poster. And then for school health services, we continue to have an open position for community health nurse, school nurse. And so we're continuing to seek applications for that position. In the month of October, we... have led both myself and our regional substance use prevention coordinator, Olivia DeFour, have led Naloxone or Narcan trainings for staff at schools, and those are continuing into next week and beyond. And then I just included from our school nurse leader some numbers from September. You can see those here. And then highlights of what the nurses in the schools are up to. Certainly busy seeing students, but at the same time following up on required physical exams, verifying required immunizations, conducting state-managed Mandated screenings, looking at those with expiring physical exams mid-season and re-clearing for sports, and then tracking various injuries and preparing for field trips. So the nurses are quite busy at this time of year with seeing students and all of these tasks as well. And that is all I have for you. Thank you. Thank you. So we're on to the trade show and farmer's market, the discussion. Thank you. Sorry about all the paper. So, and Gigi, I emailed this draft memo to the board, so you should have a copy of it. Yeah, I do. Thank you. You're welcome. So, We did receive a couple of complaints, one through the select board chair, Carol Martin, and that was regarding the farmer's market fees. The other complaint was through, where's my paperwork? Terry from the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts. She was complaining about the fee for the trade show. And originally, just for some history on that one, the trade show fee was not what she thought it was. She thought it was $125 per exhibitor. It was not. It was $75. Although, you know, in our fee scale... You know, it talks about small and large events. And so she, I think she interpreted it as a large event, but we viewed it as 75. We also got a letter from State Representative Carmine Gentile, and he was also referencing the 125 per vendor, which was incorrect. Although she probably told him that, so that's probably why. But he was advocating on their behalf. And so when I spoke to Carol Martin, she's the select board chair. We talked a little bit about what we do here, all the work we did to review these fees last year. We didn't just kick them out of the year. We did a study. We looked at like 12 different pounds altogether. Some of them are hard to compare because they may have slightly different fees, structures, or ways of charging things, ways of looking at things. However, we did do a lot of work and we looked at things. We talked about it at two different board meetings. We put some Excel sheets together, looked at our staff. Hourly rates, Beth rate, Beth, our food inspector's rates, figured out, you know, how much time we spend on these things. And we came up with what we thought was fair. And, you know, I'm bringing it up to look at because I think, you know, we need to consider the economy. There's probably small purposes that may be suffering from, you know, increased costs and things like that. And, you know, we always investigate complaints when we receive them. And so here we are. Although I can tell you that these things do generally take a lot of time, especially the farmer's market, where, you know, Beth reviews every... Vendor who's coming and what kind of food they're bringing, their labels, their ingredients, their, you know, food handling practices and, you know, where they're preparing the food. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it as there should be. And also with the trade show, I think maybe we could look at that a little differently because they're not actually selling these products, but they're sampling. So people are actually eating that food product at this trade show, even though it's not necessarily open to the general public. People are trying foods and things like that, and some of them are coming from out of state. They're not familiar with Massachusetts food code or allergen safety in some. Not everyone, but in some circumstances, labeling and, you know, a lot of different things that need to be looked at. And so there is some time required, maybe not the same for all of them, because, I mean, you know, some products might be a simpler review than others. But there is some time that, you know, is spent on each vendor. And we have seen definitely an increase in these types of temporary events. You know, they're going on, which is great. And I'm happy that Russell's has a lot of action over there bringing business into there. For their garden center, you know, because every time they have these events, people are, especially the farmer's market and, you know, ladies night and it's also a popular event. It's a great place, you know, for people to go and be able to find unique food products and, you know, farm fresh produce and things like that. I put together, you know, after speaking with Carol, which, you know, she understood, you know, the background. I think she was receptive to hearing all the work we've done. And she just had, you know, a couple of suggestions, you know, considering we would be making a recommendation to the select board because we reviewed the fees last time. decided on fee increases and then made a recommendation to the Select Board and they adopted what we suggested last year or last winter rather in February. And so I told her that we would be looking at this and that I would bring something to the Select Board to have them look at at their meeting in November. And so some of the things that we talked about were considering like a phased approach. We could reel back a little bit on the farmer's market fee from 75 to potentially 60. I mean, we did go from 35 to 75, which is a pretty steep jump. Although, you know. That permit is good for a whole year. So, you know, keeping in mind that if you get a permit at that farmer's market, you can go back to the market however many times they are able to accommodate you selling produce or whatever you're selling at this market. And then you could be at other events as well in town because you have a permit and it's good for a full year from December to December. And so, you know, it's slightly different. The dates are different because of the time of year when, you know, the farmers, the winter farmers market is really the driving force for that. For using December as the permit date. Because all our other permits are, you know, during our fiscal year. So they're good from July 1 to June 30th. But the farmer's market is a little different. I mean, it's not that confusing, but it sounds like it could be. But the point is that anyone who gets a permit, it's good for a year. It's not just good for one event. So when we're talking about the farmer's market. So, you know, we were talking a little bit about maybe having a phased increase starting with $60 for the farmer's market. And, you know, honestly, as I think more about the trade show, it definitely is work that, you know, we need to do. However, considering there are no sales. So if a person goes to, you know, a business person goes to the trade show and has their produce, or not produce, but, you know, say they have a particular type of jelly or something and people try it, they're not going to be selling it to anyone at that time. You know what I mean? They're not... I don't know exactly how that whole business works. Maybe people buy from them through learning about their products at this event. I'd have to hear more about that, but they're actually not selling during the event. So, you know, I think that's where the concern for costs comes into play because people are struggling. To have this event and welcome people from, you know, different locations coming in. And if it's cost prohibitive, then, you know, maybe they won't come to this event, which I can certainly be receptive to, you know, but I think we should have some kind of a fee for the trade show. It is a new event. Well, it's been there before, but we haven't really been able to figure out exactly how to. We permit it, but what do we charge them? You know what I mean? It's a little different than a regular farmer's market. But knowing that the argument was against the 125 and not the 75, does that make a difference? I mean, it does, but I mean, when I read through Terry's, you know, she's from the Sustainable Business Network. I understand what she is trying to convey. There are some things that maybe are not, you know, as time-consuming as others, you know, and we have to figure out a way that's not complicated to tackle both, you know, without having complicated fee structures or things like that. Well, maybe is our fee based on the most complicated or the least complicated? It's based on the most complicated. So maybe it is too high. Because, you know, it may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think fees should necessarily be so high that they support 100% of what you're doing. I mean, some of that's on the town, I would think. So, sorry to interrupt you. When this came up last year, we were definitely getting... We were encouraged to look strongly at our fees to make sure that they covered at least what we were doing for work. And we did. We felt like we were doing our jobs by looking at all other towns. But, you know, we're open to, I mean, at least I'm open to considering this feedback as part of, you know, I mean, I think there's room for adjustment. Can we just adjust it without the select board? We can make a recommendation to a judge. So it has to go back to them. Does the Select Board take public comment regarding the fee? They do. They do. And I don't know. I mean, I was actually expecting someone to come to our meeting tonight, but they may have gone to their meeting instead. I don't know. But Carol did tell them that we were talking about this tonight because we're the ones that actually know how these fees were created and why. And she fully appreciated the background, you know, of how we came to those numbers. Because we thought a lot about it and like we went back and forth a little bit about some of the fees, so. Yeah. So, I mean, my conclusion after looking at this without being overly complicated here, I think that, I think $60 would be reasonable for the farmer's market. So we'd be going from $75 to $60. Which, I don't know if there's any other, unless you're going to do 50 and go 50 for farmer's market, 50 for temporary, or rather for trade show fees. That way we're not overcomplicating things. And it sounds like that's kind of similar. The $50 is similar to what Sudbury does in some respects. Yes. And the Town of Winchester, sort of.
And now keep in mind that it's very difficult, you know, so some of the other things in this carries email. Oh, well, some people might only come for one day or maybe it was the email that from Chris Moynihan regarding the farmer's market. You know, if someone goes for one day, who's going to know that? Like we would never be able to track or manage how often. A vendor goes to a farmer's market. So I don't really think that that's a helpful comparison. But we also want to encourage business not discouraging. Right. But I mean, some of these numbers in this Excel sheet that we had done actually had, oh, they can come for one day, and that might be why it shows a lower fee. But how do they even check that? I doubt they even know who's there and who isn't there. No one's going to be able to check that. So, and then... We also noticed because Patty and I have been, you know, up until recently with our new hire, Michelle Boralessa, which is, she's been really good replacing Jenna, who was here for a few years. So Patty and I were doing that work and we both realized that, you know, there's... There is an ability to be more flexible. Some of these like small things that come up, you know, there's no one size fits for all. But if we have the ability to waive a fee for like, if there's an event at the Council on Aging and, you know, it's so easy that they just apply online. Oh, yeah, they're getting food from a restaurant. It's all set. Here's your permit. You know, that shouldn't be. You should have that. You should have that latitude. So I just wanted to confirm that, you know, we are able to, like, waive fees for this in events similar to that. I mean, it's like, you know, some of the things that come up don't warrant having a fee attached to them. And so, as well as a fee lower than $50, you know, for something that is warrants $35, you know what I mean? Like, so I think... I'd like to keep a fee of $35 for small events that fall into that bucket. And then the ability to waive fees for events that, you know, might be catered from a restaurant that's in Wayland. And, you know, there's really nothing that you need to do. We're like, thanks for the heads up. Here's a permit. Enjoy your event. You know, that type of thing. If there's people making food, you know, so things, there's so many people that are enjoying all these temporary events now. They want to make food. They want to, you know, there's a lot of different things people like to do. It becomes a little overwhelming sometimes. And so that's why we have these temporary event fees to try and reel in, you know, the potential for having problems, you know, with foodborne illness or, you know, cross-contamination or anything that could happen. So if we have the ability to keep the $35 fee. Well, that would be reducing the fee, right, to $35? Well, keeping, just keeping it, and so continuing to be able to offer that as a fee for a small event that warrants it, as well as being able to waive a fee. So you don't want to propose changing the trade show fee? I do. It's a different thing. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So what do we think that should go down to? So I was suggesting that 50 for the trade show, maybe 60 for the farmer's market. I mean, how long? I just wonder, like, so if I grow potatoes and... That doesn't need to get a permit through us. That's produce. That's different. You know what I mean? Like any fresh vegetables or things like that, we don't need to be involved. If people are making things. So is honey manufactured or made? If honey is, if it has added things for flavor, then yes, we would need to know. If it's like raw honey, no, because it's right from the hive. People just put it in a jar. I mean, that's what. I don't know these things, so thank you. Unless they're, you know, people, I mean, if you've been to the farmer's market, you would know they have, you know, flavored honey now and honey cream for your toast and, you know, different things, which is delicious, by the way, but it's still, you know, you're doing something to that food. So do you think that the trade show fee and the farmer's market fee should be the same? Yes. Makes it easy. Yeah. Gigi? Yeah, I think it would make it simpler if you did. And then that would be one year, right, for, you're saying, for farmer's market and then next year would go up. I didn't, I actually didn't realize it was a, like, they could come the whole year, which makes it even more or less, you know, less of a heavy load, weight to bear if you think it's spread out over whatever, 10 months. eight months or whatever that they can come in and sell their wares. They have to sell them the same food every time because that's what they got cleared for if they came back? Or do you have to go back again? I would expect them to have the same food. If they don't, then, you know, they would typically need to... Come through us. I mean, most of them have the same foods because, you know, it's probably a little hard to change what you're selling, you know, if you're producing yourself. I mean, how do you know if they're making it out of state? You just kind of go talk to them about their procedures? Yeah, I mean, what happens is they buy online. And we see who's coming and then they send, you know, information. And that's where OpenGov has become a huge benefit because they send these stuff in and, you know, their labels, ingredients, what they're planning on selling, how they're setting up their area and things like that. And, you know, Beth can review it. When she comes in the office, she can just look at all that stuff and she will work with Michelle to start reviewing those vendors for the farmer's market. And then any questions, you can email back and forth. And it works pretty well at this point. Is that something that like saves time that would also bring down the best costs? That's the same process we've been doing. So I don't know if we've been changing. I'm just trying to remember exactly what the fee was that we've had before. So it looks like then, okay, so it was 35. So we did, we went from 35 to 75. So that's, you know, that's pretty high.
I think 50 would be a reasonable adjustment, but really the board, you know, you guys have to feel comfortable. I agree. I mean, I feel like they spend a lot of time on each one and it's not a one-time thing. It's for the whole season, so it's not that unreasonable. And I agree also with the other side, which is like you almost double the price on us or you more than double the price on us. So, you know, that's kind of... That was difficult for them. So, you know, so I think 50-50 is like a reasonable adjustment. So this is a vote that we would make a motion. We would, yeah. So a couple other things that we need to make sure we look at. So 50 for farmer's market, 50 for, I'm losing my voice, trade show. And then we've also got... You said the waiver opportunity. Yes. Yeah. And the reenactment of the $35 for small events. Is it reenacting or just keeping it? It's a rewind, isn't it? It's a rewind. We had increased it. We had recommended to increase it previously, and that was not well received. Right. Do you need to define that, Julia, what a small event is? I think...
Probably, but I'm not sure how to tackle that. Would you say based on the time that the food inspector spends on evaluation or something like that? Maybe events that don't require food review. If, you know, there's an event that, I guess that might be the waive fee one. You know what I mean? There's no review and it's just, you know, basically a rubber stamp. So that would be the waived fee. And the 35 would be requires some review by food inspector. Okay. If that is enough? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you're dealing with them. So I don't know if you're going to have a lot of back and forth and my event is small or, you know, that's why I was saying if it's defined, maybe it makes it. clearer, but whatever you feel is appropriate. And then we just have to go back to where we've identified $50 for events at Brussels. And, you know, basically we sort of have it as a temporary event. We've also got... A large event. So we went $75 for small, $125 for large. And that would be per vendor or per exhibitor. But that may be something we should reconsider as well. It's just, you know, when we have these large events. Then $125 isn't that much. Right. If it's a large event. Right. If it's a. Somebody making something in their kitchen to sew on Saturday afternoon or whenever it is. So should we leave the 125 then? Or should we use 50 and then 75 for the large events and just eliminate the 125? So large event would be like a church event or something like that? Or those are separate? With a head count? Is it a number of? That's a good question. Vendors represented? Yeah. I guess you have to figure out how to define the square footage, like for restaurants. It's hard to know, you know, seats. Yeah. Because the events could be, as you mentioned, they could be at a church, they could be at Brussels, they could be outside, they could be in a field. Could you, does Beth charge you, like, based on the hours that she works on them? How do you, how does? She does, she charges, so, for example, let me have some receipts here. The trade show, it's $25 per review that she has to do. And it's probably the same for the farmer's market, although Beth's going to be retiring, and so. Who knows what the fees will be then? You know, we try to align them with knowing how much money we're paying out and how much money we're collecting, but we have to make decisions about, you know, things that we're aware of and we're not aware of what any change would be, so. I mean, you could do it on a proportion of time spent by your staff? Is that something we're really complicated? I think it's just good to have an option to, you know, Have a higher fee amount for an event that may come up that ends up being so much work and we're like this, you know, this really should be what we're charging for this event. So we do charge the host a fee. Yes. So I wonder if you could say like it's going to be 50 is your average, right? And then you can, you can reserve the Reserve the opportunity to drop it if, you know, if it's a smaller event and increase it if it's a larger event and those are your two markers on either side of the 50. I don't know if that's one way to phrase it and then leave it a little bit open. You have to be ready for people to come in. I mean, people might say, oh, why am I, like, I should be small or why am I large, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're large if you need a lot of, Reviewed part of the inspection. Resources, yeah, that's what I was getting to. So I don't know if it's easy enough to have those markers in place or just leave it open for now and then you can work on the markers later before you kind of put it out, you know? So you mean leave the 75 and the 125 as an option there? Yeah, no, you said 50 for the 75 drops to 50, and then you have the option for 35. And then on the other side, you have the option for, I don't know, maybe you can say 100 instead of 125 for the large event. And then, you know, leave those markers and then work out with Beth or with when Bob comes back, if he has some ideas, like what is your, like how are you deciding what is small, medium, large? Okay. I don't know if that makes sense. Because I'm assuming they want an answer soon. They do. We need to get these in place because the events are, we're going to start receiving applications. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. So is it something we have to do today? Yes. Because we have to have a recommendation for the next meeting in November.
I personally feel like 50 in the middle and 35 and 100, maybe, or 35 and 75, whatever you think, for small and large, having some markers. And then you can decide within that before you actually have to put those fees, what that actually means for you. You know what it is, but we don't have any clear objective way of defining it, right? I thought it was 50 and then the option to waive and 100 for the large event. 50 and then the 35 is the small event fee with the option to waive on that. Yep. I'm trying to think about how to word the 50, the small and the large. I mean, I've got reduce trade show and farmers market fee to $50 and reduce the small event fee to 35 and give the Board of Health the ability to waive. the small event fee at their discretion. For events that don't require food reviews. You could just state it as like the price would be like $35 and then the option to increase depending on complexity of the request up to like $100 or whatever. Okay, spit it out. Do you think 50 is a good number? I mean, when I spoke to Carol Martin, she suggested 65, or 60, rather. I think that's what I put. For the medium, for the medium. 60, 35, and 100, right? 100, yeah. So the 75, Katie's dropping to 60. She was suggesting 60. So should we? Change it to 60 for the farmer's market and the trade show. I mean, if she thinks that's okay, then that should be good, right? And the small business request letter is kind of asking for towards 50. Right. And we're trying to be friendly to small businesses. Does $10 make a difference in the budget over? I mean. I think it's what the board feels is fair and you're comfortable with. I mean, that was just the number we talked about. And then, you know, it's still an increase from what we had before, which was $35. Yeah. Which is definitely not. Yeah. Okay. So you had $35 for everything, no matter what. 35 was for events at the farmer's market. I'm sorry, for farmer's market vendors. And then it blew up into this huge event that they have, which is great. But we were like, we're spending a lot of time on this. We need to look at our fees. And then we were formally asked to look at our fees by the finance director and select board. And so that was part of why that got looked at. And then we, you know, started noticing all these big events. There's a huge event at the Coptic Church every year. They have this big celebration. And, you know, Russell's has events and now they have the trade show. And I mean, there's a lot of work that, you know, is involved. And that's why we were talking about the fees. Right, right. Yeah, I remember that with when we were, when Bob was in that meeting. Yeah, I think 60 is fine with me if that's what she suggested, because I feel like, I mean, it's a one-time fee for the whole year. And I think you can phrase it like when you start, it's in the interest of safety of the community, right? Because you want to have a proper food safety evaluation process. We don't want to be cutting back on... Services because of lack of funding, right? I mean, I don't know if that's something you can put in there or that's certainly what goes through everybody's mind, right, when you're thinking about how to provide services. Now, is trade show the same thing as small event or are those different? Well, yes and no. I mean, it is a small event. But it's definitely different than some of the other events. You know, without becoming too complicated, it's not open to the general public. So the small event is not open to the general public? It might be, if it's at a different venue. You know, I mean, like I was just saying, there's events at the Coptic Church and other places that have events that are not associated with Russell's. So I think, honestly, Maybe we should just stick with 60 for the farmer's market and for temporary events and have a separate fee for the trade show that is maybe that's whatever the board is comfortable with. Because it does seem like a lot for a trade show. There's no one buying anything. Yes, there's work that needs to be done, but I get what they're trying to say. But it's really what the board is comfortable with. So what is the purpose of the trade show? Is to share your products with other producers? I believe that's why they have the trade show, yes. Okay. And they sample different food products that they bring with us. So, yeah, so the town, like, I agree with John, so the town should support some of the fees as well, right? Because that's bringing people to Wayland as well. Yes, it is. So does that all fall on the Board of Health, or does the town take up some of your costs to do all that, you know, the food safety inspections? They do not. Well, they provide money for our budget. So, you know, that's where we have Bath as a contracted food inspector through the town budget. So it's kind of one big budget and then yours is kind of a part of the town budget. And you put money in and you get money back. Yes. Because you're just putting it into the general fund. The money that we collect for any fees that we have goes into the general fund. And every year we have an allocated budget for salary and non-salary. And non-salary would be, you know, in this case for Beth's contract to pay her for the work that she does. So she hasn't gone up on her fees because most people, the inflation is so high, like most people have gone up on everything, right? She hasn't gone up on her fees this year. No, we might see a sticker shock when she retires. I don't know. When that happens, we'll have to see, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm ready to make a motion if everybody else has. Great. Okay, great. I'd like to make a motion to update our recommendations on the fees for some of the permits, including a recommendation for $60 for the farmer's market, $50 for trade show, reinstate the $35 for small events. Have an option to waiver fees for small events when it doesn't make sense and have an option to increase fees up to $100 for large events depending on the work for the review. Okay. I second that. I guess we have to call for a vote. Yes. Roll call. Roll call. Genevieve Anand? Yes. Katie Steff? Yes. And yes, John Storer, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Thanks for doing all that. Thank you for suffering through the discussion. It's always a little tough. There's no one-size-fits-all, that's for sure, you know. Yeah, I think it's good you have some flexibility this way. Yes, thank you. On to the next subjects.
Oh, yes. Leary Street. So there's two things that I just handed out. One of them is related to Tenshore and the other is related to 25 Leary. And tonight we have an agenda item to ratify a legal order for 25 Leary Street for conditions unfit for human habitation in order to secure and remain vacated. And this is the motion that someone can make. I move to ratify the health director's finding that the dwelling located at 25 Leary Street. is unfit for human habitation, requiring the boarding and securing of the dwelling, and requiring the dwelling to remain vacated until it is found to be habitable by an inspection of the Board Of Health. Anyone second? I second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand? Yes. Katie Stiff? Yes. And John Storer, yes. Thank you.
Okay. It's got six Nolan farm roads. More animals. Love it. Yeah. How many geese? This is chickens. More than half. No geese here. We were in the process of renewing their permit to keep chickens, and we noticed that they had more chickens than they should have had, and so I got in touch with the owner, Lynn. Ogerelk. And I think that's how you pronounce her name. And she was requesting to keep more than 12 chickens, meaning up to the existing 14. I'm sorry. Yeah, 14. She does have a large property in northern Wayland. I wasn't sure if... Board wanted her to proceed with, you know, an abutter notification because her original permit was not for 14 chickens. It was for, let's see. 12. 10. Does it say 10? Okay. Oh, revised. No, so their permit was for 10 and then we had a...
We revised it up to 12 and 24 is what her letter says. It looks like it was 10. Yeah. And so now she has 14. She has... So no one complained. You were just doing a routine check. So what happened was someone complained. We had a few complaints about roasters in the same week. And she did have roasters and has since gotten rid of them. And now she just has chickens. We don't have any complaints about the chickens that she has. She has a large property, 1.2 acres on Nolan Farm Road. So when you did the inspection, she was in compliance for everything else in terms of the... Waste and... So I haven't done an inspection. I can do that. You know, we did an inspection when she applied for the permit initially, and typically what happens is the animal keeping, I'm sorry, the animal control officer does the annual barn inspection, so she would have been by there last year and would have checked the other, you know, the conditions of the animal keeping area when she was out there. Okay. So I misunderstood. I thought somebody went over and found the roosters there, but somebody complained about the roosters. Yes. Okay. And she took care of it. She was able to re-home the roosters, and now she just has a couple of extra chickens that she was hoping to keep as, you know. It's not what the board originally approved, though. So I wasn't sure how the board wanted to handle that. And the chickens are old. Right. She said three are old, right? Yeah. Six are old. No, six years old is what the older ones are. Yeah. What's their life expectancy? That is a really good question. That's good. Okay. Well, I personally feel like if she's taking care of them and she's on a big property and it's not bothering anybody, I think it's okay, but she needs to know that. I think she kind of, her letter expresses that she understands that she was in the wrong and she's going to write it, but she doesn't want to traumatize her kids, which I think it's a fair argument that she makes. So I think as long as the, I mean, it's more in terms of the animals. For me, that they're not overcrowded, right? That the animals are treated humanely. Like, if the neighbors are fine and, like, nobody's making a noise, as long as the animals are humanely treated, I'm okay. I guess that's my question. Does she need to, like... Send a letter to the abutters. So that's what I'm wondering, if she needs to do that, I can have her do that. You know, that was just, she has more than 12, which is what the board had said was the limit on the number of chickens. I feel like we should be consistent with requests, just in the spirit of being consistent. I don't know how everybody else feels, but. I can have her do an abutter notification. She hasn't had a permit issued yet because I held it back. And so I can have her do an abutter notification that she did at the beginning. I feel like if that's the rule and we've had issues, we should probably... That makes sense. Okay. I think, you know, we were just... Wondering because of the limit, you know, would she be going through that effort for not being, you know, if the limit's 12 and she has 14. She wanted to know if she would be able to get a permit for that if she goes through, you know, that process. I mean, I don't, I don't. Because that's like a. It is a waiver. It's like a variance from the room. Yeah. I mean, other people have had variances that are related to size of property. She has 1.28. There's a land, so she doesn't have an issue with that. And I don't think there's an issue with offsets or anything like that. So it would be the number of chickens. We do talk about this a lot. I have zero problem with a variance, but with a notification. Okay. I will let her know that. I don't know how anybody else feels. I could go either way. Quite a long time on it. Yeah. Because if there's an issue, then it can be contentious sometimes. So Julia, you need to permit it every year? Is that what? Yes, every year. So she was reporting the wrong number of chickens then for the last year? Or did this just grow in one year? What's supposed to happen is when someone... Reapplies. The person who's doing the renewals is supposed to check to see what the permit was for last year. And if there is a change, then something should happen. And that didn't happen. I see. So she was reporting the right number, but it wasn't received or wasn't noted. It wasn't identified or noted. I noticed it when I did the renewal this year, and that's why we're talking about it. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. So either way, I mean, if she just, I mean, does a letter to, so you have, you can say you would give her the permission based on a notification to all her rebutters. And then would she have to come before the board for a hearing like we do with other applicants? Or... Could we offer the variance if providing she notifies the neighbors and you don't have any problems? And no concerns are expressed by neighbors. I feel very comfortable with that. Me too. Okay. So no hearing, but notification, and then if there's any issues, people come to the health department, and then we figure out if there is a need for any other. Correct. That sounds great. Okay. Do we even need to make a motion for that variance? Yes, please. What's the address? It is 6 Nolan Farm Road. I make a motion to allow a variance for additional chickens to 14 at 6 Nolan Farm Road, providing the neighbors are notified and there's no complaints. I second. Roll call. Genevieve Anand. Yes. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. And it looks like we have HRS annual update. We have Executive Director Lindsay Stein-Sierk. Hi. Hi, Lindsay. I noticed that you're not the interim anymore. I'm not. I'm not. Congratulations. Good. Hi, Julia. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I sort of been ignoring that, but our board encouraged me to stop ignoring it. Yes. Thank you. Should I jump in? Are you ready? Absolutely. Please. Sorry we're a little behind, but we had just a little bit of an issue with getting started. So here we are. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us tonight. Happy to be here. So I'll just review generally, just by way of reminder, who we are. HRS is the local community mental health agency. We serve Weston, Wayland, and Wellesley, and we maintain that particular catchment area due to the funding from the boards of health in all three towns that we receive. So thank you. We're very grateful. And really, it feels... Central to our mission to maintain this catchment area and be serving residents of the three towns that we do exclusively as a result. We work with children and families and we've actually expanded. We now take Medicare and have done some networking with seniors in the community. We had a couple of clinicians last year go to the senior center and do a presentation too just to make sure that residents across the lifespan know that they have access to services through HRS should they want to engage. And the funding from the Boards of Health in all three towns... It serves to ensure that we're able to offer services to any resident regardless of their ability to pay for the service or regardless of whether or not they are adequately insured or have an insurance fee to take. So if there's a resident who's unable to afford our full fee, they are welcome to apply for a reduced fee for treatment. And we'll slide our fee all the way down to... Five dollars, one dollar, whatever is appropriate, and the funding from the Board Of Health allows us to do so, which also feels... Central to our mission, as well as a community agency. So in my report that I imagined really distributed, I give some narrative data and then in a chart for FY26, but I'm happy to review it and then provide a bit of a comparison year to year. Numbers-wise, it's fairly consistent. Last year was a big year in terms of service delivery or the... Fiscal Year 25, rather. But FY26 sort of leveled out where it has been. We provided 877 hours of clinical service to Wayland residents and also provided 47 hours of consultation and sort of urgent psychiatric evaluation as well, which sort of falls within the consultation group of hours to public school staff and students. So just to clarify, the 877 hours is just outpatient clinical treatment that occurs at HRS, not having anything to do with... Schools for residents across the lifespan. And then the consultation provided, as well as the urgent psychiatric evaluation hours, that work happens within the public school district. So we maintain regular consultative relationships with administrators and staff in the Wayland Public Schools. And there's a chart in my report that details You know, who on our staff provides those hours. Our chief psychologist, Dr. Wyatt, consults to the Wayland High School guidance team. I provided just a couple of hours of crisis and sort of grief response, happy, hollow, lost a beloved aftercare staff member last year. And so we provided some crisis response and worked with the kids to do some grief work and remembrance after that loss. And then our staff psychiatrist, Dr. Doe Fogle, consults to Clay Pitt, a specialized program at Clay Pitt. Another staff psychologist, Dr. Lucas Baker-Srode, consults regularly to Wayland Youth Services and the staff there. And then again, our staff psychiatrist does the urgent psychiatric evaluations. Those aren't emergency level. So, you know, if there's any... sense of imminent risk. The schools know this at this point, working with us for many, many years, but of course we would refer to the local ER. But these are more students that within the public school district, they're struggling to work with or need a consult, whether it's they have questions diagnostically about what's going on or the best way to work with a child, or they've been trying to encourage a family to get the student outside treatment. Sometimes it's helpful to have our staff psychiatrists do an evaluation and then work with the family to make that recommendation as well. And so in addition to the clinical work that we did, some of that, those 877 hours were new clients to HRS in FY26. And so some of the intake hours that I also recorded in my report were our intake team members getting data from those residents, gathering demographic data and sitting in our intake meetings to determine Best fit to a provider in-house, but sometimes there are residents who call for treatment and at the time we don't have any openings. But a benefit of being a community agency is that we maintain a referral list that we don't distribute widely, but our intake team has access to. And if a resident is interested in seeking services at HRS, but either we don't have openings or it's not a good fit. For that individual to be seen at HRS clinically based on however they're presenting and the treatment we feel is indicated, our team feels is indicated, then we'll refer them out. And so it's a real benefit that we maintain our referral list and don't distribute it so that we can ensure that Wayland residents get connected. And our intake team is always saying to Wayland residents, if you don't If we have to refer them out, if you don't connect with one of the providers that we give you, we always give between three and five names, please call us back and we want to work with you until you get connected to a provider that you feel good about. Of course, we don't require that they be back in touch with us if they don't want to, but we really give them the message that we want to work with them until they're connected. And we're always trying to look at the numbers and make sure that we're taking in, you know. More cases than we're referring out, hopefully in any year. And of course, none of this is a perfect science because we can never know exactly how many referrals we're going to get year to year. So also part of the subsidy, I think, helps us to just continue to be available in this way, whether it's our intake team or the consultation team or the clinical work that we provide that we're available to Wayland residents and happy to work with as many. Seek Services in any year. A couple of years ago, the board and some staff members asked for information regarding where referrals to us were coming from in the community. So I've now included that in the annual report for your review to, as I mentioned, you know, many of our referrals come through the public school district because we have ongoing relationships with them this past fiscal year. 12 individuals, and again, this data is provided to us by the residents who are seeking services from us who, you know, we ask them who refer to them to HRS. So 12 came from the public school district, 10 reported a self-referral, one came from the senior center, actually three from friends and community, two from family members, and six from local. PCPs in the area. So, you know, we maintain relationships with local physicians in the area, pediatricians' offices, etc. So I'm happy to continue reporting that data just to give you all a sense of where the referrals are coming from from HRS. And I think it also just helps to ensure that, again, individuals across the lifespan, residents of Wayland, are aware of our services and local partners are aware as well. And I also am now including age breakdown of, you know, Wayland residents seen within a year, just to give you a sense. And it's pretty even across the lifespan. Again, we always emphasize that we work with children and families. I think part of that is because there are many providers, especially in private practice, who don't work with young children anymore. So we're always wanting to make sure that folks know that we do do that work. But 12 to 18 in that age range is 16 of the Wayland residents and then 19 plus 17. And then in terms of the breakdown diagnostically, just in terms of what we're seeing, I'm happy to answer questions after I just review this data with you. You may notice that there's a very significant number of people who are under the anxiety category. This diagnostic data is just to sort of give you a sense of what we're seeing, but, you know, anxiety we're using as a real umbrella. So there are many diagnoses that fall under that general umbrella and we're not. You know, parsing it out in this overview. Just because the numbers really, you know, get fairly small if we do that. But that doesn't mean that all 39 of those individuals have the same diagnosis. I just wanted to explain that it may be that if an individual is struggling with social anxiety, for example, that falls under that larger anxiety umbrella more generally. Any questions I can answer either about my report or about HRS more generally?
I do have a question. Sure. Thank you. Just regarding, because we have budget season coming up. We haven't started budget yet. People ask questions about, you know, what's the difference between the work that HRS does and the work that Youth and Family Services does? And so, you know. in hopes that we have it available at our fingertips because it does get a little bit... confusing to me and to other people trying to explain it. Could you just sort of go over that a little bit at this time? Yeah, and I think, you know, I can certainly check with Dr. Baker Sorority, my colleague who I referenced, who consults with them, because I don't know the particulars of that program. So I'll speak to my understanding of the primary difference, which is really size. So I don't know exactly how many employees Wayland Youth and Families Services maintains. I know that he consults to... Two or three clinicians regularly. Do you know, Julia, how many clinicians they... I believe it's two. Two, yes. And so at HRS, we have a clinical staff of roughly 25. So we maintain a two-year training program. So on any given year, we have a maximum of eight. Trainees who are coming to us at the end stage of their doctoral programs or when they've graduated from a social work program and are accruing hours towards licensure. And then we also have, so those trainees fall within the 25 that I referenced. We have a total staff of roughly 35. But then the rest are staff clinicians and our staff psychiatrist who does clinical work as well. Size-wise, that really allows us to see far more residents than would be able to be seen through Wayland Youth Family Services. And I don't know if there are any restrictions in terms of working with seniors or what age group they're working with, and perhaps they see folks across the lifespan. But I think capacity is just for greater at our agency given. Given the size and what we do. We also, given that we have a staff psychiatrist, residents of Wayland are able to access medication management services so long as they're seeing a therapist at HRS as well. That's, you know, long been our policy and what we, you know, believe is best practice clinically. But I don't believe there's medication management services available through. Wayland Youth and Family Services. And I'm not sure if there are any other differences, but I'm certainly happy to ask Lucas, my colleague, about any differences just in terms of how cases are managed, whether there's any, you know, session limits or anything like that. Right. And, you know, at HRS, we... We are a true community agency because we maintain that catchment area of Wayland, Weston, and Wellesley residents, but we do contract with insurance providers, commercial insurance providers as well. So we're not, you know, we're able to offer reduced fee treatment to folks who are uninsured or underinsured and aren't able to afford the full fee. But we are, you know, billing for services as well to maintain, you know, we have overhead costs and all of those things. The funding allows us to maintain that catchment area and offer reduced fee work as needed and do some of the work we do in schools, but it wouldn't sustain us without some of those other contracts as well. Does that answer your question partially? I think so, but I think it would be helpful to, you know, maybe dive into that just a little bit more so that, you know, because it's in the Board of Health budget, you know, potentially people might be asking me questions. And of course, I can also touch base with Jay Verhoefsky as well. But it's just, you know, given the opportunity, I figured I would, you know, see what. You could provide with information and if there's a different person who might be have a little more insight, you know, that would be helpful. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I can certainly connect with Lucas, who does consult with those clinicians just to hear a little bit more about the nature of the work that we do. And of course, I'm not privy to how the funding works for that. Program, but I think the major difference would be size and capacity to serve more individuals. And so if the clinicians, whether it's two or three in Wayland Youth Services, if their salaries are covered by the town, they would be town employees. So it's a separate entity, which may or may not matter in terms of residents seeking services, but sometimes individuals aren't, you know. Aren't wanting their mental health needs to be taken care of by a town employee. I don't know if that would make a difference. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just looking, Julia, I was looking at the website for the Youth and Family Services and then... Looking at the review that Lindsay provided, and it looks to me like they were founded, HRS seems to be based initially in the schools. It seems to be maybe one of the differences in how they were created, and then they've branched out into more extensive services. Is that right? Am I reading that correct? So we weren't initially based in schools, but our contract actually with Wayland, the origins of it, Part of the work was helping school staff service IEPs, so individualized education plans that have counseling written in. So this was in an era where there weren't nearly as many. Counseling support staff members in schools. So we would, some of our clinicians would provide counseling for students who had counseling written into their ed plans, which of course then meant then clinicians couldn't see them over the summer. They were really seen at HRS, but because legally the school is required to provide that counseling service. So that means it's linked with this. Exactly. That was the origin that then. Part of the origin of the contract was a need that the public school had. Now it's really... You know, very similar to what we serve, yeah, in Weston and Wellesley, which is that we maintain those relationships with the schools by providing consultation, but really there we're supporting the administrators, the staff with cases and providing sort of an outside clinical perspective as opposed to serving the ed plans, which in our view, I mean, you know, it's best that that be done by clinicians in-house if they're able to do so. And that's how it's done in Weston and Wellesley? Yes, yes, yes. Any other questions that I can answer? I mentioned briefly the Happy Hollow work, and I think that's just another piece that I always like to highlight, you know, that HRS really, we pride ourselves on being able to be available should crisis arise. The relationships that we maintain, you know, first and foremost of the Board of Health, but also with the schools and other local partners really allow us to respond immediately if there's a crisis and be available to be in schools, you know, the next morning if there's. You know, a death of a community member, loss of a student, any of those tragedies. And certainly, you know, unfortunately, we've had them in some of the surrounding towns, you know, both last year and in other years. So I think that's just an important piece to highlight that in a way, we're here and the funding really... allows us to continue to be here as a presence in town and a presence that's able to respond immediately and effectively given the relationships we maintain should crisis arise. So that's an important piece of maintaining the catchment area as well. Does anyone have any additional questions for Lindsay? I don't. I don't. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lindsay. Yeah, I'm sorry we didn't have everyone here tonight, but we can certainly... advise them to listen to the recording because we're on Wacom so they can maybe get some information from the board meeting tonight and listen to it. Absolutely. I'm glad I forgot that I was being recorded. Hopefully it's all clear. And if there's ever a time that you'd like me to come back or, you know, answer any particular questions, I'm happy to do so. You know how to find me. So at any time, or if there's another colleague that people wanted to hear from, I'm happy to facilitate that. But thank you for having me. Good luck with the agenda. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. It's our wildlife. Oh, yes. Safe alternatives. And I think we have someone on here, I believe. Let me just... Oh, hi. Hi. Can you hear us, Shannon? Oh, hi. Great. Yeah, I can hear you. Carrie Stamos is also in the attendees, and she's actually the even bigger mover and shaker on this than I am. I don't know if I can move her, but let me see if I can.
Hi there. Oh, great. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Would it help? I think that you guys have our draft flyer. Would it help if I give just a little bit of background and context very quickly? Absolutely. Awesome. So I am a conservation commissioner, but I am not wearing that hat right now. For this, I am just a resident of Wayland. And we aren't trying to get sort of a Save Wayland Wildlife group off the ground with the goal of educating people and reduce the use of certain rodenticides in the town. And this is kind of following the model of a number of other towns like Save Arlington Wildlife, Save Waltham Wildlife. Carrie Stamos was involved with Save Lincoln Wildlife and has now moved to Wayland and is helping us do this. Eschars are a class of rodenticide, second generation anticoagulant rodenticides that work. by impairing normal blood clotting, but they have become the primary go-to for the last few decades by most pest control operators, but they cause enormous harm to wildlife. There's actually very little hard evidence to support their long-term efficacy, and they actually bring some risk to humans as well. And I think Carrie just sent you an information packet that has a little more detail on that, but I can always go into that if you like, but time is tight. So this past June, the Select Board did pass an internal policy to ban the use of ESGARs on town-owned property, which is great, but these are still in wide use all around town in a lot of commercial spaces and homeowners. And boards of health are actually really important in this area. You guys are the go-to for health and safety in this town. And in other towns, I don't know if this holds true for Wayland, but for instance, in Arlington, The Board of Health had a practice in place that inadvertently caused a huge uptick in eschar use because they had a requirement for a certain type of construction where if you're doing that, you just have to put bait boxes out. They didn't specify what was in the bait boxes. They just had to go out. And because eschars are the primary tool, it vastly increased the number that were distributed all around town during a building boom and contributed to a lot of deaths in wildlife. So my colleague, Carrie Stamos, mocked up this flyer and I sort of dropped it off and ran it past you guys. And it's not final. We can always finalize it. We can make the formatting better, but we can make any changes that you guys like. But we're interested in maybe allying with you guys, you know, if it's okay to have the Board of Health. sort of on that flyer if you know you guys wanted to help pass that out if you wanted to refine this we could come up with more information so boards of health are really important in this area. Carrie, I don't know if you want to speak quickly kind of about what you were able to achieve in Lincoln, but. Yeah, so, you know, we had a similar discussion with the Board of Health and we, again, were very anxious to partner with them. It's important. They were able to post it on their website at the town and to help us distribute this information because, I mean, that's always the hardest thing, getting the information out to the public. raising awareness so that people understand that there are really much, much safer alternatives and just as effective alternatives to these really dangerous eschars that Shannon just shared about. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. You know, what your thoughts are. And again, as Shannon said, we can revise this, but I thought I would just mock it up to give you an idea of what we would like to share with Wayland residents, as well as businesses. I do have a question, Carrie, if I may. A lot of, I think... As you mentioned, there's a lot of bait boxes being used for different, probably, you know, in our eyes, there'd be, you know, if there's a demo on a vacant house, they need to bait the house because if they don't, then all those rodents or critters or whatever's in there will get... You know, dispersed in the neighborhood if it's not taken care of before a demo. So what would you do in that case? What would be a replacement for what's typically done by pest companies? Yeah, so, yeah, and that was something that the Board Of Health wanted to know as well. And so there are many comparable rat poisons that don't have that same risk of secondary poisoning. It just will kill the rodent, but if the rodent is consumed by, you know, a bird or a fox, it won't kill that, it won't cause that secondary poisoning. One example is Radex. That's a rat poison. And in terms of cost, it's very comparable to eschars. So that could be something that could be used. And then there are other pest control companies that, you know, there are other options. Shannon, you know, you talked about the contraceptive. You know, but the real, probably the most comparable would be like a RADX, a rat poison versus an eschar. Vitamin D3 can also be used very effectively. That's quite lethal in high doses and it's an easily available rodenticide as well. It just doesn't have the same secondary effects either.
I'm sorry, did you say the RADX again? Is that what you referenced just now? Oh, no, the vitamin D3-based rodenticides are different from RADX. RADX works by a quirk in the rodent GI system that sort of blocks their hunger and thirst receptors and causes them to dehydrate. Vitamin D3 will also, I was just providing an alternative. Okay, sure. Or an addition. I mean, I think it's something that, I was personally interested in and I wanted to bring it to the board for their consideration. You know, it's something that I think would be more digging into on our end, you know, because we want to make sure that when people have problems with rodents, they have a product that's effective that will work. Yeah, I think there's a common misbelief that the eschars really are effective. They're really not, as Shannon said, proven all that effective. But what they are, are easy for the pest control companies to use. And that it also requires the pest control companies to come out and service them because as the poisons are consumed, they need to be refilled. And so... You know, in August, I did a bait box survey at all the commercial centers in Wayland, and I found over 51 bait boxes at the town center alone. And I can tell you that many of those bait boxes are not being maintained, and then what happens is they become habitats for rodents themselves. So that's the other piece of it. You know, these bait boxes do need to be maintained if they're placed. But, you know, you don't really know what's in the bait box. Chances are, you know, most of the time, the pest control companies are just going to use the escars because the poison in the escar is very tasty. Rodents do like them. They will consume them. And so it makes them actually make more money in the long run because they have to come back and refill the poisons over and over again. And they could use a Red X. And there are other pest control companies that have just stopped using the eschars altogether and have found, like, for example, the city of Newton over a decade ago stopped using all eschars. And so You know, they, and even though they did that, they, what they do use now is CO2 in the rodent burrows, but that's what they use. They do not use eschars, and they've seen a drop. Almost 61% a year, and that is, it still remained in that way. So they don't use them, but they're able to effectively control their rodent population. So I can share you more information, you know, give you more examples of this type of thing, where there are big cities, there are big towns that are not using these rodenticides, and they're still seeing that they're able to control rodents without them. Just a quick question. Who is using the CO2? Is it the pest company? Okay, Shannon. So I would assume that it is a pest control company that Newton contracts out to. I actually haven't thought to ask that exact question. You would have to know where the boroughs are. There are tools that allow you to track their footprints. I know that for the purpose of... Demoing a house, no one wants to do that. And in that case, probably putting D3 out in a very careful way because it will kill anything that does eat it. But strategically putting that out would be effective. For somebody who wants to control them in their house, you can actually use LumaTrack, something like that, to see where the entry points are. And you can do exclusion and better trash management. If you track where the boroughs are, then that's a place where CO2 can come in and you would need a contractor who's able to do that. We could certainly call Newton up and ask. I could even also connect with Arlington and ask them what they use in the place of their demo as well to see if they have switched over. I know that they identified that as a problem and it sounds like you guys have a similar requirement. To what extent they have changed that at this point, I actually think it's worth asking and I haven't asked if they have changed it. And you mentioned Lincoln as well, right? Yeah, Carrie, you were active. Yeah, so... Lincoln, many years ago, they stopped using eschars on all town-owned properties, including the schools. And the schools do have bait boxes, but the schools contain snap traps. And so a combination of snap traps as well as actually composting has been a big issue, a big success for Lincoln because now they can, they compost so much of their waste. They keep it in contained. Containers, and so they're not having to use dumpsters. So they don't need, they don't, they're not throwing as much stuff away, so they don't need those dumpsters. And, you know, it just, it's, it's helped them to control the rodent population in Lincoln. So, and then we brought a home rule petition to Lincoln that was passed. And so Lincoln is planning to just ban the use of all eschars. Lincoln's a very different town than Wayland, but at the same time, even like a town like Newton is able to come up with a non-eschar way of controlling the rodent population. So I, you know, I fully... Think that that's something that Wayland could do down the line, but really for this, you know, for today, what we really want to do is get information out to residents so that they have a better understanding of what those alternatives are, because they may not know what eschers are, the harm that they can cause, and that if they are using a pest control company or, you know, using Eschars are not available for consumer purchase, although you can purchase them on Amazon, unfortunately, but they may not understand what those eschars are, or they may be using a pest control company that is using them, and it may just, you know, they can have a simple conversation with the pest control company and ask them to use another product other than an eschar. I will add one thing that Newton does use in addition to gassing burrows is the rodent birth control. So that actually has come a long way and they use that. It comes in the water and they place it out strategically. It requires a little more work. But just to add, it's not just that. I actually have rodent birth control in my garage right now. Does the board have any thoughts, comments? I love the idea. I have rat hacks in my equipment. So that if they come in and they think they're going to be making a home, they eat that. And I have really good luck with that. Oh, that's amazing. I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, very good. Yeah, I've done exclusion on my property as well. I have a house on the Cape and that was the first thing I did, you know, to prevent access from getting into the house because I didn't want bait boxes on my property. So that's worked really well. What we could do is we, you know, I could, Carrie and I could do some legwork and ask some of these other towns that have done their own home rule petitions and find out what they're using in the demo instances. So like when you have that urgent need that you just need to tell people to put boxes out, what are they using instead? Whether it's RADx or Ritamin D3 or something similar. I think that's helpful. How effective do you think the sprays are? The peppermint oils and things like that that they say keep them away? I honestly don't know. That's been offered to me, but I didn't want to alienate my opossums, so I never put them up on it. I know that Banner Pest Control, which is making enemies in the pest control business by having gone totally eschar-free, I know he actually does advocate for... Some kind of barrier spray. And he's the one who's really become a true believer and has seen a lot of efficacy. So it must do something. It probably would need to be reapplied periodically the way these things always do. But I was concerned it would be effective enough to drive away other wildlife. And of course, sorry. I was just going to say trash management really is the biggest thing.
Do you want, I'm not sure where we go from here, I mean, do you want the board to chime in on supporting this effort and, you know, move forward with, I guess, how we do that? You said the select board had voted. to support no anticoagulants on any town properties. So it sounds like we're in alignment there. It does. We could revisit this flyer, see if it's something that you guys like. If you want to make any changes, it could be a piece of literature that can be available to post on your website or to hand out. And then we could help come up with more information for you for some of those internal policies. You can obviously... Look into them yourself. Not that we would be the final arbiters, but if there's edits that you want to see to that flyer, you want to see some kind of different thing. It sounds like you like this mission, so maybe we're on the right track. We could create more materials, finalize this to, you know, if you feel like you want any edits, since it's your name on it, we should make it pretty, right? Things like that. I don't know how the other board members feel. I think that sounds like it's, you know, but I don't want to speak for the board. I would want to know a little more as we move forward from, you know, a pest company that could tell us what their perspective is on that. You know what I mean? Just so that we have data. That would be great. Awesome. You can do that. Thank you, guys. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. I wonder if you could CO a house that you were going to demo. That sounds really... You just don't really seal it. Well, I know, but like down south, you seal a house to get rid of the termites, and they do that. Ah, yeah. So you could... Yeah. And CO you can make very easily with a car running outside, so you don't have to seal it that well. That sounds... Interesting. Yeah. I'm just. Yeah. An idea. Thinking outside the box. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. We appreciate your time so much. Thank you. Yeah. We'll be in touch. If you could send me some of that information, that would be great. And we can talk about this flyer. That sounds great. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Take care, guys. Bye-bye. Okay. Health Director updates, 10 short rides. We have an inspection date provided by the judge, and we will be going to do the inspection on November 9th at 9 a.m. Have things been fixed? No. Well, we were in court last week on Wednesday, and the owner was there, Gene, and... She wanted more time. She wanted 30 days. We refused. And the judge didn't want to give her 30 days. Based on his review of the documentation, he thought it was important that we get in to see the house sooner. So we got sent to a mediator and we had a meeting with the town attorney, myself, and a regional inspector, Gene, and her friend and the mediator. And we were able to agree on November 9th as the date where we would do an inspection. And so I'm not, I don't feel like there's been any progress there. I don't know, though, because it's been quite a long time since we've been there, but I wouldn't be surprised if the conditions had worsened. And so we have an inspection date and then we have a follow-up. hearing at court December 2nd, I believe. So that's what will be happening. Julia, is there some urgency because the roof was apparently damaged before winter comes? It was, yeah. That's why we're trying to, you know, to move forward, really, the judge needs to know what the conditions are. You know, it's been such a long time since we've been in there. I don't think he would move forward with anything like receivership unless there was a current inspection. Did you have any other questions about the property? Anybody? No, I think you'll have given her a lot of time and space, and she's just not capable, the poor lady. Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult situation for sure, but I don't think she has the money to do your affairs, and I don't think she has the wherewithal, you know. Right, right. So it's probably going to end up in receivership. That's where I would expect, or something else, you know. 154 Boston Post Road Animal Keeping that the board is very familiar with. That's the geese. I did get in touch with Sandra Perez and she said that she had a plan to move the geese to a place in Maine and that she gave me a couple weeks. That a window of time where she said that that was happening. So I'm going to be following up with her in a couple of weeks to see where that's going. I think because, well, at least when it's not 70 degrees out, it's quieter, I think, because people aren't outside. You know, there's just a different dynamic of what's going on in people's yards right now. I don't think that the geese have gone anywhere. So, you know, we'll have to keep close watch on what's going on over there because she's not compliant with what the board voted on. And we could potentially consider finding her as well if we wanted to do that. Correspondence from CMG Environmental, we received a notice of phase two delay and I had shared that with the Board. Delay in compliance with MCP deadlines. So we received a copy of the letter from Ben Gould to the Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup, notifying of delays due to In areas where the RTN 3-37750 study areas had been expanded and exceedances were found. And so I believe, you know, the consensus is that there's more work to be done.
And they're requesting an additional year to submit a Phase II comprehensive site assessment, thus by November 1 of 2027. And so they'll determine whether the study area, if the expanded study area will prove sufficient to fully delineate the extent of the PBAS 6 contamination. So that was one thing we received. But we also received A binder with responses to public commentary from the PIP meeting that was held, and also a draft, another document that we have that's another binder of reports. So, you know, those are available for public viewing, all from CMG Environmental related to the 195.201 and 207 Main Street property. known as RTN 3-37750. The Fall 2026 lead and copper sampling results and certification forms were received from Water Superintendent Don Millette, and it looks like there were in order. I don't think there were any issues with the sampling that was done. That's the High School Children's Way. I'm sorry, hold on. All results were below lead and copper standards. And that was... It's 10-9-26. It's dated... I think that's for... I believe it's for all the schools, but... The date that you're referencing, Dr. Anand? Mm-hmm. Is that on one of these reports here? Yeah, it's on that... It's like a grid. Like a table of numbers and... It's signed by the water superintendent and it says 10-9-26. Oh yeah, there it is. I see it. Yep. Okay. Okay. And minutes. Has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes? I didn't. Sorry. There's been a lot going on. You don't have to look at them right now. I mean, unless you want to. Do you think you could do that or is it too much? They're pretty long. Has everyone else reviewed the minutes? We need all three, right? We need three people. Yeah. I usually don't say anything. Sure. There actually is some stuff. Wow. Sweet, Reno. Looking for specific things. Okay, I'll make a motion to accept the minutes from 3-16-26, 5-18-26, and 9-21-26. Second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand. I think we need a third. She's got a thumbs up. Okay. No microphone. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer, yes. Okay. Excellent. Yes, sorry, I got my speech flipped. More dates? Yes, so our next meeting date is November 16th, and then we have one for November, I'm sorry, December 14th. Next week, I'm sorry, this week, Darren and I and Maura will be going to the Mass Health Officers Conference. It's an educational conference in Springfield. And so we'll be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and back in the office Monday, but we'll be, you know, available for anything that may come up, email, texts, phone calls. If you need me, I am available, as well as the office. Patty will be covering the office, and Michelle will be here, although she won't be here Wednesday. She'll be here Thursday. And I think that's pretty much it. One clarification just for the fees. The farmer's market fee was $60. And we... use that as a temporary event fee as well. And so I just wanted to clarify that number, because we had increased the fees for both of those categories, so the $60 would cover both of those things. I believe that was how we talked through it. So I just want to muddy the waters. Yes. I think I said $60 for the farmer's market fee, $50 for the trade show. Reinstate the $35 for small events. With the opportunity to waiver any fees and the opportunity to go up depending up to $100. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on the work involved in permitting. Got it. And then what was the other? It was just. The $60 that we have for the farmer's market can be used for other temporary events that are similar. Yeah, agreed. And I think the discussion was that you could waive the fee for events that don't require food review. That's right. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand. Yes, thank you. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer. Yes, let's go. All right. Thank you.
All right. So as far as communicable, excuse me, just disease numbers, nothing of... Significant concern in September. There was one individual who accounted for three of the GI illnesses on this list and another related to travel. The tuberculosis case is one of latent tuberculosis infection, not tuberculosis disease. Any questions about the
Can you see that? Okay, just checking. Yeah, and we got a copy of an email. And then there is a link to the disease report that's now put out monthly by the Great Meadows Public Health Collaborative's regional epidemiologist. Nothing of surprise there for the region either. Some uptick in respiratory diseases, a decrease in tick-borne illnesses, although we're now really in the second of the biphasic. Response that we see throughout the course of the year. So I imagine we'll see more tick-borne illness cases. As far as community outreach and highlights are concerned, we encouraged vaccination, especially seasonal vaccinations at this time of year in the last Town of Wayland newsletter and broadcast the Vaccine clinics offered to the community broadly. So hopefully you saw some of those advertisements. And we did have two recent large community clinics on the 7th and the 14th. I've conducted homebound visits for those with mobility challenges requesting either influenza or COVID-19 vaccinations at home. And then been doing some smaller flu-in COVID vaccine clinics at each of the schools. So those are ongoing. But in that two and a half week period from 10-7 through last Friday, a total of 522 vaccines had been administered. And then we were able to support tabling at Wayland Fest recently using the MRC. Between the MRC unit coordinator and three volunteers offering health information and resources. So here's a photo of one of the volunteers at the table. So there was Narcan available at the table. We promoted vaccine clinics. We promoted emergency preparedness in terms of Promoting having a kit ready at home, having an emergency supply checklist to work off of. You can see the tick poster that I think some of you pass on the way into the meeting. So that was a big draw, getting some eyes to the table with that poster. And then for school health services, we continue to have an open position for community health nurse, school nurse. And so we're continuing to seek applications for that position. In the month of October, we... have led both myself and our regional substance use prevention coordinator, Olivia DeFour, have led Naloxone or Narcan trainings for staff at schools, and those are continuing into next week and beyond. And then I just included from our school nurse leader some numbers from September. You can see those here. And then highlights of what the nurses in the schools are up to. Certainly busy seeing students, but at the same time following up on required physical exams, verifying required immunizations, conducting state-managed Mandated screenings, looking at those with expiring physical exams mid-season and re-clearing for sports, and then tracking various injuries and preparing for field trips. So the nurses are quite busy at this time of year with seeing students and all of these tasks as well. And that is all I have for you. Thank you. Thank you. So we're on to the trade show and farmer's market, the discussion. Thank you. Sorry about all the paper. So, and Gigi, I emailed this draft memo to the board, so you should have a copy of it. Yeah, I do. Thank you. You're welcome. So, We did receive a couple of complaints, one through the select board chair, Carol Martin, and that was regarding the farmer's market fees. The other complaint was through, where's my paperwork? Terry from the Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts. She was complaining about the fee for the trade show. And originally, just for some history on that one, the trade show fee was not what she thought it was. She thought it was $125 per exhibitor. It was not. It was $75. Although, you know, in our fee scale... You know, it talks about small and large events. And so she, I think she interpreted it as a large event, but we viewed it as 75. We also got a letter from State Representative Carmine Gentile, and he was also referencing the 125 per vendor, which was incorrect. Although she probably told him that, so that's probably why. But he was advocating on their behalf. And so when I spoke to Carol Martin, she's the select board chair. We talked a little bit about what we do here, all the work we did to review these fees last year. We didn't just kick them out of the year. We did a study. We looked at like 12 different pounds altogether. Some of them are hard to compare because they may have slightly different fees, structures, or ways of charging things, ways of looking at things. However, we did do a lot of work and we looked at things. We talked about it at two different board meetings. We put some Excel sheets together, looked at our staff. Hourly rates, Beth rate, Beth, our food inspector's rates, figured out, you know, how much time we spend on these things. And we came up with what we thought was fair. And, you know, I'm bringing it up to look at because I think, you know, we need to consider the economy. There's probably small purposes that may be suffering from, you know, increased costs and things like that. And, you know, we always investigate complaints when we receive them. And so here we are. Although I can tell you that these things do generally take a lot of time, especially the farmer's market, where, you know, Beth reviews every... Vendor who's coming and what kind of food they're bringing, their labels, their ingredients, their, you know, food handling practices and, you know, where they're preparing the food. I mean, there's a lot that goes into it as there should be. And also with the trade show, I think maybe we could look at that a little differently because they're not actually selling these products, but they're sampling. So people are actually eating that food product at this trade show, even though it's not necessarily open to the general public. People are trying foods and things like that, and some of them are coming from out of state. They're not familiar with Massachusetts food code or allergen safety in some. Not everyone, but in some circumstances, labeling and, you know, a lot of different things that need to be looked at. And so there is some time required, maybe not the same for all of them, because, I mean, you know, some products might be a simpler review than others. But there is some time that, you know, is spent on each vendor. And we have seen definitely an increase in these types of temporary events. You know, they're going on, which is great. And I'm happy that Russell's has a lot of action over there bringing business into there. For their garden center, you know, because every time they have these events, people are, especially the farmer's market and, you know, ladies night and it's also a popular event. It's a great place, you know, for people to go and be able to find unique food products and, you know, farm fresh produce and things like that. I put together, you know, after speaking with Carol, which, you know, she understood, you know, the background. I think she was receptive to hearing all the work we've done. And she just had, you know, a couple of suggestions, you know, considering we would be making a recommendation to the select board because we reviewed the fees last time. decided on fee increases and then made a recommendation to the Select Board and they adopted what we suggested last year or last winter rather in February. And so I told her that we would be looking at this and that I would bring something to the Select Board to have them look at at their meeting in November. And so some of the things that we talked about were considering like a phased approach. We could reel back a little bit on the farmer's market fee from 75 to potentially 60. I mean, we did go from 35 to 75, which is a pretty steep jump. Although, you know. That permit is good for a whole year. So, you know, keeping in mind that if you get a permit at that farmer's market, you can go back to the market however many times they are able to accommodate you selling produce or whatever you're selling at this market. And then you could be at other events as well in town because you have a permit and it's good for a full year from December to December. And so, you know, it's slightly different. The dates are different because of the time of year when, you know, the farmers, the winter farmers market is really the driving force for that. For using December as the permit date. Because all our other permits are, you know, during our fiscal year. So they're good from July 1 to June 30th. But the farmer's market is a little different. I mean, it's not that confusing, but it sounds like it could be. But the point is that anyone who gets a permit, it's good for a year. It's not just good for one event. So when we're talking about the farmer's market. So, you know, we were talking a little bit about maybe having a phased increase starting with $60 for the farmer's market. And, you know, honestly, as I think more about the trade show, it definitely is work that, you know, we need to do. However, considering there are no sales. So if a person goes to, you know, a business person goes to the trade show and has their produce, or not produce, but, you know, say they have a particular type of jelly or something and people try it, they're not going to be selling it to anyone at that time. You know what I mean? They're not... I don't know exactly how that whole business works. Maybe people buy from them through learning about their products at this event. I'd have to hear more about that, but they're actually not selling during the event. So, you know, I think that's where the concern for costs comes into play because people are struggling. To have this event and welcome people from, you know, different locations coming in. And if it's cost prohibitive, then, you know, maybe they won't come to this event, which I can certainly be receptive to, you know, but I think we should have some kind of a fee for the trade show. It is a new event. Well, it's been there before, but we haven't really been able to figure out exactly how to. We permit it, but what do we charge them? You know what I mean? It's a little different than a regular farmer's market. But knowing that the argument was against the 125 and not the 75, does that make a difference? I mean, it does, but I mean, when I read through Terry's, you know, she's from the Sustainable Business Network. I understand what she is trying to convey. There are some things that maybe are not, you know, as time-consuming as others, you know, and we have to figure out a way that's not complicated to tackle both, you know, without having complicated fee structures or things like that. Well, maybe is our fee based on the most complicated or the least complicated? It's based on the most complicated. So maybe it is too high. Because, you know, it may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think fees should necessarily be so high that they support 100% of what you're doing. I mean, some of that's on the town, I would think. So, sorry to interrupt you. When this came up last year, we were definitely getting... We were encouraged to look strongly at our fees to make sure that they covered at least what we were doing for work. And we did. We felt like we were doing our jobs by looking at all other towns. But, you know, we're open to, I mean, at least I'm open to considering this feedback as part of, you know, I mean, I think there's room for adjustment. Can we just adjust it without the select board? We can make a recommendation to a judge. So it has to go back to them. Does the Select Board take public comment regarding the fee? They do. They do. And I don't know. I mean, I was actually expecting someone to come to our meeting tonight, but they may have gone to their meeting instead. I don't know. But Carol did tell them that we were talking about this tonight because we're the ones that actually know how these fees were created and why. And she fully appreciated the background, you know, of how we came to those numbers. Because we thought a lot about it and like we went back and forth a little bit about some of the fees, so. Yeah. So, I mean, my conclusion after looking at this without being overly complicated here, I think that, I think $60 would be reasonable for the farmer's market. So we'd be going from $75 to $60. Which, I don't know if there's any other, unless you're going to do 50 and go 50 for farmer's market, 50 for temporary, or rather for trade show fees. That way we're not overcomplicating things. And it sounds like that's kind of similar. The $50 is similar to what Sudbury does in some respects. Yes. And the Town of Winchester, sort of.
And now keep in mind that it's very difficult, you know, so some of the other things in this carries email. Oh, well, some people might only come for one day or maybe it was the email that from Chris Moynihan regarding the farmer's market. You know, if someone goes for one day, who's going to know that? Like we would never be able to track or manage how often. A vendor goes to a farmer's market. So I don't really think that that's a helpful comparison. But we also want to encourage business not discouraging. Right. But I mean, some of these numbers in this Excel sheet that we had done actually had, oh, they can come for one day, and that might be why it shows a lower fee. But how do they even check that? I doubt they even know who's there and who isn't there. No one's going to be able to check that. So, and then... We also noticed because Patty and I have been, you know, up until recently with our new hire, Michelle Boralessa, which is, she's been really good replacing Jenna, who was here for a few years. So Patty and I were doing that work and we both realized that, you know, there's... There is an ability to be more flexible. Some of these like small things that come up, you know, there's no one size fits for all. But if we have the ability to waive a fee for like, if there's an event at the Council on Aging and, you know, it's so easy that they just apply online. Oh, yeah, they're getting food from a restaurant. It's all set. Here's your permit. You know, that shouldn't be. You should have that. You should have that latitude. So I just wanted to confirm that, you know, we are able to, like, waive fees for this in events similar to that. I mean, it's like, you know, some of the things that come up don't warrant having a fee attached to them. And so, as well as a fee lower than $50, you know, for something that is warrants $35, you know what I mean? Like, so I think... I'd like to keep a fee of $35 for small events that fall into that bucket. And then the ability to waive fees for events that, you know, might be catered from a restaurant that's in Wayland. And, you know, there's really nothing that you need to do. We're like, thanks for the heads up. Here's a permit. Enjoy your event. You know, that type of thing. If there's people making food, you know, so things, there's so many people that are enjoying all these temporary events now. They want to make food. They want to, you know, there's a lot of different things people like to do. It becomes a little overwhelming sometimes. And so that's why we have these temporary event fees to try and reel in, you know, the potential for having problems, you know, with foodborne illness or, you know, cross-contamination or anything that could happen. So if we have the ability to keep the $35 fee. Well, that would be reducing the fee, right, to $35? Well, keeping, just keeping it, and so continuing to be able to offer that as a fee for a small event that warrants it, as well as being able to waive a fee. So you don't want to propose changing the trade show fee? I do. It's a different thing. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yep. So what do we think that should go down to? So I was suggesting that 50 for the trade show, maybe 60 for the farmer's market. I mean, how long? I just wonder, like, so if I grow potatoes and... That doesn't need to get a permit through us. That's produce. That's different. You know what I mean? Like any fresh vegetables or things like that, we don't need to be involved. If people are making things. So is honey manufactured or made? If honey is, if it has added things for flavor, then yes, we would need to know. If it's like raw honey, no, because it's right from the hive. People just put it in a jar. I mean, that's what. I don't know these things, so thank you. Unless they're, you know, people, I mean, if you've been to the farmer's market, you would know they have, you know, flavored honey now and honey cream for your toast and, you know, different things, which is delicious, by the way, but it's still, you know, you're doing something to that food. So do you think that the trade show fee and the farmer's market fee should be the same? Yes. Makes it easy. Yeah. Gigi? Yeah, I think it would make it simpler if you did. And then that would be one year, right, for, you're saying, for farmer's market and then next year would go up. I didn't, I actually didn't realize it was a, like, they could come the whole year, which makes it even more or less, you know, less of a heavy load, weight to bear if you think it's spread out over whatever, 10 months. eight months or whatever that they can come in and sell their wares. They have to sell them the same food every time because that's what they got cleared for if they came back? Or do you have to go back again? I would expect them to have the same food. If they don't, then, you know, they would typically need to... Come through us. I mean, most of them have the same foods because, you know, it's probably a little hard to change what you're selling, you know, if you're producing yourself. I mean, how do you know if they're making it out of state? You just kind of go talk to them about their procedures? Yeah, I mean, what happens is they buy online. And we see who's coming and then they send, you know, information. And that's where OpenGov has become a huge benefit because they send these stuff in and, you know, their labels, ingredients, what they're planning on selling, how they're setting up their area and things like that. And, you know, Beth can review it. When she comes in the office, she can just look at all that stuff and she will work with Michelle to start reviewing those vendors for the farmer's market. And then any questions, you can email back and forth. And it works pretty well at this point. Is that something that like saves time that would also bring down the best costs? That's the same process we've been doing. So I don't know if we've been changing. I'm just trying to remember exactly what the fee was that we've had before. So it looks like then, okay, so it was 35. So we did, we went from 35 to 75. So that's, you know, that's pretty high.
I think 50 would be a reasonable adjustment, but really the board, you know, you guys have to feel comfortable. I agree. I mean, I feel like they spend a lot of time on each one and it's not a one-time thing. It's for the whole season, so it's not that unreasonable. And I agree also with the other side, which is like you almost double the price on us or you more than double the price on us. So, you know, that's kind of... That was difficult for them. So, you know, so I think 50-50 is like a reasonable adjustment. So this is a vote that we would make a motion. We would, yeah. So a couple other things that we need to make sure we look at. So 50 for farmer's market, 50 for, I'm losing my voice, trade show. And then we've also got... You said the waiver opportunity. Yes. Yeah. And the reenactment of the $35 for small events. Is it reenacting or just keeping it? It's a rewind, isn't it? It's a rewind. We had increased it. We had recommended to increase it previously, and that was not well received. Right. Do you need to define that, Julia, what a small event is? I think...
Probably, but I'm not sure how to tackle that. Would you say based on the time that the food inspector spends on evaluation or something like that? Maybe events that don't require food review. If, you know, there's an event that, I guess that might be the waive fee one. You know what I mean? There's no review and it's just, you know, basically a rubber stamp. So that would be the waived fee. And the 35 would be requires some review by food inspector. Okay. If that is enough? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, you're dealing with them. So I don't know if you're going to have a lot of back and forth and my event is small or, you know, that's why I was saying if it's defined, maybe it makes it. clearer, but whatever you feel is appropriate. And then we just have to go back to where we've identified $50 for events at Brussels. And, you know, basically we sort of have it as a temporary event. We've also got... A large event. So we went $75 for small, $125 for large. And that would be per vendor or per exhibitor. But that may be something we should reconsider as well. It's just, you know, when we have these large events. Then $125 isn't that much. Right. If it's a large event. Right. If it's a. Somebody making something in their kitchen to sew on Saturday afternoon or whenever it is. So should we leave the 125 then? Or should we use 50 and then 75 for the large events and just eliminate the 125? So large event would be like a church event or something like that? Or those are separate? With a head count? Is it a number of? That's a good question. Vendors represented? Yeah. I guess you have to figure out how to define the square footage, like for restaurants. It's hard to know, you know, seats. Yeah. Because the events could be, as you mentioned, they could be at a church, they could be at Brussels, they could be outside, they could be in a field. Could you, does Beth charge you, like, based on the hours that she works on them? How do you, how does? She does, she charges, so, for example, let me have some receipts here. The trade show, it's $25 per review that she has to do. And it's probably the same for the farmer's market, although Beth's going to be retiring, and so. Who knows what the fees will be then? You know, we try to align them with knowing how much money we're paying out and how much money we're collecting, but we have to make decisions about, you know, things that we're aware of and we're not aware of what any change would be, so. I mean, you could do it on a proportion of time spent by your staff? Is that something we're really complicated? I think it's just good to have an option to, you know, Have a higher fee amount for an event that may come up that ends up being so much work and we're like this, you know, this really should be what we're charging for this event. So we do charge the host a fee. Yes. So I wonder if you could say like it's going to be 50 is your average, right? And then you can, you can reserve the Reserve the opportunity to drop it if, you know, if it's a smaller event and increase it if it's a larger event and those are your two markers on either side of the 50. I don't know if that's one way to phrase it and then leave it a little bit open. You have to be ready for people to come in. I mean, people might say, oh, why am I, like, I should be small or why am I large, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're large if you need a lot of, Reviewed part of the inspection. Resources, yeah, that's what I was getting to. So I don't know if it's easy enough to have those markers in place or just leave it open for now and then you can work on the markers later before you kind of put it out, you know? So you mean leave the 75 and the 125 as an option there? Yeah, no, you said 50 for the 75 drops to 50, and then you have the option for 35. And then on the other side, you have the option for, I don't know, maybe you can say 100 instead of 125 for the large event. And then, you know, leave those markers and then work out with Beth or with when Bob comes back, if he has some ideas, like what is your, like how are you deciding what is small, medium, large? Okay. I don't know if that makes sense. Because I'm assuming they want an answer soon. They do. We need to get these in place because the events are, we're going to start receiving applications. Yeah, sorry, go ahead. So is it something we have to do today? Yes. Because we have to have a recommendation for the next meeting in November.
I personally feel like 50 in the middle and 35 and 100, maybe, or 35 and 75, whatever you think, for small and large, having some markers. And then you can decide within that before you actually have to put those fees, what that actually means for you. You know what it is, but we don't have any clear objective way of defining it, right? I thought it was 50 and then the option to waive and 100 for the large event. 50 and then the 35 is the small event fee with the option to waive on that. Yep. I'm trying to think about how to word the 50, the small and the large. I mean, I've got reduce trade show and farmers market fee to $50 and reduce the small event fee to 35 and give the Board of Health the ability to waive. the small event fee at their discretion. For events that don't require food reviews. You could just state it as like the price would be like $35 and then the option to increase depending on complexity of the request up to like $100 or whatever. Okay, spit it out. Do you think 50 is a good number? I mean, when I spoke to Carol Martin, she suggested 65, or 60, rather. I think that's what I put. For the medium, for the medium. 60, 35, and 100, right? 100, yeah. So the 75, Katie's dropping to 60. She was suggesting 60. So should we? Change it to 60 for the farmer's market and the trade show. I mean, if she thinks that's okay, then that should be good, right? And the small business request letter is kind of asking for towards 50. Right. And we're trying to be friendly to small businesses. Does $10 make a difference in the budget over? I mean. I think it's what the board feels is fair and you're comfortable with. I mean, that was just the number we talked about. And then, you know, it's still an increase from what we had before, which was $35. Yeah. Which is definitely not. Yeah. Okay. So you had $35 for everything, no matter what. 35 was for events at the farmer's market. I'm sorry, for farmer's market vendors. And then it blew up into this huge event that they have, which is great. But we were like, we're spending a lot of time on this. We need to look at our fees. And then we were formally asked to look at our fees by the finance director and select board. And so that was part of why that got looked at. And then we, you know, started noticing all these big events. There's a huge event at the Coptic Church every year. They have this big celebration. And, you know, Russell's has events and now they have the trade show. And I mean, there's a lot of work that, you know, is involved. And that's why we were talking about the fees. Right, right. Yeah, I remember that with when we were, when Bob was in that meeting. Yeah, I think 60 is fine with me if that's what she suggested, because I feel like, I mean, it's a one-time fee for the whole year. And I think you can phrase it like when you start, it's in the interest of safety of the community, right? Because you want to have a proper food safety evaluation process. We don't want to be cutting back on... Services because of lack of funding, right? I mean, I don't know if that's something you can put in there or that's certainly what goes through everybody's mind, right, when you're thinking about how to provide services. Now, is trade show the same thing as small event or are those different? Well, yes and no. I mean, it is a small event. But it's definitely different than some of the other events. You know, without becoming too complicated, it's not open to the general public. So the small event is not open to the general public? It might be, if it's at a different venue. You know, I mean, like I was just saying, there's events at the Coptic Church and other places that have events that are not associated with Russell's. So I think, honestly, Maybe we should just stick with 60 for the farmer's market and for temporary events and have a separate fee for the trade show that is maybe that's whatever the board is comfortable with. Because it does seem like a lot for a trade show. There's no one buying anything. Yes, there's work that needs to be done, but I get what they're trying to say. But it's really what the board is comfortable with. So what is the purpose of the trade show? Is to share your products with other producers? I believe that's why they have the trade show, yes. Okay. And they sample different food products that they bring with us. So, yeah, so the town, like, I agree with John, so the town should support some of the fees as well, right? Because that's bringing people to Wayland as well. Yes, it is. So does that all fall on the Board of Health, or does the town take up some of your costs to do all that, you know, the food safety inspections? They do not. Well, they provide money for our budget. So, you know, that's where we have Bath as a contracted food inspector through the town budget. So it's kind of one big budget and then yours is kind of a part of the town budget. And you put money in and you get money back. Yes. Because you're just putting it into the general fund. The money that we collect for any fees that we have goes into the general fund. And every year we have an allocated budget for salary and non-salary. And non-salary would be, you know, in this case for Beth's contract to pay her for the work that she does. So she hasn't gone up on her fees because most people, the inflation is so high, like most people have gone up on everything, right? She hasn't gone up on her fees this year. No, we might see a sticker shock when she retires. I don't know. When that happens, we'll have to see, you know? Yeah, yeah. I'm ready to make a motion if everybody else has. Great. Okay, great. I'd like to make a motion to update our recommendations on the fees for some of the permits, including a recommendation for $60 for the farmer's market, $50 for trade show, reinstate the $35 for small events. Have an option to waiver fees for small events when it doesn't make sense and have an option to increase fees up to $100 for large events depending on the work for the review. Okay. I second that. I guess we have to call for a vote. Yes. Roll call. Roll call. Genevieve Anand? Yes. Katie Steff? Yes. And yes, John Storer, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's a lot of work. Thanks for doing all that. Thank you for suffering through the discussion. It's always a little tough. There's no one-size-fits-all, that's for sure, you know. Yeah, I think it's good you have some flexibility this way. Yes, thank you. On to the next subjects.
Oh, yes. Leary Street. So there's two things that I just handed out. One of them is related to Tenshore and the other is related to 25 Leary. And tonight we have an agenda item to ratify a legal order for 25 Leary Street for conditions unfit for human habitation in order to secure and remain vacated. And this is the motion that someone can make. I move to ratify the health director's finding that the dwelling located at 25 Leary Street. is unfit for human habitation, requiring the boarding and securing of the dwelling, and requiring the dwelling to remain vacated until it is found to be habitable by an inspection of the Board Of Health. Anyone second? I second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand? Yes. Katie Stiff? Yes. And John Storer, yes. Thank you.
Okay. It's got six Nolan farm roads. More animals. Love it. Yeah. How many geese? This is chickens. More than half. No geese here. We were in the process of renewing their permit to keep chickens, and we noticed that they had more chickens than they should have had, and so I got in touch with the owner, Lynn. Ogerelk. And I think that's how you pronounce her name. And she was requesting to keep more than 12 chickens, meaning up to the existing 14. I'm sorry. Yeah, 14. She does have a large property in northern Wayland. I wasn't sure if... Board wanted her to proceed with, you know, an abutter notification because her original permit was not for 14 chickens. It was for, let's see. 12. 10. Does it say 10? Okay. Oh, revised. No, so their permit was for 10 and then we had a...
We revised it up to 12 and 24 is what her letter says. It looks like it was 10. Yeah. And so now she has 14. She has... So no one complained. You were just doing a routine check. So what happened was someone complained. We had a few complaints about roasters in the same week. And she did have roasters and has since gotten rid of them. And now she just has chickens. We don't have any complaints about the chickens that she has. She has a large property, 1.2 acres on Nolan Farm Road. So when you did the inspection, she was in compliance for everything else in terms of the... Waste and... So I haven't done an inspection. I can do that. You know, we did an inspection when she applied for the permit initially, and typically what happens is the animal keeping, I'm sorry, the animal control officer does the annual barn inspection, so she would have been by there last year and would have checked the other, you know, the conditions of the animal keeping area when she was out there. Okay. So I misunderstood. I thought somebody went over and found the roosters there, but somebody complained about the roosters. Yes. Okay. And she took care of it. She was able to re-home the roosters, and now she just has a couple of extra chickens that she was hoping to keep as, you know. It's not what the board originally approved, though. So I wasn't sure how the board wanted to handle that. And the chickens are old. Right. She said three are old, right? Yeah. Six are old. No, six years old is what the older ones are. Yeah. What's their life expectancy? That is a really good question. That's good. Okay. Well, I personally feel like if she's taking care of them and she's on a big property and it's not bothering anybody, I think it's okay, but she needs to know that. I think she kind of, her letter expresses that she understands that she was in the wrong and she's going to write it, but she doesn't want to traumatize her kids, which I think it's a fair argument that she makes. So I think as long as the, I mean, it's more in terms of the animals. For me, that they're not overcrowded, right? That the animals are treated humanely. Like, if the neighbors are fine and, like, nobody's making a noise, as long as the animals are humanely treated, I'm okay. I guess that's my question. Does she need to, like... Send a letter to the abutters. So that's what I'm wondering, if she needs to do that, I can have her do that. You know, that was just, she has more than 12, which is what the board had said was the limit on the number of chickens. I feel like we should be consistent with requests, just in the spirit of being consistent. I don't know how everybody else feels, but. I can have her do an abutter notification. She hasn't had a permit issued yet because I held it back. And so I can have her do an abutter notification that she did at the beginning. I feel like if that's the rule and we've had issues, we should probably... That makes sense. Okay. I think, you know, we were just... Wondering because of the limit, you know, would she be going through that effort for not being, you know, if the limit's 12 and she has 14. She wanted to know if she would be able to get a permit for that if she goes through, you know, that process. I mean, I don't, I don't. Because that's like a. It is a waiver. It's like a variance from the room. Yeah. I mean, other people have had variances that are related to size of property. She has 1.28. There's a land, so she doesn't have an issue with that. And I don't think there's an issue with offsets or anything like that. So it would be the number of chickens. We do talk about this a lot. I have zero problem with a variance, but with a notification. Okay. I will let her know that. I don't know how anybody else feels. I could go either way. Quite a long time on it. Yeah. Because if there's an issue, then it can be contentious sometimes. So Julia, you need to permit it every year? Is that what? Yes, every year. So she was reporting the wrong number of chickens then for the last year? Or did this just grow in one year? What's supposed to happen is when someone... Reapplies. The person who's doing the renewals is supposed to check to see what the permit was for last year. And if there is a change, then something should happen. And that didn't happen. I see. So she was reporting the right number, but it wasn't received or wasn't noted. It wasn't identified or noted. I noticed it when I did the renewal this year, and that's why we're talking about it. So, yeah. Okay. Okay. So either way, I mean, if she just, I mean, does a letter to, so you have, you can say you would give her the permission based on a notification to all her rebutters. And then would she have to come before the board for a hearing like we do with other applicants? Or... Could we offer the variance if providing she notifies the neighbors and you don't have any problems? And no concerns are expressed by neighbors. I feel very comfortable with that. Me too. Okay. So no hearing, but notification, and then if there's any issues, people come to the health department, and then we figure out if there is a need for any other. Correct. That sounds great. Okay. Do we even need to make a motion for that variance? Yes, please. What's the address? It is 6 Nolan Farm Road. I make a motion to allow a variance for additional chickens to 14 at 6 Nolan Farm Road, providing the neighbors are notified and there's no complaints. I second. Roll call. Genevieve Anand. Yes. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. And it looks like we have HRS annual update. We have Executive Director Lindsay Stein-Sierk. Hi. Hi, Lindsay. I noticed that you're not the interim anymore. I'm not. I'm not. Congratulations. Good. Hi, Julia. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I sort of been ignoring that, but our board encouraged me to stop ignoring it. Yes. Thank you. Should I jump in? Are you ready? Absolutely. Please. Sorry we're a little behind, but we had just a little bit of an issue with getting started. So here we are. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us tonight. Happy to be here. So I'll just review generally, just by way of reminder, who we are. HRS is the local community mental health agency. We serve Weston, Wayland, and Wellesley, and we maintain that particular catchment area due to the funding from the boards of health in all three towns that we receive. So thank you. We're very grateful. And really, it feels... Central to our mission to maintain this catchment area and be serving residents of the three towns that we do exclusively as a result. We work with children and families and we've actually expanded. We now take Medicare and have done some networking with seniors in the community. We had a couple of clinicians last year go to the senior center and do a presentation too just to make sure that residents across the lifespan know that they have access to services through HRS should they want to engage. And the funding from the Boards of Health in all three towns... It serves to ensure that we're able to offer services to any resident regardless of their ability to pay for the service or regardless of whether or not they are adequately insured or have an insurance fee to take. So if there's a resident who's unable to afford our full fee, they are welcome to apply for a reduced fee for treatment. And we'll slide our fee all the way down to... Five dollars, one dollar, whatever is appropriate, and the funding from the Board Of Health allows us to do so, which also feels... Central to our mission, as well as a community agency. So in my report that I imagined really distributed, I give some narrative data and then in a chart for FY26, but I'm happy to review it and then provide a bit of a comparison year to year. Numbers-wise, it's fairly consistent. Last year was a big year in terms of service delivery or the... Fiscal Year 25, rather. But FY26 sort of leveled out where it has been. We provided 877 hours of clinical service to Wayland residents and also provided 47 hours of consultation and sort of urgent psychiatric evaluation as well, which sort of falls within the consultation group of hours to public school staff and students. So just to clarify, the 877 hours is just outpatient clinical treatment that occurs at HRS, not having anything to do with... Schools for residents across the lifespan. And then the consultation provided, as well as the urgent psychiatric evaluation hours, that work happens within the public school district. So we maintain regular consultative relationships with administrators and staff in the Wayland Public Schools. And there's a chart in my report that details You know, who on our staff provides those hours. Our chief psychologist, Dr. Wyatt, consults to the Wayland High School guidance team. I provided just a couple of hours of crisis and sort of grief response, happy, hollow, lost a beloved aftercare staff member last year. And so we provided some crisis response and worked with the kids to do some grief work and remembrance after that loss. And then our staff psychiatrist, Dr. Doe Fogle, consults to Clay Pitt, a specialized program at Clay Pitt. Another staff psychologist, Dr. Lucas Baker-Srode, consults regularly to Wayland Youth Services and the staff there. And then again, our staff psychiatrist does the urgent psychiatric evaluations. Those aren't emergency level. So, you know, if there's any... sense of imminent risk. The schools know this at this point, working with us for many, many years, but of course we would refer to the local ER. But these are more students that within the public school district, they're struggling to work with or need a consult, whether it's they have questions diagnostically about what's going on or the best way to work with a child, or they've been trying to encourage a family to get the student outside treatment. Sometimes it's helpful to have our staff psychiatrists do an evaluation and then work with the family to make that recommendation as well. And so in addition to the clinical work that we did, some of that, those 877 hours were new clients to HRS in FY26. And so some of the intake hours that I also recorded in my report were our intake team members getting data from those residents, gathering demographic data and sitting in our intake meetings to determine Best fit to a provider in-house, but sometimes there are residents who call for treatment and at the time we don't have any openings. But a benefit of being a community agency is that we maintain a referral list that we don't distribute widely, but our intake team has access to. And if a resident is interested in seeking services at HRS, but either we don't have openings or it's not a good fit. For that individual to be seen at HRS clinically based on however they're presenting and the treatment we feel is indicated, our team feels is indicated, then we'll refer them out. And so it's a real benefit that we maintain our referral list and don't distribute it so that we can ensure that Wayland residents get connected. And our intake team is always saying to Wayland residents, if you don't If we have to refer them out, if you don't connect with one of the providers that we give you, we always give between three and five names, please call us back and we want to work with you until you get connected to a provider that you feel good about. Of course, we don't require that they be back in touch with us if they don't want to, but we really give them the message that we want to work with them until they're connected. And we're always trying to look at the numbers and make sure that we're taking in, you know. More cases than we're referring out, hopefully in any year. And of course, none of this is a perfect science because we can never know exactly how many referrals we're going to get year to year. So also part of the subsidy, I think, helps us to just continue to be available in this way, whether it's our intake team or the consultation team or the clinical work that we provide that we're available to Wayland residents and happy to work with as many. Seek Services in any year. A couple of years ago, the board and some staff members asked for information regarding where referrals to us were coming from in the community. So I've now included that in the annual report for your review to, as I mentioned, you know, many of our referrals come through the public school district because we have ongoing relationships with them this past fiscal year. 12 individuals, and again, this data is provided to us by the residents who are seeking services from us who, you know, we ask them who refer to them to HRS. So 12 came from the public school district, 10 reported a self-referral, one came from the senior center, actually three from friends and community, two from family members, and six from local. PCPs in the area. So, you know, we maintain relationships with local physicians in the area, pediatricians' offices, etc. So I'm happy to continue reporting that data just to give you all a sense of where the referrals are coming from from HRS. And I think it also just helps to ensure that, again, individuals across the lifespan, residents of Wayland, are aware of our services and local partners are aware as well. And I also am now including age breakdown of, you know, Wayland residents seen within a year, just to give you a sense. And it's pretty even across the lifespan. Again, we always emphasize that we work with children and families. I think part of that is because there are many providers, especially in private practice, who don't work with young children anymore. So we're always wanting to make sure that folks know that we do do that work. But 12 to 18 in that age range is 16 of the Wayland residents and then 19 plus 17. And then in terms of the breakdown diagnostically, just in terms of what we're seeing, I'm happy to answer questions after I just review this data with you. You may notice that there's a very significant number of people who are under the anxiety category. This diagnostic data is just to sort of give you a sense of what we're seeing, but, you know, anxiety we're using as a real umbrella. So there are many diagnoses that fall under that general umbrella and we're not. You know, parsing it out in this overview. Just because the numbers really, you know, get fairly small if we do that. But that doesn't mean that all 39 of those individuals have the same diagnosis. I just wanted to explain that it may be that if an individual is struggling with social anxiety, for example, that falls under that larger anxiety umbrella more generally. Any questions I can answer either about my report or about HRS more generally?
I do have a question. Sure. Thank you. Just regarding, because we have budget season coming up. We haven't started budget yet. People ask questions about, you know, what's the difference between the work that HRS does and the work that Youth and Family Services does? And so, you know. in hopes that we have it available at our fingertips because it does get a little bit... confusing to me and to other people trying to explain it. Could you just sort of go over that a little bit at this time? Yeah, and I think, you know, I can certainly check with Dr. Baker Sorority, my colleague who I referenced, who consults with them, because I don't know the particulars of that program. So I'll speak to my understanding of the primary difference, which is really size. So I don't know exactly how many employees Wayland Youth and Families Services maintains. I know that he consults to... Two or three clinicians regularly. Do you know, Julia, how many clinicians they... I believe it's two. Two, yes. And so at HRS, we have a clinical staff of roughly 25. So we maintain a two-year training program. So on any given year, we have a maximum of eight. Trainees who are coming to us at the end stage of their doctoral programs or when they've graduated from a social work program and are accruing hours towards licensure. And then we also have, so those trainees fall within the 25 that I referenced. We have a total staff of roughly 35. But then the rest are staff clinicians and our staff psychiatrist who does clinical work as well. Size-wise, that really allows us to see far more residents than would be able to be seen through Wayland Youth Family Services. And I don't know if there are any restrictions in terms of working with seniors or what age group they're working with, and perhaps they see folks across the lifespan. But I think capacity is just for greater at our agency given. Given the size and what we do. We also, given that we have a staff psychiatrist, residents of Wayland are able to access medication management services so long as they're seeing a therapist at HRS as well. That's, you know, long been our policy and what we, you know, believe is best practice clinically. But I don't believe there's medication management services available through. Wayland Youth and Family Services. And I'm not sure if there are any other differences, but I'm certainly happy to ask Lucas, my colleague, about any differences just in terms of how cases are managed, whether there's any, you know, session limits or anything like that. Right. And, you know, at HRS, we... We are a true community agency because we maintain that catchment area of Wayland, Weston, and Wellesley residents, but we do contract with insurance providers, commercial insurance providers as well. So we're not, you know, we're able to offer reduced fee treatment to folks who are uninsured or underinsured and aren't able to afford the full fee. But we are, you know, billing for services as well to maintain, you know, we have overhead costs and all of those things. The funding allows us to maintain that catchment area and offer reduced fee work as needed and do some of the work we do in schools, but it wouldn't sustain us without some of those other contracts as well. Does that answer your question partially? I think so, but I think it would be helpful to, you know, maybe dive into that just a little bit more so that, you know, because it's in the Board of Health budget, you know, potentially people might be asking me questions. And of course, I can also touch base with Jay Verhoefsky as well. But it's just, you know, given the opportunity, I figured I would, you know, see what. You could provide with information and if there's a different person who might be have a little more insight, you know, that would be helpful. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I can certainly connect with Lucas, who does consult with those clinicians just to hear a little bit more about the nature of the work that we do. And of course, I'm not privy to how the funding works for that. Program, but I think the major difference would be size and capacity to serve more individuals. And so if the clinicians, whether it's two or three in Wayland Youth Services, if their salaries are covered by the town, they would be town employees. So it's a separate entity, which may or may not matter in terms of residents seeking services, but sometimes individuals aren't, you know. Aren't wanting their mental health needs to be taken care of by a town employee. I don't know if that would make a difference. Yeah. Okay. So I'm just looking, Julia, I was looking at the website for the Youth and Family Services and then... Looking at the review that Lindsay provided, and it looks to me like they were founded, HRS seems to be based initially in the schools. It seems to be maybe one of the differences in how they were created, and then they've branched out into more extensive services. Is that right? Am I reading that correct? So we weren't initially based in schools, but our contract actually with Wayland, the origins of it, Part of the work was helping school staff service IEPs, so individualized education plans that have counseling written in. So this was in an era where there weren't nearly as many. Counseling support staff members in schools. So we would, some of our clinicians would provide counseling for students who had counseling written into their ed plans, which of course then meant then clinicians couldn't see them over the summer. They were really seen at HRS, but because legally the school is required to provide that counseling service. So that means it's linked with this. Exactly. That was the origin that then. Part of the origin of the contract was a need that the public school had. Now it's really... You know, very similar to what we serve, yeah, in Weston and Wellesley, which is that we maintain those relationships with the schools by providing consultation, but really there we're supporting the administrators, the staff with cases and providing sort of an outside clinical perspective as opposed to serving the ed plans, which in our view, I mean, you know, it's best that that be done by clinicians in-house if they're able to do so. And that's how it's done in Weston and Wellesley? Yes, yes, yes. Any other questions that I can answer? I mentioned briefly the Happy Hollow work, and I think that's just another piece that I always like to highlight, you know, that HRS really, we pride ourselves on being able to be available should crisis arise. The relationships that we maintain, you know, first and foremost of the Board of Health, but also with the schools and other local partners really allow us to respond immediately if there's a crisis and be available to be in schools, you know, the next morning if there's. You know, a death of a community member, loss of a student, any of those tragedies. And certainly, you know, unfortunately, we've had them in some of the surrounding towns, you know, both last year and in other years. So I think that's just an important piece to highlight that in a way, we're here and the funding really... allows us to continue to be here as a presence in town and a presence that's able to respond immediately and effectively given the relationships we maintain should crisis arise. So that's an important piece of maintaining the catchment area as well. Does anyone have any additional questions for Lindsay? I don't. I don't. Thank you. Thank you very much, Lindsay. Yeah, I'm sorry we didn't have everyone here tonight, but we can certainly... advise them to listen to the recording because we're on Wacom so they can maybe get some information from the board meeting tonight and listen to it. Absolutely. I'm glad I forgot that I was being recorded. Hopefully it's all clear. And if there's ever a time that you'd like me to come back or, you know, answer any particular questions, I'm happy to do so. You know how to find me. So at any time, or if there's another colleague that people wanted to hear from, I'm happy to facilitate that. But thank you for having me. Good luck with the agenda. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. It's our wildlife. Oh, yes. Safe alternatives. And I think we have someone on here, I believe. Let me just... Oh, hi. Hi. Can you hear us, Shannon? Oh, hi. Great. Yeah, I can hear you. Carrie Stamos is also in the attendees, and she's actually the even bigger mover and shaker on this than I am. I don't know if I can move her, but let me see if I can.
Hi there. Oh, great. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Great. Would it help? I think that you guys have our draft flyer. Would it help if I give just a little bit of background and context very quickly? Absolutely. Awesome. So I am a conservation commissioner, but I am not wearing that hat right now. For this, I am just a resident of Wayland. And we aren't trying to get sort of a Save Wayland Wildlife group off the ground with the goal of educating people and reduce the use of certain rodenticides in the town. And this is kind of following the model of a number of other towns like Save Arlington Wildlife, Save Waltham Wildlife. Carrie Stamos was involved with Save Lincoln Wildlife and has now moved to Wayland and is helping us do this. Eschars are a class of rodenticide, second generation anticoagulant rodenticides that work. by impairing normal blood clotting, but they have become the primary go-to for the last few decades by most pest control operators, but they cause enormous harm to wildlife. There's actually very little hard evidence to support their long-term efficacy, and they actually bring some risk to humans as well. And I think Carrie just sent you an information packet that has a little more detail on that, but I can always go into that if you like, but time is tight. So this past June, the Select Board did pass an internal policy to ban the use of ESGARs on town-owned property, which is great, but these are still in wide use all around town in a lot of commercial spaces and homeowners. And boards of health are actually really important in this area. You guys are the go-to for health and safety in this town. And in other towns, I don't know if this holds true for Wayland, but for instance, in Arlington, The Board of Health had a practice in place that inadvertently caused a huge uptick in eschar use because they had a requirement for a certain type of construction where if you're doing that, you just have to put bait boxes out. They didn't specify what was in the bait boxes. They just had to go out. And because eschars are the primary tool, it vastly increased the number that were distributed all around town during a building boom and contributed to a lot of deaths in wildlife. So my colleague, Carrie Stamos, mocked up this flyer and I sort of dropped it off and ran it past you guys. And it's not final. We can always finalize it. We can make the formatting better, but we can make any changes that you guys like. But we're interested in maybe allying with you guys, you know, if it's okay to have the Board of Health. sort of on that flyer if you know you guys wanted to help pass that out if you wanted to refine this we could come up with more information so boards of health are really important in this area. Carrie, I don't know if you want to speak quickly kind of about what you were able to achieve in Lincoln, but. Yeah, so, you know, we had a similar discussion with the Board of Health and we, again, were very anxious to partner with them. It's important. They were able to post it on their website at the town and to help us distribute this information because, I mean, that's always the hardest thing, getting the information out to the public. raising awareness so that people understand that there are really much, much safer alternatives and just as effective alternatives to these really dangerous eschars that Shannon just shared about. And I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. You know, what your thoughts are. And again, as Shannon said, we can revise this, but I thought I would just mock it up to give you an idea of what we would like to share with Wayland residents, as well as businesses. I do have a question, Carrie, if I may. A lot of, I think... As you mentioned, there's a lot of bait boxes being used for different, probably, you know, in our eyes, there'd be, you know, if there's a demo on a vacant house, they need to bait the house because if they don't, then all those rodents or critters or whatever's in there will get... You know, dispersed in the neighborhood if it's not taken care of before a demo. So what would you do in that case? What would be a replacement for what's typically done by pest companies? Yeah, so, yeah, and that was something that the Board Of Health wanted to know as well. And so there are many comparable rat poisons that don't have that same risk of secondary poisoning. It just will kill the rodent, but if the rodent is consumed by, you know, a bird or a fox, it won't kill that, it won't cause that secondary poisoning. One example is Radex. That's a rat poison. And in terms of cost, it's very comparable to eschars. So that could be something that could be used. And then there are other pest control companies that, you know, there are other options. Shannon, you know, you talked about the contraceptive. You know, but the real, probably the most comparable would be like a RADX, a rat poison versus an eschar. Vitamin D3 can also be used very effectively. That's quite lethal in high doses and it's an easily available rodenticide as well. It just doesn't have the same secondary effects either.
I'm sorry, did you say the RADX again? Is that what you referenced just now? Oh, no, the vitamin D3-based rodenticides are different from RADX. RADX works by a quirk in the rodent GI system that sort of blocks their hunger and thirst receptors and causes them to dehydrate. Vitamin D3 will also, I was just providing an alternative. Okay, sure. Or an addition. I mean, I think it's something that, I was personally interested in and I wanted to bring it to the board for their consideration. You know, it's something that I think would be more digging into on our end, you know, because we want to make sure that when people have problems with rodents, they have a product that's effective that will work. Yeah, I think there's a common misbelief that the eschars really are effective. They're really not, as Shannon said, proven all that effective. But what they are, are easy for the pest control companies to use. And that it also requires the pest control companies to come out and service them because as the poisons are consumed, they need to be refilled. And so... You know, in August, I did a bait box survey at all the commercial centers in Wayland, and I found over 51 bait boxes at the town center alone. And I can tell you that many of those bait boxes are not being maintained, and then what happens is they become habitats for rodents themselves. So that's the other piece of it. You know, these bait boxes do need to be maintained if they're placed. But, you know, you don't really know what's in the bait box. Chances are, you know, most of the time, the pest control companies are just going to use the escars because the poison in the escar is very tasty. Rodents do like them. They will consume them. And so it makes them actually make more money in the long run because they have to come back and refill the poisons over and over again. And they could use a Red X. And there are other pest control companies that have just stopped using the eschars altogether and have found, like, for example, the city of Newton over a decade ago stopped using all eschars. And so You know, they, and even though they did that, they, what they do use now is CO2 in the rodent burrows, but that's what they use. They do not use eschars, and they've seen a drop. Almost 61% a year, and that is, it still remained in that way. So they don't use them, but they're able to effectively control their rodent population. So I can share you more information, you know, give you more examples of this type of thing, where there are big cities, there are big towns that are not using these rodenticides, and they're still seeing that they're able to control rodents without them. Just a quick question. Who is using the CO2? Is it the pest company? Okay, Shannon. So I would assume that it is a pest control company that Newton contracts out to. I actually haven't thought to ask that exact question. You would have to know where the boroughs are. There are tools that allow you to track their footprints. I know that for the purpose of... Demoing a house, no one wants to do that. And in that case, probably putting D3 out in a very careful way because it will kill anything that does eat it. But strategically putting that out would be effective. For somebody who wants to control them in their house, you can actually use LumaTrack, something like that, to see where the entry points are. And you can do exclusion and better trash management. If you track where the boroughs are, then that's a place where CO2 can come in and you would need a contractor who's able to do that. We could certainly call Newton up and ask. I could even also connect with Arlington and ask them what they use in the place of their demo as well to see if they have switched over. I know that they identified that as a problem and it sounds like you guys have a similar requirement. To what extent they have changed that at this point, I actually think it's worth asking and I haven't asked if they have changed it. And you mentioned Lincoln as well, right? Yeah, Carrie, you were active. Yeah, so... Lincoln, many years ago, they stopped using eschars on all town-owned properties, including the schools. And the schools do have bait boxes, but the schools contain snap traps. And so a combination of snap traps as well as actually composting has been a big issue, a big success for Lincoln because now they can, they compost so much of their waste. They keep it in contained. Containers, and so they're not having to use dumpsters. So they don't need, they don't, they're not throwing as much stuff away, so they don't need those dumpsters. And, you know, it just, it's, it's helped them to control the rodent population in Lincoln. So, and then we brought a home rule petition to Lincoln that was passed. And so Lincoln is planning to just ban the use of all eschars. Lincoln's a very different town than Wayland, but at the same time, even like a town like Newton is able to come up with a non-eschar way of controlling the rodent population. So I, you know, I fully... Think that that's something that Wayland could do down the line, but really for this, you know, for today, what we really want to do is get information out to residents so that they have a better understanding of what those alternatives are, because they may not know what eschers are, the harm that they can cause, and that if they are using a pest control company or, you know, using Eschars are not available for consumer purchase, although you can purchase them on Amazon, unfortunately, but they may not understand what those eschars are, or they may be using a pest control company that is using them, and it may just, you know, they can have a simple conversation with the pest control company and ask them to use another product other than an eschar. I will add one thing that Newton does use in addition to gassing burrows is the rodent birth control. So that actually has come a long way and they use that. It comes in the water and they place it out strategically. It requires a little more work. But just to add, it's not just that. I actually have rodent birth control in my garage right now. Does the board have any thoughts, comments? I love the idea. I have rat hacks in my equipment. So that if they come in and they think they're going to be making a home, they eat that. And I have really good luck with that. Oh, that's amazing. I'm so happy to hear that. Yeah, very good. Yeah, I've done exclusion on my property as well. I have a house on the Cape and that was the first thing I did, you know, to prevent access from getting into the house because I didn't want bait boxes on my property. So that's worked really well. What we could do is we, you know, I could, Carrie and I could do some legwork and ask some of these other towns that have done their own home rule petitions and find out what they're using in the demo instances. So like when you have that urgent need that you just need to tell people to put boxes out, what are they using instead? Whether it's RADx or Ritamin D3 or something similar. I think that's helpful. How effective do you think the sprays are? The peppermint oils and things like that that they say keep them away? I honestly don't know. That's been offered to me, but I didn't want to alienate my opossums, so I never put them up on it. I know that Banner Pest Control, which is making enemies in the pest control business by having gone totally eschar-free, I know he actually does advocate for... Some kind of barrier spray. And he's the one who's really become a true believer and has seen a lot of efficacy. So it must do something. It probably would need to be reapplied periodically the way these things always do. But I was concerned it would be effective enough to drive away other wildlife. And of course, sorry. I was just going to say trash management really is the biggest thing.
Do you want, I'm not sure where we go from here, I mean, do you want the board to chime in on supporting this effort and, you know, move forward with, I guess, how we do that? You said the select board had voted. to support no anticoagulants on any town properties. So it sounds like we're in alignment there. It does. We could revisit this flyer, see if it's something that you guys like. If you want to make any changes, it could be a piece of literature that can be available to post on your website or to hand out. And then we could help come up with more information for you for some of those internal policies. You can obviously... Look into them yourself. Not that we would be the final arbiters, but if there's edits that you want to see to that flyer, you want to see some kind of different thing. It sounds like you like this mission, so maybe we're on the right track. We could create more materials, finalize this to, you know, if you feel like you want any edits, since it's your name on it, we should make it pretty, right? Things like that. I don't know how the other board members feel. I think that sounds like it's, you know, but I don't want to speak for the board. I would want to know a little more as we move forward from, you know, a pest company that could tell us what their perspective is on that. You know what I mean? Just so that we have data. That would be great. Awesome. You can do that. Thank you, guys. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you. I wonder if you could CO a house that you were going to demo. That sounds really... You just don't really seal it. Well, I know, but like down south, you seal a house to get rid of the termites, and they do that. Ah, yeah. So you could... Yeah. And CO you can make very easily with a car running outside, so you don't have to seal it that well. That sounds... Interesting. Yeah. I'm just. Yeah. An idea. Thinking outside the box. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. We appreciate your time so much. Thank you. Yeah. We'll be in touch. If you could send me some of that information, that would be great. And we can talk about this flyer. That sounds great. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Take care, guys. Bye-bye. Okay. Health Director updates, 10 short rides. We have an inspection date provided by the judge, and we will be going to do the inspection on November 9th at 9 a.m. Have things been fixed? No. Well, we were in court last week on Wednesday, and the owner was there, Gene, and... She wanted more time. She wanted 30 days. We refused. And the judge didn't want to give her 30 days. Based on his review of the documentation, he thought it was important that we get in to see the house sooner. So we got sent to a mediator and we had a meeting with the town attorney, myself, and a regional inspector, Gene, and her friend and the mediator. And we were able to agree on November 9th as the date where we would do an inspection. And so I'm not, I don't feel like there's been any progress there. I don't know, though, because it's been quite a long time since we've been there, but I wouldn't be surprised if the conditions had worsened. And so we have an inspection date and then we have a follow-up. hearing at court December 2nd, I believe. So that's what will be happening. Julia, is there some urgency because the roof was apparently damaged before winter comes? It was, yeah. That's why we're trying to, you know, to move forward, really, the judge needs to know what the conditions are. You know, it's been such a long time since we've been in there. I don't think he would move forward with anything like receivership unless there was a current inspection. Did you have any other questions about the property? Anybody? No, I think you'll have given her a lot of time and space, and she's just not capable, the poor lady. Yeah, I mean, it's a difficult situation for sure, but I don't think she has the money to do your affairs, and I don't think she has the wherewithal, you know. Right, right. So it's probably going to end up in receivership. That's where I would expect, or something else, you know. 154 Boston Post Road Animal Keeping that the board is very familiar with. That's the geese. I did get in touch with Sandra Perez and she said that she had a plan to move the geese to a place in Maine and that she gave me a couple weeks. That a window of time where she said that that was happening. So I'm going to be following up with her in a couple of weeks to see where that's going. I think because, well, at least when it's not 70 degrees out, it's quieter, I think, because people aren't outside. You know, there's just a different dynamic of what's going on in people's yards right now. I don't think that the geese have gone anywhere. So, you know, we'll have to keep close watch on what's going on over there because she's not compliant with what the board voted on. And we could potentially consider finding her as well if we wanted to do that. Correspondence from CMG Environmental, we received a notice of phase two delay and I had shared that with the Board. Delay in compliance with MCP deadlines. So we received a copy of the letter from Ben Gould to the Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of Waste Site Cleanup, notifying of delays due to In areas where the RTN 3-37750 study areas had been expanded and exceedances were found. And so I believe, you know, the consensus is that there's more work to be done.
And they're requesting an additional year to submit a Phase II comprehensive site assessment, thus by November 1 of 2027. And so they'll determine whether the study area, if the expanded study area will prove sufficient to fully delineate the extent of the PBAS 6 contamination. So that was one thing we received. But we also received A binder with responses to public commentary from the PIP meeting that was held, and also a draft, another document that we have that's another binder of reports. So, you know, those are available for public viewing, all from CMG Environmental related to the 195.201 and 207 Main Street property. known as RTN 3-37750. The Fall 2026 lead and copper sampling results and certification forms were received from Water Superintendent Don Millette, and it looks like there were in order. I don't think there were any issues with the sampling that was done. That's the High School Children's Way. I'm sorry, hold on. All results were below lead and copper standards. And that was... It's 10-9-26. It's dated... I think that's for... I believe it's for all the schools, but... The date that you're referencing, Dr. Anand? Mm-hmm. Is that on one of these reports here? Yeah, it's on that... It's like a grid. Like a table of numbers and... It's signed by the water superintendent and it says 10-9-26. Oh yeah, there it is. I see it. Yep. Okay. Okay. And minutes. Has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes? I didn't. Sorry. There's been a lot going on. You don't have to look at them right now. I mean, unless you want to. Do you think you could do that or is it too much? They're pretty long. Has everyone else reviewed the minutes? We need all three, right? We need three people. Yeah. I usually don't say anything. Sure. There actually is some stuff. Wow. Sweet, Reno. Looking for specific things. Okay, I'll make a motion to accept the minutes from 3-16-26, 5-18-26, and 9-21-26. Second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand. I think we need a third. She's got a thumbs up. Okay. No microphone. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer, yes. Okay. Excellent. Yes, sorry, I got my speech flipped. More dates? Yes, so our next meeting date is November 16th, and then we have one for November, I'm sorry, December 14th. Next week, I'm sorry, this week, Darren and I and Maura will be going to the Mass Health Officers Conference. It's an educational conference in Springfield. And so we'll be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and back in the office Monday, but we'll be, you know, available for anything that may come up, email, texts, phone calls. If you need me, I am available, as well as the office. Patty will be covering the office, and Michelle will be here, although she won't be here Wednesday. She'll be here Thursday. And I think that's pretty much it. One clarification just for the fees. The farmer's market fee was $60. And we... use that as a temporary event fee as well. And so I just wanted to clarify that number, because we had increased the fees for both of those categories, so the $60 would cover both of those things. I believe that was how we talked through it. So I just want to muddy the waters. Yes. I think I said $60 for the farmer's market fee, $50 for the trade show. Reinstate the $35 for small events. With the opportunity to waiver any fees and the opportunity to go up depending up to $100. Yeah. Yeah. Depending on the work involved in permitting. Got it. And then what was the other? It was just. The $60 that we have for the farmer's market can be used for other temporary events that are similar. Yeah, agreed. And I think the discussion was that you could waive the fee for events that don't require food review. That's right. I make a motion to adjourn the meeting. Second. Roll call, Genevieve Anand. Yes, thank you. Katie Stiff. Yes. And John Storer. Yes, let's go. All right. Thank you.