The town’s board of health is making some changes aimed at providing more outreach and education for the town’s residents.
Several members of the board appeared before the town council Tuesday night to highlight some of those changes, which will include an earlier start time for meetings, having the meetings televised on WCAT, and bringing in guest speakers to talk about different topics of importance to the board and the town.
“The board of health is basically a rules and regulations kind of an organization, and we have decided to sort of expand that,” said board member Jeanne Maggio.
Maggio said the board will begin holding its meetings at 3:30 p.m. in the Harvey Room at town hall.
“The reason we are going to do that … is because we are going to expand it to have guest speakers who are in some way affiliated with health,” said Maggio. “For example, our two inspectors … we want to make sure that the milk we take out of the stores is at the right temperature and make sure that the restaurants that you eat out of are healthy and safe. We want people to come to these meetings to listen to these presentations that talk about the different things that affect the health of our community.”
Other potential speakers at future meetings include the town manager and the police and fire chiefs, she added.
“We are going to have it televised by WCAT, so those who cannot come to the meetings at 3:30 in the afternoon have the ability to see it later on on WCAT,” said Maggio. “We welcome people to come to the meetings.”
Maggio said the goal of the changes to the board of health is to operate in a way that is more efficient and more open to residents.
“I know we have talked about how you wanted to change things up, and I think it is a fantastic idea,” said Council President Jim Letterie.