 Welcome to those of you who are with us right now. Sun is coming out slowly, but surely. So thank you for joining us on this formerly rainy Monday. This is the second listening session for the age and dementia friendly project. Today we're gonna be talking about social participation, civic engagement and communication and technology. Big thank you to Becky Bosch of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and Maureen Pollock in the planning department for helping to put this presentation together. And we are also gonna be joined by some town staff. We have a community participation officer, Angela Mills, assistant director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Jennifer Moisten and a remote participation from Brianna Sunrend of the communications department. And I'd like to just invite anyone who's here right now to put your name in the chat and tell us a couple of words regarding your feelings on communication, inclusion and engagement in the town of Amherst. So if you could share your thoughts, would be much appreciated. And I think that about covers it, Becky. Thanks. Okay, I will share my screen. And since it's such a small group and if you have any questions or immediate thoughts just interrupt me because I can't see everybody's face while the screen's up. So as Haley said, I'm gonna give a brief overview of the Agent Dementia-Friendly Amherst project again with a focus on communication and technology, social participation and inclusion, employment and civic engagement. And then we'll hear from some municipal staff on a few different programs and services that are there. And since it's a small group, I think we'll just have a group discussion today rather than doing breakout groups. And then if there's time, I'll give some additional survey results. We also have another presentation that Angela may give on the community participation officers. So why plan for an aging population? The number of people over the age of 65 is projected to outnumber children under 18 by 2035 nationwide. This is also a worldwide trend for many countries throughout the world as people are living longer and having fewer children. It's also estimated that one in three people over the age of 85 will have some form of dementia at the end of their lives. So that's why we're planning for an Agent Dementia-Friendly community. As we do this work, we're thinking about the domains of an Agent Dementia-Friendly community. This is a model that was developed by the Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative and it incorporates both the built environment, so housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings, as well as the social environment. And that's really what we're focusing on today is the communication, access equity and inclusion, social inclusion and civic participation. We will have a future forum on transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings and then the health and community services. Population data, some of this is from the Mass Healthy Aging Collaborative, but the most recent count according to the town census is that 13% or about 5,200 people in Amherst are over the age of 60. This is up quite a bit from the estimates that we got from the American Community Survey which said 10.7% and that number is increasing. And about 8.3% or 3,300 people are over 65. Again, that number may be more according to the town numbers and almost 26% of people over the age of 65 live alone. 13.4% are veterans and almost 12% have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or related to dementias. We did a liveable Amherst Community Survey as part of this project to get some feedback from older adults in Amherst. Almost 85% of the respondents were at 875 responses total and almost 85% of people were over the age of 60 which was our target population or over 55. And this represents about 14.3% of the over 60 population in Amherst. And then almost 77% of respondents have lived in Amherst for more than 15 years. The survey respondents also were pretty close to the estimates for race and ethnicity of people over 65 according to 2016 American Community Survey data from the Mass Healthy Agent Collaborative with actually more Hispanic and Asian respondents than the estimates showed. So that was great. We really wanted to show the diversity of residents in the community. So communication, information and technology. This domain actually spans a lot of the other domains because in order for people to know about services and programs you have to have information on it and you have to know where to find that information. As we all know and are experiencing still, access to technology has been really important over the last couple of years. So that includes connection to the internet, having the equipment and knowing how to use it as well as knowing how to use the software. And also cybersecurity is important knowing when to not open an email. We wanna make sure that there are formats are used for all users. So newsletters using the phone as well as websites and social media and local cable access TV is another good resource for some people who don't use computers. We wanna think about larger type for people who are visually impaired and equipment for people who are hearing impaired if you have that in meetings. Translation of materials to encourage participation by all residents. And also thinking about how we talk about aging. So there's a movement called reframing aging or changing the narrative to end the ageism. And so that just means thinking about the terminology. So avoiding terminologies such as seniors, elderly or senior citizen and using older adults or older people, older workers, older athletes, younger people. Just trying to avoid that terminology. Also avoiding ages imagery. So not using images that reinforce stereotypes of decline and depression and dependence and using more age positive and diverse imagery. And there's actually a couple of websites that allow free use of more age positive imagery that I can share later. And then avoiding ages storylines such as silver tsunami, gray wave and being again mindful of portraying older people as vulnerable and requiring protection. These are some few survey results I'm gonna share in this part of the presentation. First of all, we asked if people were comfortable using computer, tablet or smartphone. And most people were. So almost 95% said they were comfortable. We looked across the age ranges and it did look like people in the older age range were a little bit less comfortable using technology. So 90 plus had the most. There weren't many respondents under 40. So that may not be, that's probably not representative of the total population. We asked if people needed assistance with using technology and 9% said they needed equipment. 13% said they needed training on how to use the equipment. 16% wanted training on how to use Zoom or Webex or other video conferencing. And 3% said they weren't interested in using technology at all. So social participation and inclusion, think about activities for all ages, fitness and ability levels, having social and recreational programs for the whole community that are accessible for people of all ages, programs that promote cultural diversity, having multi-generational interaction and dialogue and programs at times and locations that are convenient for older residents and supportive for people with hearing or visual impairments. And then making sure that members of boards and committees reflect the population of the community. Some programming for people with dementia and their care partners include memory cafes. And I saw the senior center is starting to schedule those. That's an opportunity for people with dementia and their care partners to socialize with others with dementia. Also having support groups for caregivers and people with dementia, memory kits are things that libraries sometimes offer with books and games for people at different levels of dementia and making sure staff is trained with how to work with people with dementia. Purple tables are when restaurants offer special hours or times or menus for people with dementia and their care partners. And then just overall community awareness of how to recognize the signs of dementia and how to communicate with people. We asked if respondents had an impairment or condition that limits participation in community and almost 17% said that they did. And those range from sensory impairments about 35% or mobility impairments, 37% to chronic disease and psychological condition, memory loss or forgetfulness. We also asked this question of people, if people were caregivers for other people and the number of people who, the people they were caring for was much higher with people with dementia in that question. This is a guidebook we use sometimes for doing this work. The Healthy Massachusetts Healthy Aging Collaborative developed this Healthy Aging for All guidebook. And that is just to consider all sectors of the population when developing initiatives for an age and dementia-friendly community. So across the top is all the domains of an age and dementia-friendly community. And then on the left is various sectors. So age, behavioral health, country of origin, people with dementia and disabilities, economic security, just making sure that everybody in the community is considered when you have a goal or initiative. I'll just show this slide quickly. This is 10 age-friendly university principles. Amherst has a great opportunity to partner with UMass and other colleges, Amherst and Hampshire to really have age-friendly universities. UMass is actually designated as an age-friendly university, but I have not been able to find who was part of that. But some of the principles include just making sure, encouraging participation of older adults and core activities, making sure that there's availability for people to pursue second careers, looking at the range of educational needs and having intergenerational learning programs, online educational opportunities and looking at the research agenda. So making sure that's informed by the needs of an aging population. For civic engagement and employment, that includes engagement and developing policies relevant to the lives of older adults. So making sure again that those creating the policies are also the ones who are affected by them. Meetings at times and places that are accessible and convenient for older, for all ages, creating trainings for municipal boards that want to use volunteers effectively, having employment and volunteer opportunities for all ages, having intergenerational skill building and mentoring opportunities and really fostering an age-friendly attitude in the public and private sectors. According to the survey, 35% of respondents are still working full or part-time. So people are working longer, into their 70s and some even into their 80s. So something to consider, not everyone is retired. Many people are also volunteering full or part-time. If you want to get into ways that businesses can become age and dementia-friendly, the age strong Boston has developed this age and dementia-friendly business checklist. And that includes completing trainings on communications and recognizing people with dementia. It gets into buildings and atmosphere, communications, the outside environment, furnishings and colors on the inside environment for people with dementia and customer service. So it's a really useful checklist for businesses to use. So that concludes my presentation. I'm gonna stop sharing. And so we now have some presentations from municipal staff and the first one is from Brianna. And let me just pull that up. So this is recorded, unfortunately Brianna was not able to join us today, but she did a recorded presentation and I am gonna skip a section in the middle because it's a little bit long, but it's really useful information. So let me just share that now. Hello everybody, my name is Brianna Sunrid and I was not able to be there with you in person today, unfortunately. So I will be sharing a little bit today on staying connected via communications and technology in the town of Amherst. Again, my name is Brianna. I have worked for over 10 years in local government communications, innovation and digital services, prior to working in Amherst, I served in the city of Worcester, which is the second biggest city in New England. I serve on boards on the international and state level regarding digital strategies, communications and technology in local government. I am also an Amherst resident and live in North Amherst with my family and Corgi. So quickly, and for a little context, Amherst, as many of you probably are very well aware, updated its charter. We went from a representative town meeting form of government to a 13 member city council form of government with a professional manager, effectively creating year long legislative governance here in town. I think it's an important note to make because with these changes came an increased focus on transparency, participation and engagement. And those were baked right into the Amherst's new charter. And as such a role called the community participation officers, which you may have already heard about from one of my colleagues or will soon in this presentation was tasked with being created due to the updated charter. And in our case, the town manager appointed three members of existing staff to perform this function in addition to their other duties. And that's myself and my colleagues, Jennifer Moyston and Angela Mills. So with that being said, Amherst continues to build capacity and strategy in these areas. This was escalated and impacted by the pandemic in different ways, which I'll talk a little bit about in the next slides. And we're really just trying to build an ecosystem for continual improvement through open communication. And to do this, we need to show the work we are doing and accept feedback and critique and use them to improve our service delivery and offerings. And really, as you can see, and as you know, our purpose is the public. So why do we communicate our services and performance in local government? Our goals should always be connected to, informed by into the benefit of our public, which is all the view. We aim to increase transparency by telling our story and exhibit the value our services provide back to the community members who make it all possible. And lastly, we need to be using this feedback to improve or pivot, especially with specific audiences, such as the senior population and how they navigate systems and information. So before I talk a bit about some of our technology and innovation, I think it's worth mentioning how the pandemic really paved the way for rapid innovation in local government. Local government hadn't always been known as cutting edge, but we had to adopt new technologies by staff and the public quickly in order to maintain our services and maintain our access to information for the community. So there were a lot of creative use in scaling up of existing technologies. It fostered a mindset of innovation, upskilling of teams. It was easier to attend meetings and join boards and we saw participation increased and diversified in many cases. We were recording all of our meetings where we hadn't been before online for public consumption and also broadcasting them live, whereas we were only doing that for a handful of major boards. And we got some really solid data and analytics on the use of our digital services and virtual engagement during this time, which we didn't have before. So in AirMersive, I've utilized several new or existing tools to help tell our story of our work and services and highlight opportunities for two-way communications with our community members so we can get this important feedback on our performance. So how we use technology to increase communication, engagement and transparency in local government. Some recent examples, I'll talk quickly because I know I don't have much time here, but I'm happy to answer questions later on. So some recent examples are the digital signage that we're piloting in town through the end of this year. It offers passers-by the ability to text in to some of our polls and share their feedback with us. We've used crowdsource mapping for blight and issues. We utilize data and mapping tools from our issue reporting suite C-click fix. If you see a pothole, you can drop a pin on a map and let us know where it is so that we can head out and fix it. We've utilized story maps for telling community about the process for a budget and our American Rescue Plan Act projects. We have a new online public participation platform called Engage Amherst, which I'll talk a little bit about in a moment. We've been developing public interest technologies with the university and deploying and testing them in town, mostly around engagement during meetings and sentiment gathering on important topics. We've been exploring performance management software and the ability to put some data forward in public dashboards. We've expanded our assisted listening devices in our physical meeting rooms and that'll obviously become important once we go back to in-person meetings. And another example is an audio eye tool for our website which is helping us to reach compliance with the Americans with Disability Act standards. So I'm gonna, and I'll say quick. Sorry about that, it's getting, well, we got stuck. That was trying to fast forward a little bit, but we will post this video on the website. I think you probably get the idea of what the town is doing. It's a great presentation. It gets into some more detail about specific projects, but I think we'll hold off because my computer is still churning. And I'm going to move on to Jennifer's presentation. We also have here Angela Mills from the town office who is one of the community participation officers and she is here to answer questions since Brianna couldn't be here and also has a presentation if people wanna hear more about that program. Okay, Jen. Hi everyone, my name's Jennifer Moyston. I'm the assistant director today. I'm the assistant director of the City of Moist. My name's Jennifer Moyston. I'm the assistant director to diversity equity inclusion. I've been here with the town for about 10 years, well, nine. And I'm also one of the community participation officers. So yes, Becky, we can go to the next slide. So the town of Amherst is committed to advancing equity and creating a welcoming community. And the town council in 2020 had passed a resolution affirming commitment to end structural racism and achieve racial equity. So the town here is committed. And the DEI department, the diversity equity and inclusion department was a department that was really created through push from the community members with the community safety working group who kind of really instilled that the town needed to do something to become more inclusive and to achieve equity for all of its residents. And so as a result of that, the diversity equity inclusion department is a department of two right now. It's myself as the assistant director and then we have a director Pamela Young who will start on July 5th. So we're all very excited to have her come and join our team. And the next slide, the work that we'll be working on will be to develop goals, strategies, and performance measures. I'm gonna open it up on my side too to meet the town's work toward equity. We will also improve decision making to be more inclusive of the community and to improve trust in local government. Next slide. The work, and I'm sorry, that's a little small is to create a strategic plan with implementation measures, recommending best practices and equity and inclusion. We will review existing town policies, procedures, bylaws, values, goals, missions and practices, support human resources in recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. We will provide training and resources for current staff and boards and committees. We'll also serve on hiring committees and interview teams. And we will create outreach and build relationships with the BIPOC businesses and communities. And the work will continue. The DEI director will also be the human rights director and will provide staff support to human rights commission, the African Heritage Reparations Assembly, the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, Disability Access Advisor Committee, and any other committees that are assigned, as well as support the staff led core equity team. So the town has a core equity team, which is a group of town staff who also highly feel strongly about the town being responsible in creating inclusive and welcoming community. And that's really the DEI department. My little slides and I just wanted to open up to see if anybody had any questions or comments. Well, that was my part. Thank you. We'll also have, we'll have time for questions and discussion after the next presentation, which is Hailey Bolton from the Senior Center. So Hailey, you can go ahead and share your screen. Thank you. All right, awesome. So, and we're senior services. Want to talk a little bit about the different programs and activities that we have going on at the Senior Center and then a little bit about how we stay engaged with the community. I think one of the core programs that we offer are programs relating to food. So we threw a partnership with the Food Bank of Western Mass. We offer a monthly brown bag service. We also have our own in-house emergency food pantry for folks who need assistance with any kind of meal preparation. We'll be working with UMass Amherst to reinstate our UMass Meals on Wheels program. So we'll be relaunching that later this year and that's a really fantastic program for folks who are homebound and not able to prepare their own meals. We can send it directly to their door. We also partner with Highland Valley Elder Services. Again, we have another Meals on Meals programs for our homebound seniors. And then we also offer a Monday through Friday to go lunch and that takes the place of what had been a congregate dining. So the to-go format is a COVID change. And then we can also refer individuals to the Amherst Survival Center. They now deliver monthly groceries to seniors. So a senior can get about seven days worth of meals through the Amherst Survival Center. We also offer a number of supportive services. So when folks need application assistance, help applying to SNAP and fuel assistance, we are able to offer licensed social work counseling. If people need help with computers, we have computer tutors, we do income tax preparation. We have a tax work-off program here through the town where eligible seniors can reduce their property tax bill by $1,500 by volunteering for the town. We can refer people to Hampshire County Veterans Services. They're located just across the hall from the senior center offices at the bank center. And then we also have a legal clinic. So we are joined once a month by a lawyer and people can get consultations with him on whatever things they may have going on. And then we can also refer to other partner agencies. So again, we utilize Highland Valley Elder Services quite a bit, but if people needed support on handyman type repairs, transportation services, we can point them in the right direction. And another key component of the senior center is socialization. So we like to offer fun activities. We know our seniors like to enjoy themselves. So that can take the form of arts and crafts classes, painting, clay, macrame, and more. We do therapeutic music programs, whether that's singing outside or having a performer come to the senior center. We offer a myriad of group fitness classes. We do educational programs. Coming up in August, we'll be talking about black holes and we'll do presentations on dunes and geography trips. We offer trips, places we used to go were main, the flower show in Boston and trips to New York City. And so later this year, again, we'll be reinstating all those programs. And then we do community events. We have a number of volunteer opportunities at the senior center. We've got a book club. We have games all on a drop-in basis. And then as Becky mentioned earlier, we are also in the planning stages of a memory cafe. And we are looking for people who might wish to serve on that committee. So if anyone here is interested, just shoot me an email because we're looking to get that set up for people sometime this fall. We offer a number of health and wellness programs. We have a caregiver support group led by Helen McMellan, who is the social worker here on staff at the senior center. We have shine counselors available to people who are trying to navigate the health insurance world. We do a number of wellness workshops on topics ranging from aging in place, dementia care, Medicare, diabetes. And then you can find health services here at the senior center. We do a monthly foot clinic. We do nail health, blood pressure monitoring, hearing aid cleaning and Reiki sessions and more. In May we did a chair massage clinic. So we do other special programs. And then the ways that we try to engage with the senior community primarily through our newsletter, which is available both in print and online. We use the senior center and town of Amherst Facebook pages. We post on the town of Amherst calendar. And we really love to refer you to call the senior center and talk to a live person. We have volunteers staffing our desk who are more than happy to answer questions on anything you may have regarding the senior center. And so one other thing that I would just like to point out is that, you know, I'm fairly new. I started in January, kind of when we were still doing with a lot of COVID restrictions. So I haven't really gotten to meet as many seniors as I might have liked to. So if people would like to write a letter to the senior center, I'd love to hear, you know, what does it mean to you? What programs and activities did you enjoy? What new things would you like to do? You know, we're now kind of at the point where we can scale up our operations and kind of go back to our pre-COVID norms. So I really want to hear from you and find out what you want and what you'd like in the future. So please send your letters to Amherst Senior Center at 70 Bultwood Walk in Amherst, Mass. And that was it. I'm keeping it short and sweet on my presentation, Becky. Thanks, Haley. So at this point, we have time for questions. And if folks would like to hear more about the community participation officers, Angela can do her presentation. But we can do questions now and, you know, just say if you want to hear this other presentation and then we'll have a group discussion with some sort of leading questions. So any questions on the presentation so far? There will be a test after. So now is the time to ask your questions. Ms. Mary. Now I have a question. Jennifer Moisten mentioned something about providing rooms with assisted hearing devices. And I don't know what, where those rooms are, but that's something that I'm wondering if you've looked at for the Amherst Senior Center, because that's an area where more people have hearing deficiencies than anything. So could you get into that a little bit or answer that question? Is that on the horizon or what, what facilities are being provided with assisted hearing devices? I could speak to that. Hi everyone, my name is Maureen Pollack. I'm one of the staff planners with the town. And so this year's community capital budget for fiscal year 2023 includes the purchasing and installation of assisted listening devices for all meeting rooms in the bank center. So that would include the senior center as well as the other, other rooms. So that's exciting. I know that I believe is Mary Beth that brought that to the attention of the planning staff that that was expressed need of users of the bank center and the senior center. And so our IT department and facilities department did a walk through with a audio expert who recently installed listening devices in Northampton for their, for one of their meeting spaces. So he walked us through the bank center and we went into each of the rooms and he gave us specific, specific recommendations for each room. So we're going to be doing a request for a proposal sometime in the next couple of months to, to bid that out to, so in order to hire a contractor to come and install them. And then currently there are assisted listening devices in the town room, which is located in town hall. And so the technology and those assisted listening devices work really well. So for someone that has a hearing aid, for instance, can just automatically hook up to the assisted listening device there. Thank you. Any other questions. Thank you. And. Oh, you're made. I, I. Two things. One, if we have suggestions about programs, we'd like the senior center. To offer. Who do the suggestions go to. And. How. And to. I'm thinking of really safety. And I think that that's something that's really important. I'm thinking about the safety of the car, the car's speed up. And the sidewalk stops in on. On one side. Yeah. So people who are. Older people who are either walking. Or. Who are in some kind of a wheelchair device. If one wanted to see, I have seen several people almost get it younger than me who can walk faster than I can. Is there some agency that one can say, hey, could you put one of those push button lights or something in midway on a hill with his speeding? I'm sure this is not the only street that has this problem. I'm only aware of mine. But I don't even know who to address the issue to. Well, that's great helpful just to know who did, you know, who part who does one say hey, I've noticed this and it would be a big help. I can I can address your first question so I as director of senior services would love to hear what programs you want, and you can email me or you can call me at the senior center. If one is fine, or you can write that letter, and just let me know what are you looking for because again, you name it and I will try to make it happen. I really like to be creative in terms of the programming that we offer and I really want to hear directly from you because I can only plan so much that I think it's fun. It's got to be coming from you too. I already have six people that would like to take live Tai Chi outdoors during the summer, or during, you know, before it gets icy cold. That is a great suggestion. I can supply you with the class. So it comes ready made then I like it. Yes, please be in touch about that. So, and my name is Angela Mills, and I work in the town manager's office and I'm one of your community participation officers, also known as CPOs, and your suggestion for that crossing on Amity is a great one. The keepers of the town way, which means roads and sidewalks are your town counselors, and you live in district three. So your town counselors are Dorothy Pam and Jennifer town. I can put you in touch with both of them with your permission I'd like to do that for you. I've been in. I know Dorothy, I've been in touch with her. She is well aware of this problem has it herself. So any changes to the townway have to come. They are the authority they are the keepers of the town way it has to happen through the council. Yeah, and our next, our next forum will be on transportation, and also a lot of comments have come out of the survey so these are the types of things that we will include in the final report. You know any any suggestions or recommendations so they'll be there also. So the town has a transportation committee and has worked on a bike and pedestrian network plan. There's other, there's other opportunities for the town to apply for funding to develop a complete streets prioritization plan so these are the types of things we'll talk about at the transportation forum to but it's, it's definitely something that has come up quite a bit in the survey with the open comments. Yes. I was just going to mention. Sorry, I had didn't have my microphone. I was just going to mention that the transportation advisory committee meets a couple of times a month. And their meetings are posted on the town website and they're interested in hearing about issues like this and usually the director of public works attends their meetings and I attend their meetings. So sometimes these things take a while to happen, but they can bubble up like this, you know, through a venue like transportation advisory committee if somebody comes and mentions it or if two people come and mention it then it kind of becomes part of the conversation, and eventually something may happen so I just wanted to offer that as a suggestion. Does anyone have any other questions right off or do you want to, or, and is anyone do you want to hear more from Angela about the community preservation or community participation officers. If not, we can go right into breakout discussions Rosemary's nodding her head. Angela, do you want to just talk a little bit more about that and then we still have time for break up for a discussion. Absolutely. So we have a PowerPoint that we did that was really extensive for the council. It's important to note that community person is participation officers were written into the new home rule charter. So we were the brainstorm of those people on the committee who helped redefine and reorganize town government. There are three of us Jennifer Breanna and I serve as your CPOs, and we serve, we were appointed by Paul Backelman the town manager, and we serve the needs of the town many different ways so all three of us live in town. All three of us have children in the public school system. Two of us attended UMass one of us attended Amherst College. I am bilingual I grew up speaking Spanish at home. My parents are from Argentina. And so the three of us have attended lots and hosted many different events like the inauguration of our town counselors and coffee meetups with the town manager and town manager office hours. We've attended and facilitated capital planning listening sessions and district meetings with your town counselors budget forums. We recently hosted a pretty successful community cleanup with over 150 volunteers. So those are just an example of the things that we've been busy doing. Also, all volunteer for lots of not for profits. I was one of the co chairs for the parent guardian organization Jennifer's currently on the PGO at the high school, and at the regional level. Breanna's on the board of many different organizations. So we're all engaged, not just in Amherst but in the greater Pioneer Valley community. We're looking forward in addition to cultural events and flag raisings and supporting the council and supporting the town manager's office. We're really looking ahead and hoping to better identify the challenges and the limitations that exist for people to join civic boards and committees. We're also trying to discover and connect community partners and who they are and where they are and meet them as they are and help them get involved. And then we really hope to every year outline our goals and plan for the future development of a more engaged civic organization. So that's CPOs in a nutshell. I'm happy to answer any questions. I think stewardship is at the heart of everything that we do. And we all really feel strongly that this is a very vibrant community. And we hope that we're always putting our best foot forward. Any questions for Angela? If not, I'll get into the what we were what we had for breakout room discussions. So the questions I have are pretty general just have you or other or older adults that you have no experience any challenges and communications civic engagement or social inclusion. And are there areas where you think the town could improve their efforts to engage or include older residents. And then what do you think is on top for the town to address in the next three to five years. So I'm just going to stop sharing and I will take notes if people have have comments and any any thoughts on those questions. See, Jen. Um, could you maybe put the questions in the chat. Sure. Just so folks I've already forgotten what the first one was. So the first one is just have you are older adults that you know experienced any challenges in with communications or civic engagement or social inclusion. Sorry, my mouse is doing funny things. And if you have any other general thoughts to that's fine too. It doesn't have to be specific to this, these topics. I guess one question I have a morning talked about the devices for hearing impaired are there any initiatives for people and maybe Haley you know people with visual impairments. Like sometimes there's, you know, audio books. I know the library probably has some of those but sometimes there's other devices that help people who are losing their eyesight because that's, that's also something that happens quite a bit with, with people as they get older. And, and Rose Mary, go ahead. I have a very peculiar experience. I have a daughter who is legally blind. And I gave her what I thought were good instructions to walk to the middle school from Clark House. Without realizing that I had scouted a sidewalk. You know, and I said turn left and stay on that side and take, keep the sidewalk. And she called me in a panic because the sidewalk ended her guide dog stopped. There was no more sidewalk. And so I came with a car, you know, she's fortunate she had me available and saw that the sidewalk ended and there was another sidewalk on the other side of the street, which she of course had no way of seeing no way of knowing that it was there. And if she did, there was no zebra crosswalk that would have enabled her to cross. So I've done a little driving around and seen that we have a really very peculiar system of sidewalks ending, ending without any notice at all. And I only because I have personal experience with someone who can't see. I don't know how many older people also who are, you know, engaged in walking around town, find themselves on an unfamiliar street without, without any warning that there isn't going to be passage. So I think I'm pointing that out as a problem. And it's again one of these problems that is probably town wide. And somebody needs to kind of take a look at that. And where one does have to cross a road to get to a sidewalk again, then there needs to be a crosswalk. Thank you. Rosemary had her hand up and then I'll go to you soon. Yes. I'm also along the lines of visually impaired people with visual impairment in the center of town at the main crossing where North Pleasant and Amity and Main Street all meet. There's no sound signal for those who have visual impairment to know when they can cross the street. And I think that's, you know, could be a real problem for someone in that situation. There's no sound signal when the lights were first put in. And I talked with the department about it a number of times and nothing has been fixed. So, it would be nice if that could be restored. And I think that's a huge safety safety issue. Hi, I'm a member of disability access advisory committee. And these are some of the issues that we are working with the town to resolve the audio signals is a big problem. We have brought it up several times, but I will make sure that it is handled again prior properly. And also, Rosemary, I was wondering if there is any way you can maybe join one of the disability access advisory committee meetings and talk about these sidewalks, because we don't really know where it exists. And two of our members are visually impaired, one is blind and one is visually impaired. So we really give high importance to solving these problems. And we'll be happy to work on these issues. And Maureen is our town representative, and she's present in all our meetings. So she's fully aware maybe she might want to add a few things to my comments. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Sharon. Yeah, so as Sharon indicated, yes, the disability access advisory committee and I have been talking about the existing conditions at some of the controlled crosswalks and the audible components and from time to time the audible components go out and so it's, it's, they were installed they worked and over time they become sort of maintenance problems and so DPW has tried to fix them and they actually another capital budget item that was approved for this year is to conduct an inventory of all audible beacons at these crosswalks that have these audible components and to assess whether they're working properly or not and what needs to be fixed or does it just need to be replaced completely. And I believe the budget will include the repair work or replacement of them. So that is something that the town is aware of and will be doing this inventory and upgrades in the next year. So, thank you. So it's really the all the good work of the disability access committee to sort of shepherd people to make these decisions of like making their voices heard that this is something that is important to so many people not just those that have that are blind or visually impairment. It's also really helpful for, you know, people that are, you know, that have strollers or walking their bike across the street or so in essence it's for everyone from doesn't matter your age or ability. These things should be working properly so that's something that the town will be actively working on this year. Thanks. Anyone else anyone any other areas you think the town couldn't improve on these efforts and and what's your I guess what's your impression of all these things that have been going on over the last couple of years and technology and I'm trying to find a way to put this. So that it sounds constructed. I think there are many things that older people in town have find themselves having difficulties with. And it very much is a, almost as an economic level thing in other words, some of us have enough money to hire a gardener handyman to do things we can no longer do. We don't have access to who, you know, a list of people other than going online and then your mailbox is just filled with people you've never met and you have no recommendation to, you know, and it just goes on and on and it takes much much time. And then it occurs to me since I can afford to pay somebody to help me. And I know a number of people whose budgets are tighter than mine and can't afford to pay somebody to help them. And I know that Amherst neighbors has a volunteer situation that is a media thing. I think most of us who are older confront daily new issues that we didn't know we couldn't do. We're just finding out how to negotiate aging and systems that are slow to respond. I think when you don't have a lot of days and years ahead of you patients with we'll get to that is very slow. So, I see that we've got a lot of young people who are in positions of wanting to be helpful. I'm just pointing out to you that most of your aging population doesn't know when they wake up in the morning what it is that they're going to have a great need of because they could do it yesterday and they can no longer do it. I've been looking for for some way that we as a town can become a little more immediately responsive as you all know Amherst has a has a reputation of studying things to death and appointing people to deal with things and you know, it all happens gradually in a period of time. I don't have that much time ahead of me and I think I'm speaking for most people I'm in my 80s. For most people my age, we haven't got the time for the town to study how to fix it. I need the fix a little sooner than the study. And I see someone else to other people my own age or or maybe a little younger understanding that what we could have patients for in our 40s. You know, the planning is different. And the, the patients with this will get solved by next year. I mean it's like the man who said to me when he re-roofed my house, do you want a 20 year roof for a 40 year. He said, I don't buy green bananas. What a question that is for somebody our age. So I think what I'm kind of putting out there is that I hope you're going to find ways to be more immediately, or, and when I say immediate I don't mean tomorrow but I mean within, let's say a several month period rather than a several year period when older people bring to your attention that there are problems with negotiating traffic or the street or the whatever I, it's not your work. And I find that lots of people don't speak up. It's in New England it's considered not really good to complain. So, or be noisy. So I'm being noisy for them right now and telling you they're a heck of a lot of people behind closed doors, who are just touching their teeth with the pace at which the town finds a solution to a problem that somebody has brought up. Thank you. I totally shared your views and working in town committees for a long long time. And many important things are put on hold because waiting for some grants to be approved and money could be allocated for that. In my opinion, there should be some funds that could be used, depending on the priority of, or the importance of the problem. Like there are some sidewalks, and we have to wait for a long time before a grant kicks in, and then they're going to do all the town sidewalks. So I totally agree with the frustration, because I am also an old person. And on top of all of that, I have mobility impairments and sidewalks are the biggest challenge for me. And transportation is another one of course, parking places finding proper parking places that's why I cannot join the activities of a banks community center. Thank you. I have one more thing that I did remember to bring up. And that is, again, an economic thing. I pay someone to clear my sidewalk of snow, because I can afford to. What about all of the older homeowners who are responsible for clearing snow and can't. That's an issue that comes up in many communities. Yeah, yeah. It is. That's a huge issue and thank you so much for pointing that out. So I do want to just give a quick mention to a program that had been suspended due to COVID at the senior center and that was a partnership that we had with UMass, where we would bring in fraternity members to come and do things like raking leaves or shoveling snow. It's a wonderful program and it's certainly something that I would like to build upon and reinstate, you know, there's a number of things that we had been doing before COVID that we're not doing any longer medical rides comes to mind pretty quickly on that. So I think that some of that frustration might just be the senior center, you know, we need to catch up and get back to where we had been. And that's a long process and that's an even longer process when you have someone new at the helm. So I would definitely recommend that you stay tuned to the senior spirit newsletter. I mean, that that's the way we're going to communicate any new programs, any new services. And there you go. You've got it in the mail. Perfect. And so again, I do want to strengthen our partnerships with UMass and see if we can reinstate some of those programs or recruit new volunteers who are younger and can offer that. So I just wanted to mention that this type of forum, as well as the Transportation Advisory Committee and other committees do, they're good forums that people listen, people hear what you say, and then the planning department actually, you know, comes across these grant opportunities and I know you talk about those taking a while, but sometimes they can be pretty effective and if we know there's a problem in a particular location like say Kellogg Avenue. Well, the sidewalks there have been in really bad shape for a long time. So last year we asked to have our community development block grant money, part of it used for replacement of those sidewalks and, you know, that was because we'd heard over time that people really had trouble with that. And there are other things. Maureen has gotten money to replace crosswalks in the center of town. And I think that was through an MOD grant, but I'm not absolutely sure. So, you know, she became aware of that because people mentioned it and it does take time but, you know, we are listening and when we hear these things, you know, and a grant opportunity comes up, they'll say, Oh, maybe we could use this grant opportunity to fix that problem. The town itself doesn't always have the money that, you know, discretionary part of money to do these things but when we see an opportunity we can grab some money and do it. And I'm sorry that it does take time but I just wanted to say that your voices are heard, and we do, you know, take in what you're saying. Thank you. Thanks, Chris. I want to make sure anyone who hasn't spoken has there's anything any, any other concerns or thoughts. You know, or Tracy or Audrey Dennis. Feel free to unmute if you have any comments or thoughts. I have a few more survey results I can share if folks would like to see those. Thank you, Nad. Okay. So, as you're all probably aware, we, we had this survey on the agent dimension friendly, the Louisville Amherst community survey. And as I said, we got 875 responses. Many people were concerned about social isolation and that, you know, a lot of that was due to COVID. So that was the issue. We also broke down those responses by age, and it was pretty interesting it was really across the board about sort of the same proportion and each different age group so about a third of all respondents were somewhat concerned the orange and the blue is not concerned and the great is very concerned. And the 60 to 69, 70, 79 and 80 to 89 were very concerned. But social isolation has come up a lot due to the pandemic. We also asked if people are caregivers for other people that, you know, caregiving is is something that can really affect one's life, along with, you know, you might have some barriers to participation but you're also a caretaker for your spouse or child. And many people put down other as they were caregivers for more than one person so some people are caregivers for grandchildren as well as their parents. And maybe, you know, when they're 60s or 70s themselves. So people who were caregivers the people that they take care of most had mobility impairments, memory loss and forgetfulness were higher in this than people themselves that have these conditions. Sensory impairment again, visual or hearing impairment about 18% had were taking care of someone with Alzheimer's or dementia and 33% had memory loss. 25% some other psychological condition. There was a question about additional barriers that caregivers face 11.5% experience problems at work 9.4% experience financial difficulties and 18.7% so they needed some kind of respite care so they could get away from the house and do things themselves. This is a question about where people get their information, almost so 78.7% said the Amherst Senior Center family or friends with the next highest Amherst neighbors was pretty high and a doctor or healthcare provider, and then a really good 51% said general internet search so again Amherst is pretty unique in having a lot more older people who are very comfortable with technology. We asked about programs or services that people access access to the senior center in the last 12 months. The numbers were fairly low 74% said so they didn't access any of these services. And we asked why some people weren't interested or said they participated in programs elsewhere. We did get a lot of other responses. And I think most people said COVID, you know, which is understandable senior center was closed for some of the time. We just weren't interested in online programming. We hope people come back. Once the centers is fully open and even now. Many people also had comments about the senior center itself to small depressing, ugly, confusing, not inviting. And then people said parking was difficult which we heard today. And other people just said they didn't need the services yet. We asked if evening programs were offered with people be more likely to attend and almost 23% said yes. If we look at the ages. Those who said yes we're generally the younger younger older people so people who are probably still working between you know in the 50s and 60s and some of the 70s. Older folks were not interested in the evening programming. And then there were 299 responses on how the image senior senior center could better meet your needs and Haley has all this information and we're working on sort of trying to compile it into different categories. But there were a lot of really great recommendations or comments. Engaging people across lifespan, new senior center memory cap base, more parking, very cultural programs, fitness programs, topics of interest and of those are already like end of life legal basics medical resources. Make the senior center more environmentally friendly bilingual discussions or circles and programs and other languages or trips and educational programs and strategies for memory loss. So next steps we have another session scheduled for July 25. The date is correct. It is Monday. And I believe at this point we are thinking it's still going to be online, but let me stop sharing right now. Just make sure this online still work for people or people interested in being, you know, trying to have something in person. Oh, you're muted and Yes. Okay. Yeah, I've tried to do a couple of public forums and other communities and I think people are still not comfortable going out so try the next one in person to and and I think we're going to put something on the website that, you know, if people do have problems working with zoom, we can try to work with people to get them involved also. But transportation I think is going to be a big draw because we'll be we'll be talking about services as well as the sidewalks and infrastructure so I think that's that's going to get a lot of interest. So any other questions or thoughts where we can end a little early. I really appreciate you all for participating. I hope next time a email goes out about a reminder because I think more people would be attending for the transportation especially. Yeah, and we can also do it that we don't require registration we can just provide a zoom link do you think that would be easier to. Yeah, okay. And when you do that you can also do like a week reminder, a day reminder, and then like a, I think it's like an hour reminder. Very helpful. Yeah. Yeah, so the problem is with we don't get people to register then we're sending to everyone. So, yeah, we just need to know who to send those reminders to. Do you also let the Amherst neighbors know about these forums. Yeah, and I'm not sure. Yeah, no that's a that's a good point we'll make sure they they send reminders out to that list too because yeah. I sometimes if people register, it's more of a commitment kind of thing. They have to register pretty far in advance but then if they get reminders I think that would be helpful. Yeah. It appears to me that that once you register you've probably put it in your calendar. Yes, and yes. When, when too much material appears in one's mailbox from a particular group of people. One tends not to look at it anymore. I'm talking as a communications professional. Sometimes it's not a great idea to do reminder after reminder after reminder because they won't open the mail it's the same, you know, the same in print media or, or other media. If there's too much on the bulletin board, you stop reading anything. So please be careful about. Too many communications. So are you worried about this is a question for Becky, and I guess Maureen and Haley also. Are you worried about zoom bombers if you send a link to everybody. If you are worried about that, could you set this up in a way that certain people are made panelists and other people are invited to be attendees and the attendees can be recognized individually if they raise their hands. You're not going to be able to see them so that is a problem but I don't know I mean that's how the planning board does it the planning board invites some people as panelists and then there's a whole there could be like 40 attendees and if someone raises their hand they get recognized to say what they have to say. So I don't know if you've considered those other kinds of formats. Yeah, I mean I don't have that capability on my zoom and I've never had an issue with zoom bombers I kind of preferred to be able to see people rather than having them in the background for something like this just because I think if, if you see faces more likely to participate. I don't know. I don't know. But I, yeah, I know that can be an issue. But yeah I mean I think the main thing is, you know, we don't want to engage Amherst, you know people see it there but we don't necessarily know who to email with reminders, other than Amherst neighbors and, you know, the obvious choices. Maybe able to do both registration and send a zoom link I'm not sure we'll have to have to look into that. Okay. Thank you all for your input and look forward to seeing you in July. If you'd like to attend that one and please tell your friends. We will. The poster right now says it's going to be at the bank center so we'll we'll change that on the website to make sure people are not going to bank center. Thank you Becky. So it's going to be a zoom meeting. I think we've decided it's going to be zoom right Hayley. Yeah, okay. We're going to stick with this format but hopefully do it in a way that we can get people some reminders, think I'm going to attend. Okay. Thank you. Thanks everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye bye.