okay well welcome to the July uh rever Board of Health meeting please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to the flag States America Republic which stands one nation under God indivisible thank you so my name is Dr Drew bunker I'm the chair of the Board of Health and with me tonight is Kathleen Savage uh who's a board member to my left and then vivana katano who's the other board member on my right invited Municipal staff as Lauren Buck who's director of Public Health Michael Wells who's the health agent and director of inspectional services and Paula suvita who's the Board of Health clerk uh first thing we're going to do today is tonight is uh review and approve the minutes from June I'm just going to ask the other board members if they approve the minutes kathen I approve the minutes of the June meeting yeah I approve the minutes great thank you next is the public health communicable monthly report with Lauren Buck thanks Dr bunker um you can see from our communicable monthly report uh table that we actually have a pretty low burden of communicable diseases diseases this month um our Co burden is still a little high we have 87 confirmed cases and 33 probable it's very consistent with what you're seeing in the news that Massachusetts is seeing a spike in covid um and upper respiratory related uh illnesses again we just want to remind everyone if you're not feeling well to stay home um and take proper precautions if you're not if you're not feeling well uh lastly for public health updates from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health from July 18th the Massachusetts Department of Health has confirmed that an adult resident from Worcester County who recently traveled internationally was diagnosed with measles in early July 2024 this is the first confirmed case of measles in a Massachusetts residence since early 2020 people may have been exposed people who may have been exposed to measles from this case have already been contacted and provided appropriate Public Health recommendations the Department of Public Health urges anyone who did who does not know their measles immunization status to contact their healthcare provider to get vaccinated with at least one dose of the MMR vaccine health providers who suspect measles should call dph at 617 98368 immediately for recommendations and testing guidance providers in Boston should call the Boston uh Public Health commission at 617-534-5395 I I can't see why you can't record it yeah it's yeah it is being recorded on um rever TV as well just to make you aware but okay um next uh part of this uh meeting is going to be the inspectional services monthly report with Michael Wells thank you Dr bunker um Ju numbers for inspectional services on the interor housing division we issued 121 certificates of Fitness 38 Certificate of Fitness re inspections we did eight interior complaints one uh pool and Spire inspection one reinspection for pools and three um that was that for interior housing on the food Inspection Division we conducted 36 routine inspections eight re-inspections six complaint inspections two pre-opening inspections uh 35 temporary food inspections and two um that was that one on the exteror sanitation division we issued 127 violations for accumulation of trash and garbage uh four violations for carts out at improper time 76 violations for overflowing dumpsters 343 violations for improper storage and placement of trash uh one violation for improper signage on property and 75 violations for unclean unsanitary land which is overgrowth uh which is a big big decrease from um last month um and one violation for unsafe structure that concludes the inspectional Services report great thank you Michael next is uh we're going to discuss the um body art licens I'm going to have Lauren do that okay thank you Dr bunker so we have two body art licenses for your um for your review tonight um we have an individual practitioner application from Katherine paguro um she is the proprietor of cat Beauty Co which is on 207 Square Road we have an individual practitioner application and an establishment practitioner uh an establishment application for cat beyo again on 207 Square Road um she submitted her application for both of these on June 2nd we did her inspection on July 23rd so a couple of days ago she passed for both of both the individual practitioner application and the establishment application so for both we recommend um that the board approve her license yes I'm going to approve the license other board members I approve it also great than I approve as well okay the final um license that we were going to have you vote on tonight was a chicken keeping license for uh a resident on Broad uh broad sound a uh we don't have that before you today we did an initial uh inspection of the property and there are some things that the the owner needs to change before we can have his license approved uh and so we will report back to you when we have uh any updates about that particular particular particular license but he his the chicken keeping license is not before the board tonight okay great thank you did you have something to say sorry sir that's okay oh thank you so I have a I have a couple of questions my name is Wayne Rose I live on R Street um this is a pamphlet from uh the city and M so I have a question Mr wals the dumpsters throughout the city they're all perimed correct and they all have numbers or am I mistaken they are um they there are licenses issued with to dumpsters yes my problem is I'm going around and I'm finding these dumpsters full of garbage covers open overflowing rat holes all over the place um I'm wondering why we can't send the guy out every week to every single one of these permin dumpsters and just have them clean up around the dumpsters causing a big problem in our city also the state yard which I don't I don't know if if you have control over that but there's thousands of rats there I can show you videos upon videos it's on Facebook um there's so many rats down there it isn't funny when I say thousands I mean there's thousands of rats down there they carry over 50 diseases this is a big health issue I was in contact Mr RH with DCR uh yesterday you are okay um to address that um and what I I was actually down there was today Thursday I was down there Tuesday night actually um following up with the food trucks around 8:30 um and I notice what is happening is the K cabota goes up and down the boulevard emptying the trash barrels on the the Boulevard and then they disposing of that trash in those dumpsters that you're referring to and I agree there is a huge issue down there I was in charge uh in touch with DCR yesterday um and they to get that area cleaned up there's a bunch of overgrowth vegetation as well trash and debris on the ground as well as uncovered um dumpsters dumpsters so you you are right they were overflowing at 8:30 they were empty yesterday but they're still not the correct dumpsters those are more Construction Dumpsters and not um you know the the the trash coming off the beach obviously contains food and beverage and things that rats like so they got to come up with a better solution Mr Wells because to allow these ratch just to feed there I agree and live in the bank is not helping anybody um and now they're running across the street into the brand new buildings I've got video of them running across the street two three at a time so something more has to be done Romy Flats has rats uh carile Apartments uh Northgate Apartments Dollar Tree um we got to get the rats under control we almost had them under control for a while there then all of a sudden don't forget I and it's not an excuse but that's all marle in there as well so there there you know we we I get that um I can say we have a a new dumpster inspector on staff who is out there 5 days a week 8 hours a day so um we've written more dumpster violations in the past month and a half than we probably did in in a long time so I'm glad to hear that um I can I can assure you that and I'm not friends with you on Facebook but I but I hear about it and I I can assure you that for once we were ahead of you um with violations being issued to the stuff that you had pointed out okay I had to go to the state to get somebody to go to the beach I got a call from the State uh Tuesday we got a call from the state Tuesday the dumpsters were empty like you said well they were not empty Tuesday night when I was there uh but Wednesday when I I was back down there on Wednesday and they and they were emptied also by the mai bridge I mean there had to be a 100 rats running around that bridge that's a that's a brand the weer uh and it's all coming from those two dumpsters so in those garbage trucks there's a city of r garbage truck I don't know if they're leasing it to the state uh and then there's also another garbage truck the rats are drinking water from the belly of them because they they pull water uh so I I just want the rats cleaned up that's all I want I'm not trying to hurt anybody Mr Wells if I insulted you I apologized to you um I just didn't didn't know how to get this done so I thank you for your help I I thank you I appreciate you coming here tonight and clearing the air and I like I said I can assure you you know the violations are being issued I I I just want to preface though you know the inspectors don't have a a dust pan and broom in the back of their car in cleaning up people's message so it's not their job exactly exactly so in what I try to what I tell people unfortunately and I sound like a broken record when I say this you know we don't get instant results my department right we we want them because we want instant results cuz we live in an ond demand world right and I say this at a lot of meetings you call the police department they show up right away they they help you you call the fight department they show up right away they help you yes we're in a forcing agency I wish we got on you know on instant results where things happened right away you know a lot of times we have policies and procedures that we need to follow we need to send letters a lot of times as absentee landlords we need to get in touch with them we have to send a letter you know how sneil mail Works um so it it's it's not it takes it could take us a good week to get in touch with somebody so and by the time they receive that violation and even though one's left on the property it's an absentee owner the tenants don't do anything about it and you know it takes a good week before they even finding out about it so I I and it's a huge frustration on my behalf that we don't get the results was eventually we get them but it's not as quick as we would all like send them a couple of $500 tickets you'll get their result we do we do okay we do yeah maybe we can have an update next meeting about the progress of you know the dumpsters and about uh you know just a little bit more about the the rat problem as well that'd be helpful and I and I will say you know we the city still offers when we rolled out our new trash ordinance um under the former Administration you know um I I can say we we we do get a lot less rodent complaints is a rodent ever going away absolutely not the complaints have definitely come way down of what they were before our trash ordinance went into place um we've actually had other cities in town reach out to us about our trash ordinance and how we how we go about finding and doing all that stuff so um we we definitely made a big impact on it is it 100% of course not you know a rodent's never going to be um is there still room for improvement absolutely um and we continue to work work at that all the time so and I just also want to make a comment oh I'm sorry um what where I was going with this the city still offers five years later free rodent baiting to the uh to you know homeowners um that are experiencing a rodent issue on their property so um I don't know if everybody still knows that well they've done Outreach on it it's been on R TV we posted about it it's been on social media um I I think the city has definitely done it their due diligence of getting it out there 5 years later if everybody doesn't know so I had a guy in my office today he didn't know about the the trash he didn't know about about the trash rules here we are you know something we rolled out in 2018 right um 6 years later and I didn't know about it you know so and I will just say too the dumpster fees and fines that we collect go directly into the rodent program that the city runs so the money that we're collecting that yeah it goes directly into trying to mitigate the the Rodin so the money is kind of circling through the whole problem and it goes directly we Paula and I manag that program the one where residents can call in and get free extermination services for private property that money comes directly from fees and license fees every year and fines Mr Wells another thing is uh behind those new buildings there's dog feces everywhere that's food for rats absolutely um you might want to get it cleaned up uh I was back there just last night um along with being in the state yach again um so that's one thing you have to look at also we've seen a lot of that on Residential Properties as well as a big uptick in complaints of um dog feces which is a big uh attraction to the rodents it is yes I thank you thank you thank you thank you very much all right I think that's going to be it that's going to conclude this month's meeting thank you all oh sorry another yep please go ahead and just please intro issue you're a doctor I want to ask you a question yeah I know the answer but I want to see if you know the answer does stress cause high blood pressure does stress cause chronic stress yeah there there there appears to be a relationship between chronic stress whether that's and when we think about chronic stress that will manifest as well you answered it do yes okay the city of Riv has put me in an enormous amount of stress MH I filed for an application with I believe his nuew Rose and I got all bogus answers which denied me my license cooperate now I be I believe that and other things that the city of Rivier has done to me has caused an enormous amount of stress because I'm another elderly citizen I'm 92 years of age and evidently they have a policy when you get to be a certain age you're not to get a ped hawker's license because I drive you understand well I've been getting a pedler hawker's license because I've been in the business for almost 50 years now all of a sudden there is a a law pertaining to ped La haw but at the end of the law it states on the law that the police chief can for any reason any reason not give me a license and deny me the license to send to the deny me the application a favorable application to send to the Massachusetts Department of pedla Haw now I gave I didn't like the sergeants uh reply because it was bogus what I did was I gave it to the police chief who was in direct charge of that particular law and he up until today he has denied me the right to send it to me I don't care whether it's but whether he approves or disapproves I want the license to see what his answer is to me and if I find that the answer is illegal because I'm under stress because of these things that are occurring to me I'll take the appropriate action yeah I don't know how we can help you in this matter from the the Board of Health well you answer my question I already I already know the answer I want to know if you agree with other Physicians which you do yeah yeah I know okay now I'm under stress because of the conditions that the city of Rivier is causing to right right thank you I hear that thank you yep that will conclude the meeting thank you for