evening Littleton welcome to the March 27 2024 Board of Health meeting it is now 7 o'clock and we are going to get started um our first item tonight is a discussion basically information for the board and the public regarding a tobacco sale VI exactly tobacco product violation um for little in convenience at 12 Jennifer street so for the board you should have seen in your packet that um are the the boards of Health Tobacco Control Alliance based out of lemonster is our um collaborative tobacco enforcement and Education Agency they did a a check-in education and Survey back in uh early March and during their EV during their inspection educational Unity they found um two um areas of failure to comply offering for sale a flavored tobacco product or tobacco product flavor enhancer as well as failure to maintain a record or of the documentation submitted by the manufacturer or a manufacturer's agent certifying that such tobacco product does not meet the definition of a flavored tobacco product or tobacco product flavor enhancer and that the product lacks any characterizing flavor this was their second um violation within the last 36 months so it counts as a second violation under the enforcement rules um their previous violation had been an underage sale on October 18 2023 so about 6 months ago as part of that second um offense within 36 months the standardized penalty under Mass um regulations 105 CMR 66500 is a 30 uh excuse me is a $2,000 fine and a 10day um tobacco sales permit um excuse me I S I heard a ding for someone in the audience so but no that was Kevin Baker welcome Kevin um so this is a a CMR penalty of 10 business day suspension of their uh permission to sell tobacco products as well as $2,000 fine uh they were notified by certified mail from the um Tobacco Control Alliance uh that was sent out on the 12th they do have the opportunity to request a hearing before the Board of Health for a modification of that order they have seven days from the time of receipt to to make that request uh we don't have a green card back of when they actually received it but it looks like it was sent out on the 12th so even assuming some extra time in there their 7-Day window should have come and gone um and to the best of my knowledge I'll refer briefly to Brenda and Francis I've not seen anything from either of you I'm assuming that we did not receive any communication from Littleton convenience requesting a hearing for this no I have not received any no all right thank you so um really this is more informational and if we have any questions we um Can can work from there so they do have 30 I believe sorry they have 21 business day 21 days since the receipt of this to pay the the amount to town of Litton Board of Health have we seen a check from them for for this I mean we're not quite to that 21-day window yet but we're about a week out from the end of that 21-day window so if you guys could just if that comes in just drop a note to the board so we know that it's been received Nock as part of this no check as of yet all right um The Tobacco Control Alliance issued dates of a recommended or has notified them that their suspension of sales will be from Friday April 19 2024 through Sunday April 28th 2024 which and they can resume sales again on Monday April 29th uh and as part of that order basically all tobacco and vape products must be removed from public areas basically out of the not out of the store but out of any public retail area so packaged up and moved back room or someplace else um Mr Wason uh just saying uh certified mail shows it was delivered on March 16th so the 21 days starts from there so their suspension period is after the 21 days just to make sure but we should make sure that we get that check by the 7th of April is that the right math sixth of April something like that I can do um a check-in tomorrow with them looks like that's a weekend so I'm not sure if the 5th of April counts but it should be there by the Monday the 8 yeah I mean I don't think we need to check in with them I mean they have they're they are not out of compliance as far as the order at this point um that's just my take on it it's your call if you'd like to be more proactive or not but I think you know they they're they have not they have not exceeded the the expectations of the order at this point so um with this informational that certainly if they'd come before us then we could have a long conversation about what options are available to them as uh as an appeals of of how that changes but again we haven't heard anything to request a a change of order or any appeals process so it is what it is and we'll we'll see um the tobacco Health Alliance did not say whether they would be going back and double-checking during that time window to ensure that they're in compliance during their suspension period um perhaps that's something Francis you can you and Jim can make sure to touch base with them to see if that's something that they will do to go back and do a double check that that on you know Friday the 19th that they've suspended their sales and packaged up their materials I have a meeting with her tomorrow so I'll check in on it okay awesome now say we still ways out but just to make sure they're they are in fact in compliance um and again hopefully they will be because that would make a third violation within 36 months which I don't really think they want to want face so all right any questions comments from the board regarding um Littleton convenience 12 Jennifer Street and their tobacco compliance piece all right moving on our second discussion item of the evening is our model Board of Health regulations for private Wells I'm going to defer to Mr Baker if that's okay as our Point person on this yeah thank you Mr chair uh we had uh I had met with uh Mr dagel on it and we're starting to uh Francis I don't know did you have a chance to get into the one drive and take a look at uh the notes that were in there on that yet are you muted sorry um I've only just kind of glanced over it but um next week I'll put some time into it and I'll probably have questions when we meet and then we can bring it to the board it might make more sense at this point to do a portion of it instead of just the whole thing just to kind of update certain items um because in particular like geothermal um I had a lot of questions around that yeah we're hoping I think take that take the whole geothermal section uh right right out of that right out of those regs so it doesn't get confused that it was my recommendation that we particularly exclude geothermal from any of these well things to have a sentence in there that says that because we don't want we don't want it to be even included in that okay there were other I think we did go ahead go ahead M Davis yeah no there was um there there have been problems reported in other towns that have uh well regulations like this that don't have uh exclusions for geothermal and because they don't have geothermal exclusions people have read that they need to have all these well things applied to them and there's no reason for it the town that gives an example of that right now that comes to mind is stow and I think the other thing in the in the model well RS that we were trying to adjust was to actually uh have a section in there for uh pre-existing Wells uh because it really just calls out the testing requirements for uh new well construction uh so putting together uh some compliance for uh existing Wells and you know what what we should be um what what an owner should be testing for if they're not already testing for something and then if they already have treatment in place you know how does that testing all happen uh and how does it get accounted for was the was the trick so thank you uh Mr deel for for looking into that yes so um I'll bring Sim to the next board meeting for the board to review ahead of time and just around the geothermal well if I can I think we pull that piece out um I think we did want we did want to leave in a a single line piece of uh a theral well that is not connected to um portable water system in the house because there are some designs who are kind of dual function so we if it was a strictly geothermal closed loop then it's it is not it does not fall under these regulations if there's any connection between portable water system in the house and that geothermal well it's rare but we was I it had come up that there are times when some some ways they are interconnected we want to make sure that that if they are internet connected then they are they need to be treated as as a portable well so it's not simply wiping out going out with geothermal now I'm off I'm off the books as long as it's just the ormal we're good at this point as a draft all right Mr Baker Mr D thank you so much for your work on on well regulation um again this is just quick discussion I don't see any hands in the audience for that one so I'm going to continue moving on uh to our 710 uh discussion around the uh infectious disease decision support tool and are we way ahead of me we're going to defer to Dr Wason and here's his is grass uh okay here's the update uh Omron jn. one is the vast majority of cases over 90% in the New England area um so it's the same one that's been around for a few weeks now uh our vaccination rate kind of the tail end of the season they uh CDC recently came out and said that um uh our senior citizens and potentially those who are at higher risk should potentially get a second vaccination this season um but right now our vaccination rate is at 31.7% it's pretty much kind of stagnated at 30% I think people are looking at the weather in springtime and I think think vaccinations go right out of your mindset um but uh until we kind of I think live with Co for a little longer the flu right influenza is extremely seasonal right you don't talk a lot about the flu during the summertime um I I don't know what CO's going to kind of look like it hasn't uh been nearly as flat seasonally as influenza and so I would look at it as something like um it still would make sense to get your vaccination now if you haven't already because kids are still school people are still doing things together it's only Springtime um and I think years will tell us whether there's kind of a seasonality to it or not um there are definitely more peaks in the winter but I'm not sure if it's quite as dramatic as influenza so it's not over vaccination are still available as I said at a previous meeting of ours now that Francis is here I would Echo it again that I think what this does tell us is we need to do a better job next season of trying to get our community vaccinated uh I think 30% is is not a good number to be hitting for our community and I've talked to some people who kind of um it's just out of sight out of mind they can't remember if they got it this year but they think they didn't and so they're not sure um that's not the attention that I think it uh should warant so I I will keep reporting it but I don't expect that number to change a lot for this season now uh Wastewater number is still in kind of the the middle hundreds influenza at the Massachusetts level is still moderate and similarly vaccination R we got 51.7% of uh individuals vaccinated for influenza which is kind of below our Target and lastly RSV still medium but as you can see from the chart really tailing down so we're coming out of the RSV season that's what I got questions comments anything from the board seeing nothing Dr Wason thank you as always all right our next item is um starting the process for U Board of Health uh and Department goals and priorities I don't expect us to solve this one tonight um we have a a big what do we do tomorrow right through what we do 10 years from now kind of vision we need to really develop uh this really just an opportunity to kind of start that that process of what are the what are the fires we need to look at in the next days weeks months and how do we start setting the department and the board up for where we need to be a year from now two years from now 5 years from now so I'm going to start with opening up to the board what are folks thoughts what are what are your again I'm going to also say there's only so many fires we can fight at once because all of us have our pet things and our our mindsets of we could easily set a list of 47 fires that we need to address within the next 48 hours that's obviously not practical so but just I'm going to open up the board what are your immediate pieces what are your you know within six months kind of pieces and what's important but when we are ready for it Mr Wason um first of all this is my first Mee with Francis so welcome Francis thank you for being here look how excited we are to plan out the next many years of your life um so what I would throw out and I've said this to a couple of people is um number one we've always said that a community health assessment was uh an early priority for our new health director I still feel that's the case um I I'm a little worried about if we go too far down a goal setting Road say today or in the next three months we might be kind of really in the clouds or in the shadows not really sure of everything that's out there and so I think there's a balance of how can we as a board get together and feel firm in understanding of the needs and our ideas because we all have thoughts and ideas and we can get those out there but then there's going to be some information that comes uh via Francis that says oh we didn't know we didn't know um so the other idea I had that I've thrown out before is also about I would I would love it if we could do some sort of retreat as a board so that we can have Focus time and energy that we can really look at what information we have and maybe the best thing to do that is after the community health assessment I'm not sure you know what our timeline is on that yet if that's something we could achieve but maybe a a fall time for a retreat where we can really focus and get together and say well these are the top then whatever number of things that we would like to work on and let's work together on prioritizing um so lots of ideas I'm sure and I would also want to make sure we're capturing that in a way that we're not just then spinning our Wheels every couple of meetings saying oh I forgot about this one again so that's my two cents thanks you sir anyone else Mr Baker uh I agree I think that Community Health assessment uh is a great early goal uh for us to focus on I think it will uh give us more goals to focus on after we complete the assessment uh I also think um in tandem with that is getting our systems uh in place and up and running uh so we can uh work work smarter not harder and you know allow the residents to uh for instance uh you know apply for a permit online and um you know run that whole process through a system uh that's already there uh that needs some tweaking and fine-tuning uh but but to get that in place I think would is is is is an important important early step that we should take to make sure things run smoothly over the next year all right thank you Mr Baker Mr Davis hello Francis uh this is our first time having a meeting together so welcome and uh look forward to working with you in the future I'm going to just say that I'm going to pile on to what uh Mr way Dr wayon and Mr Baker have already said um and then I'm also going to say we need to kind of also look at um a few things that may have gone by the wayside over the last few years through covid and everything else that we are working on as an example uh we need to make sure that we're looking at um uh um animal boardings and things like that like where are we boarding our horses and all those things there are are some of our fun uh some of our neighbors in Littleton have also backyard chickens and things like that but that all requires uh a permit so we want to you know definitely take a look and the main reason for that in my opinion is to make sure that the manure um problem is solved if it's near well or something like that we don't want manure leaking into our water uh system here in town so um thank you so much all right thank you sir um all right I guess it's me so definitely agree um Community Health survey I'm I'm a nurse part of part of nursing school is doing community health surveys we been a whole semester doing it so that was a long time ago but I'm happy to do my piece um but that we don't necessarily we have senses we talk to folks but often we hear what folks priorities are we don't necessarily hear the folks who aren't speaking up or just aren't recognized or challenges that aren't necessarily recognized so that comprehensive of assessment uh is probably long overdue I again been here on the board for about three years I'm not sure in the last one if we've ever done a comprehensive Community Health assessment I I simply don't know um but obviously doing that is going to take time so short term um some basically for me you know obviously that is the bigger picture piece I really kind of see of us as as you and Jim are identifying challenges you know Jim certainly has shared some of the challenges he's had with you know simply availabity of staff and time and Shar and how do you cover everything he's trying to cover over the years that same piece from from you Francis what do you need from us where you're what barriers are coming up that we to help work through as a group because we're all smarter than any one of us you know all of us together are smarter than any one of us um to identify those challenges and how we can work through them so we can be successful as a board and a department um definitely back speaking to how do we build up our systems that we are kind of starting systems a little bit from scratch as we bring things a little bit more inhouse how do we build them so that they are functional from the beginning to the best of our ability easy for not only our residents and neighbors to be able to utilize but also for us how easy is it for you for Brenda or the board makes a request for information to be able to pull up hey can we see the last five inspections for someplace because there's been an issue is this been ongoing is this something new those kind of pieces that can sometimes be challenged is that how can we make it successful both from the consumer side but also from the operation side that will just take some time and your experience and you know this is a chance for us to kind of build with the infrastructure we have but build it in a way that's going to be really productive and functional um for me as a board member um just having some some sense of what's Happening that you know Jim's team is really really busy but you know we often don't see all the work that's being done again I'm going to bounce back to I'm a nurse the doctor comes in and spends five minutes writing orders sorry Dr Wason and then the nurse spends the next eight hours making those five minutes of writing happen we know that Jim's doing inspections for Title 5 and for Wells and for test pits and for restaurant inspections and for complaints and for housing and all these things the board doesn't need to know necessarily every single one of those but we only hear about them when it comes to the board level because someone has filed an appeal to an order or an issue simply hearing that hey you know what the department has done 15 restaurant inspections this week here's the places we inspected and everything's good or we had two we had to go back and do 48 hour reinspection for issues and they've been resolved that level of just going we don't need to know the minutia of every piece of work is being done but having the board simply being aware that the work's being done all right we've got 75 restaurants in town that number is off the top of my head because I'll be honest I can't tell you how many restaurants we have in town which as a board member for me I I don't feel comfortable with that but I've never been able to get a number of how many restaurant how many Food Service licenses we have in town they're all supposed to be inspected every six months I I'd like to be able to say as a board member as a chair saying yes all 75 or whatever number that is of our food service licenses have been inspected within the last six months and I'd like to be able to say that with confidence that any time someone walks up to me and asks me but I can say that um so just that kind of piece for me short term of how things going what's happening what's been done we've done five title fives we've done we've completed our six months you know restaurant inspections some of that kind of just informational stuff so as the board we can feel Comfort comfortable and confident that the regulatory requirements of the board are being accomplished by our professionals um I don't know if any other board members have have a perspective on that but I mean for me I think in the short term that would just be what's going on how are we doing what are the bar what's going on what work is being done and what barriers are out there that we can help trying to address to make sure tring done the way it needs to be and that's going to only can really come from you guys because we're not we're not out there every doing it so Mr Baker oh yeah thanks thanks for that Dan um I'm I agree uh food inspectional piece is is a big piece um and I think you hit the nail on the head um and I just wanted to uh I had been meaning to mention uh different things like the uh you know the food truck regulations uh that we started working on um the trash huler regul that we got you know to the to the one yard line um you know and there there probably a couple other things uh that um have just slipped through the craps cracks due to covid and and people being busy um but just to get a handle on on all those things and and just to start to cross things off the list uh and get things in place and uh and get things to where where they should be with with the town like Littleton and a great idea about the um a retreat um I think a fall late summer or early fall uh Retreat will give us some time to get acclimated here and to you know set set some goals uh moving forward uh for 2025 thank you all right um if it's acceptable to the board I will try to pull together in the next few days a a doodle poll or equivalent for early mid-september days weekend evening any preferences on or we'll just see what I'll put everything in there and we'll just see what works for folks and work from there as a start and obviously if something changes before then we'll deal with it because that's what we do is making some notes yes sir go ahead thank you um if I'm just going to say that maybe October might be a better month based on Community Health assessment work um for a retreat it it will take realistically probably that long before we get to a phase where we talk about what will go out out it's going to be hard to get internally employees to meet in some kind of committee fashion so realistically September is probably where we're going to get the most traction so is that around the community health assessment or is that around board and Department Retreat um so I I consider them kind of tied in because I think that'll be probably our biggest goal of this year um so it might be beneficial to hold off a little longer on the retreat a month or so just to be able to tie that into it okay um so you see the the groundwork for Community Health assessment being mostly done by September then so that in October Retreat we can actually kind of have that information as we start making priorities I think we'll have something in Hand by then that we can use to build on at least yeah okay no thank thank you sir all right any other discussion around uh first steps for priority building seeing on we're going to go to our 720 discussion around material submission for um Board of Health meetings so some background for folks who may not be aware that um this came up we had a few meetings uh in a row and we've had a history of occasional meetings where we've had uh board members not receive um submissions for hearings until that day the day before relatively short periods of time prior to meetings to be actually to review that prior to having our hearings so uh certainly I will be the first to speak up that you know certainly I don't always have the 12 hours directly before meeting to be able to spend time reviewing plans or or statements so having a little bit more time prior to meetings is help ful for us to be able to be a well-informed well reviewed board prior to to having that hearing allowing us to do research if needed ask relevant questions simply read through some of the documents we have which are occasionally very very long um you know we hate voting on things that we haven't had a chance to really meaningfully review so again I don't think we've had any structural impacts as a result of this but we're really just trying to anticipate so we've done some did some reach out to town hall to some of the other board chairs particularly regulatory boards where it's a little bit different than some other boards of how do they look at receiving materials prior to um public hearings and while they're all slightly different they're all basically consistent that for the most part it's at least a week out uh I'm going to share my screen real quick and I'm just going to show you the uh try the planning boards um Time website if it'll let me all right so we should be seeing the town of Littleton website this is the planning boards page on our town website and at the bottom of it has upcoming meetings with dates the type of meeting it is where it is when materials are due for any new requested hearing and when materials are do if it's a continued hearing so for their April 4th meeting for example for any new materials coming before them for a new request it's March 13th which is over two weeks prior to and March 25th so basically a week prior to for a continuation hearing for updates and materials so a significant amount of lead time so that both the department and the board has plenty of time to see this material prior to having to act upon it in a public hearing so uh I also heard back from conservation they run between um a week and 10 days as their request for materials prior to so at our last meeting discussing this you know which certainly is the the mindset and other boards as well going they will accept things past this date but basically preface it's going that late late submissions may result in having hearings continued because board and Department did not have an adequate amount of time to review it so um really this is not just an opportunity for us to decide what or continue discussion around how do we want to handle this do we want to change our current practice which is we don't really have a board submission timeline um we certainly have had you know the when anytime for Title Five For example is submitted the department the board has I believe it's 45 days to respond to that rarely takes that long um and I know Jim has said trying to facilitate residents and you know our our our neighbors to be able to get on the agenda as soon as someone submits even before the any revisions or feedback has been given that you know that surface everything seems to be here even though it's not been reviewed let's try to get you onto the agenda as soon as possible so that it's not a 45 day window okay now it seems acceptable now you need a waiver now you're two weeks out for the next so trying to play that balance of how do we best serve our our neighbors our residents our customers while also making sure that we have what we need so we can be successful and not have to continue hearings if we don't have to so opening it up to the board thoughts that's kind of the background of what the discussion is and where we've gotten from and what we've heard back from other boards here in town of what we would like to do do we want to set some kind of time limit whether it's hard or soft or anything else I saw Mr Baker's first uh I I was going to say uh that I really like the way the planning board does it and how it's uh very transparent and the bean dates are all there the due dates are there and I really like the way you put it Dan uh that you know we might be able to You'll review the materials in time if you get it in after this date but it might result in a continued hearing as well um so I I think I think we answered you you might have answered the question for us but uh I'm interested to see what everybody else thinks all right thank you Mr Baker Mr Davis uh the last time we discussed this I brought up the planning board stuff and I thought it was a model that we should go off and use so plus one to Mr Baker Dr W uh last time we discussed I thought we kind of felt that the Monday a week and a half prior would be a good day to send out our packet to the board therefore the end of the prior week would be the kind of deadline so slightly less than two weeks before a meeting um the planning board meets monthly not twice a month and so I feel like asking for materials 3 weeks before for uh one of our meetings I mean unless this board feels we need the time to do that I'm almost wondering if that just becomes an unnecessary barrier so I don't know how the planning board works but can we be a little more timely in our review so that we're not making things so far out because that will invariably mean somebody gets bumped a meeting just because they didn't get the materials to us for a new item that soon um I I agree that I think I think I heard I agree that it shouldn't be concrete it should be more of a if you don't get this in in time then there's a likelihood that you will get continued in your hearing but at least it's only two weeks not another month all right from the professional side staff that you know certainly what you guys can't put the packets together for us to see until you have the materials and that obviously we're not expecting you to drop the whole world on that you know whatever that date is to make it happen what kind of timeline do you need from Material submission to packet creation an email I don't know what that turnaround time is I mean for tonight's relatively quick but some of our more complex meetings that may take more time what is a reasonable timeline turnaround for the day-to-day operations to have it in hand and then be able to put it together to put out to us I'll look to Brenda more for um historical reference but I think a Friday before would be fine um but it's really up to the board and you know obviously it's on your off time and you don't have too much of that so um I really ask what the board feels like they need for let's say in a medium complex review of something ahead of time how much time do you think you would need um we can set different levels and then in the office make assessments based on what we received to make sure that rule is hard and fast and nothing is overc combersome Mr Davis so some recent examples like when we had the commercial property over by Taylor Street that was very complex um I know we asked a couple of times to have a professional PE person review it um and and you know it was it was kind of like well you know so those types of things I think the board has asked a couple of times to make sure that we get a PE to review it as a neutral party um so that's there the other thing um we also had um the Cannabis uh shop also over on Taylor Street with odor issues and um you know I thought you know it would have been helpful to have an outside party look at um some of the odor mitigation things that were going on and you know it was kind of interesting I don't know where that actually went after we asked about that so I think some of those things also need to come into um consideration for when we're doing this as far as going back to the complexity of it and looking at it the thing that I like is the format of the planning board where it has the table and everything there I'm not specifying that we um you know have a 3-we you know whatever Cadence it's just the format of that it's the information is very upfront here's how you do this here's how you go do this here's how you go do this and I think having more information out there um would you know be better for the board as we're interacting with the public Dr as um so I I would like to propose that the board determine the date by which we want the packet and then Francis and Brenda work on whatever the process it requires to do that I I don't I don't think we need to set the deadline for when it needs to be to them because they're assembling it and they need to figure out the time it takes to that we need to specify this is when we want it by and as I previously it was the Monday right a week and a half before the meeting we should be careful because they have to make sure they have time for agenda setting as well as anything from our prior meeting really only gives them 48 hours to get new documents to meet that deadline so I like the planning board how they do have the distinction new versus continuance um but again I'll go back to we should specify as a board when we think we need the packet so that we have ample time to review um with an asterisk being if if Francis or Brenda seees something particularly complex I think that warrants an offline touch base or something with something special to say this looks like it's going to be more time should we plan more time in the agenda should we get more information out you whatever that might be I trust that they could look at something and go this is going to blow the board away because it's so many pages and so complex Miss Baker uh yeah I you know I keep going back to uh the thought that I had uh maybe some some more of us had the thought too on our last time we discussed this was that if we could get the packet uh the Friday before our meeting uh that would be great so that we could have the weekend to review it in case there is something complex um correct me if I'm wrong but didn't we didn't we decide that the Friday before the meeting would would be a good day to get the packet in our hands that that's what I had been hoping for but I thought this board said they wanted more time and bumped it to the Monday so I think that was that that was the confusion I think with with with what you said where like you know we you know our deadline of when the board members need to get the packet is one thing however long it takes them to assemble it and get it to us on that Friday that's really up to them and how their work schedule is and and how they want to handle their process um I think Friday before is is ample and reasonable yeah yeah so whatever that means for for Francis and Brenda and Jim to to to what they need uh for lead time before that uh to get it in you know if they want say you know for continuing uh business uh 12 business days prior to our meeting which is the Monday before the Friday that we would want the packet um I'm sorry seven days before and then you know if it were 12 days before for new business would be the Monday PRI but that's that's up to them so we'll make an internal assessment when stuff comes in but Friday Friday before the meeting will be when we would like our packet yeah okay sure great any other discussion the moment all right thanks everybody all right we are up to our next hi Joo good evening sir about time you guys drive me crazy with this stupid thing there why don't you put the G the the ID numbers and the pass code I've been fooling around here I was going to complain that to the select man because you got drive me crazy I love you guys but every time you send you send me oh get we're gonna meet this time I even wrote it down what the hell so don't they see my name and email what do you everybody's blind they could have got me in half an hour ago oh actually of an hour ago quarter of eight M Mr fralone we we understand your frustration but we can certainly maybe work on this offline and we can work with it and and options try to address this offline thank you thank thank you sir we're glad you are here with us thank you thank you I miss you guys we are here at our 7:25 a discussion regarding the odor complaint process um we do have a few folks in the audience with this one so a little bit of background uh I had uh Miss hon from the planning board Vice chair uh reach out with some questions about the older complaint process particularly around Sanctuary um that it sounds like there's been some confusion as to where complaints should go to how they're processed how they're tracked um and that sounds like they had talked to some folks in town hall and there's some confusion as to um Authority process around the nuisance complaints for odors particular particularly at Sanctuary so I shared my first round discussion with um with them that basically odors fall under Board of Health under um 11131 Charlie so which it does um there are some other discussions that were shared today we'll bring Mr roner and M Houston forward as well um so we kind of have a group discussion as one I asked she asked for two minutes of public discussion I asked to actually put it on as a a more robust discussion among some of the the town folks who are all trying to manage this kind of complex convoluted issue so I will share that as part of discussion today I reached out to um time administrator's office and request a Town Council opinion um I'm going to actually take one second sorry and promote n Houston and Mr racher to the panel um because we have what appears to be as a non-attorney board member trying to read rules Rigs and everything else some kind of overlapping and conflicting language in the the regulations so obviously noisome trades no noise odor dust all clearly fall under Board of Health responsibility under 111 31c um Littleton is a right to farm community so that as part of that that there is a shift of some oversight and dispute resolution responsibilities from select board planning zoning and Board of Health to agricultural commission assuming there's not some other piece involved so if I have my farm and there's an odor from manure that is a normal operating odor from my farm and under right to farm that is not an immediate life threat it's not an immediate urgent Public Health concern unless it's contaminating something so the Board of Health while traditionally would have Authority Under right to farm that would shift to agricultural commission to try to mitigate and resolve that challenge um for those who don't know Littleton is in fact has adopted the model Right to Farm regulation as Town bylaw under um bylaw 90 under our town bylaws so which are pretty C of how that description goes complaints for any of those issues can go to the select board the zoning enforcement officer which here in Littleton is the building commissioner or the Board of Health any one of those groups can then obviously act if it's within their scope or defer so for us if it's not a public health an imminent public health or urgent public health issue we can defer that investigation and and mitigation and mitigation to to agriculture any of those those groups again can take action if needed or goes to agriculture as a right to farm community there's also a um under the Community host agreement with Sanctuary there's language that any complaints that they receive should be reported to planning and the zoning enforcement officer with the zoning enforcement officer making the decision of what action should or will be taken again probably at their discretion whether that is then therefore referred to another board another enforcement Authority or if it simply stops at the zoning enforcement officer Building Commissioner in our case so we' got sign of overlapping that a host Community agreement doesn't preempt right to far bylaw or math General law 111 31 Charlie so it there seems to be some confusion as to who is the reporting Authority who is the receiving authority of complaint who is the group or groups with enforcement or mitigation Authority um so again not being an attorney only playing one on lctv once once every two weeks uh I put the request back to the small groups so Mr racher Mr Houston a few other folks on email chain that I was included today to T administrator for Town Council interpretation of how do these apparently on the surface potentially conflicting or overlapping pieces how do we one address them operational how do we address them from a legal regulatory piece and how do we op how do we operationalize them in for the community and for town hall with if I get a call from someone who is the correct person to refer it to so that the appropriate action can be taken um and I'm going to stop for a moment after all that and see if uh Miss Houston Mr racher was my kind of summary of kind of where we are and how we got here this evening close to onmark did I miss anything major and open it up to kind of the process and some of the questions that that folks had uh thank you very much Mr chair um can you hear me okay we can all right great so Anna Houston um uh here as both a resident um who really is frustrated with with the odor that has been happening for years over there at um at the area around sanctuary and as a planning board member so I would just like to add to to what you just said that um as an example you were all were just talking about the uh planning board having the deadlines of when documents um are presented Ed um I think that's fairly new and I would really like to see that working properly um but we received um for example um changes to Sanctuary materials um even the same day of at our last meeting um and that was not acceptable to me so I really wanted to make sure that we kept the um public hearing opened and so that we could get additional information and what my frustration came into this and that is that it is not clear based off of what I saw in the proposed decision and what we have in the um odor management plan and what people believe to be correct at in in town hall that there's so much ambiguity that I really wanted us to kind of take a step back and say okay so how is this process actually going to work if you take a look and and so my question question to you all is can you please be a part of this process because I have asked well you know what exactly does this process entail and who is going to be um the lead on it and then what is the process um moving forward from that I wasn't getting answers so that's why I came to you Mr chair so thank you for for having us here um in the um odor management plan there is a 20 247 toll-free hotline and so what's supposed to happen with those phone calls honestly I'd rather see the calls come to somebody in town so that we can go ahead and and keep track of that and and and then figure out what to do with those calls right um so that's one thing who should be contacted as you said and then the second thing is the threshold I know that there's supposed to be um conducting formal surveys using the odor jar kits a couple times a week and on page 18 of their um odor management plan it says that they will report to Littleton Board of Health periodically at a frequency agreed to with the Board of Health on its effort to address off-site odor complaints so I didn't know so they do this odor jar kit and they have the formal surveys done do you then discuss those with them at these interval meetings um what then happens with that information how is it used so as you can see I'm just very um uncomfortable with where we are right now and I I would like to engage the Board of Health to please provide Direction where it's appropriate um and that's my ask those two things thank you thank you ma'am uh Mr Davis go ahead uh news to me on the odor of control plan um I don't recall it coming before this board to review or place comment on or anything like that um so that would be my first comment for that and if I missed it because I was a different meeting you know or missed the meeting that's that's you know bad on me um but the second thing is that um if the host agreement has an error in it um maybe we should revisit the host agreement and correct the error so that the reporting is done appropriately and then finally the 800 number um again news to me I haven't heard anything about it they said that they were going to put on their web page a number to call so that those things would be routed to them uh when there was a problem and things like that and I said well that a good start um I gave him some feedback about how to make the number dialable so that way you could when you go to the web page you can click on it with your cell phone it would automatically go out and dial off of that page um but that was pretty much all the discussion that we had there wasn't anything else really brought into my recollection and that's just my comments but I'm ready to work with you so I'm I see hand Mr remember one second so once Al though most we we certainly have heard intermittent concerns um I know Jim has gone out on you know regular basis and occasionally we'll notice some odor and sometimes not um we I we honest I have not seen their full auto mitigation plan and actually as Mr Davis was talking I just went to our um Board of Health Department of Health shared One Cloud site and I don't see it there although I may just be missing it so I'm not sure if if Jim or Brenda has seen that so I think that's something again that we just need to make sure that from an operational piece and I'll be honest as as a department we are three weeks old as a department so that our level of operationality is still in its infancy you know we haven't had a a a town planner in place for years we've had a a local Health director now for literally three weeks four weeks so and Jim awesome but again he's only so many hands in so many places so that it's it is a little bit different um so one I think we do want to agree I definitely agree and then a quick aside just so we don't miss it for Brenda and Francis can we see if we can get a copy of the odor mitigation plan um from Sanctuary or from our files some place and share it out and put it on our share drive just so we have access to it as a members of the board all right sorry Mr racher I apologize for the delay go ahead sir so um Miss Houston probably can clarify this but I would guess that the odor mitigation plan is on the planning board website currently um under the sanctuary stuff uh under what's it 234 Taylor Street so from so um also a clarification to what Mr Davis said earlier I think it's the special permit that talks about the odor mitigation and not the host Community agreement so that's what the planning board is currently negotiating from my perspective um um as the as the special permit is currently written it says it's the building inspector's job to do the odor mitigation um or the odor um respond if there's a if there's a odor at sanctuary if it's if it's the health agent or whoever whomever it is makes no difference to me as long as there's a way of the residents knowing who to contact right it's very clear who they're going to contact we have a way of tracking um the incoming call incoming requests you know it's information that people should end up being able to fo or get through some website um and the other is we have the potential you know to Bill Sanctuary every time we go out there so that's the other reason we'd like to be able to track it too it would be nice to know we need to make it easier for the residents to report problems and know that their problems are are being addressed and then we need to know how often there are problems and you know um from a real perspective so that's where I'm coming from on this and if it's the Board of Health the health department or the building department or some combination makes no difference to me as long as we can clearly tell people where to go because right now we're telling them to go in three or four different directions and no one knows uh what the right answer is so I I think if I can I think that kind of what brings us back to the request of Town Council that you know under and simply of I'm not sure who has responsibility right to farm was out long before cannabis was an option um the right to farm bylaw does not exclude cannabis from it um and again I have not been able to dig in since the email this morning too deep yeah are there any other regulations that P cannabis out of Right to Farm even though it's not in the right to farm language is it in the Cannabis language that right to farm doesn't apply once some place is in place and it's gotten their zoning and those pieces in place of how that works so this again the question really could be odor could be us as odor in general because in general it would be us under right to farm it is if it is public health risk if it's is not public health risk and it's simply part of normal and I don't have it pulled up at the moment but the right to farm regulation is really broad any cultivation of any type of anything of any product package all this stuff which without saying cannabis would appear on the surface to apply unless some of the Cannabis language has pulled it out of that um which would place it in agriculture's responsibility so again that host agreement or Odom mitigation plan is a whole separate piece which doesn't necessarily fall under right to farm or ma the Board of Health responsibilities under Mass general laws so I me's curious is that as part of that negotiated agreement between the town and Sanctuary that referring back to what boards and authorities have control over certain aspects that basically another layer was added in as a contract agreement outside of existing Town bylaw and Fe and state law so we kind of almost have added another layer into that mix no matter who how right to farm works if Right to Farm doesn't apply to cannabis well that it's back to an oder complaint that falls under Board of Health so I think we really need Town Council to like go where are our lines um and how that host or agreement between planning and and Sanctuary have come about and you know whether those by Town bylaws and state laws were incorporated into or thought of during that negotiation I simply don't know because we weren't part of that negotiation we were that is really a planning and select board and petitioner piece that we were never part of that that process the first we right so I'll just add that um Town Council and the council for Sanctuary have been all over that special permit there was a long discussion about um the proper reporting structure at the last planning board meeting but it was more about whether Sanctuary should be in um the initial contct or or if it was covered by normal state regulations the right to farm regulation was not at all dis disced and perhaps it doesn't apply at that piece I simply I simply don't know um I can't speak to Our Town Council certainly I've been in in in towns in the past where great smart very talented and conscientious Town councils simply aren't always as attuned to public health law as they are other parts of of town law simply because public health law is a very even in at a town level is still a very specific scope of practice that is not necessarily in a kind of a generalist even a generalist Town Council piece I simply don't know if that ever came up on their radar as they were functioning as our representative as part of that negotiation um I know I saw their hands I think Kevin Davis I think I saw your hand go ahead yeah so I specifically asked a question when um they were in the last time talking to us about cultivation and they specifically said that their facility does not have cultivation happening in it so confirm uh Mr racher or Miss Houston if that is correct and if that's correct they're totally just a processing facility that is not growing right cultivation of the cultivar of cannabis would be a you know then they would fall in in my opinion at playing a lawyer on TV uh that would fall into that there's some other things that I read in other states from like Michigan and Colorado and California uh which where they have also Right to Farm laws as well that are very similar to Massachusetts and basically if you cultivating cannabis then that you fall under the right to farm regulations if you're just processing it um you know that's a completely different ball of waack so correct me if I'm wrong their current facility is they are I believe they are a cultivator they extent they're new what they're adding is just processing okay they yeah but I would also say that they probably I would guess that their special permit and whatever they agree to there in their special permit supersedes any right to form law since it specifically calls out odor mitigation I would guess that the specifics override the general bylaw if you didn't have something in there I would guess that you would fall back to the general but there is something specific in there about odor so I would I would guess that the contract itself is more you know more much more specific and override something since it calls it out okay playing a lawyer on TV so one of the things that um comes to mind as as I hear you um talking Mr Davis is that it seems that the odor management plan is something correct me if I'm wrong that the order management plan should have been reviewed by the Board of Health and the fact that it hasn't really concerns me I guess I thought it had been reviewed by you all then then um I request if um your board could please send a letter to the planning board that says we need to pause While You all take a look at this plan Mr Baker go ahead thank you Mr chair I believe they did come in front of us with a slide deck it was about 200 pages uh and it was uh to show us the uh the addition they were going to be building and the new systems they're going to be putting into that building as well as what they were going to um replace in their existing building with these new with the new systems and the new carbon filters that are supposedly going to take do a lot of the work uh for the odor mitigation the jury's out on that uh because they're not in place in the existing building and we don't know how well they're going to work when they do get installed uh they did put together that dashboard that Mr Davis I remember you liked oh I reviewed it right then and there yeah yeah and and they could do a little better on it maybe but that I think was the jar business that Anna was talking about where they do the smell test and they they everybody sees how strong they can smell first and then they walk around and figure out where the odor is and how strong that person determines the scent is at that specific location and that that information goes into the dashboard we haven't seen all that work yet either and the dashboard sorry sir go ahead no we so so they presented us with a plan in theory uh we don't know how well it's going to work um this odor management plan is 66 pages long we didn't see that okay the the the document that we saw uh it was a number of pages I don't know exactly how many um Mr won maybe you recall Dr won sorry U but what I was going to say uh just before that was that I I'm I'm uh I think that it's okay if we funnel in all the complaints to the health department uh and have our department be the main contact for such odor complaints and nuisance complaints regarding the facility uh and I am also okay with our health director or his asse his or her assign uh being the enforcement agency for uh say complaint as long as we can all work together and come to a common agreement on uh what we all would like to see happen Dr won go ahead yes we have received the odor management plan yes we met and talked about it no I don't think any of us except for Jim read the 66 Pages partly because I think it was presented to our board not as um not as something we actually had jurisdiction over but was a request for review which I felt was different and it was quite pointed that in our discussion the sanctuary Representatives more than once said that they were not in front of us for any requirement but as a courtesy and so I think maybe that set this whole process up on the WR foot potentially and I think I remember Jim like maybe a year ago a long time ago saying should the board have more formal Authority before a problem happens such as design review of some facility that is likely to produce odor um and I don't recall the answer but I think it was kind of like not not very precedent and I'm not sure um but in this case we had the plan Jim did review it Jim has notes on it and so we had some discussion around it and and kind of approved it because it seemed like a good enough plan and forward that we forwarded that kind of approval onto the planning board I thought to say this has our stamp we asked for a few things um the dashboard is weak because it requires manual updating and some of the customer complaint stuff isn't quite as easy as we wanted it to be um for community members but I see kind of two two halves one is the pre-build which is where we are for this new facility and and that is how much does the Board of Health have purview over that and like I said I think we felt like we were not responsible or that was not in our jurisdiction to actually be hard on that and then the other piece is the post which is the nuisance portion of it which I think we have historically been totally okay with owning and that's what I'm hearing from my fellow board members tonight um but I I think also Jim might have some other input to provide as well maybe um because I go back to the how how do we handle the new thing and should the Board of Health have some say over design where we think there could be a problem and do we actually have authority to do that and I'm not sure from from 111 if if that's actually included or if it's all really looking HST problem uh Mr Jes I'm gonna ask you hold on for one moment Mr graffy go ahead sure so um and unfortunately my freeness screen is frozen so I hope you can hear me I'm not sure we can okay good so a couple of things first when the board met it was to discuss the conditions of the special permit in front of the planning board um and that presentation that they provided in fact as Dr won mentioned included the Oda uh plan that they had in there um and and I think amongst the things that the board asked the planning board or in their notes to the planning board was to require that their plans uh require a a um a third party HVAC engineer review because none of us sitting on the board really understand the interplay between the odor all the different rooms that they have in the facility and and the different treatment uh equipment that they were providing so that was a concern of ours it all looked good on paper but I can't really tell you if it's a enough equipment uh if it's B funneling and channeling the air in the appropriate manner so again that was the recommendation part of the recomend ation to the planning board was a third party review by an hbac mechanical engineer thank you Jim Uh Kevin Davis go ahead thank you sir um I I do recall receiving the presentation and everything like that but I do not recall re reviewing all 61 pages of that um of that odor mitigation at all it may have been mentioned in there and I don't recall that being in the packet so that's maybe on me or whatever but um having received and talked to uh Mr ronacher about some of the nuisance odors I knew I was looking for that particular part in there to make sure that it was handled appropriately um and again in my opinion because we have an electronic system that when you know like if the office uh Department receives uh a notification I think we could start to log you know whatever policy or procedure they want to put in place to do that I think there's an electronic version of that already that maybe we can put something in place in the E system that the town uses to fill out a Complaint Form or something like that um but I agree I think the Board of Health should be the one receiving the calls about uh the nuisance oders Mr chair yes so currently the um the complaints come to my office there are a handful of residents in that area who have my email address and and will email me when there are concerns of odor and we try to get up there as close to the time that they're experiencing the odor to try to document the odor um and and sometimes it works out very well and sometimes we miss it and so um again I've been receiving uh emails from residents in that neighborhood for quite a long time and and I have actually provided them as Bo requests to other people um and and again we continue to receive those complaints one of the things that was in the sanctuary's paperwork was the Cannabis control commissions require that they comply with the air pollution regulations um and the Board of Health has jurisdiction under the air pollution regulations to enforce that uh the state it's state regs uh 310 crr 7 um and and in that set of Regulation D allows Boards of Health fire departments and police departments to enforce those regulations and that's really what we've been using um to consider um Oda complaints so um again we continue to receive complaints we try to what we ask people to do is tell us when it's happening so we can try to narrow the time when we go up there and experience the complaints if we can experience those complaints uh I have emailed the facility in the past saying hey you got an issue going on can you take a look and see what's happening uh the board has met with San before uh when there were kind of a grouping of compliants so the board has been involved with sank to um you try to get them to mitigate the odors to the furthest extent possible sorry on mute I apologize Miss Houston go ahead so I I think in um in hearing all of this because I don't know maybe you know in an Ideal World this odor management plan and on the website and on our town site there would be one piece of paper like a flowchart that just says do you have a complaint an order complaint this is the process that you follow and this is what will happen that would be the most ideal thing so that our residents have comfort in knowing that they've got the the town has their back and that they know that if they do X then y will happen and I don't know if that's part of your role or is it part of the planning board's role that we need to put into the document that's part of the decision so if you have thoughts on that I would appreciate that any members of the board have any thoughts Mr David go ahead so again I definitely think the the the Board of Health should be the ones receiving that um a flowchart um it's a pretty it's it's you know start button says do you have a nuisance odor uh call planning board end I I I I that's my opinion on it I I don't know how the other ones are but that's where I feel and I did say Board of Health I did say Board of Health I thought you said right right call Board of Health sorry my fault what was that everybody got really quiet I was like oh no I said it wrong Dr won go ahead do we need to work on a nuisance reporting mechanism because there are current problems or because they are trying to build a new facility and it's tied to this special permit um both so so there have been ongoing complaints now for six years in fact um as I understand from Resident who contacted me yesterday Mr griffy was out there for one yesterday so this is an ongoing thing and we want to try to be able to um make it very clear and simple for residents to be able to to make their complaints making that public if at all possible and that everybody understands what the mechanism is by which this odor is being judged and then that there are consequences based off of you know what's what's happening I mean the ideal world is this that everything they say that they are doing to um the the existing building and their new buildout is going to solve the odors terrific fabulous but if it doesn't we need to be ready to act on behalf of the residents and I think that's where I see that I would like to see it kind of segregate a little bit more because we have existing complaints existing structures that we have we as a board have been pushing to have better resolution of and a part of that should be nuisance reporting um I think none of us really realized how disheveled that that portion was until now so I would say that's work that is has started and should be ongoing that we've owned I think and would have no problem continuing to own the piece of the special permit uh I would look to you to say if there's something you need from us or you want to include with our input then then let's have another hearing about that to say this is specifically what is asked of the board of he because I need to be clear if what you want in the special permit is we want odors reasonably controlled right now we want a better nuisance Reporting System live we want XYZ because without that that specific ask of us I think I I don't know where we would then just go we could we could keep trying to have them make promises like you mentioned oh when we build this new thing this will all get incrementally better um if I think we approach that to say okay that that sounds good enough to us we can't prove prove that's not true like Jim said we wanted that outside engineer review to help to help us understand that um but I guess I I just want to make sure we're really clear on what the special permit is asking of the board or do you just want to um provide your words that you've provided and the input to say we will now push harder and and focus and try to get the nuisance reporting process as one component definitely nailed down better and I think taking that back to Sanctuary for our own Board of Health public hearing would be a necessary Next Step does that make sense through the chair um so to to answer your question Dr Wason I'm here and I first started out talking to chair Kane as a resident feeling like this is just you know ongoing and then as a planning board member feeling like I don't think that we've nailed this yet to to come to a decision that's on paper and signed by the planning board members so I would very much like to include the of Health in what we're doing because I see this as a very collaborative process between um your new Department your board between the planning department the planning board and even the select board members because um uh the the new health manager now is part of that town administrative process so I think we need to be working together on this and quite frankly I feel like I have been prud from doing so because when I ask questions they get stopped and I don't want that to continue share privileg for a moment I I certain I hope you don't you aren't addressing that to us because I real I I hope we expressed Our concern pretty quickly as our communication and I I think you reached out over the weekend and we're we're now in face to face is on Wednesday so I hope you you hear that seriously we are trying to be proactive and so I just want to make sure that we we're not missing something that that we haven't missed stuff in the background that we weren't aware of or should have been so I don't believe so but what I would say is um it would be extremely helpful to the overall process in this is if Sanctuary has its continued public hearing next Thursday April 4th if somebody from this board could be there um because again if if we are to work together we can't keep working in silos because some people will attend one meeting some people will attend another meeting it's just helpful to have representation if you will so if you could that would be great if I if I could but that that's kind of what I'm getting it is is there something specific that you would like this board to deliver obviously with one member there it's not our board so I guess we could ask some questions but that wouldn't be necessarily expert or so let me askal opinion so if I were to ask for a joint meeting would you be amendable to that and I can go back to the chair and ask for that as well I mean I'm okay with the joint me that changes the scenario right so that does provide our board but I would still say like just so we're clear going into it what what can we do in advance to make sure we're prepared to address concerns questions whatever it might be I think that's where I'm still a little unsure and we Ted about the odor mitigation plan maybe the next step is for actually us to have our own public hearing with Sanctuary to readdress that per the request of the the planning board or the select board or whoever it might be um just what what clarifications do we need to get or what exact approvals would you want to see I guess but lots of hands okay Air Traffic Control here for a second I'm going to go to Mr ronacher first and then Mr Baker um so I would say that this the planning board decision is what's been discussed it's on the website now it's dated the decision I think is dated February 29th section 20 specifically calls out the um the the odor what happens for if an odor is reported right it's the entire process so your B board should review that right or or the health your health agent or someone should review that and make sure that you agree with what that process is then there's the odor management plan that uh your board um it sounds like your board may have reviewed but there are questions on that may or may not have been addressed so that something else that you should come uh be ready to discuss at the planning board meeting if you know to know that you you ask questions about the HVAC system has it been properly um peer reviewed and and you can ask your your questions of the peer reviewer or see what the responses were those would be my two U Miss Houston might others but those are the ones that immediately pop into my head thank you uh yes so those two I totally agree and then the third one again is um based on your um role as the Board of Health is there odor jar kit um reasonable and and appropriately measurable for what you need in other words how are you going to know when a violation has occurred is it just the complaints okay if it's just the complaints that's one thing but if it's actually something else more quantitative then I don't believe that's been substantiated in their odor management plan but again I'm not a board of health expert so that's part if I could before we get back to cabet and I think none of these board members are odor management plan experts either and so I think based on this is making it clear I think this goes back to we got the document we asked that you that the planning board consider having the outside engineer look at it and I think we're right back to that I think that what we need is that engineer outside engineer to review these plans and actually give an expert recommendation back to us as a board that says yay great idea B we need to make some changes that way we can give you a more firm answer for the next round um which is I think a different ground than we kind of went into the first one sorry no that's okay I Mr Baker I have not forgotten I'm going to say that I think just to reinforce Mr wayon that piece of it came before us as basically a consult prior to planning that this was a planning process it came for us for input to planning of what addition what if any additional feedback input suggestions Etc that the Board of Health would provide to the planning board to support their process of granting or not granting the expansion and that feedback was it needs a professional engineer to evaluate plans that is beyond the scope of this board's expertise be to do that um so I don't know again and I've not we've not heard back we've made the recommendation we've not heard back of of what where in that process that is or has happened so I I we simply can't answer what's happened or whether those are adequate because we basically said we don't know if these are adequate we need a professional engineer and that needs to be part of the that that was our recommendation to planning that that be part part of your approval or disapproval or or change process to include that and get that feedback from an outside expert so and just a clarification Mr chair so the only thing that um has been peer-reviewed has been the the typical planning board things like like site plan um the HVAC is one of the things that is a condition um of approval um and it's just the HVAC piece there has been no review of the um odor management plan in other words it did not go out for period okay I did not forget you Mr Baker I'm sorry please go ahead oh no thanks it's been all all great comments Dr Wason uh I was going to piggyback on what you had mentioned regarding the uh HVAC system being peer-reviewed um and that I mean the HVAC the hbac system is 90% of the odor mitigation plan and and that's what we need a professional to come in and tell us uh is this going to work and that has not happen and that's what we need to happen they haven't come back to us I don't know if they've done it I don't know if anybody's looked into the vendor for that or who is the professional uh I know at our meeting uh we had given some options um but we haven't seen anything since then I think one thing that we can do to help between now and the next meeting is putting into place um a process for uh by which nuisance complaints uh can come in uh regarding odor come into the health department uh be processed be made public knowledge be attached to the parcel of land uh be cced uh to the necessary uh stakeholders involved uh to make sure everything's open transparent for the public I think that's really important I think that's the one thing we're missing because uh the the complaint process has been so defract it and it's gone in so many different directions that we can't all we can't unscramble that egg right now we can't we can't go back and and and figure out where and when all those complaints happened so uh I think we can uh and Mr D will correct me if I'm wrong I think we can put that process in place fairly quickly uh with the help of our support staff that would be wonderful thank you uh g go ahead sir I understand I heard Anna and also Jeffrey I appreciate that the question is is Anna mentioned several many several maybe even more than that they approached me and they said you know you're in B of Health I say yes I have a problem I can't I can't smell that smell that order anymore what should I do I told him says right to the border of health and then we get the attorney and they check him and then will be giraffi will make a comment and and I will do a comment and the board all together will make a comment if the all is very bad and it is that's why we are in the B of Health we want to make sure that nobody gets sick that's it because some people can get sick if there a terrible order that is my thank you Anna thank you JY I appreciate it thank you Gino um Kevin Davis did you have your hand yeah yeah then this is to go back to my review of the web page that was there the web page the review that gave to them was that it was a it was more like a wireframe static web page everything in there was filled out on the page itself the web page was created by Wix so there was a whole lot of things that on that web page that I basically told them that this is not how you would want to present a professional page uh to go off and do this H you need to be tying this into the systems uh so that they're automatically updated uh the logging on the bottom is just wrong you know I told him like the date is twisted around there's no way to correlate between the systems that are active at the top to the time that something was there and reviewed and all that kind of good stuff so there was a you can go back and play the tape um and as a side note I am that kind of engineer um so you know they they got a a really good review a cursory review a 10-minute review on that and I told him to come back again and I'll be more than happy to look at it again and to give them more information information that was there so all right so let's let's see what we can do about pulling this all back together and see if we can come up with a a at least a short-term plan um so we've got obviously lots of moving pieces here we've got odor complaints in general out there that need a consistent whether it's from Sanctuary or from any other source in town a consistent process and I think the most consistent since most odor complaints taking Sanctuary out of this mix would go to either most likely the fire department because they answer every call anyway and odor is always one of those ones that I don't know what I have a weird smell that's just how it is short of the fire department or having them refer it back to us afterwards assuming it not life safety natural gas kind of stuff is orders would fall under Board of Health responsibility and Authority so I think shortterm if it makes sense that we make the recommendation that odor complaints in general Sanctuary or others come through the health department and then triaged from there as appropriate whether that's a health agent going out inspecting whether that's that sounds like natural gas and I'm going to refer it to the fire department or some other action as deemed appropriate short term I think that's pretty consistent across the board for 99% % of odor complaints Sanctuary again we're not quite sure with it's a farm it's an OD source and there's also the special agreement under that as well of which one it falls under and how that we need to figure out which is the overriding legal Authority which which one wins does the contract win does p law win does state law win which one has Supremacy as far is enforcement and action but we're not going to get that answer today but I think even if it came to and again interrupt me anytime here as I'm thinking this through if we if complaints continue to come to the Board of Health as or the health department as its primary receiving agency if some combination of the agreement and right to farm say nope it's not immediate public health risk it you to agriculture or nope this is a order complaint that has been negotiated as part of the I apologize it's out my head I'm going to say special project waiver but I know it's not a special project waiver um the medical side of my brain is going it's like that but it's not um does somehow that take Supremacy as far as Regulatory and and monitoring it can still come to the Board of Health and then go okay it's Sanctuary it's not life it's not immediate public health risk we're now referring this to another agency and not you know basically be a bit of a gatekeeper flow manager as complain as complaints or reports come in I I think that seems reasonable as long as that seems reasonable workflow for Brenda and Francis and Jim as the professional staff who are going to be feeling those calls and responding and triaging them um that no matter what with Sanctuary comes back from Town Council or any other agreements it still seems like a reasonable triage process is that from the board and from the paid professional staff and planning and select board I recognize you're not speaking for your boards but in general does that seem like a reasonable at least short-term process so that we can deliver a consistent message to everyone older complaint assuming you don't think it's a dead body or natural gas goes to the Board of Health and again preferably the phone number um only emails can take a while and can get missed um so that we can try to respond or triage as in as timely manner as possible does that seem like a reasonable short term yes and I think making it clear will be really helpful thank you brus Jim Brenda does that seem okay from a workflow side of answering the phone call and either acting or triaging to the appropriate body from a workflow side and a logic side she has copies of those in the office yep no thank you so much um Dr won go ahead um so uh phone's great I would like to have potentially multiple methods um so that they can all get one place and tracked uh so if somebody's just calling leaving or having a phone conversation how are we going to document that in a central location that could also go with emails Etc so that we have one source of data and all surprise Francis we were talking earlier today about potential online nuisance reporting right right Francis nod your head um so we were talking kind of about the same kind of thing just in general nuisance complaints making sure that whatever method they get to us by we are trying to then store them in a single system so that we can at least then find them all so I don't care if it's email I don't care if it's open goov I don't care what it is I just don't want it to be um while you were out Post-its next to some other computer system so that if it is a phone call Great does that turn into an email for recordkeeping um and whatever might be on our web page we have the all of the options available to that individual because some are going to want to be able to click submit a nuisance form some are gonna want to email and some are going to want to call I I would say Jim and Francis figure out how you want the first interaction to be I as a board I I I don't want to decide that you guys figure out how you want to get that input and then I would ask where are you going to store it so that you can then report to this board and say we got X many complaints over this period of time does that sound cool worse for me uh Mr Davis go ahead I would like to pile on to what M Dr Wason and Mr Baker had talked about which is basically use that egov system that we have to figure out some process to catalog everything and have it in one place so that that way we can get the accurate reports on tied to property so that way we know hey we got 7,250,000 reports in three seconds over this stuff over there you know that kind of granularity would be much appreciated question for probably Jim and Brenda at the moment um do we have a logging system that if I make a phone call that do we do we track phone calls or emails complaint just that same piece of do we have a database that we've gotten 15 calls and pull down menus so order complaint or noise or inspection question or whatever food poison whatever it happens to be do we have a a a logging system for public contact with us so that we can in fact pull up okay we've had 15 cases kind of the same way that you do root cause for food food born illness you start looking back do we have a logging system for reports and calls and contacts in general so that we could in fact go how do we know how many odor complaints we've gotten for example from an address or a business or whatever it is without trying to go back and look at emails because that's never going to capture everything unless you're sending an email every time you get a phone call yeah I guess I'll just start for the odors it is an email system because what we generally ask is them to give us time date uh when they smell it uh any kind of duration um so we don't really have a database of it but I do I save all the emails and they're searchable and and again I've provided those as public records request as request um again it's when we're dealing with odor complaints we're trying to kind of formulate is there an issue here and when is that issue so we can go out and actually document uh the issue so if it's the issue is occurring the board can take the next step and either call them in for a hearing issue an order um so that that's been the practice uh Francis your hands up sorry sir um yeah um so this case is a little separate but in general um I'm already working on a complaint intake electronically that anybody will be able to apply through any channel awesome great yep no tracking is D data is power so all right Mr rer I did see your hand up I apologize for that go ahead sir um just a quick thing is just to make sure that the email doesn't go to a specific person right it shouldn't be Jim's email add address or Francis or Brenda's email address because if they're on vacation we're going to miss them right so I I don't know how you guys want to handle it but just make sure what's public whatever public is posted is um an email address that can be monitored by multiple people and we do have a generic Health Littleton email address and I do know um Brenda should now have access to it there was when Brenda started there was some challenges getting access to it but Brenda should have access to it now I'm hoping I'm going to look for Francis to nod his head Francis you should have access to that email address and are monitoring it as well thank you very much um Jim I'm not sure about as an outside agency if RIT folks gave you the health at Littleton email access did they Matt's noding his head so yeah yeah it has been historically monitored only by Jim now it is Jim and Francis yeah and whoever else awesome all right so yeah I knew there was initially some challenges but yeah it sounds like that has been resolved so um that yeah I think in general an email address that would be the the recommended it is the one listed even with like the D and EPA and stuff for any contact with the board it goes to that generic email box so that it's not dependent on someone being in the office or on vacation or you know a change in position and suddenly they're not checking that their email here in town anymore and it's lost so okay so we got some big challenges but I think this is made at least some forward progress I I think the last two pieces probably are looking forward to feedback from planning and their process with the expert Engineers side as part of their um permitting process for HVAC and odor because they are the ones with the authority as part of the negotiation for their the building expansion at the moment and how do we share um and again we can kind of probably do this a little bit offline of just how do we make sure we can share with Town leadership and contacts so that as things come into town hall or around town that how can we make sure we give a consistent message to to folks within town hall and in the community that the reporting process for it's noise odor and dust all fall under Board of heal at least as a starting point doesn't mean that's where it's going to stay but as a starting point under you know that's noise odor and dust is usually starts with Boards of health and health agents so I'm just not sure doing that is other than certainly we can share it through town administrator's office and ask them to to share it out toart again I'm not sure I'm I'm not in town hall how how communication within Town Hall curse is outside of my scope and perview but we can certainly make the request to the town administrator's office um share what we've thought about tonight and allow allow them to take action as they deem appropriate to communicate to town employee staff um and then say from board Health perspective we can make sure that our we can perhaps put out a thing on our on our website um for the reporting process you got to complaint about any of the dozens of things that Boards of Health can be complained to about this is how you can do that um I think from from our side those are the probably the two pieces that we can do we can control our website and put that out there as a process and let Town Administrator know this is the recommendation at the moment and see how they would like to share it within Town Town Hall any other thoughts from the board or our guests tonight about that piece of just how do we operationalize what we've talked about tonight in the short term sounds good thank you very much for the thoughtfulness yes thank you thank you both for being here tonight we appreciate it all right any other was that a wave Mr Baker or was a hand that was a wave okay good all right so that wraps up that peace our evening um administrative matters um we actually talked briefly about this already that and Francis has kind of already started a little bit here kind coming up with a a logging and tracking system as as things come into the office so that we can we can pull it back I was able to go back and look at the meeting packet from my email from January 28th um and see obviously the slide presentation but then also the the mitigation plan that was part of that um I I admit that's we all have our own filing systems and I don't want to mess up anybody's filing system because then they'll never be a to file anything over again but is there a way that we can perhaps utilize the shared folder under um one drive to make it maybe perhaps a little bit more user friendly for the board so for example if I want to go look at something for Sanctuary I I don't know if we can come up with a standard at least a share so we're not looking through meeting packets for a not mitigation plan or a hearing result or those kind of things looking through meeting packets is not really timely or practical um and certainly if it's been an ongoing we may be looking at five or six packets if it was I'm going to just pick on them for the moment because we're not here tonight but if I was looking at 25 to 31 Stevens I'm G to be looking through four or five or six meeting packets to try to get all the pieces that came out of that um can we build into one drive whether Sanctuary or cannabis or whatever it is and be able to get that information in a timely manner so that we can can work with it and we're not digging um not an overnight solution but that's is that perhaps something we can work towards just to to smooth that process same thing actually with minutes um some When Miss Houston actually asked me a question I went back to look at the minutes of what we had decided from the 28th the January 28th meeting we had approved the minutes so they were off of the pending minutes folder in one note but they weren't on the town website yet so we had a gap so I had to go back try to look through my emails of what was in the email because it was pulled from the the pending but it hadn't arrived on the town website yet can we just simply keep a copy of our minutes either draft version or approved version in that one drive as well just it just seems like having it in one place under Board of Health or Health Department would seem helpful Mr go ahead yeah I think that's a great idea I think we should have a copy of everything in the one drive the best way to organize it uh Dr Wason uh knows knows how to organize it sorry called on me Kevin hold on hold on hold on it was directed through the chair to Dr Wason so we're gonna go with Dr won uh of course I have an opinion Kevin Baker um yes stuff can be put there um the concern has always been and this is what uh drove the minutes process is that um we just have to be cautious because the official document has to be posted on the web for Public Access so I the choice is either a also keep a copy on one drive or B have a process whereby Brenda just doesn't remove it from one drive until we've confirmed it's posted on the web um there is better search on the web than there used to be so there's in internal document searching yeah it's not his so it it is better I agree it's clunky if you're if you actually know what day you're looking for there's so many clicks to get to that to that file um so I would be in favor of having a section on one drive that stores those approved historical minutes like I said we just have to be really careful that that can't be the the last copy cuz it has to be published online uh same same thing yes we can there's nothing that says we can't store some of those other documents like uh any sort of plan review stuff or break up the meeting packet into folders by address it can be done it is an extra step because those are already emailed to us and posted online so that's an ask for okay because fundamentally what it is is Francis and Brenda please take all of those media materials that you've collected assembled for us emailed to us in PDF and now break them back apart or put those incremental pieces now into folders on one drive so it it's extra work and you still have to again make sure that everything is in the original packet that's posted publicly so that we don't have any sort of extra stuff on one drive and of course final caveat no discussions so it would just be a kind of informational resource but yes it would be much easier to find stuff if you're able to go to 234 Taylor street- sanctuary and find all those documents Brenda is emailing them out currently and um I just want to let the board know that I do keep my own copies on the M Drive of everything so in addition to sending them out the packets are done by month um and by date um and I compile all of the documents together and combine them into one packet um I do have them separately also and then combine them as one because then I need to send them to you and then um post it to the web so I do have the information on the M drive as well um I know you don't have access to that but Francis does I do and um I I I guess we we could add stuff to the one drive maybe you can just copy it yeah so from a technology perspective um one of the things that we need to make sure that we're doing is making uh sure that the PDFs are OCR and searchable uh currently our PDFs are not and they need to be or sometimes they are sometimes they're not uh the reason why that needs to happen is so that way you can like search for those things so once you post a PDF into one drive one drive allows uh the search function to go into files that can be searchable so it knows that like a PDF file is searchable or not if it is searchable it will actually go in into the file and start looking for that information within it um so that is something very important uh to have because the other thing and I agree that so think of it this way too the one drive system that's there should be the information vessel that gets passed from one new board to the next board to the next board so that the continuation of information is there and present right and if it is searchable for us to go do this then this is that's exactly what you want to have happen um so I you know if you guys want to run some experiments or do something like that I'm all for it I'm here to help I kind of do this with other you know federal state and local type stuff so just let me know and this is the first time I've actually ever used one drive I've never used it before and the town does not use it so we use the M drive to store everything so so so just just just to let you know one drive is just a one drive from a PC perspective an m is just a is just a mapping a ma device to a physical thing right or a logic thing same thing one drive can just be mapped to any letter or whatever it is it doesn't matter it's just where it's located in the world and uh the IT people have full cognizance over all of that stuff they have the ability to go you know look at it and control it so it's up to how your it department does it I'm not going to tell you how to run your department but right from a perspective U putting things up into the one drive allows board members to go in and see those things when we log in and we're able to that type of stuff whereas the M drive is it it gets ugly how we would get access to that drive we'd have to like VPN into a special system and all right let's let's try to use the technology that we have available and make the right decisions sure I need some help with that so so yeah to piggy back on what Kevin says uh we don't have full control over the oocness anyways because the documents are not all created by us so if somebody sends us a scan document then we can try to enable it but we can only do some what I would say is we just make sure we're putting whatever original thing we have so we're not doing any conversion that might get in the way so if somebody sends as a PDF we post a PDF if somebody sends us a word doc we save the word doc whatever it might be so that uh there's not additional processing or or time spent on that so I I'm hearing that's what Brenda has already right because she gets the pieces she already saves them the the new question the new ask would be also add those to one drive in a different different file format because you said you do it by month and date obviously because that's the meeting and I think we would look for it by local address or and or business name or sure project name or something like that um but open gov runs on address so I would lean towards address so that there's at least some similarity to help people out there and then it's just put those documents in um keeping in mind that if a document comes in late to Brenda she sends out an updated packet to us so she's already had to recreate the PDF packet and now we're asking her to also update that file on okay so I I would love it if we'd be willing to try it out for a period of time and see how it goes and listen to feedback if Brenda and Francis are willing to support that pretty please no thank you folks I I I think even for this evening with if it wasn't that we had the previous tobacco violation uh for that first discussion point on the report I actually went in try to do a on the time website trying to find it and if you don't have the date of it it's very hard to try to find that violation to know okay it's been the last 36 months was that 35 months ago or was it four months ago that I actually had difficulty and I'm I am not Dr was with Kevin Davis but I like to think I'm relatively techsavvy and I was having difficulty as a member of the board finding the previous violation and for me that's a challenge that if the board can't identify previous issues at an address an organization or something then how could we make informed decisions moving forward and certainly if this board turns over in you know the next three years unless you have the historical memory of professional staff or board members that it can be hard to look at problematic addresses owners residences properties licenses if you can't see past your own term or or what you can remember in past minutes that you've received that's that's really challenging so I think trying to do searches through minutes to then try to find the packet to then try to find an answer to a question particularly if that's 15 previous events at an address that is a lot of work not that we are not willing to do due diligence but that's a lot more complex than it should have to be but that's again my My Method maybe me my approach to it which is kind of why I wanted to kind of talk about that as a way of putting that in there as an administrative piece of can we figure out whether it's request to our professional staff to be able to pull it all but I can't imagine Brenda would want to try to dig through 30 or 40 sets of minutes and packets to assemble every time in the last 10 years there's been an issue at pick and address that's not going to be practical either so um all right so let's see what we can work on that and if we can come up with a a way of being of just kind of collating some of the information so that it's more searchable and for both the professional staff as well as the board um I have two sets of minutes and then we'll open up to any other board discussion and and I don't see anything else so I'm going to share my screen we'll start with with the meeting minutes from March 13th 2024 I apologize One Moment all right we should be seeing the March 13 2024 minutes present were myself Kevin Baker and Junior fralone has anyone have a chance to review and does any any have any comments questions concerns or edits to the March 13 2024 minutes I missed a good meeting all right I am seeing No Hands no nods does anyone have a motion for the mark 13 2024 minutes I'll make a motion to approve the minutes uh for March 13 2024 as presented second I have a motion in second roll call vote Uh Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes Kevin Davis obain G Falone yes Matt Wason Matton abstain and the chair vote Yes the minutes for March 13 2024 are approved as presented I apologize making everybody nauseous with my fast scroll moving to the meeting minutes of did I stop sharing I stopped sharing I apologize let mean to stop sharing okay I stop sharing try that again all right I don't know how I clicked off stop stop sharing but here we are anyway February 28th 2024 meeting minutes uh all board members were present except for Mr Fred alone any comments edits questions I was there oh I was not are you're right okay any comments edits suggestions issues from any of our board make a motion to approve the minutes as presented I have a motion second and a second roll call vote Kevin B Baker Kevin Baker votes yes Kevin Davis Kevin Davis votes yes J fedone yes even though I was ABS so abstain Matt won M yes and the chair votes yes the meeting minutes presented for February 28 2024 are approved um correspondence think we have any new corresponden unless I'm missing something everything scribbled on my notes stop sharing on purpose this time any board member updates or notes for us um I think our April meetings are April 10th and the 24th is that correct moment April 10 and 24 correct okay uh just as a point of information for everybody um I will be on a business trip on the week of the 22nd so the night of the 24th um I will be out of the state um and if I can figure out a way to call in from Alaska from where I'll be great if not then not going to I won't be present so just giving you guys heads up uh with that they do have the internet there in Alaska they do but where I will be temporarily on that day there's not going to be a lot of anything around where we are okay um just for um Mr Baker and myself I believe for this round uh that is the 24th of April is also tentatively the rotary uh club's candidate night so I am I'm not sure if Mr Baker's plans for that night or not um if certainly if both of us were to attend um that would leave Mr Wason Mr fralone and Mr Davis um need to be there to make a quorum and have a meeting that evening so um with Mr Davis being a potential question mark or technologically potentially challenged for that evening um we may want to explore either rescheduling of that meeting or um or simply skipping that meeting our following meeting after April 24 is May 8th so it's it is two weeks it is two full weeks after that one uh I don't think we necessarily need to make a decision this evening but we don't have a lot of time to think about it so um I think if you want to touch base with me directly that way it'll Not Be A Serial communication but just give me your thoughts about your availability for that evening and we can bring it back for our our next regularly scheduled meeting on the 10th um for a discussion whether we think we need to postpone we may also have a bit of a sense of what that meeting might look like uh whether there's whether skipping that meeting would have a an impact on public hearing for example and operations so um we'll ask Jim and Francis and Brenda to kind of keeping the back of the heads of what's what looked like it's coming up that may land on that night if it looks critical or postponable or potentially can be done can be moved up to the 10th kind of thing if you guys can just keep that on your radar just so we could still do our jobs but also do the rest of our jobs all right any other um items for board member updates Mr Baker oh Mr Dr won go ahead oh just uh Kevin and Francis and I have met uh this week and last week um I'm just trying to make sure Kevin Baker um I'm just trying to make sure that this board has a constant contact with Francis uh I volunteered myself because I have a pretty flexible schedule so um we've been meeting I think if we kind of nail down our time or we can try to send it out see if anybody else wants to join obviously not more than two of us at a time um but we are not Uh Kevin Baker and I are not like making decisions or finalizing anything it's more of just making sure like you said at the beginning of the meeting Dan Francis has connection so if there's anything that's coming up that needs more ready assessment then we're there um to provide a connection so that we can bring something back to the board if necessary so if there is something comes up it will come to the rest of you all through one of us um and then as well as we are helping to make sure he doesn't get bored by bringing up things that need to be done or are outstanding not necessarily long-term goal stuff but like Kevin mentioned earlier trash hauler EGS that haven't quite been nailed down so um we'll kind of keep feeding those kind of things as we go through our historical information and say oh and by the way add this to your growing list of of projects to work on at some point um so hope that's okay with everybody because I kind of mentioned it to a couple people beforehand but that's about it and um we'll just plan on keep doing that so that Francis has the support and we have the connection so um hopefully if stuff comes up in this meeting we'll make sure we also have some follow time so that's what we're doing no that's great and as cly I'm sure Francis is not shy about bringing things forward to us but um for anybody who's meeting in those meetings as well just bring stuff forward going hey we had a discussion today about this thing that is not on our radar at all but seems like something that really is important we should be thinking about bringing those forward as well that you know this is not a one-way Street where we come up with the plans and he gets to to operationalize them that this is you know he's our he's our professional person for a reason that we are you know he has to operate under our Authority but we are utilizing his expertise to make sure that we can do our jobs and we can work together as as a team so um this is this is definitely two way and when Francis sees you know something out there going hey in previous places I've seen this work really really well is there a way we can do that here bring them forward doesn't mean we will but we we don't always know what we don't know so bring stuff forward however that is we don't care I love hearing ideas all right uh any other board member input Gino Kevin Kevin tonight thank you guys uh for everything I'd like to make a motion to adjourn a second all right we go all right roll call vote Kevin Baker Kevin Baker votes yes Kevin Davis yes Kevin G Fone yes Matt Wason Matt Wason yes chair votes yes the March 27 20124 the lon board Health meeting is stands adjourned thank you all for all your work tonight