The Fall River Board of Health held a virtual meeting on Thursday, December 16, 2021, addressing several key public health and safety matters. The meeting began with the approval of minutes from the October 28, 2021 meeting, which passed unanimously. The board then considered two requests for variances to keep chickens. The request from Lewis Machado at 96 Byron Street was tabled because the applicant was not present. A second request from Osmala Gonzalez de Morais at 34 Leo Lane for two chickens was approved unanimously, with the condition of a monthly rodent control contract and no roosters. However, a request from Jeffrey Hopkins at 34 Nancy Street was denied, with the board advising him to make significant property improvements, secure a monthly pest control contract, clean his coop weekly, and remove his rooster before reapplying. A significant portion of the meeting was dedicated to a hearing for a tobacco violation at Pleasant Discount Liquors, 879 Pleasant Street, for selling tobacco to a minor. The co-owner, Paula Kara, appealed the $1,000 state fine, citing an innocent mistake due to masks and her store's long-standing good reputation. However, the board, noting the state-mandated fine and lack of flexibility, voted unanimously to deny the appeal. Paul Ferruin, Director of Water and Sewer Department, presented on a recent action-level exceedance for lead in the city's drinking water, explaining the sources of lead, health effects, and the city's public notification and lead service line replacement programs. He also updated the board on the ongoing supply chain issues preventing the fluoridation of the city's water since early summer. Finally, Tess Curran, Agent of the Board, provided a COVID-19 update, discussing the distribution of rapid testing kits, the busy Stop the Spread testing site, rising case counts, and ongoing vaccination efforts, particularly for 5-12 year olds. The board also discussed a citizen's request for a mask mandate but decided to maintain the existing advisory, encouraging voluntary mask-wearing indoors. The next meeting was scheduled for January 27, 2022.
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okay good afternoon to everyone in the land of zoom and welcome to the board of health virtual meeting on thursday december 16th 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 participating remotely from locations in the known universe
0:29pursuant to the open meeting law 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 tess would you please call the role corey president michael coughlin
0:58president stephen gagliardi program okay the first item of business is approval of the minutes of the meeting from thursday october 28 2021 are there any additions deletions or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting is printed moves to accept do we have a second paul in faith all in favor say aye well roll call please uh thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes
1:37okay next we have a request for the variance of keeping of chickens for lewis machado at 96 byron street in fall river lisa are you presenting on this i am okay you have the four okay i have mr lewis machado and i don't know if i see them here is mr machado here for the machado's anyone for lewis machado with 96 byron street anyone would we like to delay this to later in
2:21the meeting in case they're having problems connecting sure sounds okay is that that agreeable with the board sure sure okay next is the request for the variance of keeping of chickens we have a request for the variance of keeping of chickens osama gonzalez at 34 leo lane fall river lisa are you presenting yes okay for the uh could you state your name and address for the record please
2:57osmana gonzalez tomorrows 34 alia lane for river massachusetts thank you okay lisa if you would okay i have mr and mrs demoris here um 34 elaine and they are requesting two chickens okay their property is um now has been straightened out we had to we had a little problem um i believe my supervisors saw the yard one day um there were a couple of rat holes which they had um they had corrected and
3:35the shed everything else in the yard was was uh you know very clean um it's a newer home on lia lane um and they have the rat ratification they have nobody was opposed at all um and everything was straightened out and you know as far as i'm concerned it's uh you know they handed all their paperwork in the map everything i think you should have copies of all that um
4:04so it has all been taken care of and the yard is clean okay the only question i have we usually have a the board usually requires a rodent contract i'm not sure about a contract that inspects every three months you can get a rat infestation in a couple weeks um and this way they may not know about it for three months or have services for three months is there any way to change that too
4:32with the board i i'm pretty sure that we always it was always assumed to be a monthly inspection by the rhoden company because in three months things can get well out of hand yeah they it can and and some people do a monthly um ratification but i don't know exactly um what their plans are on that did you tell me that you were going to do how often did you say that you were
5:02going to do that the um well in the letter in the letter it indicates also we hired a company griggs and brown yeah this pest control company will come every three months to inspect the coop of the chickens okay yeah that's what it is here i i would i would be more comfortable following uh again um we always looked at a monthly rodent contract that's fine would that be all right with you yeah okay
5:36and it's two chickens that's correct no roosters no no okay all right so um does that agree any other questions from the members of the board now okay do we have a motion to accept or grant to grant the variance for the osmala gonzalez de mores at 34 wheel wayne to keep two chickens with a monthly rodent contract and no roosters so moved do we have a second second tess can you call the roll
6:18thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes steven gagliardi yes okay i'm having some technical issues with my camera all of a sudden so i do apologize it doesn't seem like i can get it back on so okay no problem okay thank you and good luck hey thank you thank you everybody i appreciate it thank you good people bye okay next week we have the request for variants for the keeping of chickens for
6:49jeffrey hopkins at 34 nancy street at this time i will yield the chair to mr coughlin mr hopkins and i have a relationship of somewhat he's as patient here at the drugstore sometimes so i will recluse myself from this conversation hey tom um uh good evening mrs hopkins uh lisa are you taking the lead um yes i have a gentleman here from 34 nancy street jeffrey hopkins um i do have a letter of opposition from
7:28lorraine potts uh she's lives at 115 high crest road i don't think she's here but um that's that's the only letter i received um nobody else so far um his property is um it needs work it does need some work i mean i spoke to him this morning he has done a major cleanup in his yard um he does uh scrapping so he has many different things in his yard and he has chickens um
8:10unfortunately the chicken area was not it just wasn't you know suitable for i i didn't think it was um he does his own um uh what do you call the grant ratification he does his own extermination and i know that that's not going to be prohibited i mean that that will be prohibited but um i i don't know he has cleaned up you know i had i sent pictures in from july that
8:43you might have seen the yard we went today and it is it is you know quite cleaned up from from july so he has built a cement um like a patio and he's going to move the chicken coop over to that patio to keep it cleaner that's what he told me he wanted to do so you know it's up to the board i mean i don't know like i said today what's the substance
9:14of the letter that you received um it just says i am responding to your letter copy and closed from me that i sent out of november 22nd regarding the request of variants by the owner of 34 nancy street i object to the granting of the variants based on the following it will result in an unsanitary condition and the unsanitary condition will result in the devaluation of my property thank you for your consideration
9:50lorraine potts you know mr hopkins it sounds like you still have some you've made some improvements but it sounds like you still have some more work to do uh and and you have at least one neighbor who has concerns but what else can what what else might you be able to do to improve the property more to everybody's satisfaction i don't know because it seems like uh the goal post keeps moving farther and farther back
10:20for me to get this variance um i was always under the impression that it was anybody within 50 feet on my property and now i was informed today that it's 300 feet which 300 feet is across brighton ave those people don't even live in anywhere near my house so i'm not going to be able to make everybody happy i poured the cement slab so the rats can't dig up underneath we've always had rats inside this city
10:46it's it was even you know mayor flanagan even announced that we had rats inside the city and he was hiring exterminators to kill the rats this is going back that far long ago so as for the coupe i'm building i built a new coop it's steel lined all around the bottom so the rats can't chew in but there's always been rats here i've lived here 17 years almost 18 years and we've always
11:08had rats it's a known it's a known issue throughout the whole city i see rats they're not just coming from my yard you know i see rats coming from the navy's yards i see rats all around i don't know how to fix that problem i have extermination stuff out there i have humane traps to catch them i can't put poison out because we have feral cats the cats will eat the mice and the
11:29rats and they will die because we've had this problem before with all the neighbors putting poison out because they had mice and rats inside their house um i'm not sure of what uh lisa had to say because the audio from tom and lisa is very broken up i don't know if it's their microphones i don't know if anybody else is having a problem hearing it so i don't know what she's
11:53asking for me to do because i couldn't hear that part unfortunately explaining to me um i don't know if this is on this is being recorded so i can go back and listen to it later that's not going to do me no good but i met with her this morning and asked her what her concerns were and they really weren't brought up do you know what i mean so
12:16well there is work that needs to be done in the yard but also the paperwork that you handed in to us um if you have copies of it there you stated that for the cleanup of your yard you said you were going to clean the chicken coop four times a year once a season that's that's not permissible you have to clean it at least every week i would think once a season
12:42i mean you can't do that it's there's things that need to be done in your yard i mean we talked about that this morning can you hear me now yeah i can hear you now thank you okay um you know i know you have a lot there were i don't know planks of metal and that you're building the chicken coop i guess with that metal that was sitting on top of the cement slab so
13:05there is cleanup that needs to be done in the yard yeah i know you're gonna have to get it a monthly um a uh pest control uh on a monthly basis you heard mr corey earlier um and you're going to have to clean that up more than once a season so it's pretty clear mr hawkins that we're not going to bring you to variance tonight my suggestion uh speaking only for myself
13:35uh i'll invite you and dr dave just to chime in just continue work with lisa uh make the improvements that she suggests you heard the previous applicants of the variants agree to having an outside exterminator come come in once a month and i strongly urge uh you to make the same arrangement uh that's the precedent that we've set in the past uh and uh particularly given that it seems like
14:04there are some issues with your property i i don't see how we would approve a variance for you unless you agree to do that uh come back to us when when you and when lisa is satisfied that that you've made significant improvements and will consider your variance again at that time i know dr gagliar do you have any other thoughts on the matter i agree um yeah i know the issue with the uh the poison um
14:30you know i would i would lean against that and use more humane methods whatever the exterminator wants to do because of the uh you know the other animals but yeah i agree so i think that's where we stand uh mrs hopkins uh unless you have any other questions i do lisa work with lisa yep okay can i say one other thing you can't have a rooster either okay yeah you heard us talk about that with
14:59the previous applicant yeah the rooster identifies as a chicken so i don't know what to tell that rooster yeah okay you just can't have it it's it's just so so you have you have chickens now yes i've had chickens for over 10 years and never had a problem okay we didn't know they were there until you got a rooster and of course we got a complaint because the rooster was making noise in the morning
15:26doesn't come out until nine o'clock so well i don't know what to play uh anyway uh who makes these rules who makes these variance rules and what committee makes these rules i like to know i like to sit in on these hearings because 300 feet is ridiculous from from 50 feet to 300 feet and then a hundred dollars a year to 150 a year for chickens for 150 we're talking over 350 dollars for me to
15:55have chickens to have eggs to get about 20 30 worth of eggs a year does that sound right i don't know that doesn't sound right to me well we're talking about enforcing long-standing city ordinances and health regulations i i can't quote from you exactly the exact year they were passed but they've been inspired they've been in place for a long time you can you know lisa would be happy to review them with you uh
16:26you know i spoke to you this morning jeff we can work together with this so that you can i know i know but you know how much it's going to cost to have an exterminator come out monthly to my property that's that's part of the regulation unfortunately and all the stuff for the chickens it's not cost efficient at all you know my daughter considers that consider those chickens pets i can't help that
16:51you know what i mean she's only a kid but for me to spend probably upwards of 400 dollars by the sound of it to have chickens in my own everybody's doing that everybody that wants a variance um that's what they have to do that's absolutely not i mean i assume you were listening when we talked to the previous applicant who wanted the same thing as you yeah two gyms i don't know how they're i
17:19don't even how they can justify having two chickens and spending that kind of money that's that's i can't it's not i i it doesn't you know i think we would all realize that if it's that as a trying to do this as a money making off proposition it would be a challenge but you you i thought i heard you say that they were like pets yeah and i wish i i
17:37wish the pets that i had i could maintain for just four hundred dollars here i mean they cost me what more than that so i mean that's why we are mr hopkins i work with lisa uh and and we'll do the best we can uh to to help you get to where you want to be all right i appreciate that and tom thank you for stepping aside so there's no conflict of interest i
18:02appreciate that too you're a good man okay so i i think we have uh finalized that uh item on the agenda and i turned the chair back over to the chairman okay the next item is a hearing for violation at pleasant discount wickers located at 879 pleasant street in fall river i know maryland edge is not available today but she did send us an affidavit um which i received an hour or so ago um
18:38is there anyone from tobacco control here yes i'm here okay paula hi dianne oh oh diana yes paula is actually the um owner of the establishment okay uh so yeah so i'm diane heath i'm actually the tobacco control coordinator for the city of fall river um for anybody who doesn't know me thank you um so we're here today to discuss an appeal of a violation that was issued to pleasant discount lookers which is
19:07located at 879 pleasant street um on november 10th at approximately 11 30 a.m there was a sale to a minor tobacco sale to a minor while we were performing a routine compliance check the inspector who performed the underage buyer compliance check that's marilyn edge was unfortunately unable to attend this evening prior to maryland's retirement she was the director of this program and now she's
19:34working for us as a part-time inspector so compliance checks were suspended due to covert from march 20th of 2021 to june 1st of 2021 but then since june 1st of this year we performed 161 compliance checks out of 122 stores in fall river out of the 161 completed checks there were 14 sales to miners all violators received cease and desist orders in the amount of one thousand dollars from the health department this
20:12is the state fine for sales to a minor which went into effect on december 11 2019 our department does not have the authority to issue warnings or to reduce the fine since this is a state violation but mrs carm is here to speak on behalf of pleasant discount liquors so if she would like to speak you're muted you're muted ma'am now can you hear me yes could you state your name could you state your name and
20:51address for the record yes my name is paula kara i am the co-owner of pleasant discount liquors with my husband located at stop for a second i'm gonna have to refuse myself because i i know paula ah okay you can step out back how are you good okay have a great vacation by the way have a great vacation next week okay please continue okay and the uh the location of the store is uh pleasantly
21:24the name i'm sorry pleasant discount liquors located at 879 pleasant street and four river like lisa i'm sorry diane explained because of the corona and all this rules that were like stopping because people were busy with corona the thing what happened is when we sell the miner first of all me or my husband are always at the place working and we always id everybody so this happened
21:57really accidentally because it could be my husband at that time usually another 30 my husband is there and sometimes when he work behind the cash he's also placing orders i know what day it happened exactly so it could be he didn't look carefully but it's not an excuse to say i sell to my because we don't make this mistake no absolutely because like i said i am uh respect you know my rules we've been in
22:22this business for over 25 years now and we are very we have good reputation really and everybody knows us in the city and i'm very happy because of that and i have kids and dr gagliard you know my kids you know i raised them very well to know how to be away from liquors and tobacco and all these bad things and thank god i have a beautiful kids and they are successful now the reason i'm objecting
22:50two things first of all this warning which i didn't maybe know about before because they said they stopped it in december 2019.
23:00i remember before years ago when we had the first one one the first time i remember also by mistake it was a warning and uh and we follow and we always follow the rules like i said uh but this time after two years and everybody is busy with corona and all the masks we're wearing it could be this customer himself was wearing a mask and now you know the age is over 21 for
23:25tobacco so i am sure that we looked at his face we didn't realize he is minor this is one thing and the second because you know i mean i said wow one thousand dollars like this and everybody we tried to do our best we never sold miners and we don't make mistake it's 25 years here we're talking in this business it's not like one year two years and we are always present to sell for these people
23:51and uh i feel like it's not correct because at least give people chance you know especially with the cigarettes what happened in massachusetts they stopped the mental for the last two years and believe me the sales of cigarettes is less than half comparing what we used to sell and all the sales that went through rhode island which they told us at that time they're gonna stop it within a month in
24:15rhode island to the mental and old flavor i'm not giving excuse but it's not right i found when they make our sales go down so much and they didn't do the right thing especially when rhode island is so close to us this is the first thing i object about you know the state so they try to ruin like the business in tobacco i'm talking about you it's not correct when i found also
24:36that so many places in the city of forever and different places in massachusetts they sell under table the mantle and many customers tell me that which i refuse to do it because we respect ourselves so it's only innocent mistake and i have to pay the price for one thousand dollar i felt it's not right especially as a lebanese back i am from lebanon background and my country now is live in the hell and we try to
25:00how to help our our people so instead of paying this fee if you can give me this uh permit not to pay it and i send it to lebanon will be the best thing because really people over there they need this money it's why i object today and hopefully you can listen to my point of view thank you okay um in the we haven't had a tobacco case before the board
25:29in at least two years maybe a little more in the past the the board has been very active promoting education to the retailers there are opportunities for classes for the retailers uh marilyn edge has been working very hard uh in all the communities and in her district to educate the retailers um at one time the board had some degree of flexibility i remember when it was a hundred dollar fine
25:59and then the second offense was a two hundred dollar fine and an invitation before the board uh and if there was a third um situation there was an invitation and the board would suspend a license i remember suspending for seven days 14 days up to 21 days and in one case we did suspend for 30 days um i still belie you know you said that the tobacco sales are off um much less
26:31i i am sorry for you but i'm very happy for the rest of us okay but it doesn't doesn't mean that people stop smoking certainly i understand it's a different state to buy the mental i understand that but there's a lot of opportunity for patients to receive help uh to quit smoking this is the um you know the board is always promoted um quitting smoking um one of the former members dr souza was a
27:02pulmonologist and of course he was very anti-smoking um but at this point and if marilyn edge did the inspection maybe this is with prejudice but marilyn followed the book all those years and i continue and she continues to follow the book a procedure for these matters so i would be inclined to let the fine stand gentlemen what do you think i i agree i i you know i'm the one who hired marilyn
27:36way back in the day and i stand by her work and her integrity uh i have no doubt that the way she described it after david was the way it went down i i would suggest to you miss karen you granted it's that if someone comes in wearing a a face covering it's harder to tell how old they are but there's an easy way to deal with that isn't there mrs karen
28:04to find out how how old they are yeah you know what because like i said truly truly not because i want to defend myself to sell minor i disagree with that and i respect what mrs marilyn edge is doing really i know this lady for many years and she knows me i am not trying to say no i refuse because oh why she did it's not nice no i i understand
28:26that i explained that the sales of cigarettes are less because you know they stop the mental and now people go into different state to buy them not to give an excuse not to pay what i did absolutely not i am not selling a minor here because my sales went down but all i said that really was innocent mistake because we always id everybody in the store me or my husband so it was maybe a
28:49really mistake because he didn't look carefully to the face especially now the age is 21 not 18 like it used to be before no don't try to to explain my words that oh my sales are down it's why i don't want to pay one thousand first of all like uh mr gold no what's his name i'm sorry first i'm sorry what's your last name mr michael when he said that
29:16you know i mean i'm not avoiding to pay but in the beginning it was like 100 and and then maybe 200 the second time which i never did maybe once within the 25 years we had only maybe one time ticket and it and i had a warning not that to pay because it used to be warning in the beginning and then if you don't if they send different people and you can't
29:38you know check with mrs edge about that that really we didn't have any tickets many people came minor after that and we never sold them because we were checking all the time the id but when i said this time it was innocent mistake because really maybe he didn't look and especially after corona within the last two years like we're not getting any more like of this like inspection and like he said i
30:02used to participate in the classes offered by the city to not sell minor or to avoid selling cigarettes people i agree with that cigarette but now i'm talking as businesswoman i have a place i sell cigarettes and i say it's not right to penalize the person with innocent mistake with with with good history you know and about in the past that we never sell minor to penalize me with one thousand dollar
30:27ticket you know it's what i'm trying to say instead of paying this one thousand i would send it to lebanon really really they need it because i feel i feel like it's not right if they give me a warning and oh look now everybody is like you know you have to watch very carefully you know don't say you i did it looks older you have to check all ids but like i said it's been
30:48a while we didn't go to any class you know and everything everybody is so busy with corona with the mask with all these problems so it's my reason i'm saying i don't want not because oh my sales went down i wanna sell more people no at all i don't want to do that because you know i have to respect that with my goals with respect to all that you've said and
31:12i don't think any of us doubt that it was an instant mistake there really isn't a lot of flexibility with the board we're not able to we're not able to dismiss the fine uh we're not able to allow you to send the fines if it was a warning in the beginning after two years of quran i would be good like that you know because suddenly like this they came in a position where we're
31:31gonna let the fine stand uh okay and and hope that uh you're able to make sure that that doesn't happen okay no problem thank you sir thank you uh i guess we might need a motion on this to deny the appeal would that be proper test are you there yep i'm here yes is that the proper motion to deny the appeal okay um michael coughlin i'll second chess can we have a roll call thomas corey
32:06yes to deny michael coughlin yes to deny steven gagliardi mr gag i think he maybe he stepped out maybe yeah okay thank you very much okay thank you good evening next we have a presentation by the director of water and sewer department paul fruin regarding the lead in the water mr ferruin welcome could you state your name and address for the record paul ferlin one government sent uh
32:43um so i'm the administrator of community utilities i think i've been in front of the board a couple of times uh talking about other uh things that we have ongoing with in the city i'm just trying to share my screen i hope all of you can see my screen yes excellent thank you um so just recently we sent out some notices uh to all 21 000 of our customers uh about a uh recent action-level
33:11exceedance um that we've uh detected within our drinking water system uh the action level exceedance was uh in relation to lead within the water um you know we were one one thousandth of a pound per million above the action level uh there is no maximum contaminant level within massachusetts or any other state all there is is action levels uh when you trigger an action level that means
33:38that you need to take action uh the action that's required by statutes is public notification um so i've been working with dep and epa through this whole entire process of uh developing the public notice uh getting the public notice out uh i've uh made presentations to the water board and other boards but i wanted to come in front of you as well uh the border health for the city of fall river uh to
34:03make you aware of what's what's going on uh and uh kind of let you see what the uh uh you know what's going on within the drinking water uh and the lead was in the drinking water so um first off uh like to start off with um first by saying that our drinking water as it leaves our drinking water facility uh plant does not have any lead in it uh as it moves through our distribution
34:32system uh so the big pipes in the middle of the road and everything it doesn't pick up lead in any of those pipes uh the water is consistently moving through those it's not really stagnant at many points so it doesn't have any ability plus those pipes in fall river are typically all uh either cast iron or duct lion and majority of them are cement lined so there's no contact with either brass steel
35:02or lead uh within our system um you know like i said mostly steel pipes within our system we don't have any pvc within uh within our distribution system it's all uh it's all uh steel or dr lion um where the lead comes from is uh areas of this of the customer's service so the service that feeds from the house uh all the way into their feeds from the water main near the
35:32middle of the street all the way into their house next to the meter or it comes from the plumbing within their house so uh areas of the copper piping on all the joints where they use lead sata or if there's brass piping within the household or even old grass fixtures and we'll have some diagrams and stuff to explain that out a little in a little bit one of the problems with lead you can't
35:57smell it you can't taste it you can't see it in the water um so you don't know what the levels are of what's coming in um we'll talk a little bit about what the action levels are as we go through the presentation here um what really happens is the water from traveling through those surfaces or those pipes kind of slowly wears could wear off the lead uh if there's not the correct uh
36:22the uh coating on the interior corrosion coating on the interior of the pipe which most of the services have so one other thing to say and this is from the epa's from information that i was given from the epa so let that's found in somebody's body typically only up to 20 of that lead could be attributed to exposure from the from the drinking water so there's other exposures out in the environment whether it be soil
36:56dust lead paint um you know fuel from cars used to have lead in it the exhaust went everywhere so that's why even in urban areas you get a lot of higher conditions in urban background soil so uh environmental protection agencies uh regulations for lead um so lead services were typically used in more affluential communities uh between 1920 in uh the late 50s early 60s um i said you know everybody says well
37:35why'd they use them in fall river back in the 20s 30s 40s river was fall river was a really uh up-and-coming very uh affluential community for the area we had a very robust water system and we use very good products of materials within our water system back then some of the best materials were cast iron water mains which as i said we have throughout the city cast iron or duct the lion
38:03and also lead services back then were deemed to be a lot better uh to withstand uh the environment and everything than copper than copper was at the time so that's why lead services were used in fall river the ep in 1974 congress passed a safe drinking water act uh this was a law that requires the eight the epa environmental protection agency to determine the levels of contamination within the drinking water um
38:35that won't adversely affect health uh epa established treatment techniques in an enforceable procedure for this uh some of the techniques that that are used uh uh the one that everybody likes to see uh number one is actually removal of lead from the system uh corrosion control uh and there are some other coding systems and things that can be done in the treatment epa requires a water system and we've
39:05done this forever to provide what's called the consumer confidence report for all their customers we've always provided one uh we will continue moving forward um now that we have this action level exceedance one of the things we'll have to add in there is uh some wording on uh lead in the levels that we're at the other thing since we hit the action level what we're going to have to do is
39:30the public notification uh to all of the customers that we provide uh service to so let's talk a little bit about uh where we were and how we got here so sampling within the city as i said the city has had land services in it since 1920 uh we've had exceedences of lead in the late 90s there was times uh where we were above the action level uh late 1999 uh we were issued an administrative
40:02consent order uh from dep uh in regards to lead within our system from 99 to 2004 uh we did a lot of corrosion control studies uh and some different programs within the city uh and uh we went back and we got a revised administrative consent order that we've been following since then one of the requirements underneath the safe drinking water act and our aco is sampling originally back in 2004 or so we started
40:35with sampling uh it started out as it starts out as uh bi-annually so twice a year um then when you get uh then when you get two consecutive clear below the action level you get to go to annually testing and then when you get to uh below the action level annual test then you're able to go to every three years we were on a three-year cycle so we tested in 2018 in the third
41:04quarter uh and we were just below the action level at that time uh so there was no uh action required uh this year 2021 the third quarter uh we were one one thousandths of a pound per million above the action level so i keep talking about the action level the action level is 0.015 parts per million of lead within the water our sampling came back at the 90th percentile um of 0.016 parts per million
41:40so we're just above the action level um the sample packets that we send out we do typically 60 houses and then we have a reserve of 10 houses if we're not able to get the samples back from those houses we're also required to do two schools um so this year when we went out we did our sampling we delivered our sample kits to the homes uh which what we do
42:06we take i don't know if you can see it on the tv screen but my picture here we have a bag with a kit that we make up it includes a sample bottle uh and some paperwork these tests are done by the homeowner uh it's done called what you what you call it's a first draw sample so that means the water needs to be sitting within their system undisturbed
42:29um so they can't use the water for a period of six hours prior to filling your sample bottle uh so you know typically people will do these uh when they wake up in the morning if nobody's used the restroom or any faucets over that night or you know everybody goes out to work they come home first thing they do they're supposed to take our sample bottle put it underneath either a
42:53kitchen or bathroom sink cold water fill up the sample bottle put the cap on um and that's what a first draw sample is you don't you can't use you're not supposed to use hot water you're not supposed to let the water run at all it's supposed to be what's classified as a first draw sample this year we received back uh 64 samples uh from the uh from all the 70 that we sent out uh
43:19again it's you know we're trying to work with homeowners to be able to uh get these out get them back get them off to a lab in the proper time to be able to have the lab uh be able to test them a current lab that we have under contract that did all of our testing was rhode island analytical uh over in cranston so this is just a picture of the sample
43:42bottle that we leave on the customer's doorsteps and just about these uh sample locations these are what they are called tier one sample locations so these are the confirmed buildings that have alleged service from the main all the way into the property so those are the only ones that were sampling i would consider considered a classified as tl1 they receive this kit on their doorstep
44:09and again most people that we work with are aware of it because they've done it for us in the past um but this kit shows the sample bottle that they need to fill and then it gives specific instructions the ones that we went through the water needs to be untouched within their system for six hours uh it needs to be able to you need to use cold water uh and it walks you right through the
44:32process uh they take the sample they leave it out on their doorstep our staff comes by and picks them up this right here is uh another this is the picture of an affidavit that's uh that's also within these kits that the homeowner needs to fill out kind of just with their basic information uh how many people live in the household uh just affirming that they follow the directions properly um and
45:02uh you know so that where they took the sample from you know stating that they haven't had any recent plumbing work done in their house or outside their house so that's kind of what this uh this does this also um this also links the chain of custody that's required for the lab and to make it a certified sample so the sample results like i said our action level is 0.015 at the
45:29parts per million at the 90th percentile um we exceeded that by one one thousands um there was a number of no detects so uh within the sample results that we got back there was a number of houses that had that came back in these which means that there's uh there wasn't any level of lead detected within their within their drinking water uh there was a number of low-level uh ones that were well below the action
45:57level um what put us above the action level was eight uh eight plate eight buildings that we sampled uh out of the 64 were above the action level um dep regulations require public notice uh within uh 60 days of the testing quarter so one thing to note this isn't a violation because there is no maximum contaminant level there is no uh there is no um violation we still with within all of our regulations we have
46:32not violated the aco that we uh under uh consent with dep with uh it just again it's an action level it requires us to take actions um and we'll go through some of those actions in just a little bit so we talked a little bit about where the source of lead comes from so if you look at this diagram the bottom is the what the blue is the water main that's in the stream
46:55then there's that pipe that comes where the first red dot is at the bottom of the screen and goes up to the other red dot so that's the service pipe what's called the service goes from the water main near the middle of the street uh all the way into your meet meetup on the edge of the property either in the sidewalk or near the property line there's what's called the curb stop uh
47:15that's a that's a shut off that we're able to use a lead can get into the water again if you have a lead service that goes from your water main into your house a galvanic reaction between pipes um so if you have either steel pipes or if you have brass pipes that's a very good uh in your plumbing system that's a good area where uh where lead can leach into the water
47:41uh like i said all the joints of copper sata typically the copper pipes where they're sodded uh up until 2004 i believe it was it was still using lead sata within plumbing systems so all of those joints have lead and the other thing is faucets all the way up until 2017 brass which is a major component in all of faucet and plumbing fixtures uh had a large amount of lead within it for the
48:14forging process in the in the uh process to be able to make the brass um 2014 all brass is what they consider lead free now but that still allows them a 0.0 0.7 of lead to be within the brass when they manufacture but that's what they're calling lead-free brass now so how it gets into the drinking water um through the plumbing materials um if your water is highly acidic uh or low in
48:50mineral content uh it's more likely that it would leach into uh into the water lead could leach into the water we have very stable water and it's not very acidic so that's we're not stripping any coatings or anything like that uh pipes of faucets the lead services uh the temperature of the water so it's more likely that hot water could strip let off put it into the water uh and come out your tap um so
49:21uh the temperature of the water could affect the amount of wear so if you have a pipe that's always continuously flowing um you probably you know probably not have let it if it's something where um it's water that's sitting there for a while with intermittent high flows uh you have the uh there may be scouring of that internal coating in the lead service or against lead that could uh increase the amount
49:49of uh lead that leaches into the water so this is kind of just another sketch to show the water main off to the left where the service comes into the house to the water meter and then different areas throughout the house that potentially could have led into your drinking water so this is what a lead service looks like on the ground left hand side is the old lead service pipe the right hand
50:18side is the new copper pipe there's a connection in the middle that's made and this is actually just a repair of alleged service uh that somebody did this was uh just a file uh photo that i got from online if we encounter our staff we encounter a wedge service within our drinking water system we remove that wet service from the main all the way to near the property line in fall river the property owner is
50:49responsible for all maintenance of their water service from the main all the way into their house as a courtesy the water department has replaced lead services from the main to near the property line and then we give a credit for a homeowner who wants to do from their property line into their house and we'll talk a little bit about the credit program uh in a little bit um so the health effects and i'm i'm not
51:18going to get really into this because i'm sure many of you uh professionals within the house health field uh know a lot more about the health effects than uh i could i know how to make the water deliver you guys know how to keep people healthy so um you know some of the effects though from the that the epa has said in adults cardiovascular effects uh increased blood blood pressure um
51:44decreased kidney function brain damage at high uh high uh you know exposures or uh both men and women the reproductive problems um pregnant women as with many things are uh more um more prone to have uh issues if uh if you know if they're uh come in contact with lead and in children they have behavioral learning problems lower iqs uh slower growth or hearing problems steps that you can take to reduce the
52:24exposure within your drinking water first thing very simple you go up to your sink to get a glass of water and then early in the morning you're the first one to go there turn on your cold water faucet let it run for 15 or 30 seconds that takes and make sure that you're getting fresh water from the main that hasn't been sitting within the pipes within your house or anywhere that
52:47may have been in contact with lead um use cold water so you get in a glass of water use cold water you're going to boil water for spaghetti use cold water cold water is very less again less likely to be able to have that lead leach into the water you can't dissolve lead uh by boiling the water so if it's not a bacteria or anything you can't kill it by boiling boiling the water essentially all you
53:15would do if you try to boil the water is concentrate it and make a make the levels higher so it's still safe to use to cook with but you don't want to over reduce the amount of water and try to boil it out or kill it and boil again um you know the other thing that you can do that people can do is replace their fixtures so you know you have an old uh
53:37early 1900s uh faucet in your bathroom that's had a slow leak for a long time maybe it's time to replace that get a nice newer lead-free lead-free fric fixture so steps to reduce the exposure uh continued find out if your home or building has alleged service uh and then make arrangements to move it um and we'll go through in just a minute on how to identify whether your property has a lead service or not uh continued
54:12con alternative sources of treated water contact your health provider to find out if the child needs to be tested for lead and you can also test your home forward uh so just a couple of things on there on our website the city's website city of fall river water department water quality letter in your water tab that's how you would get there we have information about filters uh that could filter let out of the water um
54:44so we have some samples of some uh all the research that we've done you just need to look at the particular filter that you're using in the cartridge and make sure that it is rated to remove lead from your water so how do you tell whether you're have a lead service within your house these are two pitches here uh the one on the left you can see where the water meter is uh
55:09left hand side of that water meter is the outlet where the pipe goes up into the building uh the right hand side where it comes out of the floor or comes out of the concrete wall that's the water service that's feeding into your house so you have the water service there with the valve the picture on the right is a close-up of where that valve is you can see the valve is brass with the
55:32red wheel on the side of it uh below that is a grayish pipe with kind of a squoosh tennis ball uh right below the valve that's indicative of a lead service um that dullish gray line coming in with the squash tennis ball the gray line is actually the lead line uh the scorch tennis ball gray is what they call uh the lead head which is how they connect the lead line uh to a brass
56:02uh thread-on fixture um so that's exactly so if you go into your basement and you find where your water meter is located and you look at the two pipes you have one that goes up the wall feeds the systems in your house you have one that goes down through the floor or comes through the wall you can take a look at that if you see the dullish gray uh it's most likely that
56:25you have a lead service entering your property uh if you see a greenish or a uh tarnished copper looking piece you probably have a copper surface uh the other things that we also do have is a blue or black plastic is the other types you know if you see it and you're unsure and you can't tell or it's painted uh you could always take and you take something you don't want to disturb the
56:50web service but take your fingernail or take something uh a key and just try to scratch it so this right here is actually a lead service i don't know if you can see me on the screen uh dulles gray but if you just take your fingernail and you scratch it you'll see the shiny gray underneath that and this is just another picture showing a lead service coming into a property um
57:16coming out of the floor you see how it kind of bends a little uh a little snakeish on the bottom over in this area up to the valve and then this actually has brass and steel piping uh before and after the meter so that's indicative that's to tell that some portion of your service is lit so lead service line replacement uh epa establishes a leading copper rule to protect the uh to protect the health
57:46within our aco we are required to remove up to seven percent of lead services per year uh which we have been doing uh since 2004.
57:58um so there's different funding out there for replacement of lead service which we've used in the past and we'll continue to use moving forward but the majority of the cost uh is burdened on the uh on the owner of the service or the city um there's things out there from hud um and other organizations uh the water now pumped from the city of fall river we have what's called passive water uh so
58:25it doesn't dissolve copper it doesn't dissolve lead um but you still have the possibility of that leaching into the water but our water is you know our alkalinity is good in between 20 and 30. uh our ph is in between uh typically 8.2 to 8.7 uh so and we have pretty stable water coming in seeing that we have a surface water that we're dealing with we've been replacing lead services since
58:56the early 2000s uh and that's from the main into near the property line um not the full led service we do have a led service credit program so we our records kind of showed back back it started in 2000 that we had about five thousand two thousand year two thousand that we had about five thousand lead services within our whole entire system uh we're working to verify and update all those records you know uh
59:26everything's kind of fluid and moving to document everything that's been replaced everything that uh even just as today there was one led service that was replaced within our system uh tomorrow there's going to be another one um just because that's what our staff is working on a lot um so we're working to update and verify all of our led lists it's something that's going to be required by epa rails
59:53soon uh over 3000 of those 5 000 have been replaced uh from the main into the curb stop um i've talked about the credit program that we have for property owners uh the credit program is a program where if the property owner decides to do uh from their property line into the house so we would provide them with a credit on their applied on their water bill of five hundred dollars
1:00:21if the if they have a full ledge service from the main all the way into the house and they want to replace the whole entire thing we would give them a credit on their water bill of one thousand dollars uh so we give them five hundred dollars for from the main to the curb stop and we would give them 500 from the main uh from the curb stop into the water meter
1:00:43all they need to do they make us aware that they're replacing it they get a licensed contractor that pulls all the proper permits uh we go out and inspect while the service is being removed uh we need to take a sample of the lead service and we have to store those indefinitely which which we have done uh and we take in uh and then we apply that credit uh onto their water or sewer account
1:01:12so this is just a picture of kind of what it entails to be able to replace the land service this is a crew that's working in the street they're replacing the lead service with a copper line but you have to excavate within the roadway uh over to the sidewalk up into the house uh sometimes you're able to do what they call pull the ledge service uh so they pass a cable through
1:01:35pull a new line through and they don't have to excavate the whole way uh that can be a cost savings but that's not always able to be done so what are some of the steps that we've been through already and what are some of the next steps that we're going to be doing um so as i've talked about the action level exceedance required us to do a bunch of
1:02:00things uh to work with uh we work with dp and epa to come up with the schedule of what needed to be done all of our public notification needed to be done prior to november 30th uh which it was we sent out mailings to all of our 21 000 customers we also sent out mailings to uh the addresses that were provided by uh ms curran the uh this is currently uh
1:02:28director of the board of health for all doctors offices child care facilities uh within the city we also contacted uh wic transitional assistance specifically we let them know uh and gave them copies of the uh of the public information we provided it to form of a housing authority which they posted at their facilities and the fall river school department also received copies and distributed to all their schools and
1:02:55made it available uh we had a we have a psa alert on the city webpage uh we're putting an alert on all of our future water bills moving forward um and uh so far that's what we've done for notification uh last week i sent a week before last i sent uh notification to dep uh in the board of health that we've completed all of our distribution of public notification public education uh information
1:03:30uh and uh we're moving forward we will be sending out our first round of bills within the next couple of weeks uh that has the notification about lead uh on there um and we'll be uh we'll be send leaving those on until we get a sampling uh that doesn't exceed uh the action level we also did press releases uh i was on wsar we had press releases to all of the local media stations we
1:04:02went to uh channel 10 channel 12 and channel 6 out of providence uh channel 10 in the belief channel 6 picked it up and did it frg tv was uh nice enough to do a uh uh airing of the uh of the public notification um so it was a pretty complex uh outreach that that we had to do to be able to uh meet the requirements of exceeding the action level and again
1:04:29it's more about getting the information out there about what people can do to protect themselves what they can do to identify whether their building or their home is affected that kind of sums up my present presentation uh on where we are and what we've done moving forward we're going to be looking for all different types of funding one great thing that has come to light within uh the past
1:04:58week has been the new infrastructure bill uh that came out there is gonna there is a large amount of money within that infrastructure bill for removing lead out of water systems it's real early in the passage of that bill to see how to how to acquire those there is other resources that we'll be reaching out to uh dep as i said i had multiple phone conversations with them through the
1:05:27whole entire public notification process they're fully on board with supporting and assisting us um and we'll be uh we'll be working with them moving forward to uh to try to get uh the all of the lead out of the system which would be uh all the lead services out of the system which would be the best first step in protection um just one other quick update that i didn't have in this presentation but uh today
1:05:54actually they just released a revised epa released a revised lead in copper rule uh this was something that was uh drafted about two years ago under the trump administration uh when the administration came in it was pulled back uh and wasn't released at that time the full uh rule today the modifications were just released a lot of the modifications we've been complying with through our
1:06:27aco requirements and through our lead service removal requirements but there are additional things that we're going to have to do moving forward and get completed by the deadline of 2024 so that concludes my presentation i don't know if anybody has any uh any questions um again i think uh i think um you know tess i've been uh kind of briefing her as we've been going through this process
1:06:59uh so far from customers we have had water department we have had a number of uh inquiries from our customers on uh what the uh you know whether uh their home has alleged service or they got the notice can we explain it to them so we go through and we explain to them um you know about what has happened uh how to check to see whether they have a wedge service um you know we let them
1:07:26know about the information that we have on our website about filters and uh and the other information to be able to uh protect yourself and most people uh most people understand the information and take it and they thank us uh in uh and you know uh hopefully they're taking the proper precautions we do ask anybody if they do you know again we're updating all of our information that we have somebody does
1:07:54confirm that they have a lead service or that they don't have alleged service you know just pick up the phone give the water department a call uh just so we can make sure that you're on our list of either confirmed not having it or confirmed having it that's just another double check for us to make sure that we have the proper information about everybody's home mr furland is is there a particular part of the city
1:08:18um with older structures that have more led connections than not no that's the tough thing and that was one of the first things when this went out people were like well what area of the city is affected it doesn't there's not one area that's affected so we had them north south east and west um you know any structure that was constructed between 1920 and 1960 uh could have alleged service which you know as
1:08:48you guys know is all over the city and how the mains are are free of lead right yeah really from the lanes to the people's houses right correct it's just from the mains to the people houses the water mains some of the older water mains have what they call leaded joints um so at the actual joint it's like an old uh it's like an old uh wastewater pipe uh they would pack it with what's called oakum
1:09:18uh that's what comes in contact with the water and then seal the outside with lead so there's really not much contact between the water and the lead uh or any contact with between the water and the lead in our distribution system it's just primarily on the ledge services or the fixtures or led starter within somebody's home well if if a uh homeowner suspects they have lead surface or knows they have lid
1:09:43service are we able to assist them with testing their water uh yeah excellent question and that's the other thing that i meant to mention on our website uh we do have a list of certified laboratories um recommended by dep for testing we did contact all the ones that we did put on our list because it was a long list but we wanted to make sure that our customers would be able to
1:10:06contact any of these labs and be able to get their water tested so we did contact them some lab said well we would have to send the customer a sample bottle they'd have to send it back to us others said if they take a clean drinking water bottle they could fill that and send it to us so i would recommend any customer that does want to have their water sample uh that they uh
1:10:28take a look at the list on our website they contact those labs and make the proper arrangements for that as you go towards i'm sorry i just wanted to make a note that there is a fee associated with that testing just so that you know anybody listening is so aware of the costs associated with that yes correct what what is the typical fee uh so when we when we contacted him we
1:10:56were seeing ranges of twenty dollars up to uh up to a hundred college depending on the lab and i know it varies paul but but what is a typical uh cost of of say a full replacement of lead service for a homeowner so full full lead service replacement uh from the main all the way into the house uh we estimated roughly between seven to eight thousand dollars uh if it's just the property owner's
1:11:23side uh from the uh from the so if it's just the section from the property uh all the way into the house uh estimated at about three thousand dollars as you go forward and and the goal is to get rid of all the lead services um and you come down towards the end and there are people that haven't replaced it or can't replace it then what happens so you know that that is definitely
1:11:51going to be uh that is definitely going to be a challenge because the problem is uh going on to private property and doing work on private property that's not something that the city that we would do with our staff that would be something that a contractor would do um you know at that point and this is not anything that we've that we're currently planning on we're going to try to work with all the customers to uh
1:12:16have them replace their service and move forward but other communities have looked at the options of termination of service uh if people aren't compliant and stuff like that and where do we stand with dep right now paul at age what a little bit i'd like to hear a little bit more about your interactions with them throughout the world yep not a problem so initially we went and uh you know we do our sampling we
1:12:45send in all of our results to dep um as well as our review um and uh that's when we initially uh saw the 90th percentile we were above the uh we were above the action level uh immediately dep uh we had i had conversations with them at the time jody raposa who was our director of treatment uh she's just since left the city um but she was also in on those conversations
1:13:10with dp uh they pointed us to the direction of uh what's required by law uh once the action level is hit which essentially it's the public notification uh that uh that was distributed uh we went we worked with dep developing the public notification on the press release as well as the pamphlets that were mailed out um as well as uh you know the psa that was put up uh on the website and sent out
1:13:40all to all the uh news media uh we did have meetings uh as well with epa and dep combined um you know kind of going over uh you know the plan for our distribution uh and how we were gonna get our public notification out there today primarily uh most of our interactions with them have been um you know making sure that we're able to get the proper public notification out to the people um you know
1:14:13we're continuing to work with them uh and we will continue to work with them uh moving forward you know now we're gonna be uh since we had an action level exceedance uh we'll be on a bi-annually testing um for uh led within our drinking water uh so we'll have to be doing that uh uh they haven't submitted dp ads and submitted us a revised separating plan yet but they will be submitting that to
1:14:39us i expect that to be either in the first or second quarter of calendar year 22.
1:14:47so uh interactions with dep has been good uh they've been very helpful um you know again the city of fall river we've been through this uh in the uh late 90s early 2000s we've you know this isn't something uh new uh it's new uh it hadn't been done in a long time so we wanted to make sure that we had all the updated materials uh dep was excellent with providing us uh their standard
1:15:15materials that they use in other communities um you know we're not the only community around that has this issue there is a lot of other communities that have uh led within their drinking water systems uh one that's you know there are other much larger systems uh you know uh boston somerset providence uh a number of them that have led within their system but yeah dep so far has been has been good to work with
1:15:49it just seems to make sense to follow their lead as much as possible that's correct correct i have a question on a different water-related issue for paul if we've finished our discussion about the lead no objection continue well where are we with fluoridation i understand we had some supply chain issues yeah we're still having those supply chain issues of of obtaining the proper fluoride to add to our water system um
1:16:24you know i think covid has been a bear on supply chain issues for everything um but we were kind of running into this issue uh prior to it um when we did out the fluoride this year uh the uh cost of fluoride went from uh before we were receiving bids of about 40 000 and we always paid in the past when we were regularly running it about 35 000 per year uh the
1:16:54uh when we received bids in for this fiscal year it was over 90 000 um so we had a substantial jump in there uh the only better the low bidder only bidder was uh bought in remington within the city of fall river uh but they they're not the manufacturer um they're trying to get supplies from their supplier uh but just haven't been able to secure anything um so we're not not currently fluoridating the water is
1:17:22that my understanding that is correct yes we've worked with we've worked with mrs curran to uh i believe she's notified all uh all doctor's office dentist office um to let them know so that they can make supplements shouldn't the public know that i mean i i've just taken for granted that i'm getting my fluorite hit every time i i take a drink the cost benefit of fluoridation is really beyond dispute uh
1:17:52i think people should know yet you know it it's you know the way for it to get out is is us discussing it like this um you know how long has it been how long has it been since we have been able to do it uh so don't hold me to the month but i believe it was it was in the beginning of the summer uh when we ran out of about halfway through the
1:18:21summer when we uh when our supply chain was was unable to provide us uh fluoride anymore uh we were running it for about eight months prior to that uh and then prior to that for about a year uh we didn't have any product well it's not that we don't have a product it's just that it's very expensive no we can we can't get they can't get it right now right now we can't get it correct
1:18:52it's not just that yeah it's not just fall river that has has a supply interruption right now it's it's it's yeah right and there's three different types of fluoride that that you can add to drinking waters um there's a uh there's a liquid uh there's a more granular one which uses a saturated uh and then adds it and then there's uh one there's a system like we have of fluoride acidic acid which is actually
1:19:23almost like a uh a sugar granulated powder that goes in by a volumetric uh addition so we add it add the powder directly to the water and it gets it gets mixed in that way um our supply chain uh you know the liquid one uh don't i'm not sure what their supply is on that but you know we currently don't have any equipment to be able to uh to be able to implement that
1:19:52the the product that we need that our system is set up for we're unable to get just i just looked in my email it was um early september and then and then um i emailed all dental providers pediatricians or i mailed a letter excuse me not emailed dental providers pediatricians and primary care physicians indicating that the water was not currently being fluoridated and so some have you know began
1:20:28supplementing for individuals based on the need thank you okay gentlemen anything else for paul all right mr ferwen thank you very much thank you guys very much have a good night okay next item on the agenda is the director's report tess what do you have for us so really just a another covet overview um and and wanted to touch on the testing kits that will be distributed to fall river so we are anticipating that
1:21:10they'll arrive tomorrow um and these are uh the free test kits that are going to be distributed to high-risk high-need um residents who may be you know experiencing financial hardship who may otherwise not have access to the rapid tests um or to testing in general um and so uh thus far i've connected with a number of community-based organizations um that will once we receive them we'll hopefully
1:21:43redistribute them on monday um maybe into tuesday and then they'll immediately begin to distribute those to residents um or their you know clients um so uh we're we're still kind of working on allocating the full amount um but we have you know begun those allocations um we're also working with some faith-based organizations who are able to distribute them um and so you know it is going to be another
1:22:13tool in the toolbox for us um as we you know go into this uh holiday season where we're already experiencing this really significant surge and so the goal is to get these out so that people can utilize them maybe before family gathering or after a family gathering if they may have been exposed so so that's the goal um and we're just working on logistics but those will start to be distributed next week
1:22:45and and we continue to have access to the stop the spread site the bcc location and that will run through the end of march um the company i've been in contact with them they're indicating that we're the busiest of all of their testing sites so i am trying to encourage them to get to expand their hours so that they can accommodate um more residents because we are receiving calls that people
1:23:12sometimes do have a hard time getting um getting you know a testing appointment so um they're expanding their hours for the next two weeks to again accommodate you know the holiday search and maybe in being closed on a few days um but but we are busy in terms of testing and our case counts continue to rise um we have received some of the grant fundings for contact tracing we're still in the process of hiring
1:23:41individuals and and um are are working on on that um we've hired at least one contact tracer um she started this week um and the state's protocol for contact tracing um has been modified a bit just due to the surge so we're prioritizing k through 12 students and and known clusters at this time just because of the bandwidth that we have and then in terms of vaccinations uh you know we we continue to fall below
1:24:19the state averages really across all age groups but especially within the five to 12 year olds um so we're having more clinics at the schools we'll be having clinics at the library every tuesday for the month of january um in the evening and we're trying to work with our other providers in the community to have you know coverage on a number of days and a number of times um and working with our community based
1:24:50organizations and and the schools to get the messaging out effectively to you know parents and guardians and um and others in the community so that continues to be an ongoing effort any questions or thoughts still open to any ideas anyone has uh you know part of our part of our struggle has been finding you know an indoor location that is accessible you know that is maybe has parking that
1:25:26people feel comfortable going to um you know that that we can you know utilize on a regular basis so so we're hopeful that the library will um will be a good fit um and that people will attend those clinics i think you should get david mellow to uh do a story time or or a series of story times for kids that are tied to vaccinations that guy is a community treasurer uh i
1:26:02would hope that he'd be open to it i can't say it for sure but but if he were to host an event for kids that had some tied to vaccination i think all right i'll look into that you know who he is right he's the children's library okay i'll talk to liam i don't think i've met him before actually he uh he's a great storyteller okay goes over well with the kids great
1:26:36okay anything any other questions for tess okay under under new business is there any new business to come before the board of such a nature that it could make the agenda not not at this time no i just actually taught if we could just circle back do we do all of the chicken variances or do we have to maybe table one we still have to table the okay the first one okay i just wanted to make
1:27:04sure no one no one appeared okay uh gentlemen under citizens input we received a letter from elizabeth doherty you've all had the chance to read through it requesting a masked mandate in forward inside spaces we already have the advisory in place what's your feeling gentlemen i don't i don't think uh a mandate is gonna really change anything a whole lot i mean i think a lot of a lot of the spread is happening at home
1:27:54um we get families coming in for testing five or six at a time they're all they're all positive um i don't know you know i have no i have no restaurant you walk in and you wear a mask and then you sit down and you're in a giant room of masculine people um seems pointless in my travels around the city um i'm usually masked and i've noticed a greater percentage of people masked
1:28:25indoors so i think um they're doing it all by themselves i think that you know if you're worried about it you wear a mask yes if you're not worried about it you don't wear a mask um really if you're protecting yourself you know but you're gonna you're gonna come in contact with someone somewhere along the way and if you're either gonna get it or you're not if you're vaccinated the best thing
1:28:51you can do if you wanna you know do extra wear a mask you wear a mask um so i think you know who's who's gonna do who's gonna do the enforcing uh you're gonna have you know i don't know i think places like florida that don't have that you know they do they're doing fine we're the ones who aren't the city um government center or the mayor um has indicated that all um
1:29:24municipal buildings uh individuals are required to wear their masks here at government center at the library um and both police and fire headquarters as of this week um employees and any you know residents or individuals coming into the building are required to wear a mask just as a informational piece there's a lot of pressure building on this on the governor to do something at the state level
1:29:58it may not be realistic for foreign to step out on its own air insurance continues and increases i i do think this is something happened it may not be a full uh you know all indoor space mass advisory but there may be some additional venues and locations that are required that's just a guess i don't have any insight into it okay so uh i i get the feeling we're still going to go with the
1:30:27advisory that's in place and encourage people to ask
1:30:42either that i could try and like put out a press release you know with with the information that the that the board continues to encourage you know indoor masks yeah that's what i meant by reissuing it just put on another product okay that sounds i'll do that that agreeable to everyone yeah wear them if you got them okay um we have to confirm the date for the next meeting following our past patent of the fourth
1:31:12thursday of the month it would be january 27th how does that work for everybody or is that too late oh i think that's fine that sounds good okay jane january 27th at 4 p.m all right can we have a motion to adjourn can we do the um the tabling of the um that chicken variance do we have to vote on that um oh yeah okay we need a motion to table the request
1:31:44for variants for the keeping of chickens for louis machado at 76 byron street second right then tess can we have a roll call i'm miss corey yes michael coughlin yes stephen gagliardi yes motion to adjourn no move second second do we have a roll call thomas corey yes michael coughlin yes steven gagliardi yes all right gentlemen thank you tess thank you alex thank you merry christmas to
1:32:21all have a healthy merry christmas merry christmas