Senior Center Committee Meeting
Held at the Council on Aging, 5 Broad Street, Salem
Meeting Minutes – 5-8-07
Chairman Veno calls the meeting to order at 6:40pm. All members of the committee are present with the exception of Pamela Greaves, who contacted the chair to say that she could not make the meeting, and Mayor Driscoll who contacted the chair to say that she would be a bit late.
Veno proceeds with a few updates. He has arranged for the meetings to be posted through the City Clerk, and advertised in the Salem News, Salem Gazette, and on SATV. He also indicates that he will take good notes of this meeting, and be sure to have future meetings recorded.
Veno recommends that the meeting proceed directly to old/new business to discuss thoughts on the “roadmap” to the required October delivery of a report to the City, as was suggested by Barbara Cleary at the end of the previous meeting. There was no objection.
Coleman says that getting down to finding a site quickly will be important.
Goggin agrees and says that we should list all sites that could be available, delete ones that aren’t possible, and then determine what legislation is necessary to reach sites.
Walsh offers that the committee need a mission statement, and circulates a draft for discussion.
Veno suggests that we hold that for later discussion while we focus discussion on the “roadmap.”
Cleary suggests two thoughts. One that there is a is a lot of concentrated work that needs to be done in a few areas, and that it would be good to organize with subcommittees to meet to discuss these issues, and bring the back to the full committee. The second thought is that we need to develop criteria we’ll use to evaluate sites, so that each site can be objectively analyzed, each with the same set of questions. One subcommittee should be of people closest to what happens in these centers, to define what’s critical to have in this building – most important part of public process.
Mayor Driscoll arrives.
Lanzikos suggests that another subcommittee/workgroup could focus on public input to oversee the various processes for this. He suggest that the National Council on Aging has an accreditation process, which might offer useful information on criteria for sites.
Coleman says that he has some of their information on senior center philosophies, purpose, requirements, etc. He suggests that there is also some information on websites of senior centers that are same size as Salem. He passes out information for committee members to read.
Lovely indicates that one thing that will drive this project is funding, and asks the Mayor if we have to use CDBG funds only in the low-mod districts as identified by HUD.
Driscoll says that it depends on both location and use. If the project is in the district, it qualifies. If it is not in the district, if it meets certain criteria, it may qualify. She says that it’s best to talk with HUD staff as soon as you go down this road to get preliminary determination if it meets criteria.
Veno agrees that financing needs to be part of discussion too, and that the committee should get some sort of presentation from the Mayor’s office on the funding constraints of the project.
Lovely recalls that earlier in the process the City did conduct a past survey of around 800 calls. She says that a survey is a good idea, while it may be expensive, and asks the mayor if an expanded survey is feasible.
Driscoll say that there essentially were no resources to do this survey before. She says it was criticized then, and she doesn’t want to go that route again if it’ll be criticized again, and suggest that it be put out to the committee to discuss. Last time, the city worked with Salem State College, and perhaps they could play a larger role. The problem is that the timing is tough, with summer break coming up soon.
Lanzikos suggest that, as a way of getting a survey out there, perhaps we could benefit from any widespread city wide mailing. Another way would be through one of the easy-to-use web-based survey tools such as Survey Monkey. It is best if we use several methods, including perhaps focus groups at city housing complexes or other community locations.
Walsh suggest that we put something in Senior Power and AARP publications.
Goggin asks “what do we want them to tell us? What are the key questions?”
Cleary suggest that the public input subcommittee could develop these questions.
Driscoll says that “beyond that, programming is critical.”
Goggin suggests that we could do a luncheon to get them in to provide input.
Driscoll says that we can take advantage of events that are already taking place too
Salvo indicates that there were three concerns with the St. Joe’s site. The location was good. But the problems were parking, traffic and the square footage of the unit. And people put thumbs down on all three. We need to make sure the new site has enough parking.
Cleary mentions that there is a cross-relationship between these two groups, between public input and facilities.
Walsh says that we will want to know some info about facilities.
Cleary says that’s what we want to ask – these key questions.
Salvo mentions that we need to find the site first, then we can start to address other questions
Veno suggests that he sees it the exact opposite, that the site recommendation is the end of the discussion, that we need to first look at what we want the site to do, and what it’s characteristics will be.
Clearly agrees. We can’t evaluate them against criteria until we have criteria.
Salvo if you don’t know what’s avail, how can you talk about what you want?
Lanziskos. We start with a finite list today, and can probably determine rather quickly that some number might work, and are possible to consider. Then we can generally describe the sites’ characteristics, and get feedback on something that is more finite than just a wish list.
Goggin has some slides from Newburyport that went through a similar process, and listed evaluation criteria, and suggests that we could use that as a guide.
Driscoll says that in terms of programming/space, we have some information from the previous plan. She suggests the need for a site specific working group. She further suggests that without a discussion about tradeoffs with sites (cost, parking, programming), it makes deliberations difficult.
It is agreed without objection that three working groups will be formed on the following topics, make up of the following Committee Members.
Public Input Working Group– Lanzikos, Lovely, Curtain, Greaves
Site Identification Working Group – Driscoll, Salvo, Walsh, Clearly
Programming – uses and space needed for uses -- Coleman, Goggin, Clocher, Veno
Coleman suggest that the number of floors will be part of site discussion too.
Clearly says that programming needs will drives the space.
Veno asks where the financial constraints fit in to these working groups.
Cleary suggest that they should be part of site analysis/identification.
Driscoll says that lots of programming work has already been done, and that we have the old plans. They are expensive plan too, for the Szetela Lane site.
Curtain asks Coleman about the possibility of including adult daycare, especially as it could be a revenue raiser.
Coleman says that in Peabody they have a waiting list of 20-30 people
Lanzikos says that permits are limited by limited by space and permitted by units of people
Coleman cautions that getting adult day care up and running, it needs significant seed money. He says he can get more information on this.
Curtain says that we should consider this, especially as it presents the potential of income
Colmen says that in Peabody, they use some of the income from adult daycare to offset fixed expenses of the center.
Curtain agree with Cleary, we need to include financial discussions in there too.
Lanzikos suggest that you need to be sure that there is sufficient demand for adult day care. There are already a bunch operating in the area, and Beverly has 15 openings. You need to make sure there is demand, perhaps by doing a feasibility study. You also need to consider other operating cost, including those driven by location. More central locations incur less vehicle use to get people there, and therefore lower cost to get people there. More remote locations raise operating cost.
Driscoll says that we need to consider how we do this. We do not now have the in-house expertise to do adult daycare. And we may be biting off more than we have capacity to do now.
Coleman says that this shows the need for a master plan for the area, to spur cooperation in the region. Some of these services could be done more efficiently regionally.
Driscoll suggest that in terms of ramping up costs, it would be tough to consider if there’s vacancies in other places nearby.
Lovely asks Driscoll is there are private businesses that might want to provide the service in a city-owned building, to rent space and run it.
Driscoll indicates that they were looking to explore that for St. Joe’s and it’s worth exploring further.
Veno asks when the working groups could meet, some time between now the first meeting, and report on their work.
Lanzikos suggests that the work groups meet for first 45 minutes of the next meeting.
Veno moves the discussion to site visit scheduling. Denis Coleman and Doug Bollen have arranged that. Coleman indicates that it’s arranged for Friday, June 8th from 9am-12noon. We will meet at the Salem COA, and go by van/bus to Peabody, Beverly and Danvers.
Veno moves the discussion to a review of city-owned properties
Driscoll shows map and makes some comments, and suggests that she will leave it out for people to look at, and will leave with the site identification/analysis working group.
Walsh asks if abandoned property is on the map.
Driscoll says no, but she can tell us what the tax title properties are. They are essentially Universal steel and a bunch of other smaller ones.
Veno moves the meeting to Old/New Business.
Veno suggest that we discuss the mission statement presented earlier by Walsh. It is agreed that committee members will take a look and bring comments for the next meeting. Lanzikos says it is a good start.
Veno moves the meeting to Public Input.
Bob Blenkhorn – 498 Loring Avenue
I have nothing but praise for this panel, the city, this administration for taking on this issue.
The subject means a lot to me.
The public would like to know “what will go into the senior center?
Is it just for seniors, or will there be other agencies in there too?
I’m a certified public health officer.
Health and shelter – these are the 2 main necessities for seniors.
Seniors come to the senior center for their health.
You need to talk about what will be in this facility before you talk about where to put it.
In the past, this was only an issue for seniors during election time, so I want to praise this panel
But do this right.
There isn’t a gun to our head now. It’s not important how fast we do it.
Mr. Coleman is an expert, and you have many of them on this panel.
I’ve seen other centers, and Peabody’s is second to none. And we can improve on it
To me it’s disturbing to put seniors in with youth. Seniors need health.
Day Care is a good idea. It generates money
Peabody had experts when they did their center. They had grant money to pay for it.
Consolidate it with the Board of Health.
You should consider the Lee Fort Terrace site.
Senior Housing is in close proximity. This is important
Nobody walks to locations anymore
Do it on the road going down to the Willows. That would be good.
Charlie Reardon – Bridge St
Have we given thought to the size of what we want to build?
All these things, all the uses, need to be thought of.
This could be used for emergency use as well.
In Beverly, they rent the building for dinners, which raises money.
Handicap accessibility is very important. It should be all on one floor.
You must consider upkeep too.
John Zavaglia – used to live at 25 High St – now lives in Danvers
I was on COA committee in 1996-2001.
Had lots of meetings in this room, and had lots of discussion about the Webb St. site.
Then there was lots of misinformation given about sites.
Another group was convened to find alternative sites.
Get the March 1999 minutes.
Do what Danvers did in September of 1996. They met on a weekly basis over six months and produced an excellent report.
Look also at what Salem did for the Bowditch School. They were looking at 17-20 sites, and not one of those sites was where the current school is.
When you look locations, consider that Beverly is one mile from city hall. It’s not in the downtown. Danvers, too, is well out of the downtown. The location doesn’t need to be downtown as it’s been though of in the past.
I made lots of suggestions before, but their mind was on Webb street -- Willows, McCabe Park.
We should have done more of this in 1999, but we didn’t.
City Councillor Jean Pelletier – Lawrence Street
I want to thank board members for taking time out of your busy lives to do this.
Finances is a priority issue.
Mayor, can we superimpose the CDBG map with site map?
Regarding the survey, first develop criteria then put it out there everywhere.
It’s not too early to do this. Do it real soon.
We need to do this for existing seniors, but coming seniors too.
Ask ages for people on surveys too.
No further public comment.
Clocher moves adjournment, which is seconded by Goggin, and unanimously approved. The Committee adjourned at 8:15pm.
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