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Geauga Public Health

Meeting was held at Geauga County Administration Building, 12811 Ravenwood Drive, Clardon, OH, on August 24, 2022 at 5 pm.

Geauga County Automated Data Processing (ADP) provided a recording of the session https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUZI6D6h99U&t=13138s.

Agenda can be found here: 2022 August 24 BOH Meeting Agenda.pdf

Board members:

Richard Piraino, President
Lynn Roman
Carolyn Brakey
Ashley Jones, Pro Tem

Staff in attendance included

Jeffrey Cameron - Medical Director/Health Commissioner
Adam Litke - Administrator
Alta Wendell - Administration Director,
Carol Straniero - Population Health Director,
Daniel Lark, Interim Environmental Health Director – Absent
Magaly Rios – Health Educator
Sarah Sullivan – Epidemiologist
Ashley Winters – Sanitarian?

County Commissioner in attendance: Mr. Lennon

OPENING SESSION

July 27 Minutes approved; August 8 Special Meeting minutes approved after amended with minor changes.

INFORMATION SESSION (presented in different order from the agenda)

Population Health Update

Health Educator Magaly Rios discussed some of the improvements that are planned for the revised GPH website, including a new logo, improved ease of use by the public, and more info. about events. The website uses the same base software, Wordpress. Ms. Rios also mentioned many past and upcoming community events.
Epidemiologist Sarah Sullivan presented the 2022 Geauga County Health Ranking Summary Report. This report compiles data from many sources to measure health factors and health outcomes. The report is available on the GPH website, 2022 Geauga County County Ranking Report.pdf

Environmental Health Update (presented by Ashley Winters for D. Lark)

Ms. Winters was hired in May of this year. Her presentation was about the Operation and Management (O&M) program. The O&M program is based on a new Ohio law passed in 2015, ORC 3071-29-19 and 3071-29-09(1). The program requires regular maintenance and inspections of septic systems. The program is unfunded and must be paid for by local fees. The fees will pay for the cost of issuing permits, providing educational materials, and staff time to communicate with the community. The proposed fees will hopefully be approved by the Board by January 2023.
The focus of the Geauga O&M program for 2023 will be the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES ). These systems currently require yearly sampling because the treated waste goes back into ditches etc. Geauga County has about 2,000 NPDES out of a total of 30,000-40,000 Household Sewage Treatment Systems (HSTS). Only about 10% of the 2,000 systems are currently in compliance with the yearly sampling.
The goal is to have all 30-40,000 systems enrolled in O&M in 5 to 10 years.
A lack of homeowner education was identified as an obstacle to implementing the program. County Administrator Gerry Morgan, Company 119, and Real Estate Associations will assist in establishing better education.
Commissioner Lennon spoke about dense communities with small lots similar to Berkshire Estates. He requested that GPH focus on enrolling these communities as soon as possible.
There is a backlog of about 1300 properties waiting to complete their For Sale of Property (FSOP) inspections. GPH normally does about 60/month. This program is being discontinued.
The O&M program needs to hire two new Sanitarians and two new clerks. It is difficult to hire Sanitarians, as these positions are highly competitive.

Administration Division Update (Alta Wendell)

A. Wendell’s report was distributed to the Board prior to the meeting and was not available to the public. She discussed the process of administrative hearings for non-compliance with (septic?) inspections. For O&M it may be possible to add the fees to the homeowner’s property tax. It was mentioned that processing well permits is very time consuming for GPH staff

Population Health (Carol Straneiro)

Ms. Straneiro’s report was distributed to the Board prior to the meeting and was not available to the public. She provided some numbers for Covid vaccinations (25% of children are vaccinated), Monkeypox cases (139 in Ohio, mainly ages 23-46), the e-coli outbreak (19 cases in Ohio, suspected cause is romaine lettuce from Wendy’s).
They are working on a community health needs assessment that will include input from 3 focus groups, key informant interviews, and the report should be out by January.

Finance (Adam Litke)

Mr. Litke discussed the large volume of public records requests. Each one costs $10,000 to $20,000. Requests involving emails require each email to be reviewed by legal staff to redact certain information. For example a request asked for every email that mentioned a specific term, eg, “test kits”. This year 3-4 requests had to be referred to legal.
Cell Repeaters are being installed in the new building (by November?)
Wifi repeaters are already installed.
The finance report was approved.

Administrator Update (Adam Litke)

They are caught up with HB 110 inspections and campground inspections.
They rolled out GPH Covid guidelines to the schools. The schools do not have to follow these guidelines.
GPH has completed their move to the new building
They are having better communication with the Board of Mental Health
They continue to attend the Saturday pastor meetings. Churches are having problems placing veterans with mental health services and the group is working on solutions for that. They may also include VFW’s in this outreach (in addition to working with churches)
They are doing Narcan training for the pastors and others on 8/31 from 6:00-7:30.
GPH will have a tent at the county fair on Midway #2 near the Patterson Building. They will hand out tick removal kits.
Some swimming pool fees were overcharged over the last few years and are being refunded.
They are getting rid of VitalCheck as the online portal for requesting copies of vital records. This will save people money.
ADP set up a gatekeeper system so that GPH staff do not have to have so many passwords. It is a gatekeeper system that just involves each staff having a 4 digit PIN and a fob that they carry so the computer only works if they are near it.

OLD BUSINESS

No old business to discuss.

NEW BUSINESS

They discussed making the Environmental Health Director (Daniel Lark) permanent vs. interim. It was decided to postpone this until his contract is renewed. Board member Ashley Jones abstained from the discussion.
Supplemental appropriations were approved
A resolution of appreciation to Board member Dr. Patricia Levan upon her leaving the board was approved.
Small flows management gives another option for homeowners to reduce their cost in certain situations (such as outbuildings) by not having to have a full septic system. A motion was passed to ask the EPA to give the county the authority to approve these small flow systems. Board member Ashley Jones abstained.

PUBLIC COMMENT SECTION

Mr. Piraino outlined the process and policies for providing public comment. Those who wanted to speak were given 2 minutes each to provide their comment. The following comments were presented:

A resident objected to requiring septic systems based on technology from China.
A resident asked for more transparency and more opportunity for residents to be involved in creating Covid guidelines for the schools. She was under the impression that Mr. Litke had attended a superintendent’s meeting where they gave input. The GPH attorney said that guidance from GPH is a work product that goes through drafts and that only the final product is public.
Two other residents also had issues with the process for creating guidelines, with one stating that the responsibility for transparency is with the school boards when they create their guidelines.
One resident asked for clarification about the O&M reports that are submitted to the state – these are just monthly counts. The resident also asked about the requirement for the new Board member – must be an MD or DO.
A Resident asked if the new Board member would need to have a medical license. The response was yes. (Observer Note: ORC requires at least one board member be a doctor (MD or DO), and currently there isn’t a doctor on the board.)
A resident asked about the GPH practice of contracting out some positions. Mr. Piraino said that GPH has 25 employees, and the rest are contracted out. He said that this provides a cost savings for GPH, which he then stated that this should help them pay for all the expenses associated with public records requests.
This board meeting provided CEU’s for the Board members
A board member asked Mr. Litke about a document he had provided to the Board about possible changes for various fees. Mr. Litke said there will be 3 readings for these changes starting in September. He and Mr. Lark have reviewed various fees and compared them with other surrounding counties, and they want to decrease some fees.

EXECUTIVE SESSION

The Board adjourned at 7:49 PM for the Executive Committee to discuss pending litigation with counsel. This observer left the meeting at this point

MEETING RESUMED

This observer viewed the video of the meeting to confirm that no actions were taken following the return of the Executive Committee to the meeting.

Next meeting (new date): Monday September 26, 2022 at 5 PM at Geauga County Administration Building, 12811 Ravenwood Drive, Claridon, OH

More Information: http://gphohio.org/

Minutes available when posted: http://gphohio.org/Board-of-Health/Board-of-Health-Minutes

Postings available here: https://www.facebook.com/GPHOHIO

Name of Observer : Nina Lalich, submitted 8/29/2022

Edited by: Betsy Kubbins

Reviewed by: Gail Roussey

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