All right, good evening, everyone.

I'm Jake Wilson, he, him pronouns.

Uh, your counselor at large and chair of the rodent issues special committee.

Uh we are meeting uh tonight uh via remote participation.

It's six o'clock on the dot.

I'd like to call to order this meeting.

Uh first I need to read you all some language that lets us do this here.

Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025, this meeting of a city council committee will be conducted via remote participation.

We will post an audio video recording, audio recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Summeral website and local cable access government channels.

Uh Clerk, could you please call the role to establish quorum?

This is roll call.

Counselor Burnley.

Present.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Yeah.

Councilor Wilson.

Present.

The three counselors present.

We have court.

All right.

Uh this is our final meeting here of the year of the rodent issues special committee.

We have a relatively short uh four-item agenda before us here.

Um we're gonna go ahead and take up uh first of all, let's approve those committee meeting minutes.

Um we'll take up uh ID number 25-0871 approval of minutes of the rodent issues special committee uh meeting of April 30th, 2025 on the minutes any discussion.

I'm sure this is all fresh in your minds, right?

Uh seeing no discussion, uh uh clerk, please call the role on uh approval of those minutes.

And on acceptance of item one 25-0871.

Councilor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Councilor Burnley.

Counselor Wilson.

Yes.

Those are approved.

All right.

Now I'm gonna take up the remaining agenda items together so that we can get a presentation that covers all of these things without trying to break it into pieces.

Uh so that's uh ID number 25-0243 that the director of communications and community engagement update this council on efforts to educate the public about preventing conditions conducive to growth of the rodent population.

ID number 25-0244, that the director of inspectional services update this council on efforts around enforcement of rodent related ordinances, including the number of complaints, inspections, warnings, and fines issued for vegetation and trash violations.

I think number 25-0245, that the environmental health manager updates this council on rodent activity data and rodent mitigation efforts, including any novel approaches being or under consideration or being utilized.

And I think number 25-1687, that the director of inspectional services update this council on the rodent hormonal birth control program being jointly piloted with the city of Cambridge.

All right, we have uh I'm gonna get titles wrong.

I can't call you both the Ratzars.

Um we have Alicia, what is your what is what was your title these days?

What are we calling you?

Uh um environmental health coordinator.

I was gonna guess the veteran health coordinator.

Uh we also have what are we calling uh Colin Ziggler these days?

Um the environmental health manager.

Environmental health manager being the ratzars, but uh you'll always be the Ratzars to us.

Uh please, if the clerk doesn't mind sharing, uh giving screen sharing uh capabilities here to our environmental health coordinator.

Um it says um my sharing's disabled at the moment.

Oh does it let you request at all?

No.

Perfect.

All right, can everyone see my screen?

We can.

Please take it away.

Awesome.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um as stated, my name's Alicia Privat.

I'm the environmental health coordinator with the inspectional services department.

I'm gonna go over all the points um from the agenda in my presentation.

Um I apologize though, I flipped the order of the agenda items.

So we're gonna talk about the um fertility control study first.

Um we do have some initial data.

Um, we are still collecting a bunch of data, and we have started our analysis phase right now.

So there's not really any conclusive information we can make from the numbers we have currently.

Um, but right now, based off of the uh information that we have collected at Somerville High School, where we are currently uh finishing up baiting uh with the rent fertility control product.

So as you can see from this graph, we started in August in 2024.

This was a pre-bait period where we baited the traps with peanut butter, and this was just to see if the boxes where they were sent were going to get any activity at all, and also kind of attract the rodents into the box in the first place before we put the evolved product in there.

And then once we started putting the evolved product in in September, we started seeing an increase in activity.

These bars, as you can see at the top, doesn't show number of rats themselves, it shows number of rat events.

That's just how many times a rat has gone into the box.

So it could be different rats, it could be the same rat going into the box over and over again.

Likely it is the same rat going into the box many times because when I went and baited the traps, I would see the regulars in there once in a while.

So but there was pretty consistent bait consumption of this product, which is already an improvement based on the last product we used, the Contra Pest, because that one wasn't as appetizing to the rodents.

So right now we're still baiting, we are baiting uh residences in Lincoln Park with the evolve.

It's going about once or twice a week.

It's been going pretty well over there.

Um, still high consumption rates over there from what I've seen.

Um, but yes, time will tell.

And that's all I have for the fertility control study.

So are there any questions about that?

Oh, yeah, and colleagues, we did this uh decide before the meeting started that uh just if you if you have questions, put a hand up, we'll call on you as as we go through the presentation.

No need to save them to the end.

I'll just say uh love hearing about RAT events.

Awesome.

All right.

Uh so now we'll go into the 311 data and reporting um and our current efforts right now.

So uh 311 data for this year.

Um we have been seeing continue to see a steady decrease in 311 complaints.

Um this data is as of 1120, so isn't uh you know the whole year of 2025, but it's pretty much most of the year.

Um we continue to see regular patterns with high complaints in the warmer months and less complaints in the winter months just due to the seasonality.

Um but um also just as we know, and I'll continue to reiterate that 311 complaints still have some error to them just based off of how much people there's like a tolerance people have for rodents and how much they'll send complaints, and then also whether they're in town or not, those kind of things affect our 311 numbers.

So just want to preface this information with that.

Um kind of to give more context uh with the 311 complaint data.

Uh we have been working with SummerStat a little bit more to map out these complaints and provide that additional context so we can understand the numbers better.

Um, I apologize this map is a little blurry.

I try to take a screenshot of it, but um, this is uh some information we've gathered based off of the block census data and 311 complaints.

Uh so this is a map of the percent of unique rodent-related callers throughout Somerville.

So it's interesting to see.

So most it looks like most of Somerville, the amount of callers are um uh unique and submitting 3-1-1 requests about rodents.

And then this one is similarly uh the 311 based off of census block data and all that.

Um, this is the percentage of 311 requests that are rodent related.

So of 311 calls, these are the ones that are related to rodents, and then we're seeing some more um uh differences in this in these uh census block cells.

So we're seeing darker numbers, meaning the 311 um uh calls in these areas have more rat calls than trash or you know, things like that.

Um so it's just allows us to have more context and see how much um how uh much more we need to be out there, how we need to distribute our interventions and things like that.

So um all right, and then to go into the rodent assistance program, because that's part of our 311 data this year.

Um, these are the number of unique properties visited with the rodent assistance program.

Um this year we had 834 unique properties visited, which is higher than both 2024 and 2023, uh, which is really great, and it really shows how much work that the inspectors, uh Kim and Andy are going out and going out to all these properties.

I think we've also kind of uh established more into our system when we are doing outreach efforts.

Um, we are trying to get more properties in a certain block on the road assistance program at the same time, so that it just is more effective.

We're treating multiple properties in an area at a time.

Um, because as we know, rats don't know property boundaries and things like that.

So I think that has helped um those areas that are doing that are being treated at the same time.

Um, and then these are the total visits.

So um context, the road assistance program.

Uh we had expanded it to four visits instead of um three visits in 2024.

So that's why we're seeing the bump here, and then with four visits for all those 800 properties, um, these are the total number of visits in 2025.

Um all right, and those are the 311 uh related data information.

Any questions about that?

I've got a question.

I'll save it for a second in case colleagues want to jump in.

All right, I'll just ask it.

Um what's our sense?

I I know you're not gonna he may not feel comfortable speculating without data, but what's our sense about how much of this is due to any sort of decrease in the incidence of rodent activity versus how much is I don't want to say fatigue, resignation, uh acceptance uh of the situation with the decrease in 311 call volume.

Um I think that's a great question.

Um, I mean, I think it also depends on who you ask sometimes.

I feel like in certain areas where we get called a lot more in the summertime as composed to other areas as they you know, if we solve a problem in one area, the rats tend to move somewhere else close by.

So sometimes it's just kind of it feels like you're playing chase, but I would say it I think based off of the way we're collecting the data, we're also and we know I'll get to this a little bit later on too, but we're collecting more data with the rodent assistance program and tracking feeding rates and number of burrows we're treating and that kind of stuff, and that helps us also track uh whether there's still activity in a certain area and whether it's dying down.

Um, and then also with the other context of the 311 um complaints and stuff like that.

So yeah, I would say it's hard to completely know without all the data, but I would say I think when we look at those things, it kind of helps us know when uh what places are getting the appropriate treatments and not.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Uh, other question I'll ask just because it's gonna come up all the time.

Um escars.

Obviously, as of last year, we said we're not using those on public land.

The question we get it then is about private uh the vendors that we employ for our residential pest management.

They're not deploying SCARs on private property, are they?

Correct.

So um we use our T RAD uh the vitamin D based rodenticide.

So those aren't they're still rodenticide, but they're not an SCAR, they're not classifying as an SCAR.

Thank you for getting that out there.

It's a question that we get all the time.

Um I've told people that it helps having that out there in the public record that our our contractors are also not using this privately.

Um that's all I had.

I don't see anything from colleagues, so I'll let you roll on.

Awesome.

All right, let's go into rodent-related violation data.

Um, so this data I haven't updated with summer stat, it's not, but hopefully, we're trying to make it more available for um everyone to see publicly.

But 2025 this year, we have seen an increase in residential trash.

Basically, all violation types except for vegetation overgrowth.

And I'll show the comparison to last year too, but residential trash remains to be the highest uh rodent-related violation that we issue.

Um, commercial trash and vegetation overgrowth, similar or yes, um similarly um our follow second and third behind, and then uh rodent control uh violations.

This includes having burrows on the property, um things like that.

Uh, if we see excessive droppings and things like that on the property as well, it could lead to a rodent control violation.

Um, so these maps, I overlaid um violation data with uh a heat map of 311 complaints from 2025.

Um, so uh we can see the commercial trash violations and the residential trash violations and how they're distributed throughout the city in relation to the 311 complaints.

Um, so again, lots of residential trash violations.

Um, and then we are seeing more commercial trash violations in the areas where we would see uh more commercial activity.

So you need square data this along Broadway here in East Summerville.

We have restaurants over there, so um those little clusters.

And then uh rodent control violations and vegetation overgrowth.

So we do see uh more cluster in East Somerville.

Um it's just a lot more older homes, they tend to have more gardens and stuff as compared to over here in West Somerville.

Um, but we did see uh a decrease of this number compared to last year, which might be a good sign that people are just being more aware of this and taking care of uh you know, landscaping and things like that.

And then this is the comparison between this year, 2025 and last year of 2024.

So, and then uh this data is only from November, so we've already surpassed last year's numbers in most of these categories.

I got a question on this one.

So the road control violations, right?

That's people getting fined for like having burrows having an infestation, you know, that's that's out visible to the public.

Someone reports it, they're they're given a fine for that.

Yes, yes, exactly.

I'll ask a policy question here.

Uh we hear I've heard from some folks about who've tried to do pollinator gardens or you know, the sort of um at the end of the the growing season, letting things kind of lie there.

Um not raking, uh letting leaves and they've gotten they've gotten visits, they've gotten cited for uh vegetation and overgrowth.

How I guess maybe this is one for you know the folks out there in ISD actually issuing those, but I'm curious about how we deal with that tension between um you know our values around pollinator gardens and and you know, and and that sort of thing, and wanting to keep a habitat that's you know not conducive to rats.

Right.

So I that's a great question.

Um so it's part of the vegetation overgrowth violation.

Um one aspect is that when uh the vegetation overgrows so much to where it's blocking public way, that would lead to uh overgrowth violation.

Um when it comes to the pollinator gardens, if you know if it's within the space in the confines of the property boundary, it's not blocking public public way or anything.

Um it like it would not uh automatically lead to a violation.

Um where it can where it can lead to a violation if there is evidence of rodent burrows underneath like overgrown vegetation on the property, it's visible from public way.

We could say that's that's conducive conditions, that's hard.

Um if there's a lot of yard waste that's just piled up and there's been a 311 complaint about like rodents in the area.

We see droppings on or near the property.

We kind of put two and two together to um see that there's they're kind of related to each other.

Um and that's kind of how the inspectors make those determinations.

Um Colin, I don't know if you want to add anything to that, if there's any other aspects that might I'm missing.

No, I I think you summarize it pretty well, Alicia.

I would say our inspectors do a good job interpreting situations where it's like light overgrowth or vegetation or something that would be excessive or blocking public way.

We've been in discussions with them over the past couple of years about those interpretations, and uh it feels as though we're on the same page at this point.

All right, uh thanks for that.

One final question.

This what happens if it's a rodent control violation on public property?

Great question.

So any rodents like say see a borough in the parks or something like that, should be reported to 311 so that it can get routed to public works.

Um that way we have it documented and we have uh basically a paper trail of this road grow up has been cited and it's leading to the pest control company so that they can be sent out.

Um yeah.

Are we working on that, Warren at City Hall?

Yes.

So um totally understand uh what you're talking about.

So if there are boroughs in City Hall, um those should be submitted by whoever the designated admin person for that building is.

Um typically that's what deep that's what we'd prefer.

Um so a 311 complaint needs to be submitted to uh so it could get to DPW buildings.

But if the public submits it, that's good enough, right?

We don't need to wait for the building to admin to the right.

Correct.

Yes, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just want to make sure for the public, like we're on that.

We're working on the the situation at City Hall that got a lot of attention last week.

Okay.

Thank you.

I'll let you roll on.

All right.

And I believe I will hand this over to Colin now.

Uh thanks, Alicia.

Really appreciate that.

Um, as many of you know, the city operates under an integrated pest management program, which is special in in a way because often IPMs are deployed for individual properties or individual pest control programs that focus on that space particularly and the operations internally.

So we've formatted an IPM for the city to guide internal policy and procedure across departments and develop projects together and add a level of accountability to those project managers that are tangentially or directly related to pest control in the city, uh, particularly uh rats.

So this is just a quick update on 2026.

We do an update of this every two to three years, depending on how projects are progressing or if new ideas uh start funneling through uh as plausible or something that we're interested in exploring.

So um, Leisha, can go ahead and forward.

It goes.

Um, so it's broken up into residential, public, and commercial with subcategories of education enforcement and abatement, just so everyone is aware of that format.

But we wanted to highlight some of the key aspects and updates of projects that we're planning on adding to the IPM, working on through 2026 and to 2027, and um deploying and seeing if they work and exploring new projects and and things that the city would like to um implement in the future.

Uh the first of which uh is an expansion of the annual comms plan that's been in place, that's sort of a mainstay.

Um, but we do have a new exciting one.

Uh, we're exploring the use of yard signs and we're currently designing those.

Alicia's doing an excellent job doing that, along with a trifold mailer with the intention to notify the general public and neighbors that some properties are taking those extra steps, going that extra mile to reduce rodent activity on their property.

It's the added level of peer pressure and collaboration that we're looking for in our communities.

And in many cases, we've seen successful situations where folks band together, they pressure each other, they work together, and ultimately reduce rats in their neighborhood.

Um, another aspect of residential education would be to continue to engage with landlords, finding new novel ways to work with them, um, whether they live in the house or they manage the property from a building in Boston.

Uh, we want to ensure that um we're opening those lines of communication, figuring out new ways to educate them and answering their questions.

These people might not know everything or be totally aware of how to do proper pest control, um, but we're there to inform them and instruct.

So that's a big project we'll be working on.

Uh, and then we're going to be exploring resources for uh, you know, getting folks uh connected with resources associated with energy efficiency work or uh pest control.

Um we have read a couple of different studies related to reductions in pest control in and around properties, um, those that have done retrofitting for energy uh efficiency work uh and those who haven't.

And it's shown that a lot of the energy efficiency work that can be done on properties, um, including insulation, patching up holes, uh, new windows, uh, those types of things can help reduce activity in and around a property.

This would mainly pertain to mice at the physical building, and then rats can be associated if you're doing work like trenching or replacing soft soils with um, you know, permeable surface and and things like that.

So pretty pretty exciting uh uh for some of the stuff that we've been looking into so far.

But um, yeah, we'll move into residential abatement.

So the the main points of residential abatement that the city operates under is the residential rodent control program.

Uh the past year or so, we've been logging um all of our visits into Citizen Serve, including the bait consumption data.

That's interesting in two ways.

Uh, the first of which is that the bait boxes are it's noted as to where they're placed.

So we're gonna get an idea of where bait boxes could be most effective on uh various properties, like is it most effective near a fence line?

Is it most effective near the shed?

Um, is it most effective near the actual building itself as well as the consumption rates, which is going to be helpful for us to understand the amount of activity on a property, but also the palatability of various baits right now.

We're operating with TRAD, but there's always going to be a new bait to try, something that might be more effective and doesn't have us resorting back to using more dangerous poisons associated with secondary poisonings like SCARS.

So that's been an exciting development.

We're going to continue uh refining that, improving that, and then pushing out those um that information to the residents.

One of the first and and most common complaints we get with the program uh is that there isn't that feedback that they're asking for.

There isn't that report back that's easily accessible.

We we have it, we just want to automate it.

So as soon as our inspectors finish up on a property, they click complete, and then that report can get filed to them directly.

And then in that report, it's going to have all of the visitation information as well as the recommendations from the inspector and the licensed pest control technician.

That is critically important.

As you know, we have we had over 800 properties participate uh last year or this year, I should say.

And to get them that type of information would be critical to the long-term um uh reduction in rodents that we want to see.

So that's very exciting.

And then as you all know, we launched or we helped uh advise on the pilot program for for the compost.

Um, we're gonna be monitoring that very closely with participating properties and look at rodent uh report data as well as if anyone's participating in the residential program um at the information as to whether or not there are reductions that we're seeing as a result of waste diversion from our bins into the compost.

So all very exciting.

Love it.

One question for you.

Go ahead.

Uh have you bumped up against a situation where there are any modules that you know about for citizen serve that we don't currently have that you think would be helpful?

Uh right now, the biggest one for that is related to rodent control is um making the application online in some capacity where a resident will log the request directly to us.

That is going to have to be generated as a type of license that we're gonna be working out directly with Citizen Serve.

We've done a formatting of it, like a workflow, um, but how that's actually gonna be implemented, we're going to be working on in the coming months and hoping to launch an early spring 2026.

All right, thanks, that all right.

I'm gonna hand the comp to Vice Chair McLaughlin, who's gonna be taking over while I duck into another meeting.

I will see y'all back here shortly.

Sounds good.

I am here.

Please proceed.

Thank you, counselor.

Um, let's move on to commercial education and enforcement.

Uh, the biggest thing that we would like to do is implement a level of education and empowerment to our businesses and provide them the information that they need to reduce rodents on their own property.

Um, you know, there's only so much we can do with smart boxes and monitoring and you know, calling them every every once in a while when we see an uptick.

But what we want to do is as they're applying for their licenses, we want to give them the information that they need to move forward.

Uh currently in collaboration with Cambridge, we're looking at our best practices guides for both residential spaces, and that sort of permeates into commercial spaces as well.

Um, but we're working closely with them and developing a new guide.

The one on our website currently is a little outdated.

There are new best practices, there's new information, there are better ways to communicate what we're looking for.

Um, and we're hoping to do that.

We don't have a set timeline on that.

This is a collaboration, it's sort of a shared effort.

So we'll see how that goes.

But we're looking forward to working with our with our um our partners in Cambridge.

Uh, those will be for building demolition, vacancy, dumpster food, outdoor seeding, and other permits and licenses where we see it's appropriate.

Uh, currently, reviews for pest control do occur for all building and demolition um permits.

Uh so that's very exciting.

Next.

Uh public abatement.

This is um, we're still working on big belly trash receptacle replacements, uh, working closely with our partners at DPW.

Uh, those are you know flying out the door and going in some locations that have been hit very hard by having the you know open decorative barrels for you know how many years.

Um, so we're excited to see more and more of those big valleys.

I take a picture by them, you know, a quick selfie to send to my family.

They're getting kind of tired of it.

But anyway, very exciting.

Um, we're looking uh to expand smart boxes to schools.

We've written up a scope of work for our DPW team uh to start implementing into their pest control contracts to include smart boxes for monitoring uh at external sites at all of the schools.

Uh, this currently looks like two to three boxes at each school, usually near dumpster are areas where we would get high reports.

Smart boxes will be you know monitoring both road rat activity as well as mice, which is uh of concern in the schools.

Um, and then we'll continue to use dry ice and CO carbon monoxide, which leads me to the next most exciting thing.

Alicia's been working on pulling together um, you know, what it would take for us to buy a carbon monoxide machine for the city and its use, and we're working on that process uh currently, and we're very excited to have one in our hands in the near future using uh participatory budgeting fund uh funding, which we're very grateful for.

Um, what that looks like is that we should be able to utilize the CO machine in most public spaces that are further away from uh from a building.

Um, and as we figure out how to use it uh more efficiently, effectively, and take some information from our uh friends over at Harvard who are using this on their campus.

Well, how can we use these near buildings?

What is the evacuation process?

But all of that we'll figure out in the future.

But right now, we're hoping to use the CO machine in in our parks or areas further away from buildings that boroughs are identified.

So very exciting.

And then uh these are two, you know, sort of pie in the sky ideas, but I want to include them in the IPM because they are very important to to long-term mitigation, and we've seen some success stories in in-ground uh trash receptacles, um, as well as the installation of public dumpsters or drop-off locations for compost recycling and trash.

We see that the consolidation of these types of areas as well as having them more secured than sort of residential toters could be an effective strategy moving forward, but there's a lot of technical and engineering questions that still need to be answered.

But we want to get the ball rolling and have those discussions now.

Um, so just two quick points for our you know, our big term goals.

So and then monitoring.

Uh, this is pretty straightforward.

We continue uh to try to work on programs where we can monitor data and information, including uh diseases, infections, escar poisonings, those types of things.

And then uh we've also been in some meetings and presentations related to citywide or larger scale monitoring programs beyond smart boxes.

Uh, this would include you know, 4G gateways being installed throughout the city to monitor uh boxes that are connected to them and track road activity in a more long-term fashion.

Um again, very, very long term.

Uh, we're exploring these things and looking at if they can be deployed.

Um, but all of it, all of it um will be important data and information for the future.

Um I believe that's it, right, Alicia.

Yes, that is it.

Do we have any questions from the committee?

I don't see any.

Yeah.

I will lead leave with this.

Now is the time.

Start cleaning up yards, clear and clutter, uh getting ready for that spring uh breeding cycle, uh, the foraging cycle.

Now is the time.

If you see burrows, treat them.

If your yard has extra junk in it, or if there's yard waste that you know maybe isn't related to like a pollinator garden or anything like that.

Now is the time.

Winter, fall.

Um, it's a great, great time to track rats, uh, find their hiding places and address those before spring rolls around.

But that's it for me, Alicia.

Anything else?

Nope.

All right.

Well, thank you both for the presentation.

I don't have any questions, but I feel very satisfied knowing that people are out there working on this.

Uh, just as an anecdote, I uh of course used your services as well.

I haven't seen any rats in my backyard for quite a while.

So let's hope that the rest of the neighborhood feels that way.

Uh, one last call for questions or comments.

Seeing none, I'd like to move to adjourn.

Thank you very much, everyone.

And on and Counselor McBoffin, excuse me if I missed this.

Um, we are marking every item we're completed.

Uh, this is a monthly, this is a regular update, correct?

Just beware this is the last meeting before the end of the year.

Let's mark it, we're complete then.

Okay.

And on adjournment.

Counselor Burnley.

On adjournment, Counselor Burnley.

Hi.

Counselor McLaughlin.

Yes.

Counselor Wilson.

With two counselors, we are adjourned.

Good night, everyone.