By Jean Perry, Neighb News Correspondent
The Fairhaven Board of Health meeting was a quick one on 9/10, focusing mainly on the approval of several marina permits that had not been renewed or inspected prior to the 2020 boating season.
Board of Health member Geoff Haworth during the 8/24 meeting paid attention to a number of marina permitting inspections that had not been completed; however, those permits were extended via Governor Charlie Baker’s Act To Address Challenges Faced by Municipalities and State Authorities Resulting from COVID-19, which allowed permits in good standing to remain in effect throughout the state of emergency.
The board approved marina permits for Marina at Slocum Cove and the Moby Dick Marina.
“We’ve almost got them all in compliance,” said Mr. Haworth, through 12/31 of this year. “So we were able— Most of that was Miss DuPont working in the office, but we were able to get them all permitted up like they properly should be and they’ve all been inspected, correct?” he asked Sarah Dupont, interim health agent.
“I’ve inspected four; two already had permits before I came in,” she replied.
Mr. Haworth noted that none of the public beaches had been issued permits for this year, but two private beaches were issued permits on 6/29 and 6/30.
“So, just another thing that we’ve failed to follow through on this year and I just want to make sure the board’s aware of that,” said Haworth.
The board approved the minutes of the 8/24 meeting only, and withheld from approving a slew of meeting minutes dating from 5/28 to 7/30, which Mr. Haworth initially perceived as having been tampered with remotely by an unknown person. Mr. Haworth alleged that Microsoft Word documents were missing and PDF versions of the minutes had been altered.
Since that meeting former Board of Health Administrative Assistant Amanda Blais explained that she had been taking minutes remotely since she began working from home and stopped creating Word documents when Chairperson Peter DeTerra was appointed as chairperson to prevent him from altering them himself.
“I have seen in a local press release that the secretary admits to have made the Word documents not available to the board and just PDFs, so we’re going to have to actually go through and confirm if the minutes are accurate, so there’ll be a little bit more time on those,” said Mr. Haworth.
In other matters, Ms. Dupont said Fairhaven has had four active COVID-19 cases within the last two week, making it 259 total for the year. She also said that over the Labor Day weekend there were several complaints about COVID-19 non-compliance with public establishments and with individuals in town.
“We are working on addressing these issues and are in communications with different establishments and folks that may have been involved,” said Ms. Dupont.
The board also approved a contract with Community Nurses Home Care, which Mr. Haworth stated was supposed to have been completed back in June and did not understand why the board was just addressing the contract now in September.
The board gave approval for Coastline Elderly to conduct some operations pertaining to the Meals on Wheels program at Oxford Terrace. Coastline Elderly workers will not be preparing food at the site, rather will be “plating” the food in preparation for distribution. The board waived any related permitting fees for the non-profit organization.
Before adjourning, the board approved another two weeks of administrative leave for Health Agent Mary Freire-Kellogg at the advisement of Town Counsel Thomas Crotty, who said the Town was still working toward an amenable resolution to the issues that have arisen between Ms. Freire-Kellogg and the board members.
Mr. DeTerra recused himself from executive session to discuss strategy related to potential litigation involving Ms. Freire-Kellogg.
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