Senior Center Committee – November 14, 2007
Meeting Minutes
Matt Veno calls the meeting to order, and counts all members of the Committee present with the exception of Mayor Driscoll
Pat Curtin moves approval of the minutes from the October 3rd meeting, seconded by Teasie Riley-Goggin, which unanimously carries.
Frank Clocher moves approval of the minutes from the October 18th meeting, seconded by Pamela Greaves, which unanimously carries.
Matt Veno asks for working group reports.
Denis Coleman reports for the programming/use working group. I spoke with Emitt S. at the Executive Office for Elder Affairs on rentals of community space in other communities. He got 20 responses. There is not much significant that other town have done in terms of rental of facilities for functions. Among the key issues they raise was staffing, suggesting that if you’re serious on this, you need a full time staff to handle the many issues (liquor licenses, insurance). There is also a concern with wear and tear on the facility through use. To take it seriously, you’d have to do a study of it. Also, concern with how it impacts programs that you run at a facility. In short, there is nothing significant happening statewide at other senior centers with regards to
rentals. Most just rent out to small groups, AA, etc. On a small scale, Middleboro does weddings, but only 3-4 a year. It would take more input and study. Insurance could be very expensive. It’s a possibility, but would take legal input to do that.
Teasie Riley-Goggin reads a letter submitted to the Committee by Joan Sweeney that suggests that financial issues should not be a consideration of this committee at this time, that it’s slowing the work of the committee. She recommends that we proceed to name a site first, then address more detailed issues of financing the building later.
John Walsh reports for the site analysis working group, and says that they were hoping to have information on the legal status of the property, which we don’t yet have. By December meetings, we should be in a position to narrow it down. So we don’t want to narrow it down tonight, but let’s wait until we have that information.
Matt Veno: I’d like to lay out a few areas for discussion at this meeting. This issue of financing is one of four issues we could discuss in more detail tonight. I’m told that the Mayor will bring with her a memo from the Planning Department that will address possible financing ideas. Part of that discussion could focus on mini-market study on possible rental use and income. Second, we need to discuss deed status, legal status, and ownership status of the lots we’re looking at. Third, we need to discuss the public meeting and how we present out work to date. Fourth, we should discuss how we can organize the information we’ve gathered to help us make a decision. While we wait for the Mayor to arrive, perhaps we can hold off on the finance discussion,
and start with a discussion on the deeds/legal status. We have two documents in front of us on this issue. One is a letter from the solicitor in response to my request that they look at the deed status of the Fort Avenue site, the Memorial Drive site and the Broad Street site. Apparently there are no deed references for these sites, which is not surprising.
Tony Salvo: Can you tell us about the status of Szetela Lane? Is that settled or what?
Matt Veno: We would probably need to wait and ask the Mayor for a definite answer on that.
Teasie Riley-Goggin: I can answer that. The site is probably still under a purchase and sale agreement that’s pending. Mr. Luster still needs to be before the ZBA.
Joan Lovely thought that perhaps it is before the ZBA tonight, but she’s not sure.
Matt Veno: Perhaps this discussion is best had when we get to the area of finance a little later. The letter from the solicitor indicates that the city will be hiring a title examiner to definitively answer the questions of deed status. When asked about a time frame, they thought it would be something we could get in time for our December meeting. We also have a document from Pat Curtin that may shed some light on the Children’s Playground parcel on Memorial Drive.
Pat Curtain. The only recorded document shows a plot plan for Camp Naumkeag, which also shows a right of way on the east side of Camp Naumkeag, and beyond that it calls the parcel “City of Salem, Parks Department.” That being said, there’s a process underway at the City Council now that could transfer Camp Naumkeag to the Park and Rec. Commission. There’s been some discussion with the city solicitor that we may not want to do that, that it may tie our hands. Perhaps Camp Naumkeag could be transferred to the Park and Rec Commission as a lease. We have to wait until we get more information on the title part of it. Maybe our consideration could be to look at Camp Naumkeag as a site for the senior center, and move that use to the children’s playground.
In my mind, that would make more sense, as it would likely be much less time to make that happen. It’s just a thought. It’s dependent on what we learn from the title search. The handicap park is likely park land, haven’t seen anything that tells me otherwise.
Matt Veno: I’m concerned that this is a lot that the architect hasn’t looked at as he has the other priority sites.
Pat Curtin: This is true. There’s a lot of land there, more than you think.
John Walsh: We could decide that, but we don’t know anything until we get that answer on the title.
(Mayor Driscoll arrives.)
Barbara Cleary asks Pat Curtain. "Camp Naumkeag isn’t park land, right?”
Pat Curtin: No, it’s not.
Paul Lanzikos: If Camp Naumkeag is possibly a consideration, can we have the solicitor look at this too?
Barbara: I think that would be a good idea. I think we should also ask the solicitor for guidance on what the process would be to make the switch between Camp Naumkeag and the playground.
Matt Veno moves the discussion on to the financial issues, and refers committee members to the memo that the Planning Department prepared. I feel that we absolutely have to have finance issues as part of our discussion, otherwise we run the risk of selecting the perfect site, but leave aside the side that may not be perfect, but it most possible to make happen. I feel like we have to take it seriously. I don’t think we have to come up with a full fledged financial plan, but do think it’s something we have to include that’s thoughtful and considered.
John Walsh: The mission statement that the committee adopted early on has this in it.
Teasie Riley-Goggin: We never heard anyone come in and tell us how to do this, and how to fund it. No one has given us a road map on how to do this. We need financial input, perhaps from the planning department.
Mayor Driscoll walks through the Planning Department funding document, which includes information on section 108 loan, as well as other sources of information on federal and state funding and private foundation sources. There then followed some brief general discussion about specific facts in the document, about maximum loans under CDBG.
Joan Lovely asks what amount was supposed to go to the new senior center that was part of the St. Joe’s plan.
Mayor Driscoll says that the loan amount for St. Joes was somewhere around $3.5 million. But we also weren’t going to be using only CDBG funds for the payments, that we were also using tax revenue coming from the other development on the site.
Joan Lovely indicates that that money will still be coming in, even though that the development of the St. Joe’s site is still in court. We’re still anticipating the project going forward, so the tax revenue will likely still there, as it would have had the St. Joe’s project moved forward as proposed.
Mayor Driscoll says that she wouldn’t want to speculate about these funds. I hope it goes well, but I don’t think it’s as easy to count those dollars.
Tony Salvo: Has this building (5 Broad Street) been appraised, so that we can know how much? We should do that.
Mayor Driscoll indicates that we were looking at under a million in the St. Joe’s.
Teasie Riley-Goggin says that many people feel that this building should be kept as city property and used for city offices once the lease for the Peabody Block is completed. The idea of selling off city property as a quick fix, is that the way we really want to go? I don’t.
Matt Veno: But Teasie, you’ve been an advocate all along for the sale of the proceeds of the Szetela Lane property going toward the new senior center.
Teasie Riley-Goggin: That site was going to be used for the senior center, so that money should be for the seniors, should be a down payment on the new senior center.
Tony Salvo: Mayor, do you know where Szetela Lane stands now?
Mayor Driscoll: The developers have met with the neighbors to resolve some issues, and still need to get some permits. I think they have a plan that neighbors can support, and they’ll be filing with ZBA soon.
Tony Salvo: When does the agreement expire?
Mayor Driscoll: Sometime this spring I think. They were the only people to bid on the property.
Tony Salvo: Is there any way of getting out of that purchase and sale agreement if the deal falls through?
Mayor Driscoll: It’s not a done deal by any means, it’s still subject to permits, and city council approval
Tony Salvo: If we had to use that land, could we do it, if the other sites fall through?
Matt Veno: But that site is not anywhere part of our discussions here. It’s not on any of our lists, and that seems like a step backward, not forward in terms of the committee’s work.
John Walsh: It is on a list, but not on our active list, which we’ve narrowed down to three.
Tony Salvo: Is there a way that we can ask the City Council finance committee how much money we can spend on a new center? All we can do is find a location, but we don’t know anything about financing.
Matt Veno: All I can say is what I said before, which is that we have to address it. We’re not finance experts, but we’re all commonsense people and we can find some way to address this topic instead of washing our hands of it and putting it aside. We’re looking at serious financial issues on the city budget.
Joan Lovely: I think this document that the Mayor has given us is a great start, and includes much of the same sources that were there for St. Joseph’s. What we need to do it come up with a figure, but narrowing it down to a site and figuring out what building costs would be.
Matt Veno: Perhaps as we consider each of the three sites before us, perhaps we can include for each site a bit of a narrative discussion about the pros and cons of financing of each site. I think for a lot of these funding possibilities, they’re going to be generic to each of the sites. Yet there will also be peculiarities to each of the sites that might lend themselves to financing possibilities, like some of the revenue generating potential that we’ve discussed, like rentals.
Mayor Driscoll: I don’t think the committee needs to solve the financing issue, but that it needed to keep these issues in mind as we evaluate different sites. I just don’t want for us to come up with a report that’s terrific and useless. It’s important to base our decisions in reality. Projects like this are way to complex for this committee to come with a financing package, but do think it’s important to include this as part of each site’s discussion.
Tony Salvo: And we’ve been doing that all along, by focusing on city-owned sites.
Denis Coleman: I think we also need to look at the sites and how easy it will be to build on them, in terms of site preparation costs, blasting, etc. And that really needs to come from the architects.
Barbara Cleary: I want to remind people that when we had the list of criteria, we had on there financial considerations. And this is something we’ve been keeping in mind all along, and asked Mark Meche to look at when he was looking at sites. This is something that’s within the purview of the committee, not to figure out where every dollar will come from, but we have been keeping this in mind right from the beginning. So, how can we start to look at these three across all the broad characteristics. We’ve been thinking about how we can come up with something that you call all look at that tries to pull together all this information.
Teasie Riley-Goggin: This committee has always operated based on what we can get that’s the best for our dollar.
John Walsh: We need the information from the title examiner if we’re going to narrow this down, find out what the costs are, and start the process. Let’s get a site. Let’s get the information, and through this process narrow it down again.
Matt Veno: It sounds like these things can happen concurrently, that the workgroup can continue it’s work developing this decision making document, while the title examiner does research on the deeds. In terms of a public meeting, I can foresee a public meeting that starts with a presentation of the committee, that could include a good deal of Mark’s visuals, walks through the process, then walks through the finals list and the pros and cons of each site and how they match up with our criteria. Then finally unveils our recommendation and then asks for public comment.
Matt Veno also states that if the site analysis working group needs any help, or guidance or expertise, whether that’s the city finance director or any other resource, we should provide it to them.
Pat Curtin: Are we going to ask about the Camp Naumkeag and handicap park swap? My vision was to do something on the upper level at Naumkeag for the rentals, and keep the lower level for the seniors. That would entail coming up with funding for the upper level. What if we hear back that the handicap park is park land, what are we doing to do then? Are we going to just go back to the Fort Avenue site and say that’s it 100% without considering Camp Naumkeag?
Barbara Cleary: That’s why it would be helpful to have guidance on the process, if we were going to do the switch. We could ask Mark to look at Camp Naumkeag to look at it, if people think it’s worth pursuing, in the interest of being thorough. But I do remember early discussions about this, and getting some feedback from some…. “oh no, not Camp Naumkeag,” that there was some emotional attachment.
Matt Veno: I can try to get an expedited answer from the solicitor on the legal process on this, and get it to the working group as soon as possible.
Barbara Cleary: It sounds like there are two swaps. The first is that if the playground is parkland, and we wanted to swap that with Camp Naumkeag as parkland, what’s the process? The second switch that we leave the playground the way that it is, and move the building the Camp Naumkeag. I will ask Mark to look at the Camp Naumkeag site.
Pat Curtin: The lower level is completely underutilized.
John Walsh: Most of the people I’ve talked with thought that eh buildings at Camp Naumkeag are old and should be torn down anyway, that there is little sentimental value there, and that the building itself could go on Naumkeag.
Frank Clocher: Didn’t the architect say that the Fort Avenue site would be easier to build on? So, why are we going through all this? Camp Naumkeag’s all lumpy. Are we doing this just for the view? It would be an expensive view.
Matt Veno: It could be that the cost of building at the Fort Avenue site are so much less that it outweighs any positive from the view, or possible revenue generation from a facility there, that it’s not worth it to build on the Memorial Drive side.
Paul Lanzikos asks some questions about which sites are in CDBG district and which were not.
Matt Veno: The statement that stood out for me in the CDBG discussion about use of section 108 loan is that 51% of the persons using the facility would have to be seniors. I feel very confident that this will be the case from all our earlier discussions about seniors having top priority with the building.
Joan Lovely: That both Park and Rec and the Council on Aging are in one new department would seem to confirm that this is what’s happening with this building.
Matt Veno: I do want to emphasize though that we want to be sensitive to how much of CDBG we use on this. We have to be careful that we don’t raise CDBG for this building. It has to be part of the discussion, but looking at carving out half of the city’s allotment for this, we have to be sensitive to that.
Barbara Cleary: Yes, we need to be sensitive to that, but that’s not our decision to make, to be honest with you.
Pat Curtin: I think we also need to look at this as if you’re looking at a police station or fire station. If you need it, you find a way to make it happen.
Joan Lovely: You’d bond for it.
Pat Curtin: Do we make this a priority as much as a new school? I think it should be. Everyone here would be. This has to be a priority.
Paul Lanzikos then reports on his discussions on the “mini market study” of the demand for such facilities for rental. I’ve spoken with Toby Karlin, a cater, who’s familiar with venues in the area, and she said she’d be willing to meet with the public input workgroup to (1) review with us the current marketplace, what other venues that exist in the North Shore, for the types of functions we’re foreseeing, cost, attributes, drawbacks, and (2) have her critique of analyze the potential of each site serving a function site.
Matt Veno: The point of this exercise, as I understand it then, is to gather information that could be included in the discussion of each of the three sites.
Paul Lanzikos: Another possibility is that we might find a partner in development, like NSMC, YMCA, Elder Service Plan of the North Shore (adult day health), medical clinic for seniors, PACE program, assisted living/housing,. Perhaps we can reach out and have very preliminary conversations with some of these folks. There may be some synergies here that we could find.
Barbara Cleary: There may be some programs out there, like PACE, that are looking to lease space.
Paul Lanzikos: PACE is in a growth mode right now, and they want to locate near seniors.
Denis Coleman: If we were building now in Peabody, we’d probably look to do it near housing.
Paul and Matt will coordinate reaching out to NSMC and Elder Service Plan.
Discussion then focuses on scheduling the next meeting, which is set for Tuesday, December 11th.
Paul Lanzikos suggests that on the next meeting agenda we put time on to discuss the public meeting. Last time we discussed this, we were looking at late January for a public meeting. There was some discussion about location, Bentley School, Carleton School.
Paul asks if the last meeting was videotaped, and if this one could be as well. Matt Veno suggested that it was, and that this one could be too.
Matt Veno opens it up for public comment.
Nancy Olbrick speaks, and wants to recap, that we’re hiring a title examiner to look at the sites to find a deed. If they can’t find a deed, I believe it’s called Adverse Claim, and you’d have to have it surveyed, that would be in the best interest of the city. That way you can make sure that you have legal claim to build. You might want to do it on this building too (5 Broad Street) if the thought is to renovate this building.
Joan Sweeney also speaks. A green building would have a lot of possibility for grants for this type of building.
Connie (last name?) speaks. Is it the consensus that we’re building a community center, and not a senior center?
Teasie Riley-Goggin: If the grant requires that 51% be for seniors, if we build a beautiful facility, the senior population will grow to such an extent that this would change.
Paul Lanzikos: The question was asked in the focus groups, and an oft suggested comment was that while seniors should have priority use, seniors of all ages said they’d like to see if used by the community, and several in fact came out and said that that’s what it should be called. Also, if you look at recent trend of development of these types of centers, while the focus is for seniors, they’re being viewed mostly as community centers, so that the buildings gets most use possible, and build community support and engender intergenerational programs. We’re moving away from segregating populations.
Matt Veno: One of the first actions that this body took was to adopt a statement that embraced that philosophy, that was also reflected in the data that we gathered from the public.
Connie: Is that still going to be affordable?
Matt Veno: One of our big next steps is to take a thorough look at that.
Connie: If you’re going to get everyone whipped up in support of a site, and then you can’t afford it…? I wouldn’t want you to go too far ahead of the public.
Barbara Cleary: We’ve been cognizant of that all along. In choosing sites, we’ve looked at those that are affordable, city owned sites for example. When we bring this to the public, it’s still to get more input, not to present our final decision.
Paul Lanzikos: We should not be seeing the public meeting not as an endpoint, but as a check point to make sure that the assumptions and work are validated by public opinion so that we can go back and do some more work before making our final presentation.
Matt Veno: I don’t see the public meeting as the heavy sell of our recommendation, but more, this is the product of our work and research, to make sure that we’re not completely off base.
Barbara Cleary: Even if we make a recommendation for a site, we should include information on the other sites too, as none of them are infeasible. This way we can be open to getting feedback on others.
Paul Lanzikos: Most members of the public haven’t been as intimately involved as you all have, and only get bits and pieces of it in the papers.
Teasie Riley-Goggin moves for adjournment, which is seconded by Frank Clocher, and carries unanimously
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