3.23.2026 Board of Health

I'll say good afternoon to everyone in the land of Zoom and welcome to the board of health virtual meeting on Monday, March 23rd, 2026 scheduled for 3:30. My name is Thomas Corey. Present with me via Zoom is Michael Coughlin, Dr. Steven Gaguyotti, Tess Curran, our agent of the board, Sandy Barabby, secretary to the board, various guests and participants in today's meeting.

Pursuant to the open meeting or 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 unproceived by those present and are deemed acknowledged and permissible.

Tess, can we have a roll call?

Thomas Corey, yes.

Michael Coughlin, yes. Steven Gadliardi.

Yes.

Okay. We have the approval of the minutes of the meeting of Wednesday, January 28th. Are there any additions, deletions, or corrections to be made to the minutes of the meeting as printed?

Motion to approve.

We have a second. Tes, we have a roll call.

Thomas Cory, yes.

Michael Coughlin, yes.

Steven Giuliardi, yes.

Next, we have the application for the approval of a tattoo practitioner application by Christina Caesar of 223 Geneva Avenue, Dorchester, Massachusetts to work for Flaming Balls Tattoo and Supply Skin Pins located 1120 Stafford Road, Fall River, Massachusetts. Josh, I assume you're presenting.

Yes, I am. So, I've reviewed all of our paperwork. She's completed all our paperwork. She's been doing her apprenticeship there at the shop. So, she's completed her one-year apprenticeship and she is pretty much ready to roll.

Okay. Christina, do you have any questions for us?

No.

Okay. And gentlemen, do we have any questions for Christina or for Josh?

No.

Move to approve.

Second.

Yes. Can we have a roll call?

Thomas Cory?

Yes.

Michael Coughlin?

Yes. Steven Begliardi.

Yes, Christina. Good luck.

Thank you.

Okay, good luck.

Thank you.

Next, we have the application for approval of a tattoo practitioner application for Jared Dupris of 643rd Street here in Fall River to work for Flaming Balls Tattoo and Supply Skin Pins located at 1120 Stafford Road.

Josh, I assume you're presenting again.

Yes, sir. I've reviewed all of his paperwork. He has an active license right now in the state of Rhode Island and his expires at 2026 of December. He has all the paperwork he needs here to tattoo here in Pora. So, he's good to go.

Okay. Jared, do you have any questions?

Nope.

Okay, gentlemen, do we have any questions?

No.

Motion to approve.

Second.

Tess. Can we have a roll call?

Thomas Corey?

Yes.

Michael Coughlin?

Yes. Steven Gaggliardi.

Yes.

Jared, good luck. Thank you for your time this afternoon, gentlemen and ladies and Christina.

Good luck.

Thanks.

Next week, we have Matt Thomas with us today. We're going to have a discussion concerning the solid waste collection, disposable, and enforcement um provisions under chapter 111 sections 31A and B.

Mr. Thomas. Oh, there you are. You moved on my screen.

if you would please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Matthew Thomas. I'm special counsel to the city.

Um, are we doing this in executive session or we do this open?

Um, we go um under chapter 38, section 21 um subsection 7, it allows to go into executive session when we're talking about something that is not a public record. And what we're really talking about is policy being determined. And under chapter 4, section 7 uh subsection 26D um it's an exemption from the public record doctrine. Eventually become public once the policy is decided, but

until then to allow uh full and fair debrief um deliberations, you can go into executive session if you'd like.

Mr. Thomas, in 18 years, this is the first time we've had an executive session.

I understand that, but I don't know how to do this on Zoom.

Does anyone else know that?

That was my question. I mean, we're not going to really um I suppose we could do this open because I'm not asking you to del really make a decision. It's just to brief you on where we are and that's kind of public anyway. So, I I don't really have a problem with that if that's what you'd like to do.

Gentlemen, are we all comfortable with that?

Yeah, I think we can do that.

I don't see why not.

Okay, fine. Tess, do we need a motion or anything to continue this in public? I don't believe so.

Okay.

So, all right, Mr. Thomas, if you'll continue Mr.

Chair, um the reason I wanted to meet with you and I want to thank you all for the opportunity is just to keep you in the loop as to what's going on with regard to the solid waste collection in the city, which is under the authority of the board of health under chapter 111 sections 31A and B. So, we have a current contract right now with easy disposal, which has become capital waste

management. Um they do the um curbside collection of solid waste and right now it's being disposed of at the Greater New Bedford Regional Refuge Management District landfill at Crapo Hill. That contract will expire on June 30th. Uh they also uh do the curbside collection on recycling and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday collections are direct hauled to waste zero in Rochester. uh Tuesday and

Thursday is picked up and it's sent over to Lewon Street and they go through it and try to get it so that it's a little bit less contaminated. Contamination isn't just solid waste contamination. A lot of times people will try to recycle things like rubber hoses and things like that that are not capable to be recycled.

That contract is through EL Harvey.

That's who actually owns the waste zero facility. And then the Tuesday, Thursday solid waste that's managed by the city.

I mean um recyclables go there as well.

Um that expires on June 30th as well.

The city issued a solicitation um for a new contractor. Uh this is not a 30B because this is an exemption under 30B from procurement, but most municipalities will still try to solicit so that you get the best deal so to speak for the community.

Uh we had the solicit station's been out. We had a pre-bid meeting about a week and a half ago and there were representatives from four companies there live and two people were on Zoom and they asked some good questions. We issued an amendment today answering their questions. Um what we're looking to do through the new solicitation is to have one contractor that is going to handle collection and disposal.

um that will allow the city and it's going to be a two-year contract with a one-year option. Uh the city is working on waste reduction, as they call it, waste diversion, and we're looking at a couple of other things at the same time.

So, we didn't want to go too long. Uh we wanted to be able to have some flexibility, so that if as these policies change and these processes get put into place, the city would have the opportunity to go out with a longer term contract as opposed to place like New Bedford or Dartmouth which can dispose as members of of Crapo Hill, they dispose for aboutund for about $26 a ton. Fall River

is at $116 a ton um because they're not a member of the district. So this is a very large budget item. The collection is as well. And so we're trying to sharpen the pencil, so to speak, as much as we can to get the best price and the best service for the residents in the city.

Um, at the present time we're collecting from units that are over six units, residential units. By ordinance, we don't have to. And so, starting on July 1st, we will no longer be collecting anything over six units. They'll have to have commercial collection. That's how most municipalities actually do it. We don't collect from commercial entities.

They need their own private contracts.

If there's a property that has a mixed use, where it's got commercial on the first floor and two apartments above it, which is very common in the city, we collect the residential, but we don't collect the commercial. We also collect from the schools. The new contract is all being procured as one piece, but there'll be a separate cont separate portion of the contract uh that will be

directly paid for by the schools and then a separate portion that's paid for by the city. So, that's happening. I believe it's due at the end of uh actually it's due around April 15th the responses and then we would go through the process of reviewing them and then once the review is done we would negotiate with the successful responder and the contract would be in place for June uh for June 30th would begin on

July 1. Uh so that's what's happening from that side of it. My reason for meeting with you is to bring you up to speed on what's going on. I know Tess is probably keeping you in the loop on it.

Uh Tess has been very helpful and her staff in uh responding to certain things we're trying to do. One thing we're trying to do is actually um increase the recycling in the city. Uh we're using we're working with the schools as well.

Part of it is educational, part of it will be uh enforcement, but at this point in time we need to get we're hoping to get about a 30% increase in recycling which create some waste diversion as well.

Back in 2014, actually on August 5th of 2014, the board of health promulgated a regulation regarding solid waste disposal, recycling haulers, dumpsters, licensing, and operations.

And um at the appropriate time, we'll be proposing to come back to you to amend that regulation.

Uh right now, the way you have it worded is that the city or a licensed one that gets licensed through you folks is able to collect uh solid waste in the city and recyclables.

We don't collect it ourselves. We use a contractor and what a lot of other communities do is that the contract is actually done with the city and with the board of health. The solicitation that went out was issued on behalf of the city acting through the department of community maintenance and board of health. What we're going to be looking to discuss with you in the future is to amend the regulation to give you a

little bit more enforcement authority on the uh on the disposal not only by the contractor but also by the residents. Um right now there's a lot of ambiguity and a lot of confusion as to how enforcement is done and where the fines go. Um there's still sections of the ordinance that talk about the fines going to the sanitation enterprise fund which we haven't used since 2016 I don't believe.

So um these fines would be our hope would be actually coming through the board of health and enforced by department of um community maintenance.

that would be done in a way that would and this is the conversation we need to have and that I would probably look to do an executive session um is to have that conversation about how we sign an agreement between the board of health and the department of community maintenance where they would be they have an enforcement division they would handle the enforcement of just this section under 31 and 30B

um on uh disposal and what we're looking to is at the present time If somebody disposes something that is wastand, for example, textiles, there's a waste ban on textile disposal.

We get a lot of textiles in our solid waste. Um, we'll also get other things in the solid waste that shouldn't be in there and um things that probably should be recycled. And so the current mechanism allows a little tag to be put on the on the bins by the enforcement division of community maintenance and then uh the second time the property owner will get a letter and then we'll start finding.

But if somebody continues to violate the ordinance or violates the regulations, there was no way that we can stop collecting from them. And uh for example, in the city of New Bedford, after a certain number of violations, you lose the right to have municipal collection. U I don't think they use it very often, but the fact that it's there helps them with their enforcement. U so those are the types of things that we're

going to be looking to discuss with you.

And this was really more than more than anything just a meet and greet to let you know what's going on, answer any questions you may have, and then probably in about a month or so have a more conversation.

So, I can answer any questions you have.

Yeah, I I have one maybe more. Um, sure, Mr. Thomas, when you say textiles can't be thrown, are you talking about any piece of cloth? What What the Exactly. Yes. And please call me Matt.

Please call me Matt. uh the the way the this regulation this waistband's been in effect probably for about two years now.

And so you're not supposed to throw anything that's textile. Um it could be furniture, it could be um carpeting, it could be old towels and things like that. Theoretically that is not supposed to be disposed of in your solid waste.

Um and what would end up happening is D does periodic inspections.

Yeah.

Um for example, right now when the packers go to Crapo Hill, which is located in Dartmouth, every so often D will come and inspect a packer as it's coming in and they'll pull out three or four bags and if they find textiles in it, we'll get a letter.

Yeah. Um, eventually they'll find I I I guess I'm just making the thing between a, you know, an an old area rug in in a and a sock with a hole in it.

You know, I I agree wholeheartedly with you. Um, to some degree, uh, it's a little bit unworkable, but it's what the state decided. Uh, the other thing that's going to be coming down the line supposedly is in 2030, they're talking about a food waste ban.

Now, right now, if you're an institution and you're making over a certain amount of solid of food waste, like the um like hospitals and things like that, yeah, you're not supposed to dispose of them as municipal solid waste. When they implemented that rule, that was probably about eight years ago now, everybody asked, okay, where do we send this? And they said, oh, you can send it to farms.

But they hadn't talked to the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Agriculture had a problem with that.

uh when they implemented this ban, I don't think they ban I don't think they really had thought it through. It's all part of a policy on the part of the state that they want to get to zero waste by 2030.

Now, I applaud them for their desire, but right now our solid waste policy in Massachusetts to get to zero waste is that we ship it out somewhere else.

That's not exactly zero waste. Um, a lot of the waste goes to Ohio, goes to Michigan, Alabama. If those places say we're not going to take anymore, then what are we going to do? So, that's why we're trying to get the recycling ramped up. We're trying to get this done. It's an education process. I mean, is someone going to get fined for a hole in their sock, you know, holy sock that they put

in there? Probably not. If somebody empties out three old rugs and couple of pillows and a couple of cushions, that's another matter. Now, there are companies that will pick that up, uh, that will come to your door and pick that up. Um, same thing right now with food. Um, if you want, there are companies that will come and pick up the food from you. Another way to do that is composting.

There's always concerns about doing that in an urban setting. Um, but those are some of the things. So what we're looking to do is as this new contract is being put into place, we're looking to actually put into place the mechanisms we need to to comply with state law in a way that we work with the taxpayer with the residents so they understand what's going on. Uh there'll be a substantial

education piece to this. Um whether it's also through the schools, through the um through uh government television, through publications, on an show on WSAR and we're going to try to do that. Um, but we don't want to get to a situation where uh either what's happening is the cost of disposing is going to go up because of the stuff that's in there that shouldn't be or that we're getting fined, right?

And and it would be board of health inspectors who would do the your board of health inspectors are doing wonderful things already and they're already overworked probably.

Okay. Um, we have an enforcement division in DCM.

Okay.

Um, there's three people. And years ago, I used to be many years ago, over a quarter century ago, oddly enough, hate to say that showing my age, I was the city solicitor in New Bedford. And when we privatized solid waste in New Bedford at that time, we also entered into some type of an agreement that allowed um some of the inspectors to do work for the under board of health authority on

limited purposes and one of them is solid waste. So it would have to be worked out.

We that's why we need to have an agreement. All right. Okay.

Exactly. Yeah. They wouldn't be able to do the typical stuff that you do under chapter 111.

um that they would not have that authority. This would just be for solid waste and recycling.

Understood.

All right, sounds good.

Okay. Um you know, Charlie Denme did a circuit of a lot of public meetings. I I was at one of them for the for one of the neighborhood watches and I don't ever remember the conversation about the textiles and I don't remember the conversation about the food waste.

So Charlie retired about a year ago.

Yes, I know. A fine gentleman. Yes, he was. When he retired, we didn't have the textile ban in place yet.

Okay.

And the food waste ban was there, but it didn't affect they hadn't decided that they hadn't talked about 2030 being the deadline for households at that time.

So, um it's not something that Charlie would have been talking about. We will also be going to neighborhoods as well.

That's a great way to do it through neighborhood meetings. Um they'll suggest that the board the board has always looked at in my time on the board um education first before penalty and we strongly uh we got to heavily heavily provide the uh the uh the people who can take care of these textiles and and the food. I'm a composter. I compost here in the city. Do you?

I've been I've been doing it for like 20 years.

Yeah.

Uh and I have no problems with it.

Right. Um, well, I I compost, too, but you can't compost chicken bones. And well, no, that's true. You can't compost chicken bones, but uh No, it's true. And you know, I uh Mr.

Chairman, I definitely agree with you.

And one thing that will be coming out probably in July is I don't know if you if you're familiar with the size shopping bags that they have at BJS.

They're very large bags that you can use. So, the city is working with a contractor pursuant to a grant from D and we are getting those that are going to be used for recycling and right on the bags they have what you can recycle, what you can't. It's in multiple languages. Um, we're just waiting to get them printed up by the contractor and we also work very closely with the municipal umbsman from D. Her name is

Missy Hollandbeck and she meets regularly with um the recycling team.

Um, I think Tess people in the that meeting every so often. And the idea is that it's going to be they're the ones that are working to do this. And in large part, it's to make sure that we have the education piece out there first because you're right, if someone doesn't understand or doesn't know what they're supposed to do, it's a little bit disingenuous to find them first. You

work with them to try to bring it about and only then when they either refuse to or something happens, that's when the fines come in. Uh this is not a revenue generator by any means. Uh the idea is the purpose of the fines is for compliance.

Now you just mentioned bags.

What are those for household use for recycling? Is that what I heard you say?

The idea would be yes. Um we're going to sell the bags.

Oh no. The res No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not pay as you throw. Um this is these are reusable bags that you would keep in your house. You put the stuff in it and then you take it out to the bin and you put it out in the bin.

You empty the bag, bring it back in the house.

Yeah, you can put it right in your kitchen, right near your garbage bag.

All right, I got I got it.

Or whatever. But the idea is right on it, it shows you what you can and can't put in there. For example, a lot of people think that they could um recycle um they can't recycle pizza boxes. For a while, you couldn't. You can recycle a pizza box. You just have to scrape the pizza off the box and it can have grease on it.

I I I get it now. I just was having nightmares about purple bag.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. We We had that experiment once before.

I Well, well aware. I wasn't on the board at the time, but I was Yeah. Um that's not what we're looking to do. This is really um we have a grant from D. They're doing it with some other communities and they're working on it. So, we'll see how that works.

All right. You know, I'm of that age that I I remember trash was different than garbage and the garbage man came once a week and emptied out the the pale in the backyard.

Right out of the backyard, right from I still have one of those receptacles built in the ground in backyard. Yeah.

Well, I I have the place for it. Yes. We filled it in many years ago. But yes, there were always young guys who could hop the fences too while while doing it.

It's so this is becoming in most communities a budget buster and um what's happening is it used to be that you could handle it internally which is probably the most cost-effective way to do it because your staff could do other stuff when they're not collecting. But with privatization people went to privatization because the cost started getting out of hand. Um now the costs on privatization are high as well. So the

goal is to try to get the biggest bang for the buck to provide services because where it does tight the reason it's under board of health is this is what's keeping down nuisance claims. This is what's keeping down awful and things like that that would vermin other types of things that are well within border health regulation. Um in towns these solid waste contracts are with the board

of health. Um I'm I'm the town council in Matapoet and their collection contract is through the board of health.

Um in cities they do it a little bit different because they have much more ser you know ability for services. Um in your regulation you already mentioned the city picking up. Um but the idea is to kind of clarify it a little bit make it a little bit better and put a little bit of a fine schedule in there that will allow us to do that. Um and uh go from there.

Okay, we we we can work with that. We can work with that.

So, that's kind of what we're looking at.

So, I want to thank you for your time. I know you're all very busy and I appreciate it. And Tess, thanks for arranging this. And um I'll get together with Tess and probably in about a month, month and a half, I'll be asking to come before you. When I do, I'll get a draft of what we're going to talk about to Tess ahead of time and you can all take

a look at it and that way you'll have questions.

Okay. Very good.

All right. Thanks. Thanks for the time.

Have a good night everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Tess, what do we have for the director's report?

Um you know, I don't have too much. Um as Matt had mentioned, um we are working you know with um with uh Missy at D and some others. Elizabeth um PA who's in our department under the shared services grant. She's our public health specialist. Um part of her role really was to do some of that community education and outreach. So she'll be spearheading any kind of recycling outreach and education efforts um when

that when that time comes within the department. So we do have capacity there um to support you know um support this work. So um Elizabeth had been in some of those meetings. this kind of started while I was out on leave. Um and so um she had been in some of those meetings during the during the fall when I had been on out on maternity leave. So um so when Matt mentioned that that is our

team member who's who's handling um and we'll look to to do some of that work.

Um otherwise we're continuing on. You know again we've had um we've had a few um kind of new hires over the last um year or so. Um they're all doing a great job, Elizabeth included. Um Laura, who's our mass in motion coordinator, um Laura Burmel Diaz and Crystal Stone, who's our youth services coordinator, um are doing great job, you know, kind of um making those grants um kind of their own and

and really doing a lot of work um at the state level um and locally to um to streamline things and make those grants more efficient. So, um all positive things coming out of um the health department. Um there's uh you know, our epidemiologist is likely going to be coming um to our next meeting. She and our tobacco um control coordinator have been working on some um some mapping of

um our tobacco retailers, fines, etc.

So, um Hannah um who's our epidemiologist has been has been working on that project for some time and it looks like it's going to be ready to be presented soon. So um again having more data kind of helps us drive um interventions and programming. So um we're trying really taking a harder look at some of the um the information that we have and Hannah's been able to put that in formats that make it easier for

us all to take a look at. So, if there's anything that is of interest to you and we can try and um to take a look at the data that we have, um certainly you can reach out to me if there's something that that you're curious about and we can um we can kind of put Hannah um Hannah on it.

Um but I don't have too many other updates unless there are any questions.

Mike, it looked like maybe you had something you wanted to share or No, no, no. Okay.

Listening intently to your your Okay. Uh was there anything received for citizens input?

No.

Okay. Before we we go for the next meeting on Saturday, I spent the day at the Mass Association of Boards of Health, uh rather fascinating day. Um we we have to do a couple things to um to um what's the word I want? We we got to uh we got to add a couple of motions to our meetings. sometimes concerning hearings. Okay, that's one thing. And one of the things they recommended, um I

don't have one, but I'm going to get one. They recommended that all board of health members have a special board of health email.

Okay.

T Corey Board of Healthmail.com or whatever. something about if uh if there's a situation and they need documents from email, they will take all your emails.

But this way, if it's a board of health incident, they'll only take your board of health emails. And the the it was Cheryl Sabber and uh and Mike Hugo, and they were saying how the U do you really want someone looking at all 70,000 of your emails? Things like that. which just had to do with they're suggesting you have a a single email for border health business.

Okay.

All right, that sounds good.

I can look into that, too. If if if we'd prefer it to have that as like a cityisssued email, I can connect with them or unless you'd prefer to have a private email.

They they just suggested have a separate Okay.

And a private email.

Yeah. If if the city could establish the email, that'd be fine. Yeah, that that'd be fine.

I'll talk to it.

Okay, gentlemen. Following our usual procedure, the next meeting would be uh April the 28th. Is that good for everybody?

Yep.

No, April 27th. I looked at a Tuesday.

It would be Monday the 27th.

It should be fine.

Yep.

Okay. Can we have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Can we second? Can we have a roll call?

Uh Thomas Corey.

Yes. Michael Coughlin, yes.

Stephen Gagliardi, yes.

Okay, the meeting stands adjourned.

Everyone have a lovely weekend. Thank you for your time this afternoon. Stay dry. Stay warm. You too. Take care. Bye, everyone.