What interim agreement?

After a quick excursion out to water my garden and secure my iced latte, I once again picked up (figuratively speaking) the Daily News.

I came across this story, on which the headline promises reasons why councillors voted against the shared health services agreement with Amesbury and Salisbury.

First of all, you have to go pretty far down in the piece to get any reaction from any councillor and the first reaction was from last week.

But more important - what is this "interim regional health agreement" referenced in the lead?

The city will continue to participate in the interim regional health agreement that has been in place with Salisbury and Amesbury until the end of the 60-day window to exit the deal — a window spelled out in the agreement.

Where did that come from? Was that agreement approved by the City Council? What the ...?

No slice of Jack for you or you*

There were many objections from both the council and from the audience and it's a sad day for Amesbury and Salisbury.

Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer's Chief of Staff Kendra Amaral exited city council chambers, cheeks flaming. At-large councillor and candidate for mayor Donna Holaday looked pale and drawn. James Shanley was James Shanley (he's nothing if not consistent).

Holaday, who criticized people who criticized the agreement without reading it, went on the rail against the city's previous animal control officer, saying we would have, "better animal control services than ever before in this city."

That went over really well with our last ACO, Becky Taylor, who was in the audience. After the meeting, Holaday was accosted in the hallway by both people from Newburyport and from Amesbury, where the long-time ACO was booted in anticipation of this agreement going through.

Turned out that Holaday was referring to Carol LaRoque, who was 2 ACOs ago. Holaday's objection was that LaRoque worked for both Newburyport and Newbury (where she works now).

Someone informed Holaday that LaRoque worked for Newbury in addition to Newburyport and was not in fact working in Newbury on our dime, as Holaday apparently thought.

I will note here that Becky once came to my house at 10 p.m. to rescue a loose dog that had slumped on my porch.

The rest of it was all about dollars and the landfill. At-large councillor Steve Hutcheson pointed out that the stated $37,646 in "savings" did not include the cost of coming up with (8 or so versions of) the agreement or any other costs that no one knows about.

Hutcheson said after the meeting that you can't have zero expenses when there were expenses. That was pretty amusing.

The words "dilution of services" were said a lot.

Mayor John Moak told the Council that the city can now stop monitoring the landfill as much because the DEP is on the case now. And we know how effective DEP has been at staying on New Ventures' case (sorry Dick Chalpin).

He also said that the in this case, the mayor does not have the power to opt out of the contract - it's in the hands of the City Council, he said.

Sort of like how the landfill Host Community Agreement is in the City Council's hands?

Good grief!

Landfill neighbor Mary Wolf said that some DEP person told her earlier today - at her home - that the landfill won't be capped until next year (as opposed to the schedule, which outlines numbers of days and penalties for not meeting the schedule and such).

The only 2 candidates for public office that I could identify in the audience were both from Ward 3: Robert Cronin and Dawne Shand. Ari Herzog is out of town because of a death in the family.

Barry Connell was not at the meeting. I believe he also has a family issue.

*Credit to the Ward 4 councillor for the inspiration

Shared health services goes down, 3-7

Ed Cameron, Donna Holaday and James Shanley - three once and two 'future' (to coin a phrase) candidates for mayor and the only 3 city councillors who tonight voted for the shared health services agreement with Amesbury and Salisbury.

Details to follow -

Questions: Regionalization of Health Department

These are not my questions, they are someone else's questions. But they're good questions.

1. What are the current services provided by the Health Department by time allocated? I.e. how many hours per restaurant inspections, septic, counter/public assistance etc. This should be expressed by FTE or Full Time Equivalents to allow for a comparison to the next question. Essentially how does the Health Director, staff and consultants allocate their time? What is the duration of the data, or how long has it been collected, does it take into account seasonal variation?

2. What are the planned services provided by the Health Department by the FTE time allocated after regionalization? I.e. how many hours per restaurant inspections, septic, counter/public assistance etc. Who is performing these tasks? Is there a table comparing the time allocation for Newburyport only and Regionalization? Essentially is regionalization the result of an analysis with real local data, or is it a response to a trend in government without any supporting local data?

3. Are there alternate scenarios that save more money without regionalization? Has a report on those alternatives been developed and the regionalization alternative voted as the most optimal to proceed?

4. Given the current level of service, has anyone determined if the services are currently sufficient or are there areas the Health Department should expand or improve services in Newburyport? Essentially how do we know if what we do today is good enough?

5. Have there been scenarios developed that would address possible increased spike in demand from each community, and, are there contingency plans based on these scenarios? Access to additional staff via contract?

6. Is there a benchmarking analysis comparing like communities and their service platforms as individual communities and then as regionalized services? If there is no analysis then what are the criteria baseline operations? How will we know if this works? What are the indicators and how do they relate to services levels and performance?

7. What outreach has been conducted to the Health Department stakeholders such as septic installers, restaurant owners, landfill neighbors, the hospital, local physicians and nursing associations, public safety officials etc? Are they concerned, or satisfied with the current level of services, are there areas that need improvement, or are not needed?

8. Given the Health Department is a permitting and enforcement entity, and most businesses would not want to “rock the boat”, has the review with stakeholders who seek permits or licenses been done anonymously to provide open responses?

9. Have these stakeholders been informed of any service changes, operational needs, application requirements, and had the opportunity to comment? Have the changes in applications methods, fees and other administrative issues been approved as required by each community?

10. Is there an evaluation methodology to determine if the program is successful? What are the measurable components of the methodology, and who determines if the performance outcomes are met? When the evaluation is conducted, what are the milestones, under what conditions; public hearing etc.?

11. What are the protocols for responding to health emergencies when the demands conflict between municipalities? What town will receive priority services and under what criteria is the community triage going to occur.

12. What if a health issues in one community is caused by the actions of another community? Are there conflict of interest disclosures planned to be filed in each community?

13. Each community has emergency operations plans, or policies, or other like plans. In each of these plans it is necessary that the Health Department plays a specific role. Have the plans in each community been reviewed to determine if a joint crisis across three communities can be addressed by one department? Has that review been conducted with the respective public safety officials? Have or will the plans be amended to reflect the change in operational response based on the Regionalization?

14. Given that each community views enforcement, proactive programs, and other issues differently, how will the Health Director reconcile the policy shifts between communities and sustain credibility by providing consistent response and actions? What are the ordinances and policy directions in each community and how do they relate to the Health Director’s methodologies? How does one handle the diverse precedents when the Health Director could be called into court and asked to respond to a question such as: Why did you enforce this issue against my client in Town “A” but not in Town “B”? Is there a policy across the three communities that reconciles the various approaches and provides consistency? How do the departmental mission statements and objectives of each community align? Have the application methods in each community been reconciled to create a consistent approach?

15. What happens in the event the Health Director is required to act as an enforcement agent against a municipality based on a vote of the Board of Health of that community? (i.e., leaking sewer line with no action by Town, or Water boil order ignored by Town, etc. ) How is that handled when an employee of Newburyport, the Health Director, may act against another community as an agent of that community by agreement? Can the community terminate the regionalization contract to stop the enforcement by the Health Director? What happens to the residents of that community if that occurs? Who protects their interests?

16. The next three questions assume that consultants will fill inspectional gaps. The Health Department most likely will be augmented with consulting staff paid by a fee system, such as restaurant inspectors, septic inspectors etc. Who sets the standards for the consultants, are the standards available? Have or will they be procured within the required statutes? Who evaluates the consultants? How does a business or person grieve consultants’ services? Who holds the contract with the consultants? If Newburyport holds the contract what is our liability for negligence by a consultant? Consultants are typically asked to post a bond for insurance purposes, will this happen and for how much?

17. The use of consultants diverts revenue from the City to the consultants from the licenses and or fees to cover the costs of inspections. Has there been an analysis on lost revenues which could be paid to the general fund and will now be paid to consultants? If City staff performs the inspections under Newburyport only scenarios, does the revenue exceed the regionalization benefit?

18. Given consultant based services, how do you manage complaints and investigate abutter’s concerns when you will not get a fee because there is no permit fee required to file a complaint. Essentially who determines if a septic system is not to code when the request is not based on a fee paid for a permit but a complaint by an abutter? Do you charge people for complaints? How many complaints were issued for all of the communities across all service sectors for health?

19. Has each community done every conceivable management and budget analysis before regionalization was considered? Are there other areas that could be regionalized that would not dramatically affect health services? What is the actual net savings in dollars to Newburyport, without caveats? Have the respective Finance staff of each community independently reviewed and certified the numbers?

I don't have a lot to say about this agreement, except that instinct tells me that it's not good. The whole landfill situation has given me a bad taste for how our health dept. deals with deals gone bad.

Add to that the fact that the famous 'independent" legal opinions all came from the same law firm ... the one that is also advising about the landfill ... and we can all see (and smell) how that's going.

I guess I did have a lot to say.

Beware of misleading statements

Yeah, right, Councillor.

I was just reading Donna Holaday's "Viewpoint" about shared health services in some recent issue of the Daily News when I came across this:

This shared-services agreement has been carefully developed over many months with representatives from each municipality and thoroughly reviewed by each community's legal services.

Ha! They all use the same one - Kopelman & Paige. I found that out when I went to Amesbury's Municipal Council - it was said, right up front, by I believe Roger Benson.

Regionalization vote next Thurs.

I was just notified that the mayor has called a special meeting for 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, July 30, "for the purpose of voting on a health services agreement with Amesbury and Salisbury."

The date was chosen to work around some of the Yankee Homecoming events.

Good luck, Amesbuy and Salisbury

So at the beginning of my wild foray through City Hall this morning, I stopped in the Health Dept. to get a copy of the latest shared health services agreement.

"We don't have it," the woman at the counter said.

She recognized my amazement and went on to say that it was in Amesbury.

"And you don't have a copy here?" I asked, just to be sure I was understanding her correctly.

No, she assured me, it was in Amesbury - and I'd have to get it from Amesbury. I will note here that Amesbury's City Clerk, Bonnijo Kitchin, offered last night to send me one today if I couldn't get one.

Anyway, back to the Newburyport Board of Health, in whose hands both Amesbury and Salisbury have placed their faith.

The woman didn't stop there. She proceeded to volunteer that Amesbury passed the agreement last night and that "them and all" were there at the meeting.

"Who was at the meeting?" I asked.

"Mr. Morris," she replied.

"No he wasn't," I said, although I did add that he could have been up in that little glassed-in room where Kezer watches the Municipal Council meetings.

She blinked - but reiterated that he had been there.

"Well I didn't see him, and I was there," I replied as I turned to leave.

So up to the Clerk's Office, where Richard Jones very helpfully provided me with a copy of the updated agreement, which I knew damn well Newburyport had because the City Councillors all had copies of it on Monday night and it's our friggin' agreement.

WTF?

If she had said that she couldn't give it to me without Jack Morris' approval, I would have been a bit peeved - but why lie?

Yeah, this whole shared services thing is going to work out really well.

More thoughts on shared services

I was just reading the story in the Daily News about Amesbury's Municipal Council approving the shared health services agreement.

Because I was sort of charged up last night after the meeting, I held off commenting a lot about things that were said at the meeting, but in the light of a new day -

Aside from the "excess capacity" remark by Robert Lavoie, Councilor Allen Neale also remarked that the town had held 2 workshops on the agreement - neither of which anyone from Newburyport attended.

There was no one from Newburyport at last night's meeting, either (I mean in an official municipal capacity, of course, since Lynn Hendricks and I both live here).

Neale also noted, by the way, the Salisbury had given Neil Harrington authorization to accept minor changes to the agreement.

Anyway, I think that if I were debating such an agreement to basically hand over important city functions to another community, I'd sort of like to see at least one person from that other community who is taking an interest.

At the earlier meeting of our City Council (when the issue was tabled the first time), both Chairman Roger Benson and Lavoie were in the audience.

On Monday, Mayor Kezer's Chief of Staff Kendra Amaral was there, sitting next to our Health Director Jack Morris - an individual who stands to gain a lot in this deal, by the way. But he deserves it, Lavoie implied.

"Newburyport has expertise in the administrative function in the health area that is the envy of all of us," Lavoie said. "They're well organized and have good personnel there. It's just a fact of life that some people do things better."

Somehow thoughts of a certain landfill crept into my head - and I had to smile.

Speaking of the landfill, I drove down Low St. on my way home, for the specific purpose of checking out the aroma in the area.

I did not smell anything as I passed by Crow Lane, but I did start coughing down near Hale St. and there was a detectable sharp smell there, as there was at the Dunkin Donuts on the traffic circle (it was not as strong there).

But back to the issue at hand.

See, now here's the thing - if Newburyport does not join in this agreement, Amesbury will be totally screwed, having decimated its Dept. of Health and laid off its animal control officer and all that.

Amesbury must be pretty damned confident that this is going to pass our City Council, in spite of the fact that from the meeting a few weeeks ago, it did not look as if Newburyport was going to go for it.

But I guess we should note what Neale also said (this is from the DN):

And for their services, Amesbury and Salisbury will pay Newburyport and make it equitable in the process, said Councilor Allen Neale, chairman of the Finance Committee.

"Newburyport is going to pick up all the variable costs, but they also get from us a contribution to their fixed cost, which reduces their property tax bill at the end of the day," Neale said. "Anytime you more than cover your variable costs and pick up a fixed cost, that's good for the community."

Well I guess that's true, except from what I understand Newburyport is going to hire an animal control officer to cover nights and weekends and also pay a fee to Salisbury for its animal control guy. And don't forget the retirement thing.

Amesbury goes for it

The Amesbury Municipal Council within the last hour accepted the shared health services agreement.

Apparently they believe that Newburyport has "excess capacity" to deliver health services to three communities. I mean, that's what one of them said.

Someone pointed out to me (privately) that not only will Newburyport be paying for the bulk of the services, but that citizens here will foot the entire bill for Health Director Jack Morris' retirement, based on his increased salary.

Pffft

Council tables regionalized health deal (again)

As reported in the Daily News today, the City Council once again tabled a vote on the shared health services agreement.

This is about as weird as it gets.

Well, actually, no it isn't but it sounded good, didn't it?

Salisbury has already approved the agreement and then Amesbury goes ahead and changes it? I notice nobody said last night what the changes were ... Donna Holaday only said they were "clarification changes."

What is the legality of changing an agreement, however minor the changes, that Salisbury has already voted to adopt?

Council tables regionalized health deal

Maybe that's why there was no reporter from the Daily News present at the meeting? Is the DN prescient?

Nobody else there from here who cared, either (unless that's why Terry Berns was there).

Two Amesbury municipal councilors - President Roger Benson and V.P. Robert Lavoie - were there but didn't speak.

I mean, they spoke to me but not publicly.

I guess Barry Connell, Tom Jones and Larry McCavitt voted against tabling the agreement because they all 3 wanted to vote "no" tonight. Jones and McCavitt both had some pretty strong criticism of the agreement, most notably that Newburyport would bear 64 percent of the cost.

He added that it was a heck of a deal - for Salisbury.

I haven't seen a recent version of the agreement, yet.

Tomorrow night

I've been told that tomorrow evening will be the hot time for pulling papers (City Hall open late on Thursdays).

What a shame I have a meeting of my writers' group tomorrow evening. I'm even skipping the regionalization meeting because ... well ... interesting conversation with like-minded people vs. potential screaming and swearing.

I'm certain the regionalization meeting will be hugely entertaining.

Potential mayoral candidates should be paying close attention to this - although it could blow up and over while Moak is still the mayor.

I will try to remember to take a break to call the Clerk's Office during the writers' group event and post after I get home.

See what I am willing to do for you guys? And do you appreciate it? I don't see any sushi on my doorstep ...

Salisbury BOH now has complaints

In case you were wondering - and I know you all were - what exactly a Board of Health does, here's a quick summary from MAHB (the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards).

Because now, you see, Salisbury's Board of Health is kicking up a fuss about this proposed "shared services agreement" that will in effect regionalize health department services among Newburyport, Amesbury and Salisbury.

According to this report (from 2004) by Kathy Jesperson, editor of something called On Tap:

“Generally speaking, the number one problem involves the fear of losing autonomy, loss of control or power by one group or another, or not being able to control their own destiny,” Larimore explains. “It is very important that all parties involved have bought into the concept of regionalization and believe that they have equal representation, regardless of size. They must be assured that everyone has an equal voice at the table. It is very important to establish this early on in the agreement process.”

This Gary Larimore character is or was from the Kentucky Rural Water Association (KRWA).

"Regionalize" is another made up word.

Auditor gets audited

City Auditor William Squillace sparked a little contretemps with the mayor out in the hallway when he told the City Council that enterprise depts. (water, sewer, harbormaster) could use some of their free cash to reduce rates to their customers.

What a novel idea.

The only reaction I saw in chambers, other than slack jaws, was from Tom Jones, who kind of snorted (I was sitting right behind him).

But then the mayor appeared in the doorway of council chambers and beckoned Squillace out.

I couldn't hear what was said, but there was a lot of hand gestures, arm waving and glowering on the mayor's part.

A couple of weeks ago, I'm sure Squillace got a similar reaction when he turned to health director Jack Morris and said he had "jumped the gun" with some increases in revolving funds related to the health dept.

Speaking of which, it appears from last night's agenda that Morris has withdrawn the Medicare/Medicaid portion of the Regionalization Revolving Fund, which was at the last meeting sent to committee.

This is what the Order originally said:

THAT funds from the Medicare/Medicaid re-imbursement (and regional assessment) Revolving fund be used to maintain emergency planning programs, allow response to emergencies, and disperse funds for regionalization of Health Services...

I wonder if this is in any way related to Brian Derrivan (Ward 5) moving that the emergency management dept. line item be zeroed out?

Did you know that whole dept. (that would be emergency mgmt.) used to be run by volunteers, but now the city pays someone to be the director. I do believe Ralph Ayers used to fulfill that capacity, for free.

There were 14 orders on last night's agenda that related to revolving funds. According to the sometimes unreliable Wikipedia, A revolving fund is a fund or account whose income remains available to finance its continuing operations without any fiscal year limitation.

Within federal and state governments, law establishes revolving funds. Revolving funds, established for the purpose of carrying out specific activities, institute a basis under which financing for the cost of goods or services furnished to or by a government agency originate. Revolving funds are to be replenished through charges made for such goods or services.

I guess that in Squillace's estimation, everyone is jumping the gun.

Shared services agreement meeting on Thursday

The General Government and Committee-of-the-Whole will meet at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the "shared services agreement" between Newburyport, Amesbury and Salisbury.

This is in regards to the health department.

At-large Councillor Donna Holaday said that Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer III and, I think she said, his Chief of Staff Kendra Amaral will be at the meeting.

As we all may know, people in Amesbury - and in particular, members of the Board of Health there - are up in arms because they were not given a copy of the draft agreement before it went to our City Council.

Read more about Amesbury's dissatisfaction with the way things have gone here, in a piece that ran in last Friday's Daily News. Well, the BOH and 10 citizens, according to the story.

The board had expressed frustration over the fact Kezer had not attended BOH meetings over the past two months, but Kezer's attendance last night did little to soothe members rankled at being left out of the loop. In fact, by meeting's close, the board voted to rescind the temporary authorization they granted April 30 to allow Newburyport's Jack Morris and Maureen Lee to conduct contracted services for the town.

For more information about the agreement, read this from Friday's Current. Written by me.

"Regionalization" needs more review

One has to think that this shared services agreement/regionalized health services issue has to come up at Monday's City Council meeting.

Because Amesbury's Board of Health is not happy, according to this report in the Daily News.

I can see that: the BOH was not made privy to the agreement, a draft of which is in committee with our City Council. The agreement is due to go into effect on July 1, so again we have a "rush" situation that involves unhappy/disgruntled people.

Specifically, Amesbury's BOH is losing members faster than trucks are coming into the landfill.

And when Todd McGrath announced just prior to the meeting's close that he was stepping down from the board, that brought the original five-member board to just three members. Former Chairman Phillip Yetman resigned two weeks ago.

The three communities involved in the agreement - Amesbury, Newburyport and Salisbury - are all supposed to retain their boards of health.

Unfortunately, I can't see where Newburyport officials and sadly Amesbury's leaders play well with others. I know people in Amesbury are a little feisty (my new favorite word), but this attitude of "I know what's best so shut up" isn't going to fly.

One animal control officer for all 3 communities? Salisbury's ACO thinks the job is his for the asking but Newburyport is interviewing people without being specific about what job the interviews are for (could be the night/weekend person, but no one knows).

This isn't regionalizing, this is a power play - why does Jack Morris automatically get to be in charge? Shouldn't the job have been advertised and interviews conducted by all three communities?

These same people were telling Everett what to do about the landfill and now they are dictating to Amesbury: get rid of your long-time ACO, you don't need to review the agreement ... does any of this sound familiar?