The Fall River Board of Health held a virtual meeting on Thursday, January 27th, 2022, chaired by Thomas Corey. The board unanimously approved the minutes from their December 16, 2021 meeting. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing and potentially increasing various licensing fees, following a directive from the Mayor. The board unanimously approved new Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program inspection and re-inspection fees of $100 and $50, respectively, for property owners. They also approved an increase in the late filing fee for permit renewals from $60 to $100, tanning establishment fees from $160 to $180, special pool fees from $100 to $120, body art practitioner fees from $125 to $150, and hauler fees from $100 to $150. Recreational day camp fees were increased from $60 to $100, a compromise from the proposed $150. However, the board declined to increase night soil per truck fees from $250 to $300 and indoor pool fees from $300 to $320, citing concerns about being significantly higher than comparable communities. Discussions on additional new fees (Title V related) and hotel/motel inspection fees were tabled for future meetings to gather more information. The Director's Report highlighted a decrease in daily COVID-19 cases, with 70% of the eligible population having received a first vaccine dose and 42.7% having received a booster. Vaccination clinics are ongoing at the library and planned for school vacation week. The next meeting was scheduled for February 24th at 4 p.m. via Zoom.
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good afternoon everyone pursuant to the open meeting war any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any medium attendees are therefore advised that such recordings or transmissions are being made whether perceived or unperceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible good afternoon to everyone in the land
0:36of zoom welcome to the board of health virtual meeting on thursday january 27th scheduled for 4 p.m my name is thomas corey present with me via zoom is michael coughlin dr stephen gagliardi and tess curran our agent of the board we are not in the city council hearing chambers all are remoting are participating remotely from locations in the known universe tess if you please call the roll
1:04thomas corey present michael coughlin president stephen gagliardi okay the next item is the approval of the minutes from the health meeting on december 16 2021 are there any additions deletions or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting is printed no no no can we have a motion to accept in second move to accept second test can we have a roll call uh miss corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi
1:45yes okay next we have a discussion regarding the massachusetts rental voucher program inspection and re-inspection fees uh faust fury is with us the minimum housing director faust was with us last month of the month before discussing this um faust any any more information that we should have before we uh go further only that um i'm starting to enjoy these meetings and i'd like to attend it every meeting even
2:16if i don't have any business before the board if that's okay of course the public is always welcome i know you should have you should have i mean um you should have the uh the cover letter as it were and yeah um and and of course these would be put on letterhead these are just drafts but that's that's really it's as simple as that the very common fee around the state um and it is
2:43a little bit outside you know the the um the mission of minimum housing we generally are going to be inspecting dwellings where there are residents they're occupants um this is something that um if um if they were to go to some you know outside a contractor to do this um they would pay a similar fee you see fees a little higher but not much higher this seems to be the standard the standard fees
3:13so the the point of this is um well one note okay maybe i'm answering a question no one has but the reinspection fee um is instituted um commonly because what happens many times is people will so normally when we do an inspection the tenant calls with a complaint and so we go look for violations uh here's one where the landlord the property owner has us come in and take a look is it okay
3:47is the voucher program going to uh allow this apartment and if it fails then we have to go back um in order to give them um you know a clean bill of health and there are times when even after they've been told what the deficiencies are we've gone back a third time uh we feel that this is um and then the purpose of this really the inspection is to to incentivize them
4:18to to get it once they once they realize what the violations are to actually correct them so there's it disincentivizes them just taking a shot and we've had actual landlords say well i didn't think it was going to pass but i thought i just thought i'd take a shot um so the there's two things involved because the the mayor has asked all departments to review their fees uh this is uh we'll get to that later
4:42but this is a new fee but again very common across the state and um these particular dollar amounts are pretty much the center of it you know i don't think i've seen too many lower than that but i've seen a few that are a little bit higher um that's the purpose of all of this it's outside the normal scope of our work and that's why communities um commonly charge this fee okay
5:12i do just want to make a note the the documents that faust had provided um are just a reference as to what the residents will be receiving if they do you know request um an inspection that they would fill out that form and then minimum housing would then move based on on that so if the board were to accept and vote to you know enact these fees you wouldn't be voting on these
5:42documents you'd simply be voting on on uh the fee structure and the documents that faust provided are a reference point for you and to showcase what the residents will be receiving and just to be clear it's not the residence it's the property owner i'm sorry yes thank you spouse okay gentlemen what what's your feelings i i'm okay with this is there anything that stops a tenant from frivolously
6:16sending in these requests and making the landlord pay a hundred dollars and fifty dollars for reinspection well no again this is it it's my understanding this is not the tenant this is an empty apartment would i be wrong faust this is an empty apartment you you wouldn't be wrong but but that is a pertinent question because there are times when we do have a tenant requesters they're very anxious to get into a place
6:41and they they they have found this apartment and they'll call us to come do this and it's not how it works so we of course verify it's very easy to verify who an owner is um well most be honest with the reason we know the tenants because they say their tenants but we do ask that question say are you because there are tenants that call say are you the owner of the properties no
7:08no i'm i'm trying to move in say well the owner has to call and then by the same time there are a couple of owners we've run into that don't understand the program and have the tenant call just they don't realize they're the ones that have to call but we do verify who the owner is sure okay
7:32any other questions comments do we want to move on this today looks okay to me we'll need a motion in a second motion to accept second test can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes okay mouse you're all set thank you you're welcome next we have a discussion regarding the possible increase to licensing fees um everyone received a i i received three sheets um
8:18you only have two i have one that says um with no heading one that says additional fees requested and a third sheet that says recommended fee increases i have one with dumpster hauler fees tobacco a second sheet with additional fees titles that's not us that's why i don't have it oh okay that's not you which ones are you um recommended fee increases i should have labeled it better my apologies um
8:50so tobacco for instance would be tobacco control that's not something that's us okay so the additional fees requested and recommended fee increases again i apologize they should have been careful with that let's go over those real quick then um under the additional fees requested let's handle that that sheet for us that's all right could i could i give a note on that and again i
9:11apologize so this was given to me by um roger casavant who is the title v inspector uh he has left uh he's not a sanitation inspector anymore so with dcm but until we can train uh a new one and we've struggled mightily coburn's part of the reason uh to get a new title five inspector he's uh he's still doing them and so he gave me this list after i sent this in i went back over it
9:40with him just so i could at least sound like i know what i'm talking about and when he reviewed them he he said to me that the um the fourth item title five soil witness and title five inspection report review are either covered elsewhere in our fees or not part of the process here so i just ask you to sort of strike those from consideration which one again the title five inspection report review
10:08yes and um the title five soil witness okay the title five cell witness is really the the um it's really covered by the repeat the um the uh the the um the the first the first inspection okay so the first inspection is so there'll be a soil evaluation and a bottom inspection that that's already that's already covered okay so he just didn't realize it um when he was comparing different communities they
10:43have different verbiage when he saw it again he realized he something there is redundant okay now i on my sheet i have westport listed dartmouth listed i don't have a a column for fall river right because the we don't have these keys at all so we don't have to oh okay these are brand new fees yeah these are fee i got to work on my my titling uh skills these are fees that other
11:08communities charge that fall river has never charged okay but we do have some title five fees right so that's why the the uh the fourth one title five soil awareness um that that's redundant to a fee we already have and he just didn't realize that when he gave me this list yeah see this would be easier to understand if we did have some information about what fees we do charge for titan yeah because
11:38that's that was my next question we don't have a list of the current fees so i'm i i would like to my mistake i'll give them to you review this again when we have that other information yeah all right again i apologize this was sort of just i didn't ask him for these fees i didn't know they existed he came to me and i should have been better prepared i will get you that information
11:58i don't have i don't know that information roger knows it but i'll get all that for you so we're going the additional fees requested page is going to be tabled to the next meeting are we all in agreement this whole yeah so this this whole graph is is going to be table yeah all three pages are just this one that right that's what i'm trying to figure out too well on the uh
12:25recommended fee increases we do have followers fees so that's essentially a separate that is that the one you prepared first yes okay and so each of these again these fees um they do have to be voted on individually so even with this table we would have to vote for example um on you know the indoor pool versus the outdoor pool so so if you the board if you would like to vote on some fees
13:00you know we can do that today um or you could do that today or if rather us take it back and restructure the formatting to make it a little bit more digestible then then we could do that and then you could again vote on them all individually next next time or some of them today
13:26well i'm in favor of tabling the additional fees that faust is just presented because we don't have all the information but i think we can look at the others all right i'll come back to you with the same format on these additional fees once i learn what those are what the present fees are i'll give you the same format as this so this format on the recommended few increases is is sufficient i i don't want to
13:54i don't want to screw up twice no i think we need a a a a column that says current fees okay and a column that says um recommended fees okay okay are we gentlemen we in agreement with that we need a rule call on that that sounds reasonable mike yeah yeah okay so we'll just table that for now okay next page i got the one that says recommended fee increases um
14:30the top line reads weight filing fee permit renewal and then it has the various cities and towns all right so that would be for any any permit okay so we want to go from 60 to 100 yes okay that's a big jump that's a late fee on top of the fee for the life for the permit itself right yes i don't and talking to the sanitation inspector the hope is that
15:09it just wouldn't be so many late ones but that particular dollar amount is not necessarily the magic answer to it yes no maybe that's a 70 percent increase that's impressive but is it a big problem with well that's the pro it is a big problem so this is not to say that going for 60 or 100 solves the problem it's not to say a lower number might not solve the problem but um
15:48this is this is a a very a very high percentage of people are just late in in um you know in applying for a renewal yeah there may be a number in between that you know not to overkill it but just to ratchet it up a little bit and see if it improves things that's certainly reasonable the whole purpose is to encourage them to you know in my own personal experience with the city and and
16:23and fees and licenses um the mail comes out early enough you always get more than 30 days before you have to renew something is the latest posted on notice yes all right it is what it is okay so we test we we do these individually line by line that's correct okay do we have a motion and a second for the first line weight filling fee permit renewal motion to accept second we have a roll call
17:05thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes next item uh the tanning establishments going from 160 to 180 how many tanning establishments are still left in the city do we know um i i think two we're down to two yeah well it was there was a bunch of years ago there was alright and it was less popular now uh i'm not off by too much when i see
17:38two uh i think we were down to one and then another establishment um reactivated beds that they already had uh are these stand-alones or these like um i know the wow jim used to have one is that part of this count i cannot tell you if wow still has one okay i know there's another gym uh once on pleasant street that for instance had them they haven't used them uh what we don't know for sure is
18:11is this because because of covid um you know they're very tough to keep clean uh disinfected so the number may grow afterwards but i honestly don't think it's going to grow very much because the trend has been steadily done with i i know in a conversation with several owners over the years the insurance was uh the detrimental factor yeah because every year the insurance would double
18:40yeah and and that's liability insurance man they yeah they're just not you know for health reasons they're not as popular as they used to be so i think the number has fluctuated a little bit but i think we're at two right now okay so there's not many so gentlemen what do you think from 160 to 180 that's a small increase so yeah how's that um it says establish it's per badge it's it's it's to it's
19:10yes it is it says establishment yes oh yeah uh you know what i think though i don't know that there's any place right now that has more than one bed okay but that's fine except the first step which is fine okay i mean you know it's just can we have a motion in a second motion blur what's up thank you do we have a roll call uh miss corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen kagler yes
19:45okay next item night soil per truck is that per truck load or if i have 10 trucks it's per tr if i've got 10 trucks i pay it 10 times yeah that's an annual thing there's an inspection every year um just ensures that um that has to line up with what the sewage treatment plant sees for instance uh although all they have to the criteria really is that they're doing business in the city they don't
20:12actually have to haul to our sewage treatment plant but they have to be red each truck has to be registered for instance to dump there and it's an annual it's just um they have to have a first aid kit basically we have to know about the truck what you're saying we have to know how many trucks you have so we uh inspect each one mrs golden does that uh their license and registration
20:38and so that that has to match up if the sewer treatment plant doesn't have that information when the truck shows up if it's not on the record they can't dump so that's how we verify how many trucks for a given company are in the city um just doing business in the city okay that's whether they're just dumping or they're they're pumping into the city whatever they're doing in the city
21:05we have to know what how many trucks there are and that they're properly registered so we can tell one truck from another yeah okay so from 250 to 300 gentlemen what's your feeling
21:28that's fine
21:40questions comments there is a wide range of these of the amounts of these fees across the communities that are on this chart there is yeah there is and you find that a lot uh we looked up more fees than this but there are other fees that we charge that are there's no reason for an increase no justification for an increase they're not uh but when we looked at all the fees there's a wide variance um
22:09so if there's a fee that we're really you know already kind of on the high side we're not presenting that uh but you'll find a very wide variance among cities and towns yeah and not just the ones you see
22:35dr gabriella we can't hear you i'm just saying you don't want to put an undue extra expense on on these businesses when you know there's a lot of extra expenses going on now especially a business that's you know really fuel-dependent with the extra costs already i don't know we're higher than most communities already
23:06what is the justification for raising the thief though well as i said we just looked at what different communities uh are uh so we could have actually put maybe eight different communities on here um you know you look around um these are either nearby or similar cities and that's why we chose these this really put us on the high side but it wouldn't it wouldn't make us the highest i mean dominance is getting 420
23:35and uh i i think forward is still competitive with that well when was the last time we raised any of these fees uh and i don't have that history but uh i don't know that but i do know that this was this was uh this kind of a chat was drawn up about four or five years ago but not presented so i think it's been a few years but i can't tell you exactly how many
24:03i remember when the purple bags came through that's when we um did the dumpster and hauler fees now how long ago was that five or six years you don't recall any fee increases since then no and i don't i don't remember these fees uh being brought forward in the last 10 years that's i had someone in my office search for that let me just try and find the dates from the minutes if some of these fees
24:36um well there was a larger meeting like back in 2006 it looked like but let me just try and find that date right now well i remember the dumpster fees on the next page that that was all uh touched upon when the purple bags came in i don't know you know saying hey we're lower than dartmouth is very comforting to anyone but we're more than you know new bedford and tottenham which are yeah more comparable towns
25:09dartmouth doesn't have much of a tax base other than property but we have a gigantic industrial park in amazon so
25:26i think there was a just you know consideration to to make our fees more in line you know with some of some of the other communities or some of the comparable cities you know from across the board throughout the city not just the board of health fees you know like house licensing fees and some of the others that come through our department but across the board throughout all of the departments in the i city
25:55this would put us at 300 percent of taunton and triple taunton and you know 50 more than that that's not comparable by anyone's it's a better definition would be significantly higher three times taunton
26:31i don't know what do you guys think do we need the money is that why we're doing this and what what uh what was the motivation well as i said the mayor has asked all departments to review their fees okay that's that's that's our instructions and that's that's what we're doing right i understand i i missed that i was probably not too fast but if anyone came to look at this and
27:04said hey let's see what new bedford and taunton are and they'd be like hey you're three times taunton you know can anyone explain that i wouldn't be able to explain that and and and this should be by no means uh taken as an argument to that but because there's so much variance among different communities that that happens now but that this is you know i'm making recommendations for the numbers speak
27:34for themselves i'm not i'm you know i'm not really arguing for it if you think it's too high that that's the wishes of the board well we don't have to take all of these i mean you know it's nice it seems like why don't we pass on this all right motion to decline can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes steven gagliardi yes okay the next one is an indoor pool
28:08we're currently at 300 they want to go to 320.
28:11um and what does that involve a once a year inspection
28:21now this commercial or whatever that's that's my next question these are these you would consider these semi-public pools like apartment complexes yeah or it could be the ymca you know so they're not like a pool in a park but there are pools where um you know a member goes a member of a condo association goes guests can go so they're considered semi-public they're not like the like the state pools for instance
28:57but but you know more than just residents for instance in an apartment complex can go to these pools and how many of these indoor pools are there really anybody in the what what was that i think it's about eight we're not going to go with the same argument as last time we're already above we're double taunting already with triple lowell and we're already hiring the new bedford 300 is a pretty good amount for just one
29:34inspection okay yeah i got that i got a motion to decline second we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes next we're on to our outdoor pools from 150 to 200.
29:56and those are the same except you know if an apartment building or condo association has it outdoor same same type of pool all right so there's a big discrepancy between the pools you know one's double the other so i would i'd be more okay with going up on this one because we're you know we might be a touch higher than we'd still be lower than new bedford higher than taunton so is there any you know i
30:24should know what is what is the additional what's the additional what else is involved yeah what else is involved with the pool yeah indoor versus outdoor but what's the difference in the inspection that's what we're asking right which may which puzzles me as to why originally you know the starting point is so different um so why didn't we ask for it to be 300 just because that would be a really
30:55sharp increase but if you think it's fair that they both be 300 then i think it's fair too
31:09what has to be maintained in an indoor pool versus an outdoor no well you can make more leaves out of the outdoor pool yeah but i don't think we should you know double it i think the 200 is fine so i'm going to i'll motion to accept the 200.
31:32thank you we have a roll call thomas tom corey sorry yes michael cocklin yes steven gagliardi yes the next one is a special pool a hot tub or a waiting pool how many of those do we have i don't have one right now it's just on the list and we're just trying we're just trying to keep up you know okay that seems like a reasonable increase promotion to accept thank you
32:08we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes yes next we have a hotel motel pool right no hotel okay hotels motels get inspected also okay i wasn't aware of that okay and what do we inspect at a hotel in a motel oh things like you know um fire exits or the diet you know you know you see the diagrams that you see the diagram well how to get out in an emergency um
32:44isn't that fire department or uh they they also yes they also do an inspection do they charge also i do not know that and if they have kitchens our inspectors our inspectors would be out right absolutely they'd be covered under those permits already if they have a pool they'd already be covered under those permits they would well they would have to pay a separate one for the pool inspection i would
33:15guess well yeah separate for the pool but they they'd already be you know they'd already have their uh food licenses for for the restaurant side of the building and if the fire department is doing the fire inspection is the fire department charging for the fire inspection i guess i i don't know that i do believe i think they do do they probably do i i i don't know i would have to find that out
33:50i don't know what their fee structure structure is i would be i would be in favor of tabling this one pending what do they inspect okay because the pool was already under one fee the food license should be under another fee and if the fire department is inspecting that would be a third fee they're already paying so we've got try to figure the redundancies yes please do we have to motion the table motion to the table
34:21do we have to motion the table we already tabled something that we have i don't think we i don't think we have to motion a table i don't want to get a long file about it we'll find out about it if we do next we have a body art practitioner from 125 to 150 we have licenses reasonable we have licensed a bunch of those in the last few years yeah that's fine motion to accept second
34:57okay can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes next we have a recreational day camp it's a big job that is a big jump yeah and what do they get inspected for yeah again if the fire department is inspecting them okay we don't know about the fee there if they have food services on board don't they get inspected by the food service people what are we actually what are we
35:36actually inspecting honestly i don't know the answer to that question that's that's you know sanitation inspector and the recreational day camp code does require that there be certain number of you know counselors to campers and a nurse you know to campers and so there are there is a lot that goes into the um requirements of a camp and so that is part of the inspection um that you know that they make sure that
36:09they're adhering to the to the um recreational day camp guidelines um that are very specific and detailed so there is a lot of nuance that goes into it that is true it is an involved process but it's still a big jump we've been getting six
36:38that's something yeah that sounds good we have a motion to set that at a hundred dollars per year so i'll move that we set that fee uh the recreation big thing to get a hundred dollars second can we have a roll call miss corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes okay continuing down on the next page we have dumpster and hauler fees we're not touching the dumpster fees right we're just the power so
37:15as an example this would be abc uh disposal they pay the the permit fee and then for each of their dumpsters is a 25 fee is that correct that's correct so this would just be the correct the hauler the 25 dumpster fee did seem to be in line with the other communities and certainly some of these haulers have you know a number large number of dumpsters it seems reasonable okay from the small businessman's point of view
37:58every other month the haulers get more fees from us well are you concerned that your fees will go up again no matter what we do the fees are going to go up again like i i have a local one and uh it has quadrupled in the last four years okay and i don't even have a dumpster i fill up trash bags and put them out on monday morning okay do we have a feeling yes no
38:40it was not in line with everybody else 150 motion to accept second can we have a roll call miss corey yes michael coughlin yeah stephen gagliardi yes the last one is the tobacco licenses and we will we'll table that tom okay okay so that concludes the license discussion tess can we have the director's report thank you gentlemen and lady thank you foust so um really i just again wanted to just
39:22quickly kind of go over some of the data for for covid so we are fortunately seeing you know our case numbers go down slowly we have been seeing several um 100 cases a day as of the last report the state put out we were averaging you know our daily average incidence was 339 cases a day um anecdotally now we're seeing about 130 to uh you know to 200 every day um so we
39:50are you know happy that those those numbers are going down um you know we're still continuing our vaccination efforts so um as of the most recent data we did just hit that 70 um percent mark for folks receiving a first dose um so you know we are happy um about that um but we still have you know a lot of work to do especially in the younger age groups um and we also
40:24you know do have some work to do in terms of folks getting their boosters um the state's just recently started to report that data to us um as of the most recent data 42.7 percent of the community has received a booster dose um so we do have to continue to get the message out um regarding the importance of of course um there are benefits you know certainly we are seeing
40:51the you know the rates of folks who are hospitalized who are boosted are lower than you know obviously the unvaccinated but even the vaccinated um but it also does you know help individuals and and businesses with the quarantine timeline um as that is shortened provided you've received a booster within you know a set period of time so um so we're just trying to get the message out and and having you know easily
41:23accessible clinics so we've been holding clinics at the library two days a week um and those have been successful um so we're happy about that we're averaging 30 or 40 um folks at those clinics with them wow that's that's good yeah and it is a mix of you know first doses and boosters mostly it's about 20 uh or so boosters and then the rest are um first or second doses but again we're
41:52really uh we're really happy with that and we are seeing a number of young folks go to those um library clinics so we'll be there through february and actually even into march we're going to be there on tuesday evenings and saturdays and we are planning a number of clinics um during school vacation week both at the library hopefully at some other local organizations um and even some of the
42:22housing authority properties will be on site with clinics during that week to again just try and make it easy for folks to um to get vaccinated so those are kind of the big um you know updates but still still really uh just trying to get out there with outreach workers and and others to to um you know engage and have conversations um the outreach workers are trained in having these hesitancy conversations
42:55um so you know we are um continuing that effort now is that 42 of the total population is boosted or 42 percent uh vaccinated got a boost i believe it's 42 percent of the eligible population so the you know 12 12 to 12 and up okay thank you is there anything of such a nature under new business that could not come up before the agenda was presented no no did we receive anything in the form of
43:33citizens input no then we need to confirm the date for the next meeting following our our usual procedure would be the fourth thursday of the month that would be february 24th is that good for everyone sure looks good okay we'll go with february 24th at 4 o'clock can we still continue to zoom i i was just going to say i think we've only got a couple of months left yeah i
44:01think april right now yeah they haven't extended it yet they might but they haven't yet all right maybe my apron will be warm and we won't have to worry about going outside well we're playing we'll plan to zoom then can we have a motion to adjourn some emotion can we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes okay thank you all have a lovely weekend enjoy the blizzard
44:36thank you alex bye