ADAMS, Mass. — The Board of Health thinks a community cleanup campaign will renew a sense of pride in the town.
"To me, it gets into community pride and how do we get the message out," board member Bruce Shepley said last week. "This is your town. Have some pride and you have control over what it looks like."
He has noticed overgrown lawns on vacant properties and people leaving garbage in abandoned homes.
Shepley said in his own neighborhood, he took it upon himself to mow unsightly properties and alert the authorities when late-night loitering becomes a nuisance.
"Do I want to be the bad guy? No, but do I have the ability to act and say not in my neighborhood?" he asked. "I certainly do and we need to get that message out."
Shepley said he would like to start a campaign and urge people who may carelessly litter to stop and for those who see it happen to stand up and say something.
"We have control over this," he said. "I think we can start a campaign and go to the select board and the building inspector and maybe light a fire under them. Where is our pride in Adams? We should not be afraid to rise to the occasion, call or approach someone."
Chairman Peter Hoyt suggested holding community cleanup days and targeting specific trouble areas.
"When you get your hands dirty cleaning something up, you are less likely to dirty it up again," Hoyt said.
Shepley said the board could harness community groups that may be sitting dormant to see if they want to get involved.
The straw that broke the camel's back, he said, was upper East Hoosac Street, which for years has been a notorious dumping ground for litterers.
He has talked to the Department of Public Works director and the police chief about installing a "no littering" sign and perhaps security cameras.
"Maybe we need to do some electronic surveillance … I think there are a couple of trouble spots and we need to be making some statements," he said. "This needs to be a town effort."
In other business, the board decided to drop the idea of a syringe disposal policy and refer all syringe disposal to Tapestry Health in North Adams.
"Do I still think we need some sort of policy on the books? Kind of," Shepley said. "But I think let sleeping dogs lie and we don't want to own a problem if we don't have to."
The board has mulled over different ways to dispose of medical syringes over the past year and even became part of a regional effort to create a consistent procedure. Tapestry opened a needle exchange and disposal office earlier this year near North Adams City Hall.
The Adams Police used to collect the syringes but will no longer offer the service, although officers will pick up syringes found in public.
"They don't have a kiosk and they kind of did it in a haphazard way," he said. "The chief felt it was an endangerment to his officers."
Shepley said he will reach out to Tapestry to make a connection with the town.
The board also decided at the moment it does not need a deadline for processing vendors for events.
Code Enforcement Officer Thomas Romaniak said a vendor asked for a permit a few days before an event and because he was not familiar with the Vermont vendor, had to turn them away.
But in general, Romaniak said there isn’t a problem.
"I am willing to work with people because I don't want to turn people away," he said. "I like the idea of deadlines but for a lot of these events, I want to see more people. It is not a problem now and I am not afraid to jump through hoops. If it becomes a problem we can revisit it."
Board member David Rhoads said he had concerns about children not wearing sunglasses on the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail or at the Greylock Glen.
"I was walking the trail and the Glen and I would see parents with their kids in strollers. The parents had sunglasses on but the kids didn't," he said. "I would like to see some sort of campaign and maybe get some signage up so parents are aware they need to protect their kids' eyes."
The board thought it was a good idea to promote the effort and will purchase children's sunglasses to give away.
