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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMinutes 2002-01-01 DISPOSITION DATE - C TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee Meeting Minutes from January 3, 2002 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Kristie Rice; Dave Boyes; and Creig Hebdon. The meeting began at 1:00 p.m. The Minutes from the November and December meetings were approved. The minutes from the November 27, 2001 meeting were not there but are the same as the December meeting as the same things were discussed. This meeting was dedicated to reviewing and revising the Safety Policies and Procedures manual. After reviewing the Safety Policies and Procedures manual the following were discussed: Confined Space Kristie Rice has looked into the type of training needed for the Town to perform our own Confined Space Entrant, Attendant, and Supervisor training. The Town may want to get the Water and Sewer Maintenance Supervisor (Wayne Sincebaugh) certified by the State to do those trainings (He is already doing them.). Fred will contact PESH (Mark Smarr) and review our current training methods with him. NOTE: Fred talked to Mark Smarr. He said that the current method of training is acceptable to PESH. Set Meeting Dates We will start meeting on the first Friday of each month from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. There will be no meeting in July or August. Injury Report Review There is an injury report to review. The committee did and recommended that the duct in question be padded with orange (or bright color) padding and mark the area with a sign alerting to the danger. Fred will talk to Joe Hulbert about taking care of this problem. The meeting was adjourned at 2:15 p.m. ghk DISPOSITION DATE P f A #V TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee February 1, 2002, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Highway Department Facility 1.2. Approval of January Minutes. Review Safety Policies an Procedures Manual. 3. Discussion on OSHA 300 Log Reporting. 4. Review Injury Reports—if any. 5. Other Business. ghk TOWN OF ITHACA Int, Safety Committee 31tlo NOIIISOdSIU Meeting Minutes from February 1, 2002 1 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Kristie Rice; Will Burbank; and Creig Hebdon. The meeting began at 8:10 a.m. The Minutes from January 3, 2002, were approved. The Manual: The Committee discussed changes to the Safety Policies and Procedures manual. Will Burbank, Town Board Member, indicated that the Committee might want to have an editor review the manual for consistent tone. Fred Noteboom will ask Nancy TenKate if she would be willing to review it. OHSA 300 Log: Judy Drake informed the Committee that she has been to a training on the new types of logs that the Town will be required to keep. The OHSA 300 log keeps track of the reportable accidents that the Town has during any given year. The changes include: longer posting time (will now have to post for three months Feb. 1 to April 30), entries can be "fixed" (before you had to start a new line for a reoccurring injury, now you will be able to white out and add to), and it must be signed by the top Official Officer. There is also a different form we will need to start using for injury/accident reports instead of the in-house forms we currently use. Judy informed the Committee that a separate OSHA 300 log has to be kept for the Highway Department and Town Hall. Injury Reports: There was one injury report to review. A woman fell by the entrance to the Post Office. This is because the concrete has settled. Fred Noteboom indicated that we could put cold patch in for the winter, although it would make a mess because people would track in the material. The discussion revolved around to needing to talk to the Public Works Committee, staff, and Town Board as to the maintenance of the Post Office's area. Fred looked at the basement at Town Hall (from the previous Injury Report) and has talked to the Maintenance Worker about fixing the problem. Miscellaneous: There have been some complaints about the trash being picked up (by the Laborer) without using gloves at Town Hall. Judy will address this. The meeting was adjourned at 10:15 a.m. ghk 9 l TOWN OF TTHACA Safety Committee March 1, 2002, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Highway Department Facility 1. Approval of February Minutes. 2. Review Safety Policies and Procedures Manual. 3. Review Injury Reports—if any. 4. Discussion on Walk Through Evaluations 5. Other Business. ghk 3 t'\ DISPOSITION DATE TOWN OF ITHACA 17441/1Safety Committeea .h Meeting Minutes from April 5, 2002 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Kristie Rice;Will Burbank; and Creig Hebdon. The meeting began at 8:20 a.m. The Minutes from February 1, 2002, were approved. The Manual: The Committee reviewed the changes made by Nancy TenKate (Editor) and added some of our own. This manual is now ready to be reviewed by the Public Works Committee. This manual does not need to be reviewed by the Personnel Committee. There was a discussion on what type binder to use for the employees' copy and the departmental copies. It was decided that a smaller size for the employees would not have all the information in it and we would state that it is an abbreviated version in the beginning of the booklet. The Town received a new form to be used when reporting an injury. We will start using this form and add the "Investigative Information" section from the Town's old form on the back. Review of Injury Reports There was one accident to report. This happened while putting a traffic light cover back on the box. The lids are heavy and hard to get on without falling in the hole. There is not much that can be done to correct the situation,but Fred will find out if New York State has a procedure on handling manhole covers. (NOTE: Fred talked to the State and they do not have any set procedure for this.) Update on the Previous Injury Report: Padding has been installed around the air duct although it is not orange. Miscellaneous Judy Drake informed the Committee that the Town's Workers Compensation experience rate has gone down as the Town has had fewer reportable accidents. Previously the Town was at a rate of 1.36%;we are now down to .87%. This reduction in the experience modification has the potential to reduce the Workers' Compensation cost by around$12,000 for 2002-2003 policy year. The Safety Committee felt that something should be done to acknowledge the Highway crews for working safely, as most of the reportable claims come from the Highway Department. The Committee feels that the accident rate is down because the Town has concentrated more on training and communicating the importance of working safely. Training: Training for using a fire extinguisher for Town Hall employees will be coming up in April. They will come down to the Public Works facility to use the fire extinguishers. There will also be a fire drill scheduled at Town Hall with the employee entrance blocked, so the alternate escape route is used. CPR and First Aid: We will continue to work on scheduling this. The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m. ghk DISPOSITION DATE C to SAFETY I r TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee May 3, 2002, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Highway Department Facility Meeting has been cancelled. ghk ARCHIVE COPY TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee June 7, 2002,8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Public Works Facility 1. Approve Minutes April 5,2002 2. Update on Safety Policies and Procedures. 3. Review Fire Evacuation Practice at Town Hall. 4. Review Incident Reports. SAFETY ---) ghk DISPOSITION DATE 1.9/( Q TOWN OF ITHACA 41141 Safety Committee Meeting Minutes from October 4 2002 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Kristie Rice; Will Burbank; Dave Boyes and Creig Hebdon. The meeting began at 8:10 a.m. The Minutes from June 7, 2002, were approved. Judy Drake handed out a revised safety policy and procedures manual. This will be approved with the personnel manual and distributed with it. Gail Kroll,Fred Noteboom, and Dave Boyes reviewed the PESH (Public Employees Safety and Health) inspection. The inspection was conducted on Tuesday, October 1, 2002. Dave said that the PESH inspectors felt we should get the updated version of the Hazardous Material books for Town vehicles. Gail explained that the PESH inspectors looked at the manual and had a couple of suggestions. The Town should adopt a policy regarding follow up procedures for employees who have been exposed to Blood-borne Pathogens. Gail will look on the PESH web site for more information and forms to use. The PESH inspectors also discussed the need for the Town to include, in the manual, something about working near overhead power lines. The Town does use equipment that could come in contact with overhead power lines while working on roads, such as paving and putting the box up in the air. Gail will look on the PESH web site for more information on this too. The inspectors told us that there is an assessment form (on the web site) that the Town might consider using for employees to make sure employees are using the proper Personal Protection Equipment at each job site. The Town was cited on two separate issues that will be resolved and PESH will come back and inspect to see that the issues were resolved. The first one is that there are some vehicles that do not have fire extinguishers in them. We will get fire extinguishers in them and label them as necessary. The other citation was due to not having drinking water available on site. The Town forces have a tendency not to take water to work sites in the cooler weather, although we should have it at all sites in all weather. This will also allow the employees clean water if a cut, etc. needs to be cleaned out. There was a general discussion regarding the public's view of the workers. The committee felt it was a good idea to put something in the newsletter and on the Internet (in Frequent Questions Asked) about the public questioning road workers standing around. Fred explained that basically, if you have someone digging a hole with equipment, the workers around it couldn't be in the hole working, so it sometimes looks like they are just standing around doing nothing. Safety Committee Minutes,October 4,2002 Page 2 The Committee also discussed having a "pick up" day around the Town. Will Burbank felt that we could ask people in the neighborhoods to clean up garbage on the sides of roads and leave the bags for the Town's forces to pick up and dispose of the trash. It would be good to coordinate this with Earth Day. We will discuss further. Fire Drill at Town Hall Judy reminded the Committee that we were going to have a fire drill in September but it has not happened yet. Kristie will schedule this but it will not be until the last week in October or the beginning of November. Judy said that the fire extinguisher training for Town Hall was not done. Due to the Public Works Facility being reconstructed, this will be postponed until spring (after the construction). The Committee discussed possibly having the training at the City of Ithaca s Fire Training Center. We will look into this further. Review of Incident Reports Judy informed the Committee that year to date we have had 30 days away from work. We have had five separate reportable incidents thus far. Three of the five incidents resulted in time away from work, and two were able to use the transition duty policy. Due to two of the incidents being related to manhole covers, Fred talked to the PESH inspectors regarding any safety policies for manhole covers. They were not aware of any. Judy suggested that when the scheduled safety training is done,we might what to note the incidents that happened during that year, and review the safety procedures for those types of incidents in more detail at the training. The Committee discussed getting better videos and more interactive training for the yearly training sessions. Some ideas were discussed as to what could be done. Public Works Facility Safety Kristie informed the Committee that while she has been doing some inspections at the Public Works Facility construction site, she has seen the public come in and not know where to go. This was discussed at the Public Works Committee meeting also, and the Highway Department will be putting up signs to direct the public to the office. The meeting was adjourned at 9:20. The next meeting will be November 1, 2002. ghk DISPOSITION DATE -1.ja "*41 TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee November 1, 2002, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Public Works Facility 1. Approve Minutes October 4, 2002 2. Update on PESH Inspection. a. Follow-up Procedures for Exposure to Blood-Borne Pathogens b. Overhead Power Lines 3. Review Incident Reports. SAFETY ghk i gik TOWN OF ITHACA 4141 Safety Committee Meeting Minutes from November 1, 2002 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Dave Boyes and Creig Hebdon. The meeting started at 8:15 a.m. The minutes from the October meeting were approved. PESH Update Fred Noteboom informed the Committee that Mark Smarr, PESH, came back on October 31, 2002, to review changes the Town made to correct the PESH inspection violations. All the violation corrections were satisfied. Gail Kroll informed the Committee that she has been online to look up follow up procedures for exposure to blood-borne pathogens. There were a couple different(but almost similar) forms to use. Judy Drake will adapt those forms to one, add a sentence in the Safety Policies and Procedures Manual and an exhibit at the end of manual. Gail said that there was very little information regarding safe working around overhead power lines. Creig Hebdon offered to talk to NYSEG (New York State Electric and Gas) about their policies on working near and around overhead power lines. Gail also gave the Committee a copy of a form that could be used to let employees know what personal protective equipment(PPE) is needed for each job. It was decided that a list of the PPE needed for each job should be included on the work order—the work order is part of a system that the Highway Department uses to track labor, equipment, and material costs for each job. This will eliminate the need for another form to fill out and remind the Working Supervisor what PPE is needed each time they make entries on the work order. There was a discussion regarding a hole that has been put in a wall down at Town Hall. We will look into how it got there. The Highway employees who were taking out the voting machines (that day) have said that they were unaware of the hole and did not put it in the wall. Judy Drake said that there are no incident reports to review this month. Creig talked to the Committee about a report he was reading in the ERS about construction accidents (deaths). There seem to be a lot of accidents in the construction profession. This may be due to many,small contractors unaware of safety issues or rules. There was a discussion regarding the Town s requirement for subcontractors to follow safety rules. When the Town bids out a job, the specifications do include provisions to contractors to use OHSA safety standards on all Town jobs. The Town does have the right to enforce the safety standards of OHSA and the Town on contractors. Other Although Kristie was not at this meeting, she asked that communication in vehicles be discussed as an incident came up while two people were using the Planning car and there was no radio (or cell phone) in that vehicle. Fred informed the Committee that we have not purchased any radios in.a while because we are not sure what communication system Tompkins County is going to use in the future. If we purchase radios now, they may not be compatible. Fred said that if the Town purchased smaller,better radios, we would not necessarily need stationary radios in the vehicles—employees could use the portable radios when they went out in a vehicle. Fred said that the Highway Department would rather have gotten the Nextel phone system (when we were looking into the new phones) but Verizon said that they would be able to do the same things as Nextel in the future. Creig will discuss this issue further with Sue Ritter (Planning Department) to see what they would like to do. Possibly the Planning Department should look into getting a cell phone for that department to use when going out in the field. Fred will look into the cost of portable radios, etc. Fred will review this matter with the Public Works Committee at their next meeting. Fire Drill Judy said that Town Hall conducted a fire drill and it took 1 minute and 40 seconds to evacuate 15 people. We will discuss the fire drill training at a later date—after the Safety Policies and Procedures manuals have been handed out. This should be after the November 7, 2002,Town Board meeting. The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 a.m. ghk DISPOSITION DATE �- - PI* TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee December 5,2002, 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Public Works Facility 1. Approve Minutes November 1, 2002 2. Review Incident Reports. 3. Meeting Dates for 2003 4. Discussion on Implementing a New MSDS Program for Town Hall. 5. Discussion on Upcoming Yearly Safety Training. ghk .;°°! t 0) ' IL , 4ir" - - x-.* ,illi rg cP i. it DISPOS IT10N DATE TOWN OF ITHACA Safety Committee Meeting Minutes from December 6, 2002 Present: Fred Noteboom, Co-Chair;Judy Drake, Co-Chair; Kristie Rice and Creig Hebdon. The meeting started at 8:20 a.m. The minutes from the November meeting were approved. Creig Hebdon said that he did talk to NYSEG about working around overhead wires. They do not have a policy on protecting the lines, although if we are working in an area that we would like protected, we can call them and they will put covers on the lines. Judy Drake said that PERMA has a video on overhead power line safety. We may want to get the video and have the Safety Committee review it. The Committee also discussed the issue of getting another cell phone or portable radio for the Planning Department. Creig said that Lisa would be able to get another phone—kind of as a floater—for Planning to use. The Committee, again, discussed the purchasing of radios and the hesitation due to Tompkins County not knowing what they would be doing with their radios. Kristie Rice said that she would get more information on the type of portable radios her fire department recently purchased. Fred Noteboom said we need to move ahead and purchase a larger repeater. We are licensed for a 75-watt repeater,but only have a 25-watt repeater. The Towri s current license does not expire until 2005. Incident Reports There are no reports to discuss. Meeting Dates The Committee will continue to meet on the first Friday of each month except July and August. There will be no meeting those months. MSDS at Town Hall Judy brought this to the Committee's attention, as she was not sure Town Hall's Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) were being taken care of properly. Connie Clark puts the new MSDS in the book when they come in. Gail Kroll said that is what she does at the Highway Department. Gail also hi-lights the chemical name and first aid procedures. The old sheets are taken out of the book. Town Hall's book is in the cupboard above the first aid kit and a poster is on the front indicating that is where the MSDS book is. Basic Safety Training for Highway We will be conducting some of the annual safety training on December 23 and 24. We will split the training into two groups this time. We will do our own training and videos have been ordered (through PERMA). We will work out a presentation. Judy wanted to hand out the safety (and personnel) manuals at the December training. It was decided that this would wait until the Highway Department is in the new building so that Highway employees would have a place to put the manuals. We will discuss each topic in the safety manual at the basic safety training meetings slated for December,January,February, and March until the whole manual has been covered. Judy showed the Committee the new sheet for Blood Borne Pathogens follow-up procedures. The meeting was adjourned at 9:15 a.m. ghk I