The days of free trash pick up due to the coronavirus are rapidly coming to an end.
The Concord City Council voted unanimously Monday night to reinstate the city’s Pay As You Throw (PAYT) purple trash bag program beginning June 22.
The council previously voted on April 20 to suspend the program to help those who either couldn’t afford the purple bags or didn’t feel safe leaving their homes to purchase them due to concerns about viral transmission.
But on Monday, the state’s stay-at-home order expired and was replaced by a “safer at home advisory,” which allows for the reopening of most businesses with restrictions. In light of that change, Mayor Jim Bouley asked the council to do as it said it would nine weeks ago and vote to reinstate use of the purple bags exactly one week past the expiration of the governor’s emergency order.
“I still think it was a good choice given where people were, but it’s time to lift it,” he said.
Since the suspension of the program, the city has waived about $237,000 in bag fees. Trash fees increased because people threw out more trash in recent weeks and didn’t recycle as much. Still, councilors noted that some residents continued to use the purple bags even though they weren’t mandated.
Bouley also asked the Solid Waste Advisory Committee to review all aspects of the PAYT program to ensure it’s still working as intended and benefiting the city as a whole.
Concord’s City Council supported a call from the mayor to rethink the closure of all city pools this summer due to concerns that young people may flock to remote swimming holes, which are less safe and unsupervised.
City officials cited residents’ health and safety due to the ongoing pandemic when they made the decision in recent weeks not to open the seven swimming pools in Concord this summer. However, Mayor Jim Bouley said Monday Night that Concord should reassess that decision now that it has further guidance from the state about how pools can reopen if they limit the number of swimmers and practice social distancing.
“My concern is people might choose alternatives that aren’t quite as safe,” Bouley told the council.
Last month, a 21-year-old Concord woman and a 27-year-old man drowned in the Merrimack River near Pebble Beach in Canterbury where they were swimming with friends. The drownings remain under investigation by New Hampshire Marine Patrol.
While referencing the drownings Monday night, At-Large City Councilor Nathan Fennessy echoed Bouley’s concerns about where young people may go if public pools aren’t an option to beat the summer heat.
“I’m concerned about where kids may be going to cool off if we can’t provide a safe option,” Fennessy said.
Bouley asked City Manager Tom Aspell to look into the possibility of opening even a couple of the pools, while recognizing that there could be some staffing challenges.
Family members and friends can soon begin visiting people at long-term care facilities under guidelines, but with restrictions.
As explained Tuesday by Department of Health and Human Services Director Lori Shibinette, visits will only be allowed outdoors in designated areas overseen by staff. No physical contact can take place because of the danger of transmitting the novel coronavirus.
Only two visitors can come at a time and both must be over the age of 12, because younger children may not be able to comply with restrictions on keeping 6 feet away and wearing masks at all times.
All visits must be arranged in advance and a detailed log must be kept, so that contact tracing is possible if an outbreak occurs.
Shibinette said she expected most long-term care facilities to have plans approved by this weekend so that visits could go forward.
“There will be an individual plan at each facility. If your facility is 300 beds or 20 beds, your individual plan is going to look very, very different,” she said. “I don’t want to write arbitrary policies that don’t apply to a facility … and make rules that make it impossible for people to visit their loved ones.”
For example, she said, facilities will make judgments about out-of-state visitors – whether they have come from a nearby state with similar levels of COVID-19 or have traveled further, or from hot spots.
Facilities that have a current outbreak of cases as defined by the state cannot have visitors.
In New Hampshire, as in most of the country, nursing homes an d other long-term care facilities have been hard hit by COVID-19. More than three-quarters of deaths in the state have occurred to residents at such facilities, most of them over the age of 70.
The past two days have seen the lowest number of new cases in New Hampshire since March 25, when the state was just starting to do widespread testing, an indication that current practices such as mask-wearing and social distancing have slowed the spread of the disease.
The Department of Health and Human Resources says 27 cases were confirmed Tuesday and 21 on Monday, which continues the downturn in new cases that has been happening all month and brings the 14-day average below 50, a goal that the Monitor is using as an indication that the novel coronavirus is not spreading widely among the state’s 1.3 million people.
No new deaths were reported Tuesday.
Concord has had a total of 120 cases since testing began and has at least 20 active cases currently, according to the data.
