Senior Center Committee
Meeting Minutes
April 16, 2008
Chair Matthew Veno calls the meeting to order. Members of the committee present are Frank Clocher, Councillor Joan Lovely, Pat Curtin, Barbara Cleary, John Walsh, Teasie Riley-Goggin, Denis Coleman and Pamela Greaves. Absent are Mayor Driscoll.
No minutes to approve.
John Walsh / Barbara Cleary report for site analysis working group on the Boston/Bridge site, and start by passing out site characteristics list.
In terms of minimum square footage, it looks fine
Desired characteristics: it’ll probably be ok
Parking: We don’t really know, building location, dedicated parking is all unclear
Access/traffic/pedestrian: pretty good, it’s centrally located, on 2 main streets, public transportation is good
Pedestrian access: Not good at all
Aesthetics: Not that high
Availability of the site: We don’t really know
Proximity to other amenities: possible proximity to doctors’ offices/medical facility is a plus
Lack out outdoor space is a negative: It’s unclear if they’d give us anything, so we don’t know.
Total project costs: Again, we don’t know, don’t know what the price is.
Ability to access other funds: Good, it falls in the CDBG district
Operating costs: neutral or fairly good
Cleary: That’s what we’ve done to date, but would like to know what the committee thinks.
Goggin: With regard to the Boston/Bridge site, I have a concern about other possible development in that area that will go along with the additional work on the bypass road. Traffic will be horrendous.
Walsh: Traffic is everywhere. You’ll have to go through traffic to get to any site on our list. I’m not sure if it’s an issue that we should be looking at that will set any one site above another. On a scale of 1 to 10, I think that’s a 3.
Lovely: I spoke with a higher up at North Shore Medical Center, who really did reiterate the preliminary nature of their plans. I wanted to stress that. If the numbers work, they’ll be considering it, but their focus is in Danvers, and this is way down on their priority list. It’s a possibility, but a big “what if” is if the numbers work. It is very preliminary. I don’t think we take it off the list. We need to strongly consider it, but with our eyes wide open that we might not be on the same time table. The Mayor did say it was very preliminary, and my conversation confirmed that.
Veno: In terms of Boston/Bridge, can you fit the data you have into the table?
Cleary: I think we could, but there’s just a lot that we don’t know.
Walsh: There are so many unknowns, it might throw it out of balance.
Cleary: We can write up some questions that we feel are unanswered. We’ve asked to meet with the hospital. But we need to find a way to get at these answers.
Goggin: I have a question. I thought we’d look at the numbers and financing by now. How much longer is this going to go on?
Veno: We have to bring it to a conclusion and we have to do it soon.
Walsh: It’s time for a public meeting. Let’s find out what they feel about what we’ve selected. We have to show them something.
Curtin : We’d mentioned about meeting with developer of the property. Was there any contact made in that?
Walsh: It was never provided to us.
Cleary: We need to ask again
Walsh: I’m as frustrated as any one.
Veno: We need to talk about how we organize the presentation, and set a date. If the site analysis workgroup would send me a list of unanswered questions, I can send them on to the Mayor and have her help us get answers.
Walsh: But I don’t think it should hold up the public meeting, which we should forge ahead on.
Goggin: That’s the purpose of the public meeting, to see if there is information that the public may have that we may not.
Veno: I’d say we should do it soon after our next meeting, which is scheduled for April 30th. I’d like also recognize that Paul Lanzikos has joined us the committee, along with several members of the Council on Aging Board of Directors, and Friends of the Council on Aging. Can we discuss format, and date and time?
The committee decides on Wednesday, May 28th at noon, and 6:30pm at the Council on Aging, same room that the Committee’s been meeting at.
Lanzikos: One at noon hour and one after supper time?
Walsh: Doug, that gives you time to put an insert in Senior Power, right?
Lanzikos: the public information committee can take on drafting the insert.
Walsh: We can ask mark to put together a presentation to us
Cleary: Is it helpful for anything like our chart?
Veno: How about a one-pager on survey data and focus groups?
Lovely: The public input workgroup can work on that, and do a PowerPoint of the data.
Veno: I think part of the presentation has to be about the process that we’ve gone through, as well as the results of the process.
Goggin: I’m sure some of the public
Financial
JW – meeting prior to that to
Outline of the presentation
BC – we’ll meet with Mark
Next Steps
-Matt - outline
-Work groups work on presentations
-Barb questions to Matt Mayor
-public input group work on flier for senior power
-Matt and Joan – report to council
-TRG – Salem News and SATV
-Matt – talk with Cheryl about public hearing
-revised financing plan – share with committee (talk with Kim(
-Next meeting – think about what the next steps are – what’s the outcome?
PL –
Public Comment
Nancy Riley
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