Four Health Board Members Resign Over Dispute With Select Board

CHATHAM – Four members of the board of health, with a total of more than 40 years of service on the panel between them, resigned recently over what they said was a lack of support from the select board.

 At issue is the health board’s decision to enforce a years-old regulation prohibiting trash collected out of town from being brought to the transfer station by commercial waste haulers. Haulers were required to sign an affidavit attesting that all rubbish originated in Chatham when renewing their permits — and each time they bring in a load of trash — but the select board asked that enforcement be paused after one local hauler said compliance with the regulations would have a negative impact on their business.

 That was perceived by the four health board members as favoring one hauler and undermining the board’s authority. 

 “I am also deeply concerned by what I view as the select board’s total lack of respect for the authority and role of the board of health, as well as for the taxpayers of Chatham whom we are all meant to serve,” Ronald Broman, a 23-year veteran of the board, wrote in his Dec. 31 resignation.

 John Beckley, a 10-year member of the health board and chair prior to his resignation, also stepped down, as did Noble Hansen, a member since 2019, and Richard Edwards, who was first appointed in 2022. All four cited the same reasons for resigning in emails earlier this month.

 “There are principles you have to stand on sometimes,” Beckley said in a telephone interview. “This was a moment I agreed with my colleagues in thinking it wasn’t right. [The select board] shouldn’t have taken it up, in my opinion.”

 The issue of trash origination was first brought up with the select board in June during a discussion about raising commercial hauler fees. Graeme Milley of Milley Trucking said he could not sign the proposed affidavit because about 5 percent of his trash came from Harwich, mostly from Monomoy Regional High School. Bringing that trash to the Harwich Transfer Station, which charges higher fees, would be a cost increase that he hadn’t anticipated and could impact his business, he said. If he had to pay the higher fee, larger haulers based out of town would undercut his prices and edge out his business and that of the town’s other local hauler, Nickerson Disposal.

 The select board referred the issue to the economic development committee, and in September the health department sent letters to commercial haulers requiring that they sign an affidavit when renewing their permits for the new year attesting that all of the trash they bring to the transfer station originates in Chatham. Milley was the only hauler who didn’t sign. Select board Chair Dean Nicastro met with staff members and Milley in December to try to resolve the issue, but it ended up back before the select board Dec. 23.

 At that session, select board members, citing the need to protect local businesses, asked the health board to grant Milley a provisional permit and to review its regulations with an eye toward allowing haulers to include a small amount of out-of-town trash in their loads. Milley’s trash hauler permit was renewed without having to sign the affidavit. All the other waste haulers who operate in Chatham, including Nickerson, agreed to the restriction.

 “There was no disrespect intended,” Nicastro said Monday. “We weren’t trying to give special treatment to Milley.” The board often hears concerns about other town boards and tries to come to a resolution taking its town-wide purview into consideration, he said. “I think we were taking a much broader look at the economy of the town. We have to consider things that the board of health doesn’t have to consider.”

 Nicastro said he was saddened by the resignations and expressed appreciation for the work of the health board members, especially in guiding the town during the COVID pandemic. “I’m especially disappointed by the loss of medical doctors on the board,” he added. Both Hansen and Edwards are doctors, and Edwards had a long career in public health.

 Edwards said it wasn’t fair to allow Milley to include trash from Harwich while the other trash haulers that operate in town conform to the regulations. The town has to pay to ship that trash to an off-Cape incineration facility and it isn’t fair to taxpayers to subsidize the out-of-town waste, he said. 

 The board “thought long and hard” about the decision to enforce the regulations, Beckley said, and the select board members were “outside of their lane” in stepping into the situation. Milley should have been asked to return to the health board to work out the issue, he said.

 “This is completely under our purview and it wasn’t treated as such, in my mind,” he said. It was “very hard” to resign, he said. “Part of it was losing the comradery that we had built.” 

 “This was a highly qualified board,” Beckley said. “I enjoyed it very much and felt that we had a good chemistry.”

 Allowing haulers to include a small amount of out-of-town trash in loads would be impossible to enforce, Hansen said. Because Chatham’s commercial hauler fees are about half of those from other surrounding towns, it could be an incentive for others to bring in more non-Chatham trash.

 “I think we had an excellent board of health,” he said. “I think we were very fair and we listened to people. Here we were simply following the regulation that was existing, and the select board chose to throw us under the bus.”

 Nicastro said he expects the fees to be raised beginning July 1; the board did not raise fees when the issue was brought to them by Public Works Director Rob Faley last June because waste haulers had already set their rates for the coming year, he said.

 Remaining health board member Carol Boyce, a nurse practitioner, took over the chair at the panel’s Jan. 12 meeting. Associate members Ronald Weishaar and Joanna Kale were named full members by the select board, and Carol Gordon was named as a new member last week. There remains one vacancy for a full board member and two open seats for associate members.