The Chapter 2 situation at 520 Front Street is resolved for now, according to Ana Wimmer’s report to the Marion Board of Health on Tuesday. Marion’s health agent spent her entire day occupied with the predicament of the people living at that address, albeit in a trailer not fully set up.
Even the town is handcuffed from lending assistance because any financial support would have to come from the reserve fund, and that falls under the purview of the Finance Committee. “They just got heat going and are hooking up water,” said Wimmer, who was on site with a Fire Department lieutenant. She said after taking a look inside that the residents can still be in the house as it has food and running water,) “but for legality, it wouldn’t be wise to give them approval to stay in the house.”
Wimmer is in contact with the company doing mold remediation.
“They’re absolutely miserable,” she said, explaining that they cannot live in the trailer long term but only for a few days. “They don’t want to be in there either.”
Board of Health Chairman Dr. Ed Hoffer asked if the property owner has accepted responsibility for remediation. Wimmer said the matter remains under discussion and pointed to ambiguity in emails from the management company.
Hoffer said the town may need legal advice. Wimmer said legal action would hinge on something enforceable in the sanitary code. “There are no standards for mold,” she said. “You can’t go to housing court and say the mold levels are too high.”
The owner, who has lived there three years, has received a planning list for a demolition anticipated in the spring. Wimmer said nobody is living in the house so it is not a safety issue.
In her update to the board, Public Health Director/Nurse Lori Desmarais reported that there are 31 active COVID-19 cases in Marion. Since the onset of the pandemic, there have been 611.
The month of October saw 71 cases, but in November there were 45. So far into December, there were 21 as of Tuesday. In studying the November cases, Desmarais said most fell into the 30-49 age range.
Children’s symptoms have generally lasted three days, they have included both fever and runny nose. For vaccinated adults testing positive, symptoms have been more like a head cold. Unvaccinated adults testing positive, said Desmarais, are having more symptoms.
School updates as of December 2 included no one in test and stay program, no one in quarantine at Sippican Elementary School, one in quarantine at Old Rochester Regional Junior High School and seven in quarantine at the high school. There were six positive cases at Sippican, four at the junior high and six at the high school. Since the start of the 2021-22 academic year, Sippican has had 33 cases, ORRJH 16 and ORRHS 19.
Tabor Academy came back from the Thanksgiving break and held full faculty-and-staff, campus-wide tests (738 tests) yielding seven positive results. Tabor has had 16 positive cases since the start of the school year, and those people have isolated at their homes.
Marion was to hold a COVID-19 vaccine booster clinic on Wednesday, December 8, with 90 doses available. There will be another booster clinic on Wednesday, December 15, with 60 available doses, and some homebound visits are also planned. Marion has vaccinated 200 people against COVID-19.
Desmarais says that the town still has a couple of more high and regular doses of flu vaccine that are available.
Four people took advantage of the Blood Pressure clinic held last week at Little Neck Village; those clinics are scheduled on the first Thursday of every month.
Board of Health member Dot Brown thinks the board would be better off starting from scratch with its septic regulations. “I really feel like our regulations have become a Frankenstein, and it’s so hard to follow,” she said. “I just think if we just ended up with a nice, tight document, it would make sense to have a public hearing.”
The board agreed to cancel its December 21 meeting and only hold the meeting if there is a pressing need. Scheduling conflicts during the holidays and in January have left the board’s meeting schedule unresolved for the time being.
Marion Board of Health
By Mick Colageo