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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-09-12 Council on Aging Minutes� r Town of Reading Meeting Minutes e �o Board - committee - Commission - Council: Council on Aging Date: 2022-09-12 Building: Address: Purpose: Council on Aging Attendees: Members - Present: John Parsons, Marilyn Shapleigh, Debbie Small, Nancy Ziemlak, Rosemarie DeBenedetto, Beverly Curio , Nancy Tawadros Sally Hoyt Karen Pinette Karen Fotino loan Coco Jackie Behenna Karen Janowski Members - Not Present: Jolyn Ek, Sandy Shafer, Others Present: t;tC-I�'Ef) G'+`JN CLERK 2122 OCT I I AM 9: Time: Location: Zoom Session: Open Session Version: Final Christopher Kowaleski, Senior Center Coordinator Minutes Respectfully Submitted By: Nancy Ziemlak Topics of Discussion: • Meeting Called to Order at 6:30 • Motion made to accept minutes from September 2022: all voting members voted in favor to accept minutes with correction of meeting date from 07/02/2022 to 08/02/2022 Aker a discussion it was decided that the next meeting will be a hybrid meeting (option to attend in person at the PSC or using Zoom). Select Board Liaison Update was not given as Karen Herrick and Mark Dockser were not present. Recalc Uaison Update (John Parsons) Page I 1 At the last meeting two members from the Council on Aging attended as well as a ReCalc members. The meeting included a lengthy discussion about what would take place at the Walgreens as well as priorities. A brief update on ReCalc communications included: a video being worked on, the Recalc web page updated on the Town Website, a newsletter was posted with a high level overview of a new Senior Center or Community Center. It was requested that it be delivered to everyone on the Pleasant Street Center mailing list and the Council on Aging Mailing List. To watch this meeting go to: rctv.org, choose video, choose video again, select video by date. Elder and Human Affairs Update (Chris Kowaleski) Some of the highlights for August and September were presented in a written report as well as • Meet the new Senior Center Coordinator Coffee • Sally Hoyt's 100th birthday celebration on August 25th • Return of Memory Cafe on August 9th partnered with Stoneham • ReCalc Senior/Community survey released to Reading Residents. On-line Survey as well as Paper copies available at PSC and other public town buildings Motion made and seconded to allocate up to $800 from Burbank for the birthday party and movie and lunch/pizza. All voting members voted in favor. Discussion of Trustee Reports Several members raised concerns about the readability of the information presented in the reports. The COA would like to see a report for each fund that includes just the following information: Total interest available as of the printing of the report, expenditures for each fund (including name of item submitted for reimbursement, amount expended, and date paid) loan Coco volunteered to take this project on to determine if it could be done. Discussion of New Senior and/or Community Center Brief Summary of Activity to date as follows: (Nancy Ziemlak) ReCalc was formed by the Select Board to explore the current Pleasant Street Senior Center to determine what is needed to improve services and programs for 60+ community in Reading as well as the community in general for a possible combined community center for all town residents. UMASS was hired to conduct Focus Groups, Community Forums and a town -wide survey of all reading residents which will be complete at the end of September. To date the last item to be completed will be a detailed final report (December) and will provide the specifics needed for the Town to make a well researched decision as to next steps. ReCalc developed a detailed schedule so that all these activities could take place. During this past summer ReCalc made a decision to add assessing the viability of the former Walgreen property to the ReCalc timeline. In order to do this 2 RFP's were posted by the town for Senior and/or Community space. RFP 1 In May for which the town received one response from Walgreens to rent the space. RFP2: In August the town posted another proposal that requested responses for space to purchase that was due on 9/19. Both RFP's are available on the town website for review. Preliminary Interior Space drawings of the Walgreens property were done by an architectural firm under contract with the Town at the Town's request. The firm received input from the staff at the Pleasant Street Center, Recalc, and comments from N.Ziemlak member of COA. This Page 1 2 draft plan was paid (approximately $30,000)from funds allocated by ARPA to the town's Elder and Human Services department. The intent was to provide a draft drawing for discussion to determine the possible feasibility and identify concerns. At the last ReCalc meeting the Council on Aging was asked to provide feedback to ReCalc and identify goals, concerns, questions that need to be answered so that the COA can lend it's voice to support this additional development in the ReCalc timeline and provide feedback on whether these changes will meet our current and future needs if we were to go with Walgreens as a Senior Center site. The following concerns were identified at this meeting Accessibility There is a concern that the "discussion" layout provided by the town may not take into account a fully accessible building. This may mean that less space will be available for programs and services once fully calculated. This should be fully factored in prior to purchasing building to ensure that there is sufficient program space. Parking The parking situation is very unclear behind Walgreens. Although a second drawing includes a reconfiguration of the parking lot for 30 spaces it must be noted that it will impact the nearby businesses including the police station and downtown businesses. The PSC currently has available 26 spaces behind the building, 2 handicap spaces, 1 space for delivery, and an additional 6 spaces across the street with an entance on XXXXXX. All of these spaces are identified with a sign "Senior Center Parking Only from 8:30am-5:OOpm." Before any decision is made on the purchase of the Walgreens building parking will need to be agreed upon by the Town. Renovation The Council on Aging requested a tour of the former Walgreens led by the Town Manager. Concerns were expressed: cement floors, electrical boxes in floor, columns throughout interior space, 2 entrances, lack of dedicated parking, lack of daylight, exterior windows. Extensive interior improvement will need to occur in order to make this space accessible, provide sufficient storage space, and provide creative arrangement of space to include both permanent rooms as well as rooms that will expand to manage larger events. Future In addition space to expand is a necessary requirement as the elder population is growing. It is unclear at this point if the town considers this building temporary (S years) or more longterm permanent space for a Senior Center. We have been repeatedly told that "we can't get everything we want". But there are some renovations that will be required that the town can not compromise on for quality materials in order to provide seniors with what is required for programs and services in this new space. Timellne Members agree that Walgreens is an unexpected development and it is important to understand the possibilities. General comments indicated that the site visit data, the focus group feedback, and the survey results are integral in understanding the big picture of what is needed now and for the long term. The data collected to date, at the Town's expense, should be thoroughly analyzed to help us determine the best course of action in terms of location, accessibility, and prioritizing program needs. Page 1 3 Taken from 9/12 Transcript Senior Center Discussion and summarized above: • Walgreens would become the permanent senior center • there's only six packing spots • inside Walgreens it's a 40 -foot ceiling what's acoustics a big problem what are you going to do with people who have a hearing or partial • there's like 30 columns there how are they going to work around the columns • it's a slab floor • Sally speak: I would like to present my concerns for the Walgreen building as reading's future Community Center Senior Center visitors would leave their vehiclesparked on the site for several hours unlike a drugstore which caters to people who shop and leave the site • should consider our use for the site would the Walgreens site have amplespace such as rooms for smaller meetings such as we now have at our current Pleasant Street location the rooms havebeen in added convenience since we have need for smaller group meetings would we have restrooms on each floor • Karen Pinette on I would just say that the parking is the biggest concern in accessing that facility I just don't see how it makes any bigger difference than what we already have at the Pleasant Street Center even what we can do inside it's getting the people there safely and the • ability to park that's a nightmare back there and if you're going to make it 60 spaces what are we going to drive • it has less parking than the existing Senior Center and we want to expand our programming so it it just doesn't make sense and the proposal for increasing the parking um there's no guarantee that even those spots are going to be designated to the senior center people already utilize those parking spots to go to other downtown areas • um square footage is it big enough so that we are not having to move furniture in chairs for every single activity that is programmed at the senior center and if • I like the idea of an exercise room with the with a few bikes andum uh uh treadmills uh so I I thought there was some good options the library idea I don't know if that's • where the computers would go because you know computers • um upstairs seems to be pretty much uh office space and storage space the waythe program space we're looking at about uh ten thousand square feet that's downstairs • there's lack of daylight in the building • exercise room bigger exercise room almost everybody said we need a bigger exercise room so we if we're going to have something we should have something more than a couple of bikes and a couple of things • don't like about the setup is there's no room for like Zumba which was they thinkthe main room's not big enough now so you need a room at least that big if not bigger and then with the columns in the way that's going to be terrible for them and you know I agree with Nancy who wants to move all those tables around • chris explained some of the thinking about rooms/square footage calculations done by PSC staff: o we were basing a lot of it off but not all the rooms in the Pleasant Street Center in order to create a visual 0 overall at least with size wise with the rooms we're trying to compare our current great room at the Pleasant Street Center and what kind of activities are there and we Page 1 4 were also trying to calculate how many activities go on at once and if there's enough room to if there's let's say bridge and cribbage and three or four different activities you now if there's enough room and space for each of those activities so we were kind of judging it off of our current capacity and just to kind of get a vision • we should also be thinking potentially about this being a much longer term and whether it meets that need or will we outgrow it and especially when we're talking about 10 years down the road the largest part of the population growth is in the 60 plus sector so it's just going to get bigger it's not about meeting the need right now it's also making sure we've got the capacity 30 years from now in that we don't have to meet again in five years saying we've outgrown it already so those are my concerns • one of my big big concerns with other than the parking is the stipulation because right now the Pleasant Street Center has approximately a thousand people on the distribution list and some subset of that or the probably most frequent users of the Pleasant Street Center but we do know we've got 7 000 right now people over age 60 in reading and there may well be more people who would use it we don't know there's no way to know that that for sure but I think if we look at other surrounding communities and how they've figured out square footage per elderly • currently 700+ people on mailing list, about 350 individuals participate monthly, about 1,400 participants in about 22+ monthly programs • so I'd like to I I think we all need to know a little bit more about what other options there are in town as opposed to you know take former Walgreens or don't take anything you know I don't think that's a good message for the senior population • can be very specific about that maybe even request so many handicap parking spots so even their redo only had I think two yes which is that's not enough yeah Senior Center • There are important parts of the senior population that are vulnerable and are probably less likely to be as computer savvy I mean making assumptions and stereotypes but I think there's certainly many that do fall in that group and I worry about it are we really losing sight if we move fast if we're the true most important needs are and then filtering out okay and I think of the other things is more preventive care I mean if there's a good healthy thriving Community organization that's going to keep a lot of people from becoming very vulnerable if it's successful so anyway just wanted to throw that out there • we have to remember if we're selling this to the town and we're selling this at a town meeting we're going up against Killiam and one of our best shots may be settling for the formerWalgreens and fighting publicly for a well designed, fully accessible, and usable center for multiple activities unlike the current PSC. if we wind up having to build a new building somewhere in town we are talking more money we're may .have trouble making the thing fly so as 1 say I'm not big on Walgreens I'm disappointed I just think it has a lot of potential and I think that you shouldn't throw away the good for the perfect. • we really haven't talked about what recalc was looking for which were programmatic space but there are larger questions to consider. We know that the existing programs are well attended and services are taken advantage so that is a good starting point for a list of program and service needs. Participant numbers can be generated from past and current reports to determine participation levels from there square footage is fairly easy to figure out. But what about increased participation? What about new programs that we can't even image now? Can the former Walgreens be configured to take these factors into account? We need to make sure that quality building materials are used to Page 1 5 address the interior problems in the formerWalgreens building so that we don't end up with another Pleasant Street Center for Reading's 60+ population. recalc had this timeline yeah and items on the timeline were community forums the survey and a feasibility study that was allocated from the ARPA funds for three hundred thousand dollars but for a new senior/community center the talk to date is that it is not needed for this project. So, who in town is the expert how to assess this data and develop a well researched plan for the town to move forward. This would be money well spent. Do we need a new building or to renovate a building and that's one of the things that the feasibility study would have done. It would have taken all of our rough ideas and it would have put the professionals to work to determine what is needed in terms of programs and services and how we will fit this all in a new senior/community center. So we all need to talk about at this meeting what happened to thefeasibility study just because Walgreens became available the select board going to consider our input we have an advisory role we can provide input as the Council on Aging but we don't make the final decision it's the select board that makes the final decision that I'm wondering if there might be two or three people here that would be willing to meet as a subgroup a work group and see if we can put together the ideas that were generated here and put together a list of what we talked about here and to draft a letter to ReCalc Notion made and accepted to adjourn at 8:15pm Note: the full audio for this meeting is available at RCTV.org, click on Video, click on Video again, scroll for meeting date to open session. Page 16