[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, well, welcome to the October meeting of the MedFed Board of Health. Dr. Plattowitz, would you like to open the meeting?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Sure. Open the meeting. First is the approval of the minutes from last time. Pretty much, we talked about the biosafety regulation update on the coronavirus. Any additions, deletions, recommendations? Eric, not in motion to approve Kathy second and glad. So yes. All right. Very quickly. You want to start with the grease trap?
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yes, we have with us, um, McNamara Olivia and she is with the ground or cafe in Medford. Um, currently our grease job regulations require orderly, orderly cleaning. McNamara is requesting that she's able to have a variance to that requirement to have cleaning done only every six months due to no usage of any fried product listed on their menu. She's also provided the last three months of, sorry about that. last three months of her reports from Baker Commodities who service her grease traps. And they pretty much are consistently low as far as the volume of what they're removing. So it's like only 10%. So you want to tell us a little bit more about what you do at the Grounded Cafe?
[SPEAKER_02]: Good afternoon, everyone. Since I got the cafe in here, we have done six months cleaning here. We never did a quarter. It's always been six months. So from the past inspection, I was informed that I need to present the situation to you guys. And thank you for let me say about the cafe and help me with this. Over here, pretty much, we are just doing eggs, toastings, breads. We don't fry anything. We don't have the fryer over here. It's pretty much smoothies, coffees, acai bowl, which is kind of ice cream with the fruit, French toast, which we do in the flat grill, paninis, which is a flat grill. really the oil in here, it's just to kind of put on the surface of the flat grill so the way the eggs and stuff is not gonna stick on it. So we don't have fry, nothing here. So pretty much whatever we are doing here, it doesn't, in my end, I believe doesn't require us to cleaning every three months because the grease trap don't even have enough stuff inside to be cleaned.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: And it looks like that from your reports as well.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I think that's reasonable. I think the spirit of it initially was because of all the trouble with the city soil line plumbing. That's why we spoke about the grease trap every three months. But that said, mindful of the first applicants for our variants, there's a lot of places, commercial places, really when you take a step back, don't generate a lot of grease. So it'd be undue hardship for them to clean them quarterly. And this sounds like in the middle, there's some grease, but not to the level of quarterly. So I don't see a problem giving her a variance for every six months, especially given the fact that the grease company, cleaning company has already submitted documents saying that she doesn't generate that much grease.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Joining the meeting now Jeanette so is actually the inspector who was doing the, the food inspections on the cafe. So just give her a minute to come in and see if she has anything to add.
[Emily Hedeman]: Hi, my name is Annette. I'm one of the health inspectors here in the city of Medford. So basically when I was just doing the routine inspection for Grounder Cafe, normally part of the inspection is that we have to ask about the grease trap reports because those have to be kept in the establishment for us to review. So McNaira was telling me that they actually do it differently. They don't do it every three months as per the grease trap regulation. So then I told her that she does have to apply for a variance. And that's why we're here.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah. Yeah. And I think we should take these up as we are on individual cases. When there you do the right thing, you need to get a variance. And, um, I think there's a good case for a variance mindful that if she's changes the ownership, that various doesn't go with the, you know, we'd have to rebook at it depending on what kind of items they saw.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, so we can take a vote to grant the Grinder Cafe as long as it stays the Grinder Cafe with the same ownership in place and the same menu. The menu changes, we might have to take another look as well if you expand the menu. But we have a vote to allow the Grinder Cafe a variance so that the restrap cleaning only has to occur every six months. Do I have a motion?
[Emily Hedeman]: A 10% volume increases up.
[MCM00001230_SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion to approve.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Motion to approve.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Approve. Second by Kathy Shabani. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. Okay, thank you. So you have your variance and you'll be getting that in writing from the board. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, McNamara.
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I able to log out? Yes. Thank you. Have a great afternoon, everybody. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Update on the COVID and flu vaccination clinics.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: I was hoping Sarah would be here with us, but I think she is actually doing some homebound vaccinations as we speak. Vanessa, can you mute your other, you're logged in twice. You can hear the backbone noise.
[Emily Hedeman]: I'm gonna help out Millie.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Yeah, thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: As a joke, I'm only kidding. It's not Florida, you don't get to log in twice.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Um, So yeah, so we've been doing several clinics, both flu and booster. We did a counseling aging clinic last weekend, last Friday, about a hundred, a little over a hundred folks got their 65 plus flu high dose vaccine. So that was great. And then we've been doing homebound boosters and flu. And then coming up on November 5th from 9 a.m. to noon, We are having a regional clinic with Arlington and Somerville. It's going to be at the Gancher Center at Tufts University. And that QR code, that link, the promotion of that should be going out if it's not already out this week. So we have a pretty good size space where we have a pretty good number of vaccines and appointments. We're hoping that people come out and get the COVID booster. I got my booster and my flu at the same time. And perfect, no side effects. Felt great the next day, just FYI, because I was a little concerned. But so that's, you know, I hope people do that because we know the upcoming The upcoming winter is going to be tough, is what they're predicting. And with this new variant, we have, you know, an uptick in cases, we have the flu knocking on our door. So we're very concerned about a tough respiratory disease winter. So really, really trying to get people out there to go get both their flu and their COVID booster. They don't have their primary, get your primary series of your COVID, please, and then get your boosters. So any questions on that? We're thinking we're gonna get a good update at this November clinic. Tufts University is actually mandating all students to have the booster by December. So they are looking for, they're gonna be holding their own clinics. They may open a couple of them to the community as well on campus. but they're certainly gonna be doing their own clinics to vaccinate their students. They have a contract to do that, but I know we'll be getting, we have their students coming to our November 5th clinic as well, since they are allowing us to host it there. So that's great. Okay, any questions, thoughts, ideas? So next on the agenda we have some new wonderful positions and faces here in the Board of Health, working out of the Office of Prevention and Outreach with Penny, and working in our office as well. I don't know if Millie is able to join us again, but I'm going to ask our new folks to talk a little bit about themselves and their new positions and where they see their positions going. First off, we have a new coordinator of Mystic Valley Public Health Coalition BSAS prevention grant. at Sophie Greenbaum. We're really excited to have her. Sophie, you wanna tell us a little bit about yourself and your new position?
[MCM00001230_SPEAKER_01]: Yes, absolutely. Hi all. I think I have met a good number of you, but my name is Sophie Greenbaum. I'm working as the Mississippi Valley Public Health Coalition Prevention Coordinator, like Marianne said. And right now I have, well, I've been here for just under a week and I have, been really trying to get the lay of the land of what's going on over here in Medford, but then also in the other cities and towns that we're working with. So I actually just got back from a meeting in Melrose and then Wakefield also this morning. It's been really fantastic getting to meet the rest of the people who make up the coalition and keep the work moving. And right now I think we're holding off waiting on some of the data for the qualitative surveys that have been done and the quantitative surveys, and then hoping to then use that to guide what we're going to be doing over the next couple of years in building out that strategic plan. Oh, that just got really dark. But I'm really excited to be working with you all, and thank you for welcoming me into the team.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Welcome. And now we also have a familiar face, but in a new position. Sophie Antoine, as you know, is one of our health inspectors and has taken on the position that we're really excited about to have a brand new role here in Medford, working with the Board of Health, a health equity coordinator position. And that's now Sophie's new role here. yeah, looking for a replacement inspector, if anybody knows anyone who could possibly fill Sophie's shoes, that would be great. But Sophie, want to tell us a little bit about your new position and how you're going to
[MCM00000940_SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, of course. Hi, everyone. I am, like Marian said, I'm the new health equity coordinator with the city. I'm working with a few liaisons. We are also hiring. We have a Spanish-speaking, we're hoping to get a Spanish-speaking. We have a Portuguese, Haitian, Creole, and Arabic-speaking liaison. Pretty much my role would be to work with the data that is available in the city to find out anything around social determinants of health. and hopefully improve the health and lives of people who are working and living in Medford. So it's a lot of collaboration and partnership with people at City Hall and outside of City Hall. And I started a new position last Tuesday and I've been trying to meet with a lot of key stakeholders, see how we can get this thing moving. So I'm really excited. It's very important to me.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: So I'm hoping to... Yeah, I think, you know, obviously the pandemic really highlighted the disparities, the health disparities that are occurring and something that we're really really grateful that we're able to use some APA funding to fill this position. So we have a lot of work to do, but we have some great people now on board to help us get the work done. Penny, I don't know if you want to add anything.
[Funaiole]: Yeah, just that we got a lot to do, and we're going to do it. Team Sophie is going to crush it, I think. So we're very excited about how far we're reaching out and what we're going to be doing. So we have some stuff that we've always done, and we're going to do it, and we're going to learn more about it, and we're going to do it better. on our regional youth substance use prevention work. And then Sophie's going to be on a fact finding mission too to figure out what are the gaps in the resources that we need to do to really support our community members to stay housed in the city of Medford, to have resources that will allow them to have a healthy and successful life. So we're really excited about all the work we're about to do.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: So more to come. And as we roll out things, we certainly will bring it back to the board and inform you of the work and certainly look for your input and guidance on that. And then if anybody who's available and wants to help out for the November 5th clinic, we could certainly use assistance with vaccinators and non-medical folks as well. So we'll put that out there. They could certainly contact the board of health if they're interested in assisting with a clinic on the November 5th. It is gonna be a regional effort, so we do have volunteers and folks helping out from Arlington and Southern Bowl as well, but we are anticipating a big crowd, so. With that said, I don't think there's any other business, and I have a motion to adjourn, unless there's any thoughts or questions, or?
[Adam Hurtubise]: I have a question, how do you get Vanessa, how do you get that dual image, two different entries?
[MCM00001437_SPEAKER_05]: That's why you were hearing probably some voices in the background. I was trying to help out Millie, who's the new hire. Oh, I see.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I wanted to introduce Millie too.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Millie is our new special projects manager, and she's going to be helping out the Board of Health with all the work that we need to be done on our inspectional side of life as well. So Millie is here to help us, and she's actually taking minutes today, which is great. So you'll be seeing her at future board meetings as well. So, and we'll have her name changed from Danensa to Millie.
[Adam Hurtubise]: I gotcha.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Okay, do I motion to adjourn?
[Adam Hurtubise]: Yeah, motion to adjourn.
[MaryAnn O'Connor]: Second. Second. Thank you, Kathy. Okay. Have a good week. Take care. Thank you.
[Adam Hurtubise]: Bye.