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Board of Health Meeting Minutes 1/3/22

Meeting date: 
Monday, January 3, 2022

MONTEREY BOARD OF HEALTH MEETING MINUTES

Date:  1/3/22

Present:   John Makuc, Julio Rodriguez, Mort Salomon, Jim Wilusz, Mary Makuc

Meeting began at 2:15pm

  1. The Board approved the minutes of 12/6 and 10/18/21.
  2. Jim Wilusz caught the board up on the draft Inter-municipal agreement with the Public Health Collaborative for 10 South Berkshire towns.  Lee will be the fiscal host and there is no financial cost to the town, it is all grant funded.  Town counsel has reviewed the draft for Monterey.  No action is necessary today as Jim is still waiting on any comments from the other 9 towns.
  3. Jim reported that the Public Health Collaborative is providing good information weekly and Monterey has been reposting it on the town website and Facebook page.
  4. The Board was made aware of Webeoc training available if anyone is interested from the board in attending.
  5. Julio inquired about the current status of septic plan approvals.  Both Jim and John explained that right now all applications are submitted through the online permitting system and 99% of them are reviewed and approved by our Health Agent, Jim.  Those that require variances come before the Board for review and approval.  Jim also made the Board aware that Camp Half Moon has been sold and the new owners are aware that the property will require a full septic upgrade within 2 years.
  6. COVID:
    1. Letter from the school committee: Jim and the Board are still in full agreement that they are not in the business of regulating school districts and that the school committee has the full power and authorization to mandate vaccines if they so choose.
    2. Home test kits are available at pharmacies (although the Board realizes that it is becoming more challenging. 
    3. The Governor did realize there is an equity issue and purchased 2.1 million test which were distributed to high poverty/low income areas (Monterey was not a recipient, Gt. Barrington and Mt Washington were in this area).
    4. The public health nurses are working with the Department of Public Health to issue Binax test which come with strict stipulations in order to receive (these are the test used in the recent drive up test sites).
    5. The Governor has also announced a successful negotiation with several vendors for municipalities to purchase the home test kits at a lower cost.  Jim is looking into this; right now the vendors are not returning his calls.  Discussion ensued about whether the town should purchase any and what they would be used for.  The Select Board at a recent meeting voted to purchase tests and wanted staff tested daily.  Discussion ensued about how the tests are not designed for daily/weekly testing and the town would just be wasting their monies.  There was also concern that home tests aren’t tracked like the testing sites and we’d lose a grip on accurate positivity rates.  The Board ultimately agreed that the town should not be providing test kits and that all testing should be performed through the proper, documented channels.
    6. The Board briefly discussed mandating all employees to be vaccinated.  Melissa stated that we should check with counsel first on this and whether we can inquire as to someone’s vaccination status.  This will be tabled to a future meeting.

A motion was made, seconded and unanimously approved to adjourn at 3:45pm.

Submitted by,

Melissa Noe, Town Administrator