Dover Board of Health to Probe Carroll Center Air Quality, Expand Comment Period

DOVER — April 8, 2026 — Dover's Board of Health agreed to investigate HVAC performance at the Carroll Community Center after a resident reported carbon dioxide readings of roughly 1,200 parts per million during a December meeting there. Rick Nagy, a software engineer and Open Space Committee member who lives with a long COVID patient, brought CO2 monitors to both the Carroll Center and Town Hall, where he recorded a peak of 1,500 parts per million in the Board of Health office. Member John Quackenbush, a Harvard School of Public Health professor, noted that ASHRAE advises against using CO2 as a direct proxy for infection risk given confounding variables, and Chair K. Peterson said her own literature review reached a similar conclusion. The board asked Health Director Jason Belmonte to contact the town's facilities contact, Carl Warnick, to verify the Carroll Center system is performing to specification. Separately, the board voted unanimously to ratify the nominations of Belmonte and animal inspector Jen Cronin, approved expanding citizen comment to 10 minutes with three speakers allowed, and heard that Dover has accumulated roughly $75,000 in opioid settlement funds — with authority over how to spend them still unresolved between the Board of Health and the Board of Selectmen.