Health kiosks, strays from Hoboken and Gutenberg, new Pavonia Pool Liner Top Council Agenda

Separate public safety measures to support people and animals highlighted Monday’s meeting at the Jersey City City Council.

For the city’s two-legged creatures, the city’s Department of Health and Human Services prescribes a strategy that’s as simple as operating a vending machine…without depositing any money.

At the department’s urging, the council is asked to “initiate a program to distribute certain health testing products that prevent, minimize, mitigate or reduce harm to public health.”

These products — such as Narcan — would be provided to the public “free of charge through kiosks in Jersey City to end users,” according to department staff.

The city government is proposing to launch a pilot program “using a single kiosk for a limited time to determine the viability, effectiveness, best implementation strategies, and estimate costs of a broader program that provides harm reduction products.”

For now, the council is being asked to solicit informal quotes from suppliers to offer one kiosk to start the program and, if successful, expand to a multi-kiosk service through competitive bidding.

While the city does not expect to receive annual revenue from the program, it does expect that the services will “significantly benefit public health by making harm reduction products more widely accessible to Jersey City residents, especially those who are currently underserved or overemployed.” have limited resources. preventing and/or mitigating a variety of negative public health consequences.”

Administrators predict the pilot program, which uses a single kiosk, will last “approximately 6 to 7 months.”

Selecting a location for the first kiosk will be up to Stacey Flanagan, the city’s director of Health & Human Services.

Assistant Corporate Attorney Jeremy Jacobsen told city lawmakers that the kiosk system is now in use in Atlanta (where he estimated there were 50 citywide), Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Atlanta is working with the Georgia Department of Public Health and the Fulton County Board of Health to set up the pharmacies. Residents will not be charged for health tests such as COVID-19, but those who are insured will be billed through their insurance plans. Test results will be provided via text message or email within 48 hours, according to local health officials.

To find the locations of kiosks in Georgia, residents are directed to a map available on the Department of Health’s COVID-19 Dashboard.

Jersey City would be the first municipality in New Jersey to experiment with public health kiosks, according to Jacobsen.

When asked by General Council member Denise Ridley who would be responsible for overseeing the kiosks, Jacobsen said they were expected to monitor their condition and ensure they were amply stocked.

Ward F councilor Frank Gilmore asked if residents’ identities could be determined by using the kiosks. Jacobsen said “ID is not required” to access the pharmacies.

Meanwhile, the city received another update on its municipal animal shelter, which the city took over on Jan. 1 from its boss, W. Mark Byrnes, who told the city that the shelter was now ready to take in strays from two other communities in Hudson County to catch.

As proposed, Hoboken would pay Jersey City $100,000 for services by animal control officers for at least 12 hours per day, normally between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. (except Jersey City holidays), or for emergency services, to help stray, abandoned, or sick animals, injured or captured dogs or cats, but not “outdoor cats and cat colonies fed or otherwise cared for….”

Investigations into animal bites “are the responsibility of the municipal health officer.”

All seized animals will be transported to the Jersey City Animal Shelter where staff will attempt to locate the owner. “All stray or free-ranging animals will be available for recovery from their owner within the mandatory seven-day period, subject to state mandated fees and the shelter’s published recovery fee.”

If the Jersey City shelter accepts the care of an animal, it will provide shelter at no additional charge for up to 30 days…. However, the shelter “reserves the right to refuse to admit or return to (Hoboken’s) care any animal deemed too dangerous to shelter safely or when … shelter would be inhumane to that animal.”

Guttenberg would pay Jersey City $11,000 under a shared services agreement on terms similar to the contracts with East Newark and Hoboken.

When asked by council members how many animals he expected the Jersey City shelter to take in this year, Byrnes said predicting an annual count “would really be speculation” because the shelter’s previous operator did not have any documentation provided.

Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano said he and fellow member Amy Degise urged Byrnes and his staff to “take care of the animals no matter where they come from. We don’t want animals to suffer.”

Byrnes said he hoped to strengthen relationships with local animal advocates by creating a “low-cost spay/neuter program for those who cannot afford to fix (their animals).”

At the same time, Byrnes said, he and his staff are talking about bringing back a foster and volunteer program for animal lovers who would like to become “weekend (animal) parents.”

In the area of ​​local recreation, the council is being asked to reject the sole bid of $198,500, received April 9 from Aquatic Dynamics, of Mount Sinai, NY, which “substantially exceeds the city’s cost estimate for the supply and installation of a RenoSys PVC membrane exceeded. system pool liner” at the Pavonia/Marion municipal swimming pool and to negotiate a new supplier and price.

And lawmakers will consider an application from The Number Spot, Inc. consider operating a cannabis dispensary at 539 Martin Luther King Drive in the Jackson Hill Redevelopment Neighborhood Mixed-Use Zone.

The city’s Planning Department and the city’s Cannabis Control Board have each granted approval to the applicant, Niamah Terry, to renovate the first floor of a vacant two-story mixed-use building with second-floor office space, a roof terrace and a basement for cannabis use operations.