[0:00] okay uh welcome to the special meeting of the Board of

[0:05] Health November 28th 20123 M Mars roll call please first the

[0:12] statement of the open public meetings act in accordance with the requirements

[0:15] of New Jersey open public meetings act and notice of the special meeting was

[0:18] filed in the office of the Township Clerk clst it on the bulletin board in

[0:22] the municipal building and on the township website a mailed to all persons

[0:25] requesting notice in accordance with Township policy 48 hours notice of this

[0:29] meeting was also trans submitted via fax or email to Suburban Trends and Daily

[0:32] Record newspapers notice of this meeting included a statement that the purpose of

[0:36] this meeting is to review the Panic Township Health Department annual report

[0:40] and that no formal action will be taken all right thank you so much a roll call

[0:45] please Mr Dy president Mrs Lawrence Lynch here Mr herd is absent Mrs Russell

[0:52] here mayor Cole here items uh next on the agenda is items for discussion and

[0:58] I'm going to turn it over to our health officer yes thank you very

[1:02] much um in the packets you guys received uh we have um uh the summary of all the

[1:09] activity that we've had for the course of

[1:12] 2023 and um uh as in previous years we've completed all the mandated

[1:17] requirements uh we've gone above and beyond anything that's an elevated

[1:21] public health risk we do well above uh what's required at a minimum standard um

[1:27] and so we're going to continue that uh tradition it's an important policy that

[1:31] we have in place and that we're going to keep moving forward with that uh in

[1:34] section one I provided a summary here to give you a little bit of a a supplement

[1:40] to this vast report that's got a lot of numbers and shows all the activity we

[1:45] did throughout the course of the year but the summary is something I'd like

[1:49] you to just take a look at uh section one of the summary um deals with all the

[1:53] mandated activities that are required all the things that we accomplish

[1:56] throughout the year uh that are uh mandated uh section two of the summary

[2:03] uh pretty much uh talks about um the uh Disease Control emergency response that

[2:09] we've been engaged in that we were always engaged in but but uh in the

[2:13] summer U you know it's a little each season has its own challenges we're

[2:17] moving into a winter season which primarily is respiratory illnesses um Co

[2:23] is still there uh but it's it's it's become all these VAR subvariants of

[2:29] covid which are offshoots of Omron are are very much like the uh Corona viruses

[2:35] that we've had for a hundred years uh the seriousness of it is is greatly

[2:40] reduced uh hospitalizations are way down uh so the concern with Co is the concern

[2:46] that you have with Corona viruses uh it's a little more severe especially

[2:50] with people who have underlying conditions or of age uh so they have to

[2:55] take some more precautions than than what we experien with the common cold

[2:58] which most of the other Corona virus isn't a concern uh but um uh we also are

[3:04] looking at RSV flu and uh right now it's been fairly mild The Season's kicked off

[3:11] slowly which is which is nice so hopefully we'll have a less than average

[3:15] uh impact this winter um the next section three

[3:23] um uh again that's that's the uh emerging threats that we really just

[3:28] talked about um um and uh what we do for Disease Control which was really in the

[3:35] other section but Disease Control we do all kinds of things with Audits and

[3:40] health education our inspections and we're out there to really reduce the

[3:44] instances of disease the prevalence of disease in the community and that's

[3:48] always being done at a high level the staff the health department staff's

[3:52] still performing has always performed at a high level I'm really lucky to have a

[3:56] staff that's dedicated they're credentialed and we' we've really done a

[4:01] lot of good work the last 3 years but but I'm excited about what's coming and

[4:05] now that we have the scourge of the covid pandemic behind us we can start

[4:09] directing to a little more proactive activities to to help the community

[4:14] further um the last part of this summary I just want to bring to your attention

[4:20] some additional achievements that we've had that's nice yes yes that's a that's

[4:26] a great one um the first one is we expand the Public Health Region we took

[4:30] on town of botin and uh it's enabled us to actually increase our capacity uh to

[4:37] serve all six communities better with with more resources by bringing them in

[4:43] um and at the same time it's enabled us to reduce cost which is really not

[4:48] something you're hearing these days with the uh inflation rates and everything

[4:52] that we're seeing that not only did we keep that at Bay we actually reduced

[4:56] cost substantially to all six municipalities so that was really a Cod

[5:00] bringing and expanding the region uh the second part is the award that we

[5:05] received the grant funds uh was able to acquire an award of over

[5:11] $625,000 I was very excited by that um and uh we

[5:17] worked uh we wanted to apply these to projects and purchases that aren't only

[5:23] for public health infrastructure but actually could be broadly applied across

[5:28] all Town operations so I want to thank Mr Brewer who helped

[5:31] me coordinate with the other department heads to identify projects that are for

[5:36] public health but also used broadly by all the other departments and uh and we

[5:42] identified some fantastic uh projects apped to yeah so it's it's across the

[5:49] board that's been a great thing and then we've also entered into a contract with

[5:53] Atlantic Health uh to augment our health education services and uh they assigned

[5:58] a fantastic ftic professional uh to us we've been working together all year

[6:03] she's really a dynamic uh person who's who's uh excited

[6:08] about what she does we've gotten a lot of U we've put together some nice

[6:12] programs that are allowing us to do some Outreach in the community we've actually

[6:15] uh reached out to hurl Village and some of the other senior clubs uh not only

[6:21] here in panic but all all six towns we're looking at um augmenting the

[6:27] school systems health courses because they're not really touching on some of

[6:32] the things kids are dealing with now postco um there's been a lot of mental

[6:37] health issues since Co there's been uh substance abuse and addiction problems

[6:42] since Co um and uh we're working with the superintendent of schools uh in in

[6:48] all six municipalities I just had a meeting with

[6:52] Dr Portis about a month ago was very productive he was very pleased uh to to

[6:58] work with us and we're looking to put some programs together in the schools

[7:02] not only for the students but for the parents about some of these emerging

[7:06] Public Health threats that people may not be aware of and and it's really

[7:10] incumbent upon the health department to bring these issues to the FL and and try

[7:15] to have some kind of a program to address them and uh and so those are the

[7:20] additional achievements that we've had this year looking forward to continuing

[7:25] this in in the future with more things that we can uh do connect with the the

[7:31] community and uh that's pretty much it in addition to the summary you've got

[7:36] volumes of paper with the like I said the statistics and the numbers that you

[7:40] were provided um and um and that's pretty much it with the routine report

[7:47] is it five or six towns that we now we're at six towns so Bloomingdale for

[7:51] Park Kon Riverdale and town Bo which one am I missing us oh

[7:56] us yeah so I would think that Chilton would be

[8:00] should be I mean because five of the six are in Chilton's Network area so it

[8:05] would definitely be wise for and the rest are in marown yeah fore Park would

[8:10] probably go to marown hospital so and one of in the health education services

[8:14] are based out of marown and they do work here at of Chilton too so it connects

[8:18] all the towns to marown and Chilton both works out great you're doing yeah it's

[8:24] Cassidy Doc is the health educator she's been doing it for about 2

[8:30] 3 years very enthused and uh has some great ideas brings a nice fresh uh A

[8:37] View to to what we're trying to achieve when did we when did we say we

[8:43] brought botin on board how long have they April April was the first month

[8:47] that we that's why their numbers are lower CU they a full year yes and going

[8:52] into um next year we're as I said the uh fees for all six municipalities have

[8:58] dropped so they they were quite surprised when I

[9:01] gave the numbers um and so before I if you have

[9:06] any other questions if not I'd like to delve into the uh legislation I'm

[9:12] interested in discussing that that also has to do with public health threats

[9:18] that are emerging um they were already intensifying before covid but since Co

[9:23] it's gotten worse and so I went through all the ordinances um to see if there's

[9:29] any legislative approaches in addition to the programs we're trying to develop

[9:34] um if there's a legislative approach to certain aspects of it and I came up with

[9:38] uh actually three small small but important changes I like to make to some

[9:43] of the ordinances that we have um uh there was a memo that I had sent to the

[9:48] board um and so if you want to take a quick look at that I can uh show you uh

[9:54] on here what what I'm suggesting in the first section here uh

[9:59] the changes I'm proposing are the three there's three changes to the existing

[10:03] ordinances so the first is instituting reinspection fees and reinspection fees

[10:09] really are an a way to um have an administrative fine for to to

[10:15] establishments that have failed inspection and have been downgraded to

[10:19] something less than satisfactory when they're less all the

[10:23] all the establishments facilities and institutions that we regulate the reason

[10:28] we regulate them is they they're not operating in a compliant manner they're

[10:32] they're inherently dangerous to the public so when they're downgraded from

[10:36] satisfactory to something less there's a problem and so rather than do

[10:41] reinspection and and try to we educate is a primary thing but but sometimes

[10:48] you're dealing with businesses who are refusing to comply and with that the

[10:52] next option for us is to go to court it's very time consuming not only

[10:57] for for us but for the business business owners and uh it just becomes it

[11:02] sometimes ties up the court system and so I've used this in other

[11:06] municipalities it works very well where you can Institute a reinspection fee

[11:10] right on the spot if it's if it's something that has to be downgraded

[11:14] because of their failure to operate in a compliant manner um the fee would be uh

[11:21] equal to the amount they pay for their license so whatever they pay for their

[11:26] license is what the fine would be and we don't like to to find it's a

[11:29] reinspection fee but it is equal to the whatever license fee they're paying that

[11:35] fee will continue until we can Elevate them back to satisfactory status so we

[11:40] go back a second time and they're still haven't become compliant they'll be

[11:45] given the fee again and again if they fail to pay the fee then we'll issue a

[11:49] summons for fail to pay the fee and then we can also issue summonses for the

[11:53] citations that they failed to correct and so there's a it really intensifies

[11:58] our ability to do enforcement and get them on board much more quickly every

[12:03] day they're operating at a compliance is a day they're threatening the public so

[12:08] this abbreviates the process court dates can sometimes be a month off uh this is

[12:13] something you can do immediately you get good results very swiftly and once they

[12:17] get that understanding you don't have to do it that often it's really they know

[12:21] it's there they know it's something you can Levy and they they're they're just a

[12:25] lot more interested in what you have to say when you walk in how does it work

[12:29] now if they have to be reinspected you just go back at a particular back it's

[12:34] usually unannounced a lot of the times we'll give it a like we'll say you have

[12:39] a week to correct these items so at some point after a week we'll go back or two

[12:43] weeks depending on what it is and then if U if they haven't done it we say okay

[12:48] we'll give you you know we'll give you another few days but if not we'll give

[12:52] you summons and it's like a negotiation all the time yeah so it's better just to

[12:55] have the faith this way you can go back and say look I'm sorry but there is a

[12:59] reinspection fee because we had to downgrade you to a conditionally

[13:03] satisfactory rating or an unsatisfactory rating uh or if we had to close the

[13:08] place that that happens on occasion um these additional fees and fines hit hit

[13:14] the hard so and I'm assuming that the license fees vary greatly depending on

[13:18] the industry yes it depends on the type of business we're regulating and so for

[13:24] instance for the reinspection fees we're looking to do it for body art which is

[13:28] your tattoo and body piercing and permanent Cosmetics we're also looking

[13:33] to do this with public recreational bathing facilities so all all the pools

[13:37] and the complexes uh at gyms and things like that and then all of your food

[13:42] establishments so this is what we want to Institute for all these three

[13:47] categories can we just do three categories isn't that like picking and

[13:51] choosing should we just do everything through can you just three well these

[13:54] are the these are the main three that that we that we actually expect that

[13:59] present the most threat to the public if they're not in

[14:03] compliance um just so everyone knows this will if

[14:08] we CH these changes do come they'll have to come in front of us as a resolution

[14:13] and we'll have to approve them we're not approving these are just on Tom's wish

[14:17] list that he wants to do yeah this is right this

[14:19] is yeah for instance uh Mr usik and I would have to go through the ordinances

[14:25] figure out where we're going to place this I have some they're only to give

[14:30] you they're really it's a concept only to give you the concept of what we're

[14:35] trying to achieve obvious people but we would actually make this an ordinance

[14:38] and then we would we would just do when we go into a place we're going to find

[14:41] them we would find them on the spot um the other part of this we want

[14:47] to really uh go through the definitions especially with mobile food vendors

[14:51] temporary retail food establishments and farmers markets we had a farmers market

[14:56] here in town uh I don't think we have one right right now but it could

[14:59] reemerge and there's a lot of confusion of how you're going to license farmers

[15:03] markets and how they operate uh if you treat it like a temporary retail food

[15:07] establishment every seven days they have to come and get a new license but the

[15:11] farmers markets usually run from like April till November so we want to have

[15:15] one license that covers the entire period so we want something specific for

[15:19] farmers markets and we also want something to to distinguish mobile food

[15:22] vendors for temporary retail food establishments a little bit better

[15:26] because a lot of times the law is not being equally applied and it's also

[15:30] creating a lot of confusion to the business owners of what license type

[15:34] they want to get so we really want to um sharpen up those uh definitions and that

[15:39] way everybody's treated equally does that include the trucks that we have out

[15:43] here like on a Tuesday so they would be they would actually be a temporary

[15:47] retail food even though it's a truck because they're not on a route but

[15:51] that's where some of the confusion comes in so we're going to we're going to make

[15:54] those definitions a little clearer and then the last one that we'd like to do

[15:59] is right now we are training food workers they get a very cursory course

[16:04] that we give to their employees which makes us managers in their business in a

[16:11] sense because it's their responsibility to train the food workers it's not our

[16:15] responsibility and with this vicious turnover of food workers they're they

[16:19] come and go in two three months so by the time you get to train them annually

[16:24] they're got they you may have had two or three generations of food workers

[16:28] already none of whom were trained and because they're not trained

[16:33] how many people were exposed to foods that were not prepared properly so this

[16:38] uh this change would would remove that from the ordinance we no longer have the

[16:43] Health Department training Frontline food workers with a cursory kind of a

[16:47] course but the establishments would have to actually have managers trained uh

[16:52] with this more extensive course it's about a 16-hour training course and each

[16:57] shift will have to have have a food protection manager there and they'll be

[17:01] responsible to on every shift have somebody present when we do inspections

[17:06] they'll have to show us who that manager is the credential the certificate who's

[17:11] on shift they'll have to show us their license to make sure it's the person

[17:15] whose blackard is there and and that will go a long way to make sure

[17:19] everybody's trained all the time on every shift and so that's the other part

[17:23] that we'd like to to for you guys to consider and again Bob and I will be

[17:27] going through all three of these changes and ultimately sometime early next year

[17:32] uh the draft for your consideration will be presented okay the last one and and

[17:40] importantly we'd like to propose new legislation entirely in regards to uh

[17:45] electronic smoking device and psychoactive substance establishments we

[17:49] want to actually create a new license type yeah psychoactive sub that's

[17:53] interesting word it is I had to find I had to find a very one that encompasses

[17:58] and that is a scientific term for any of these

[18:02] things and the definition is in here what psychoactive substances are I put

[18:06] it into the memo just to give you an idea but basically um it these are drugs

[18:11] that alter your Consciousness and it comes in all forms and so we'd like to

[18:16] put this I I have a draft there it's about 15 pages it's taken about eight

[18:20] ordinances from across the states I Cherry Picked the best parts out and

[18:24] then I wrote the blue that kind of pulls it all together and all six town all the

[18:30] everything here is being presented to all six towns by the way okay and so

[18:35] there's going to be Bob and um uh Fred sro's office will be taking a look at it

[18:40] but I'm going to try to coordinate multiple attorneys to kind of put some

[18:44] kind of a model code out for all six towns we'd be ahead of the curve but

[18:49] it's important to do this because not only your kids getting CBD which is

[18:53] actually cannabis because it's got more THC in it than it's supposed to and

[18:58] people are buying Vapes with CBD but really they're it's

[19:02] cannabis we have to so we have to identify these places that are selling

[19:07] gummies that are really cannabis related they're not they're not the legal form

[19:12] of CBD there's also stuff like ketamine which is a cat tranquilizer called

[19:18] Special K that comes in liquid form that gas station cell and Retail food

[19:23] establishments sell it's it's liquor stores sell it uh and kids are getting

[19:29] their hands on it and most of these businesses aren't observing the uh uh

[19:33] the the age restrictions and they're also selling things that are flavored

[19:37] like candy uh cookies the packaging is cartoon figures so these businesses are

[19:43] like predatory in a lot of ways to our kids it's proliferating it's a real

[19:48] Hazard I don't even think parents know what's going on out there because it's

[19:51] rapidly uh proliferating and it's taking advantage of the mental state of our

[19:56] kids postco the addiction issue postco and it's

[20:01] incumbent upon us to to try to counter this so that's why i' I've put this

[20:05] legislation together and I'll be proposing it with you know Bob's help uh

[20:10] I would say sometime in the spring we should have it pounded out enough to to

[20:14] present it to you for consideration we were just talking about the smoke shops

[20:17] and what sell Li we to be doing that gone a long way from sniffing

[20:23] bottle

[20:27] glue Jee so anyway that concludes my uh reports any other comments for the offic

[20:34] J yeah no very good job whatever you're doing you're doing a great job keep it

[20:38] up yeah thank you thanks you for coming out car do I have to adjourn this

[20:43] meeting can I get a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll make that motion second

[20:47] I'll second all in favor I I thank you Tom

Pequannock Township Council Meeting as the Board of Health

Transcript