 Well, it's us ten of us off from my phone, so I'm going to go ahead and get the meeting started. Happy New Year to everyone, and a Happy New Year, and hope everybody has a blessed one. And we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. And the first thing on the agenda is we'll call everybody to care that, right? And we're going to introduce some new board members here today. And what I'm going to do is have you introduce yourself, and if you want to say a couple of things, you're welcome to us. Oh, my shoes. Put you on the hot seat right away. Wait, my name is John Higgins. I'm a board member. You know everybody. I'm service to the community. Thank you. Oh, hi, Eric Rack. Thank you for nominating me and selecting me for this service, and we look forward to it. Oh, come in. Okay. I'm Ann Coakley, and I'm happy to be here, and I'm looking forward to it right now. Okay. And then we'll go ahead and introduce the board members in a minute. Yeah, my name is Maria Guadalupe Garcia, and Cortez is for my daddy. So my very last name in my daddy is Cortez. So I choose Garcia for my establishment. Yeah, and I'm loving to be here, and thank you very much. Okay, and most of you know me because I was on the interview committee, but I'm Archie Dana, and I'm a sixth year on the board here, and I'm going to be conducting the meeting today. My name's Arlene Zordman. I've been on here about six, seven months now. That's it. Okay. Go ahead with that. I'm Lonnie Dooley. I've also been on the board about six, seven months, so Arlene and I are the newbies before you guys come on board. Okay. I want to introduce yourself. Yeah, I'm Sheila Conroy, and I've been on the board for four years. I think I've just been told I have to, I'm no longer on the board at the end of 2025. So, whatever that means, I've been here for four years. And it's really good to see these new people, who's getting a bit bold, seeing the same face as Ronny. They have a nice little hair. Same table hair. Ronny, what do you want to say? Yeah, Ronny made a senior services manager. I officially started my second year in this role as December 27th, I think. So, I had a lot less gray hairs on my face. It's going to get worse. I'm excited to work with all of you. Yeah, I'm Marcia Martin. I am the city council liaison to this board, and I have been for six years. Two years to go. Yeah, this is the, we switch them up sometimes when there's a new city council election. So, we just have one and I've got to keep you guys. That means I get to keep you all the way to the end. Yeah, you're right. I love this board. Thank you. Jeff? My name is Jeff Frasier. I'm the director of recreation and culture. And fortunately, I was lucky enough to hire Ronny. And I'm here to support him for a few more months. And then I think Ronny will be ready to do his own thing. And I'll go back and do my thing. I'm Robin Bocega. Okay. And Mr. Dave. Yeah. What? If you say this yourself? Yeah. I'm Dave Grana. I'm a citizen member today. I was on the board and I wasn't quite elected or I've nominated and approved, I guess, by the city council. So, it was just an oversight. But I'll be back as a member at the next meeting. So, I can't vote today. I can talk. But that's about it. I do have some things to say. And am I the last one? Maybe before you go any further, if you would let me read a letter from Beth Bowles. She asked me to read her resignation letter from the floor. And this is last October. Beth Bowles was on the board. Very good member, I thought. Anyway, she sent Ronny, Dave, and a senior citizen to my free board. I regret to inform you that I am unable to fulfill the remaining two years of my three-year term on the senior citizen's advisory board. Please consider this email, as noticed, that I am designing my board in a new position, effective until December 31st, 2023. I am thrilled there were six applicants for this board's technical positions. It has made my decision to let go of some of my commitment services much easier. It has been a pleasure working with all the talented board members and staff, and she's all the very best since it was last summer. Thank you, Dave. I'm going to appreciate her. I had a lot of input ideas. Okay. Next, the orientation manual. I'm just passing them out, and I think it's an opportunity for us to kind of just go through all of these. I think we live in the same area. Yeah. I'm on your website. Oh! And you're on... I'm on self-over. Yeah. Yeah. If I ever got out... You ever got out? We'd see each other. Yeah, that's funny. That's right. I can't... Oh, I'm on Dave's. That's yours, Dave. What's up? That's mine. That's mine? That one's yours. Okay. And I'll hang on for Sheila. All right. You don't want to... You don't want to hand it to her? We'll deliver it this afternoon. She wants you to toss them over to her. Can you hear us? Go ahead. Can I say something? Absolutely. I'm ashamed to say I've found my folder before I came away when I was tidying up my home office. So I don't need a second folder. And I promise I will read it when I get back. So thank you for thanking us. Is there any changes from the last one we had? There are some updates. Okay. And we are providing this as background information for the board. I want to make sure that the new board members start out with as much information as possible. We'd encourage you to read through it. I think one of the most important sections in there is your responsibilities as appointed to the board by the municipal code. And there's also contact information for all the other board members. And for the new board members, Ronnie and I will be scheduling meetings with you to kind of bring you up to speed with what's going on with the board. With how quickly this meeting was after the new year, we really didn't have time to schedule that. But we will do that before the next meeting. And thank you for being on the board. And if you have any questions in between meetings, please don't hesitate to reach out to Ronnie or I. The contact information is not in there yet. We wanted to gather as much information. Okay. So new board members, I'll collect your information at the end of this meeting. And in February we're going to identify positions for the board. So I'll collect information. Maybe we'll identify that. And then I'll send that out to everybody for us to add it to this binder. And normally that you appoint chair and vice chair at the first meeting. But because of the unique issue with Dave this time, we thought it would be best to wait until the February meeting and then have that election there. Glad to hear that. And one thing I forgot to say is welcome to the new board member for a happy year here. And we need to look forward to working together as a board here. Thank you. Okay. Approval of the agenda. I don't have any information on that. November 1st. Oh, I'm trying to figure out the agenda. We need that. Motion. I'll second. Okay. Motion second for the agenda. All in favor? Opposed? No. Okay. Approval of the previous month. November meeting. And of course the new board members and myself are not here. We're not here. I mean, you were here. That's why I said it's going to be you. Okay. Approval minutes from November 1st. All right. Good. Second. Anybody here from the public to be heard? It's nice, Dave. You don't mind. I'll just jump in. I'll just jump in when I got something. Okay. Okay. I've got something to say. That's why I'm hesitating. Some of your folks have heard me pontificate before. I just wanted to, as part of the orientation, I think there's something that new members should know. What we've been doing over the last year and what we're hoping to do over the next few months. In your manual and in the minutes, the city ordinances listed as far as what are the goals and objectives of this board. You can read that and study it for yourself. But we're going to change the way we make our report. We'll say council this year as opposed to previous years. I think we'll go on a blind fewer. Pardon me. Did you want to talk further about? I remember well. I didn't have a lot of sleep last night. Anyway, one of the things that we've been working on over the last year is, I was talking about the direction that we want to take the board and things that we want to do. I think. I'm just going to pass. I'm going to pass. Okay. Okay, we're going to old business committee reports. Arlene. So I, since I included a copy of the report. Okay. And because we're always running out of time, I thought it would be easier that way. If you guys read it and have any questions, you know, I certainly would try to answer them. I think there are some areas that as, as advocates, we need to look at advocating for the seniors. And one of them is the micro transit. And there's, there's like a little blurb on that about that. I think we need to advocate that it be either free or extremely low cost. Otherwise, it's not going to be beneficial for a lot of the seniors who are on low income. The mobility hub is kind of an interesting thing. It's going to be out on I-25 in Colorado, 19, 119. You can catch the bus to Denver, you can catch the bus to Fort Collins, Luddland, wherever. That's something that will be completed in the fall of 24. This one really excites me. The front range proposed railroad passenger, which will go from Pueblo onto to Fort Collins. And granted, it's going to be probably 10 years, if not longer, in the making. But at least they received the money to take a look at it and say, we found the route we want, which is the route right now that the railroad goes through town. And it goes through all of the towns. If they take that route, it will probably be Amtrak that does the passenger rail. We are going to have a hub here. I think that it easily will be able to say, we want the train to stop. If you want to go to Denver, my thoughts on this are, if I want to get on that train here in Longmont right to Denver, the cost that I'm paying for that train, I want that cost to take me from onto the light rail in Denver to the airport. And I think that's something that we need to think about for the future. I don't know what that passage is going to require, whether we would have to pay an additional amount, or what that would be. And how long is the pass going to be good for? Is it going to be good for 24 hours? Is it going to be good for, you know, if I want to go down there and spend two, three days down there? Am I going to have to pay again to come back? So I think those are things that we need to think about over the next ten years. Questions that we need to ask, because some here or another, it needs to be functional for us. Get on that thing, get wherever you want to go, and not have to pay $100, $150 to do it. Because then you defeat the purpose of driving. So that's my percentage. The grocery shopping thing I wrote a little bit about. And the design for $119. There's a lot going on there, and there just wasn't a whole lot that they were talking about. So I think we just keep on top of what's going on there. Which will be probably a bit of disruption to our lives if we're headed to Boulder. It's a day I can all up. Yeah. And then I... No, they don't. And I have seen the lights on Main Street. Those new installed lights working. And I'm very impressed with them. People actually are seeing them, stopping for them. They're being able to get across the street. And so I think that that's really great. One thing I thought about that I didn't put in there. Which I noticed when I was sitting at 21st and Main is... Some of the lights that are down here in downtown when you go across Main Street. Both directions of traffic. All four directions of traffic stop. Walk light goes on before any of the traffic is allowed to go. I think we need to take a look at expanding that all the way down Main Street. Because I noticed at 21st and Main the other day, the people that were going across the street, the minute the light turned green for me, the light turned for them. If we give them just that two or three or four seconds time to start getting across the street, it gives them the ability to at least get moving and cars can see them when they should be able to see them. We need to take a look at it. I don't know how we would advocate for it. But I would say even down when I've been down on Pike and Quail, down there, those streets, people need the ability to get over here across before traffic starts going. So I think we take a look at all the way from Pike and Quail down there up to 66. Maybe even just that street like 166. I think it's a computer thing. Yeah. It is a computer thing. And unfortunately, you have to upgrade the individual light appliance so they can talk to the computer system. And so the city is replacing them within the confines and constraints of its budget. And what everybody can do is to write a letter to Mr. Jim Angstad. Oh, yes. And maybe we can put that in the next few minutes. His email address. Yeah. And just say how important it is to seniors. Well, I think it's important to everybody. If you've got a family and they're trying to walk through or for kids across, I don't think you need to be able to get across before traffic just all of a sudden starts going. Especially if there's a baby carriage. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's just the same as a walker. You know, any mobility device can slow you down just enough to have you in the middle of the street with traffic coming. Yeah. So that's one of the things I thought of afterwards. I thought we need to take a look at that. And as far as Jim Angstad goes, this is something kind of off the track. But I believe he does vision zero. And I was wondering if we would like to have him attend one of our meetings and explain us Jim Angstad. Explain to us what vision zero really is all about and how long it's incorporated into our area. And I would be glad to ask him to come if that's possible. So in terms of the implementation of vision zero, Phil Greenwald is sort of the design and visionary. Whereas Jim is responsible for the implementation. And he's the guy that decides where the green light goes and stuff. He's engineering. So if you want to know the ideas behind it, Phil would be a better explainer. And we can get both of them. That'd be fun. Yeah, I think it would. We'll reach out to them and get them on a agenda. That'd be great. Yeah, because I think it'd be nice to hear. Yes. Excuse me. What's Jim's last name? Angstad. A-N-G-S-T-A-D-T. Thank you. So you think I'd run that test? That's Phil. Jim was at our meeting a year ago. A little over a year ago. Okay, that's fine. The only thing I was going to say is that as we look at the future with the light rail train, whatever we want to call it, is that it'd be great to see if we're going to have that opportunity of having a monthly pass with the kids, any of those. I don't mention that or not. Yeah, I didn't mention it. I think I mentioned it in my write-up, but I don't think I mentioned it. I think Phil Greenwald is the one that we would be talking to about that as well. Yeah. And again, I read that has been a little while, but was it 66 and 925 or was it 119? No. For the bus? Yeah. 119. 119 and it's okay. Yeah. So the hub that we're talking about in one month, is that one first in Maine? Yeah. So it's a little bit like they're eating up all that property so quickly, but there is room for something like a station or something. That's been on the city plan for years, just waiting for funding. About two years. So it'd be like across the street from 300 Suns? Yeah, across the street from the big apartment building. That's why it's called that. Main Street Station, so it's down there. Old bus station is there. Anybody else have any questions? I've got a comment. I'll come back to you. It's a good take. Can't get out of the habit there. It's a great system. Last year, I think it was in May, we had Harold come to Maine. And we, I shouldn't say complain, but we laid out a number of issues that we thought were important, primarily staff. We listened to us and I think it helped getting some additional staff, some additional resources. And we'd like to do the same thing this year. And I asked Ronnie, just before the meeting, if we could get Harold to come to the meeting in March. I don't know if he's available or not, but it would surely be nice if we could get him, or if not in March, April, out the river, so we could make a similar kind of presentation. The reason I'm a little anxious is because its time is getting short, as far as making a recommendation to the city council. We're trying to, I was saying that we were trying to fit into, we're trying to change the way we did the recommendation. So we're trying to fit into the budget cycle. The budget cycle starts in March. So if we want to have any impact on what's going on with the city, staff, resources, money, whatever, we have to get our stuff in the mix early. So that's why I feel a sense of urgency. And that's why I would like to get Harold here on March, preferably, or April, and if he won't come, I don't know, we've got something of a problem, I guess. Now, coming to you, I think that's okay. Coming to your report, I thought that was just excellent. And I think that we could take, what I'm saying is that I think that we could take your report almost as is, and that would be included as our recommendation to Harold and then to our report to the city council. And maybe change a few things here and there, and maybe next meeting we could all vote on, whether or not we agree with this recommendation of parts of it or not all of it, but as far as I can see, we could basically put, that would be our recommendation for the next budget year. Then, as far as housing is concerned, and Sheila, same thing. I don't know what you're going to talk about today, but by next meeting we should be able to say, you know, these are the kinds of things that we've come up with, and these are the kinds of things we want to recommend to Harold and then subsequently my letter to the city council. And then, as far as outreach, I've got some things to say about outreach even a bit later, but the same thing would apply to outreach. And we have stuff in motion already, and maybe today you could talk a little bit about that and bring the newer board and represent the speed as far as what you've done with, and we get to that item in the agenda. So that's the sense of urgency. We've got this meeting, we've got the next meeting, and if we can get Harold here by the first meeting in March, that's going to be how to make our presentation. Then, we start over for the next year. So I have a question for Marcia, and I know you said that we present these things to the council, but what is better received by the council? Some paper copy, or people actually showing up at the meeting and saying, these are our recommendations, or this is the way that we would like to go in the future, or both? Well, it's always good to have backup, but the impact is presenting at the council and also having people show up and speak and public invited to be heard in support of the presentation. So the more you can muster, that doesn't mean filling up public invited to be heard with 27 speakers, but it could mean having 20 people show up, wearing the same color, and having three speakers. Just really a show of support is the most influential thing. And when will that be, timing wise, will that be like the meeting? Earlier, April. Yeah, and as early as possible when we're ready, there's a process that you follow to get on the agenda, correct? And so I think when Ron Eden has a report for the agency, for the senior center, and the board are both ready, then he makes the request. But it's good to do this early in the budget cycle, so that both the council and the financial department and the people who do these weighted works in terms of deciding what gets funded and what can't be funded, what we have to do is establish the need case. And the more strongly we establish the need case, then the more likely we are to get the funds that we need to do the work we want done. And there's two aspects to that. One is showing public support, and one is showing that we have a firm plan, so that it's something that we collectively, the senior center, and its advisory board can execute on. So those are the objectives, and I'm sure Ryan knows that better than I do, but that's what if we, last year we did a really, I thought, fine job of going over ways that the senior center can extend its reach to different segments of the community that are not as well served as, you know, the ones you see when you walk through here. And we talked about, you know, extended hours, which requires more staffing, because the people that are on the staff now are busy, right? They don't have more time to just hang around here. And we talked about outreach and we talked about learning from the community what different services are helpful. But if they don't have a building to come to, it's hard to offer those different services. So those were all just for the benefit of the noobs here. Those are all things that we talked about doing. I'm really excited about those ideas because that's our job, right? It's to serve as many people as possible and to serve them with what they need. So that's the strategy for getting it. It's just what David said. I was just going to say what she just said. I agree with all of that. I think it's important to get our ducks in order. That's what I'm trying to do here. I know what we want to do and then we push it through the system. So that's all I got. Well, and even if we don't get what we're asking for, it has been presented. The next year it can be brought to the end. So yeah, we'll have to make a start somewhere, right? Where you benchmark these, budget starts together in March, what happens? What's the cycle after that? I can go with that if you want. So generally during the month of April and May, staff does our request for both capital improvement projects and the operating budgets. Which is people mostly? Yeah. By the end of May, staff can no longer make our request. That's when it comes to an end. Generally sometime in June, the city manager and the finance staff schedule a meeting with us to review our request. It's our opportunity as staff to explain why what we're asking for is so important. From there, Harold, the city manager and the finance staff put together a budget that is presented to City Council by the end of August. And then City Council usually in September conducts their budget and capital improvement budget hearings so that staff is given the opportunity to share the need with council members as well as with the public. It's the first time that the public gets to hear what's in the proposed budget. Council in October conducts a couple of public hearings where the public can give comment and then usually end of October, first part of November, the council approves the budget on two readings. And then it's set to go for the next year. At that point, there was just tinkering. Yeah, once it gets to being presented to City Council, I would say it's 90, 95% set with council having a little bit of flexibility to add or take away, but really your opportunity as a board really needs to be shared, your comments in March or April or you've really missed out on the budget cycle for that next year. Council could upset the whole Apple Card in October or November and has that power, but in general, we are responsible people who care about the operations of the city so we don't. Something would have to be really terrible. Yeah, that's a great point because council makes all the decisions and if they don't agree with something that the city manager or finance department has put in, then things could get readjusted but in my 25 years with the city, I've never seen that happen. I think that if council has issues, they voice that early in the process so that decisions can be made to meet their needs. And this was not done by council specifically, but probably the most disruption there's ever been to a budget was in 2008-2009 when we had the great recession and we couldn't afford enough revenue to continue with the plan as it was. Yeah, that was the year the ice rink was going to be scrapped and then in the midst of it being cut from the budget to a new council being elected, it was put back in the budget and we had two weeks to get it operational. I had a full head of hair before. That's not true, I haven't had a full head of hair forever. I don't know if there's any other concerns on that. If not, we'd like to move on, but thank you for that report. That was a great report. And I guess the question I have is as far as would it be you, Jeff, or who would be contacting Harold to find out who made to open market? Oh, to that. Harold is the city manager? Yes. I think it'd be great for him to hear what we have to say and to meet some of you folks. I thought it was quite good last year. Yes, it was. It was funny. You can often share things going on in the city that we don't talk about, you know, to listen to other things and let us know what the latest and greatest is. Okay, housing, Lani and Sheila. Okay, Sheila, do you want to go first or do you want me to? I want to go first. I don't have a lot to say. And first, I want to congratulate Lani. The report that she gave today and in the past have been really comprehensive and creative. So I want to give my congratulations on that. The one thing that we found about housing is that it affects even every aspect of society in Longwood from the young to the very old. But then we're trying to concentrate on the older sections. What I'd just like to do in this piece is to bring you up to date on what I have been doing over the last month and then we'll keep a fuller report next month or whenever is appropriate. So one of the good discussions I had was with a local realtor who is a senior real estate specialist which is something from the National Board of Realtors that gives a certification to realtors who specialize in serving older people. And they help with flyers and brochures and some webinars and training so that there are realtors in Longwood and in fact internationally who specialize in serving seniors. I think that's an interesting and worthwhile operation and we should probably look out for that if and when we have the need of a realtor or if anybody asks us for a recommendation. I had spent some time in the planning department talking to a zoning specialist and it was although she was extremely helpful it was a little bit spiriting because zoning is extremely complex and extremely difficult to change once it's on the map. She said that people sometimes tend to do what she called a clean sweep get rid of all the zoning in the city and then start a fresh, not have zoning like a city like Houston but to start again but everybody agrees that's not what it's doing. So I need to really understand that a little more. Those are the only two interviews that I had before I came away. I have an interview set up with Wemble Pickett who's a developer in Longmont who some of you may know or have dealt with. He's been associated with the LHA in his past and is extremely interested in making sure that his work, his developments and other peoples take into account the needs of seniors. So I'm looking forward to having a good chat with him. Basically, housing shortage and affordability as I said earlier is the problem for all ages and all people of all state financial status in this city and in the nation. I would love to think that well, you were talking about recommendations to the city council. I was desperate to try to think some realistic changes or that we could offer to the city council to assist and see more of them but I haven't come up with anything yet and I'm hoping Ronnie has because she's a little more productive than I am. So also the one thing is we're still waiting for a change to the homestead property tax exemption which is, I know, an issue for seniors who want to downsize because the issue of property taxes in their budget is often a major issue and they want to have what they feel is their right and not have to wait another 10 years to get that exemption so we will wait and see what happens in looking into this. It's been on the state agenda for several years and nothing has happened yet and you'll remember this last election that was part of the term I was a position agent and that went down as you may remember so I'm going to do more work in the next few weeks and Ronnie and I will come up with some recommendations and some thoughts at the end of those few weeks and I'll turn it over to Ronnie because I know she's being busier than I have been so I owe to you. Before we... It's okay. Yeah, just because Sheila you said you were looking for some recommendations I recently learned an interesting statistic which was there's a housing needs assessment in Longmont that says that we need thousands of units of affordable and attainable housing just to meet the needs of the current people here who are even trying to downsize who are inadequately housed are in danger of using their current situations just those without growth considered at all and Sheila said she was looking for zoning changes or city recommendations to the city recently the city made a concession that said if you want to change a single family home into a duplex we'll waive the connect fee for water which is like $25,000 that you wouldn't have to spend doing that conversion and of course there are many more fees and incentives that could be put in place to convert houses to duplexes and if 6% of the single family homes in Longmont this is the statistic were converted to duplexes it would meet our housing needs assessment shortfall 6% so a recommendation to planning and zoning would be to find ways to incentivize people to do that and make that maybe not even change the zoning just make that a change to the definition of the zone so that you can do that in a single family neighborhood without getting the whole neighborhood to grow up so take a look at that Wendell Pickett is an expert in that and a truthful man for this so talk to him about that and he'll have better ideas than I will about the pros and cons of that Thank you Marcia I was just thinking that when you said without getting the neighborhood up and arms there's a house converted but supposing half the house is on the block or let alone all of the houses on the block decided to become duplexes I wonder what that would what reaction that that would take That would be a reaction That's why it's not a snap decision I'm just telling you it could be like we can't control who owns the house but we can say there can only be this many Airbnb's on a block and we do so restrictions of that first come first serve how many of these duplex conversions could be on a single block in a single family neighborhood we could do that for example so there are ways there are always those options Well you said that does the city have any views on I couldn't find anybody dead out of that views on restriction Airbnb's has that been there to come There are statutory restrictions now What happens is it's on the books but we don't have a lot of budget devoted to enforcing it so people are supposed to register as Airbnb's but they don't always I'm sorry do you have some more children That's fine that's me Thank you I took the affordable housing as far as I spoke to the people at the senior senate I spoke to the people at Hope for a long time and I'll think of another one I have my report and I cannot access it so what I'd like to do I love the idea of your report it was a great report plus I'd like the idea of getting it before you so because everybody's getting a lot of information today what I'd like to do is get the report out to everybody on email and maybe we'll continue to do that and give everybody a chance to read it before having it thrown at them at a meeting not thrown at them but a lot of information given to people in a meeting this way you can have a sense of what we're going to be talking about so I'd like to get the report out to everybody but briefly Lonnie the one thing I would just say is that the report really should go to Ronnie and then Ronnie will distribute that way everybody is reminded that we can't conduct board business through email that has to happen while we're all together okay thank you for saying that but I can do that I can get you the report and then you can get it out to everybody okay I learned a lot at the senior center I learned a lot with hope and basically Longmont needs affordable housing Longmont needs affordable housing for people who are unhoused who are trying to downsize who are losing their properties because places are being sold or rents are going so high that people are rented for a long time and not finding they can't afford to stay where they're at so there's a lot of things going on and basically there's not a lot of inventory for people to be able to pick up less expensive places to live so it was also brought up that what we need is affordable assisted living a place that would take Medicare or Medicaid and just be affordable if you're not on Medicaid but an affordable assisted living because there are people now who Sheila kind of took the aging at home aspect and what they go through when they're aging but oftentimes people need the extra help but they can't get it because assisted living is so expensive so we're talking about affordable housing we're talking about affordable assisted living and just the situations that many people run into multi-generational families where grandparents are taking care of grandkids and the senior center is asked to fill in services to help both each party what they need I think the best one of the best things we can do is really support the resource people here at the senior center really see what we can do to help them with what they're getting the word out and I don't know what we can do but I think support of them would be really helpful because they're basically saying their hands are tight sometimes because all they can do is get people on waiting lists and then they sit there there are four places in Longmont that give out vouchers housing vouchers yearly LHA does it Boulder County housing partners does it and I can't remember the other two but anything we can do to help make sure people know that they can apply for these things they can put in an application they can find out if they're on the wait list they can find out if they've made a lot of things like that if we could just really help people out with getting the word around and have people more aware that these are available to them so they'll be looking for it and things like that with hope they are now taking over emergency services from our center our center no longer does any emergency placement for housing and things like that it's really more hope that's handling that hope so they are trying desperately to get temporary housing for people who just really show up and say I don't have a place to live and then long term housing they're working on both of them putting people into permanent housing so we discussed it at length and they really just need support if they're putting in ideas to the council or anything else they need people to stand with them and say yes we support that we think it's a good idea and so I don't know to what extent we can do that I certainly was surprised to hear how involved we can be with hope LHA LHA for the last 10 years all their building has been seniors for senior properties so there are new buildings there's two going up right now are for everyone they are for young I mean they are for single people couples families and seniors you can apply for these places if you're seniors it's just that you're not specifically forced to know there's no priority so I would like to make sure that seniors are still being put on the list for these places and still getting the support they need and I'm sure again the seniors that are does such a great job on their own with their resource specialist but if there's anything we can do to kind of keep an eye on things and make sure that seniors are being supported as much as everybody else that would be a good thing too so my report will say a lot more and you'll be able to read more about what's going on basically that's where we stand we stand that where they're living and find an affordable cheaper place to live they can't downsize they can't do things like that because it's just not possible they want to hang on to where they're living because they're afraid that if they give it up there's going to be no place to go so because of the high cost of real estate that's a huge issue here we have to really keep an eye on making sure that seniors are getting the support they need and like I said senior senator does a fabulous job of it and Ronnie anything we can do to help support that clarification all of our senior housing are they all subsidized well there's levels of subsidy right so that all housing authority buildings are subsidized in some way through community block grants and there are many money funding sources both to get for the capital to get them built and for operational help then in addition to that there are community choice housing vouchers which help individuals pay the rent that that you have to pay whether you have a voucher or not if you're going to live in a housing authority building so there are people living in the housing authority buildings who don't have vouchers who have enough income to pay the rent by themselves and there are also vouchers that that you can get to pay the rent that was a lot more important than it used to be or it used to be more important than it is because now private landlords are required to accept vouchers where it used to be that LHA was almost the only place that would take vouchers you know the in between and a few other places would take vouchers but now there are more places to spend your housing choice voucher than it used to be before and I'd also like to acknowledge the work of the housing authority in recent years that they are because they're doing a better job of administering the housing authority and making it cost effective well managed that HUD is entrusting them with more the ability to administer more housing vouchers so that slowly but surely the number of available vouchers is in recent and once you get approved for them on the list how long are you going to be able to stay on that list would it do they've changed the policy and made it much clearer to people you have to reapply every year yeah a lot of people thought they'd apply once and then they said I've been waiting for eight years we know you haven't you fell out and you didn't know it right and so yeah you apply and applying at one place doesn't apply you to the other places so if you really anticipate meeting housing support which one do is go apply at LHA and at HSBC or not HSB Boulder housing Boulder County housing partners and I don't remember whether it's two or three Boulder County something yeah and then yeah but let me just clarify this too with LHA when they have you're put on a list okay and then there's a lottery and then they go and they choose 20 people and then you're on the lottery your names are taken off the list with LHA they continue on that list until they've vouchers for everybody on it so it's not a yearly thing you apply for it's till the end of the list and then they start another list and everybody applies again and then they continue until they fill it the other places do they have a yearly thing that you have to apply for every year I believe that policy has changed where you do have to apply but you have to apply for it and but what has happened I have this from a recent LHA the city council is also the board of directors of the housing authority now and so this was their reporting what they have done was that waiting list was really not managed very well by the previous administration so there was a lot of confusion but they called every single name on that list and sent letters and established that the people were no longer waiting so they don't really have a waiting list anymore you know it's like really short and one of the things they've done is that you don't stay on the list for more than a year and so you know you're told when you apply that you have to apply again this is not a forever thing that just had to happen in the last year or so yes and that would actually be another good thing for us to be aware of so we could have one of the leaders of the housing authority come and talk to us about how their system is working there and the lottery system whether they're on the lottery or not they still need to reapply yes and they could choose a few times during the year to pull names off the lottery yes they could find that they have 50 vouchers coming in and so they'll go for 50 names off the lottery list and I'm glad you heard that I'm glad to hear that you're saying no matter if you're aware of that but the other thing that you need to realize if you're ever talking about it is if your name comes up and they call you you've got to be ready to move because if you can't move within a short amount of time it goes on to the next person you know so that's one of the things I think people don't understand and I can understand that as well if I have a lease on a place right now and it doesn't expire until you know June and you want me to move in now I'll end up either paying for two different places or I'm going to have to pass it up at this point so yeah that's it do you go off the list? no you're not getting a place like that you go kind of down to although the other thing is you can't be charged double the landlords can't collect double rent so if you move out when you still got months on your lease but then your landlord leases up the next month he has to stop charging you interesting okay so Ronnie this is so complex you know I think I know the answer to this but do your staff understand all of the complexities? they do so they do a good job supporting some of their clients with those communication pieces there's that misunderstanding that once I'm on the list so sometimes there'll be a notification that person A is their application is about to expire that they need to reapply they help connect those dots to hold that person so they're up to the same speed as far as all the angles Ronnie can stop and then communication of A your name is called email email has changed it's a struggle to sometimes get a hold of these people and our team is not able to hold them it's your fault we're trying to help support you to get this information to you that your name is called you were selected or you need to reapply there's some misunderstandings of what our staff role is in supporting and that we're not in control sometimes there's a misunderstanding that we're in control and it's like no we're just helping communicate your support and help communicate the information we're receiving so that there is some we run into that a lot there's a lot of misunderstanding of what our role is in that support process and Ronnie is still working on this as well oh yes still being more civil right we still only have the frontier on the church and we basically have mats and things on the floor they really need we need a homeless shelter we need a specific shelter free standing buildings specifically for homeless and that way they can have services available and they can have support available showers anything but we really need that homeless yeah I just want to say a couple of things and I'll say it really fast going back to the HH which did not pass that's my understanding that the state legislature is looking at that beginning now and so I think that we need to be aware of what they're talking about and where that's going because the portion in there that was critical for us was the homestead and that they had said it will go with the person not with the property so if I'm in a home right now if I have that homestead and I decide to downsize I've got to wait ten years to get that back again but if they get it to the point where it goes with the person then I can downsize and I've got that you're paying it anyway why not carry it forward and be aware and I don't know whether the city or whether we need to just send something to them and say we would like to see this carry on you know the grandfather in the people that are already doing it what do we do with that the other thing is I don't know if you guys have ever got after where the VA homes are back behind Home Depot I haven't actually visited inside any of them but that is really a really unique facility out there I'm going to be talking to the woman who is doing the BCP getting an idea of where they're at how it's outwards it's working out I noticed about three or four months ago there was a picture in the paper of the first person getting their key and being able to move into one of the tiny homes and I thought that was a great thing also just to let everybody know I'm going to be talking to the woman who is doing the BCP also just to let everybody know in my report from the Boulder County an agency an aging committee there is a there is a link to the proposition HH and what has been done since then what they did in special session and stuff like that and some of it has to do with new property new laws and so if you wanted it just so happens that it's in the other report but if you want to look at it it may be giving me some good information on what the ladies and greatest is and it does briefly touch based on the Homestead Act okay and that's if anybody has any more questions that's my report and I will get Ronnie a copy of it and you can set it up did I hear you right Homeless Shelter I should say Clarify that is there is not a municipal homeless shelter what the city does is pass community block grants that come to the city to independent non-profits like Hope to provide services to the neediest people so Hope and there is also Agape there is Safe Shelter which is it's actually a stealth facility nobody knows where it is and for victims of domestic violence they take single parents with children you don't have to be a woman if you are the victim of domestic violence and are displaced by it so there are a number of homeless shelters there is not a municipal homeless shelter and I don't want to run the meeting up later but the problem of homelessness is way more complex than you don't have a shelter and I don't want to take too much more time on this you know the one about affordable assisted housing you know the paper a few weeks ago there was an article that you know your insurance doesn't pay any of the home care part of it out of your home I know a gentleman that just recently they did not have a home and he spent 300 dollars a day to provide assistance so can you imagine when it's going to cost you to try to put an assisted living facility it's a big one it's a big one when people want to age at home well they may have to have renovations made to their upgrades to their home environment for accessibility and things like that if they have extra care they have to pay for that so you know aging at home is not as easy as it may sound they may own the property they may own their home right out but the amount of expenses that they would have to look at moving forward could drain them and you know they may lose their home because they have to pay those fees themselves well and Boulder County also gives grants to companies that will help with that and I'm sure that your resource people know that you know so if they do need something they need a ramp, they need bars something going on Boulder County does have if they can get in touch there are places that don't help and if the senior center does not have a resource list for that it does need one I know the woman who took care of my mother during her decline is now basically homebound she lives in a mobile home she was right over here on 16 and she got her bathroom remodeled she got her roof fixed she got her ramp built and she didn't have a dime so she didn't pay a dime and her grants came through Medicaid I believe but there are quite a number of resources for so people don't lose their homes to that in particular is there a main office that you would, a main site you would go to to find out who to go to it would be Boulder County area agency do they have an office at the same for a home it says they do but I don't know that it's actually manned all the time okay the unless there's someone else questions is the outreach and program development you know that the one thing that you know it's always a big concern is are we meeting the needs of all the community as far as ethnicity etc and one of the things that I don't know if it would be wise to get some resource specialists in here and Valerie to hear a little bit from them as to how many you know that the numbers will come in because some people you talk to they say oh yeah they do have a lot of programs and the programs we have they are getting great attendance but the other thing that I think is really important are other programs that we did by them that were not reaching you know and so I just like to see what we think about in the future having the resource specialist and Valerie because Valerie is doing some of that too right and then Dr. Maria and she was telling me you know she volunteered she'd be happy to make phone calls and invite people as well so you know we would really like to continue to expand in that area and maybe we're meeting I don't know I agree but the thing is we would sure like to know and like I said one of the things I do see is when they're coming for services the resource specialists they're getting their number of diversity there but I'm not sure that some of the others and that's what we'd like to look at and talk about so that's good timing so our request for 2024 was to bring an additional programmer and allowing us to assess who we have on staff at that point to determine how we can increase Spanish programs specifically so what we have done is we just brought on Terry Calvin who's been helping us in our time capacity to keep our programs afloat and we were had such a turn over and so she applied for our full-time positions so what that allows us to do now is to not increase programs specifically but our general programs that allows us to be more intentional on Spanish programs so between Amy Hodge our program supervisor and Terry our program coordinator and one of our part-time coordinators they are going to and with Valerie as well she's going to take some of these responsibilities but between those three specifically we're going to divide up responsibilities take some off Valerie's plate allowing her to be very intentional and expand our Spanish programs so with that making sure that we're providing opportunities to have roundtables and discussions with our current patrons how we bring in new patrons for these conversations the outreach that we're talking about bringing the bringing the right voices to the table to identify what our needs are moving forward allowing Valerie to be intentional so hearing them out and identifying what programs we want to implement moving forward so it's going to be this little process and once she's taken over Spanish programs that's been a process on its own and from their development relations with current patrons who are involved in these programs trust has to be developed and established before we do anything you know a big part we're looking through that cultural piece we developed those positive relationships first developed that trust and from there build our programs overnight it's not a we've got a new programmer we're going to throw in 10 new Spanish programs done, problem fixed when I say we want to be intentional we already have classes and programs around nutrition that looks different culturally for our Latino population so again intentional programming it doesn't mean just having one of our current around nutrition having a bi-legal presenter to translate that we need to be specific on what the needs are if we were to offer these specific well these targeted programs that have been identified in these conversations so it's going to be a slow process working with Amy Hodger program supervisor right now to identify that timeline which I'll come to the board probably the next month or so probably the next month in February to identify our timeline of this process identifying where we want to have these round-table discussions how we're going to outreach when we want to have programs implemented maybe it might be summer or maybe fall we don't know yet but again growing it from the ground up instead of saying this is what we think we need to know what the need is before we do anymore we don't want to just be reactive we want to go after this process that is our goal that is great you know one of the things and this is just something because working at the restaurant there's several and most of the time it's the Hispanics that go in there and say listen have a family member just pass away and we're trying to get them in Mexico and we need some kind of a plan to think about something like I don't know what you would call it death and dying or something like that that's a reality that folks you need to save a little bit of money if you can because you don't wait until the person is in that state and they're totally understanding the difference between a cost from a full-place mural not a knockout to cremation versus something like that we want to hear from them the only reason I brought that up is because there are several that want to put a jar in there which the corporation corporate will not allow them to do that doesn't allow them to put signs on the windows like that that's one reason you know I think there's that and I'm sure there's a lot of others involved and the next question like there's Maria who is really in the volunteer does she I didn't know she knows who to contact or whatever to let them know she can do whatever it needs to be done so there's a process for our volunteers to do this work we basically have to gain HR clearance to allow our volunteers to do what they do so right now we're at over 300 volunteers some do a lot more intentional work than others but we have a total of over 300 volunteers at this time in different capacities in different spaces but so that information is communicated as well on a process but right now just applications are closed but how do we get that information out there we can it's on our website it is in our goal and we do have a lot of these conversations we have a lot of people who just stop there and say I'm just volunteering how do I do that there's different things we're using volunteer work we have our John to care for speak volunteer for the meeting is that okay, sorry for John pure support here in the center it's available to seniors plus we're having difficulties with grief support or isolation remember they will face anybody who's a senior and the outreach that Ronnie's group does with them is pretty aggressive and we here in the center we talk to people and we leave their homes to anyhow but what I'm finding in the process is that the people know about it but we want people to know I keep hearing issues here about how we communicate how we get the information out to the community all of them even people who aren't seniors that tell their family members and I've heard occasionally here today how do we get great services for those 8,000 to 9,000 people to their own ones that's a terrible population how do we how do we get pure support through this well-supported staff so the communication and so that communication piece we're looking to be able to establish through our improving our website we just started Facebook Facebook up again once we get these things it's been a slow process Facebook just started up we're going to look at doing better advertising through our 50 clubs market place but we need to begin staff and time to do a lot of these things so that's been a slow process but we're slowly getting that momentum improving our communication as well for either of you sometimes I get complaints through social media unofficial accounts like Facebook and I don't know whether this is accurate or not because sometimes especially when they're not on the record people will say anything just to prevent their anger but is there a long waiting list to get to your support there's a detailed screen process to make sure people have the needs and they need professional help beyond what we can offer as volunteers that kind of thing the screening may take a little while I know that some of the support staff are seven weeks out just because they're such as amazing but I think if people have a complaint they should be able to bring it forward so they can be addressed mostly just not complaining about moving forward as John mentioned so there is a wait but it's weeks not months it can be it can be anywhere from four to six weeks that that is the reality based on our staffing needs right now our staffing right now so identifying that as a need that is going to be one of my focuses for budget for budget for 2025 is identifying how well not only me but there are statistics of four to six four to six week wait list right now what impact can one if not two additional staff members for support services do can that not work just down to two weeks or three weeks or just quickly turn around how many more clients can we take on that does the staff trains more peer support counselors how long does it take to train a peer support counselor eight weeks over any different sprays well the big picture that is when the staffing turn over had occurred right in the year last year and I went through any response to that got the staff a little kind of relevant and quickly that went through four to six weeks now that is true so a big response quickly as it can for what I've seen I have heard nothing but good things from people who are in the program so that is a real point of praise I have one other question since you were on the subject you know what is the escape bell if you call a mental health provider they will always have a recording that says if you are a mental health emergency hang on and call 911 and does the peer support counseling system have an escape valve or like referring people to mental health partners or something that you would see on that to improve their emergency support emergency support so you know basically the communication is we cannot wait four to six weeks four to six weeks out and even if that supports sooner the communication is the escape bell but I wanted to go back to peer support volunteers so that is actually who is on our go this year is our peer support volunteers in the work that they do so what they do is as John mentioned there is an assessment process to identify what their needs are and if it is something that our volunteers can take on they take them on and then it allows our staff to focus on the additional needs of other clients if that makes sense so being able to differentiate what the needs are and decide from there who will be able to provide the supports for those individuals so it is a great system, it is a great program we have great volunteers we have an office board out in the back that they schedule on their appointments that they make they basically reserve their room for their appointments each week out nothing but positive things nothing positive things about this support that we provide as well I am very thankful for our volunteers to give us those additional supports because as mentioned because of that weightless we can't get to everybody but anyway so we are back to where our need is for 2025 we are spending time to focus on identifying the need again framing it as a need and necessity and not a want or a ask any market again, our community is growing that weightless can continue to grow additional weeks out further weeks out and we just want to be able to provide us with support sooner rather than later so again looking at the data how many people for our current staff how many people are we seeing a week a month and if we are at one or two more staff members what is that we just weightless to can we see somebody in a week or two in extended hours absolutely lots of people can't do it sorry go ahead I was just affirming what Arlene said didn't mean to speak out of turn that's okay Arlene there is a report that they are creating for the participation of Chris Boyden who is getting our numbers of hours yeah so they are working on that for the animal for the shed yeah a quick question so they have the same savers in Spanish Spanish is the only student so we have two resource for volunteers specials for volunteers yeah I was wondering because I take care of my mom for five years so she passed away last year and she was 95 so she was living with me the last five years yeah so my daddy died in 1992 and she was one of my girls who had taken care and you know they kept taking care of the volunteers so they were in here to cover up yeah good questions okay unless there's any other questions let's move on to discussing the 2024 annual report we have about 35 minutes left so so who's going to be talking about the annual report I will look to you but me check your good books and turn to the city ordinance tab second page right I memorized the city code in first year I mentioned earlier we have an annual report that we submit to the council and if you look under powers and duties that's basically the guideline that we're going to be following as far as our recommendations everybody with me and I don't know if we'll follow it just exactly ADCD but those are the kinds of areas that we'll make our recommendations I wanted to say well I mean branding is making that annual report I think for years and I'd like to see the people doing that because I think there's a lot of useful information in that too you know if you could consider that so anyway you can see for yourself just to go over this this is old stuff to some of you but this is mainly for the new people we have part of our responsibility is IMA to establish recommendations for guidelines and policies B to review annual budget requests related to senior citizens programs C sort of as liaison between the city council and the community of senior citizens and D to report annually in writing considering the operation of the senior center really any other matters of relevance I think is what it plays down to so I think the way this is written we have a lot of latitude on the kinds of things that we would want to recommend I think it needs to say in writing and in person possibly I don't know yeah I'm sorry particular place here D to report annually in writing and in person that would be in front of the city council I hadn't thought about it but yes I think everybody agrees that maybe we should make a presentation on the order of what Marsha was describing and get some people there and maybe have three speakers I don't know how they want to do that we'll talk about that later but anyway to have as much impact you know city manager a written report and a show of force before the city council all of those things I think are important to make an impact and I think part of the reason I mentioned before that the staff here just stayed around 10 people for years and years and I think part of it was kind of woke them up and it was really good everybody was really satisfied with it but it was kind of hopeful so anyway I'm saying that we need to make kind of a splash and if we don't make a splash we're going to get an order and so Art I want you to go make the splash we're going to go down so anyway that's kind of the overall framework of what the angry force is going to look like and we'll work on that later like I say I will probably bring some kind of a draft next time but it'll be just draft and we'll have track to it and if everybody then could have their initial report so it's getting ready to go okay let's all read out a good book a new survey regarding basic services again this is mainly for the new people we've had we've had three or four surveys over the last couple of years and they all show pretty much the same thing is that people are very satisfied and what they report as far as the services as far as the programs are concerned exercise and fitness programs are always right up there classroom classroom presentation classes that's always up there so the three or four surveys that we've had tend to come out about the same the last one we had was better done it was done by the marketing section of the city but it was focused primarily on programs and just again affirmed that the staff was doing a really good job in the long term that's on programs but but I'll lay back on that when I was approached by being on the board one of the first things I did was to look up some information on the city and the programs and the divisions and that sort of thing and the idea of equity that permeates the city equity is a big deal as a matter of fact most meetings have that preamble about the Arapahoa tribes and the Indian lands so there's a real commitment to excuse me to equity in the city that really appealed to me and I've read through some of the plans and equity as far as senior services is also important and that's where I think we could maybe do something a little bit different and I said that the programs as is and the people that come into this building are satisfied that's not it what about other basic services I'm getting at we have a community and I don't remember the exact percentages but it's roughly 80% white 25% static 2-3% black and some other groups and I'm not sure whether or not low income that's a significant area those over 80% I guess the thing is you can draw you can create a profile of the community do the services that we provide match that profile that's the question and granted we do a good job not believe in that kind of Ronnie in the staff but are we meeting in an equitable fashion all of the things that people in our community need that's my issue so that's why I'm thinking that we need another survey and I get tired of doing surveys all the time I really do but sometimes it's the only way to get information there has been some resistance quite frankly and legitimate about resistance to collecting information about about the clientele and that you have because of confidentiality people being afraid that they're going to be targeted some home and that sort of thing that's all we're doing but I'm thinking if we could get the city marketing division it's the same people get them to do a survey but not so much on programs but on basic kinds of services you know like an arbitrary list on the you know focus on not on programs but on things like health transportation, housing, information caregiving, counseling, appointments all of those kinds of things the idea would be to get a representative cost section sample I don't know how that would work exactly but and I don't know would be tough to get a good response rate sometimes they had a pretty good response to the last one anyway I'm sorry anyway it would be designed something like you have an area like transportation granted we have lots of transportation programs but is transportation a problem for a particular group that should be served and isn't that kind of thing what if you have a person that's Hispanic for example that has a problem with depression and also has a problem with caregiving and they don't have a car and you can't hardly get out of their their own home so is that an area that's up but is that something that we want to focus on are they people being missed even though what we're doing in the center get my point so I'm saying that the people that did the marketing and the survey would focus on trying to get a cross section like I said and they go through these different areas and maybe have a library scale a pipeline scale is a very serious problem to me or a member of my family that would be like a five and on the other end it would be it's a no consequence to me however you want to define that scale you go through these different areas and then you get some sort of a measure okay then so what do you do with it and what I would think that you want to do with it you know running in his staff or maybe you Harold Christina or whoever you're managing people you take let's say that the highest rank need out there is not what we expected it might be but it might be something like abuse I don't know if that's the category or not but abuse it is a really big problem okay and then do you have do you have the staff that you need you have the money you have the budget you have the resources to plan and to reach those people that have that kind of a problem so this is not easy stuff so your task would be to what you would do during the year identify the problem by group how important the issue is by group hopefully and then you define as a plan what you're going to do specific activities programs whatever that need that particular need and at the end of the year you evaluate how you did and that's how we measure what we're going to go through time period so this is all kind of new I don't know I see some people nodding their head and some people looking crazy I guess how do we define what the role of the senior center is as compared to those things on your list and what the senior center is and what sorry and what the city offers if senior services doesn't offer support on abuse which I think we do to some extent but how do we connect people to that service somewhere else in the community yeah I don't know exactly but it goes back to your role as a senior service staff that would be something that they need to be aware of so they can make the kind of referrals that they need you don't have the resources in that kind of stuff is that what you're getting at? so I'm not saying that you pick up and solve all of these problems especially housing so it's a way to make movement if someone asked me to describe how you do what kind of progress you've made in these different areas and basic services over this last year I couldn't tell and I would like to know as a board member I would like to know so I can make recommendations to the city council or anybody else so this is not easy stuff it's simple it's simple enough to find the need on a program but doing it is a little more difficult so this is the kind of thing that I think we want to do as far as to get through your vision of our work is how do we do outreach we have to kind of define where we go what outreach we do what outreach we need to do yeah so it's going to be a long process oh this is not something to be ruled over Mark Shen Jeff I was just going to add that what Dave is describing is a no wrong door strategy so it basically means things like at some point a new center which is likely to be the first contact for a lot of certain groups it gets better at referring people to the police team that is associated with domestic abuse because it's a priority for them and elder abuse is domestic abuse so we might have some expertise in the long run economic development partners because they used software and a lot of different techniques for implementing no wrong door for entrepreneurs startups in the community it's not a different problem it's just a different space so I just wanted to point that out but it has a name and essentially you do metrics you have counters on the arcs of the graph so that when you make a referral you can't back there could be a different time for talking about it that's something a little further on down the line but that's the idea that would be the idea another idea that's had some resistance I don't know how you folks feel about it but to narrow the subgroups down by the survey that was done that was built not by aid well it's really helpful if we have a break up by sex income level race those would be the big ones and I know there's some resistance like I said within this staff some people just don't like to do that because they feel it's invasive lots of organizations do Census Bureau does but that's something that I would leave in the hands of if that's a recommendation we want to make that's something that the marketing people could work out maybe they'd want them in attorneys I don't know how far they can go collecting that information on the survey wouldn't be a problem because it all would be anonymous and you're not at the senior center but once you get to the senior center and providing services that's a different animal so I mean there's some work this is just an overall big picture idea but that's the sort of thing that I would like to recommend I don't know if we need to put this on the agenda for the next group there could be some of this as a result of the I'm sorry and so are there any other questions if not I'd like to go ahead and move on to Ronnie I need you to forward there's a text and a text Teresa so we have we I want to introduce one of our new staff members Teresa Melvin our front office receptionist she started with us a few weeks back and just wanted to do you want me to go get her I got it coming I told him to keep the program there and so I'll bring her up here in a second but also didn't want to announce that Terry Calvin did accept our reputation program coordinator's position and so she's officially starting she's been with us in that part-time best we've all in a sense since the summer this role next Monday full-time so excited to have have Terry keeping her on our team and that team just their chemistry it takes time to build chemistry and learn other people's I'll say work habits to support each other and that team of board back there has just clicked immediately and they just our programs that's a different very beginning so they've introduced new ideas into our program things that we've never even done before and I'm just hearing another positive feedback we're going to intense our CPs and our day trips as well so just fantastic team and I'm glad we're keeping Terry with us we at the end of the year our team kind of meant to identify goals for 2024 so I just want to share with you all that we're working on crafting it we've identified our goals for 2024 and our foundation around culture and what do we stand for basically what do we as a senior center definitely what does it stand for so we're going to start unpacking that develop goals for 2024 based off of those responses and start using that to align for everything we do this coming year probably are you going to present that to the board so that we can have goals that absolutely we jumped in this office this room this whole whiteboard was full of notes so reflecting on this past year so last year's goals that were established and kind of saying where we found in the process do we meet these goals do we achieve them do we need to carry these over to 2024 and then setting out those foundational goals for 2024 so it's still we just have pictures of all those notes and we're going to start crafting it together and wanting to get it to identify measurable goals so I'll tell you how that absolutely I'll present that to the board our two CEPs we have two December CEPs our holidays or a we had 132 participants which was sold out and we had a wait list for that 132 in attendance and our happy new year which was 120 participants and also sold out again so cultural enrichment program so for our new board members our cultural enrichment program is events that are funded by our friends boards our goal is to do one upon and it's free for anybody who uses the senior center and you just have to sign up for it of course there's limited capacity and so we do different things one of these was a live band so we had a live band here with some things in snacks there's been things done in the past where somebody comes into the storytelling magician things like that so just one program so we have one coming up next week that I'll be leading Mayor Peck will be in attendance on that one and it's going to be around and you're more welcome to attend as well is around the work that we have done from the youth side of the sister cities but the work we are doing as a senior center to partner with a local tribe of my own and so we're working towards an elder exchange so we're going to share the sister cities video here in the gymnasium and then have a Q&A after again myself will be there to talk about the work that we're doing towards the elder exchange Mayor Peck talking about the now land acknowledgement that exists here in the city of Longmont and also share her experiences going down to Wyoming to connect with Northern Rapido leadership as well we have three I'll say three of our sister cities representatives coming in one with the city two with the city and one who is on our friends board to kind of share their experience doing this work with the youth getting us to where we are right now thanks Teresa so this is Teresa Melvin she started with us a couple weeks back she is our new front officer receptionist and this is our advisory board and I just wanted to introduce you to Teresa and let them know who you are Hi I'm Teresa Melvin I've been I lived in Longmont for 10 years and now I'm living in Firestone for the last 14 so I know that area pretty well and I am so happy and I'm going to tell you the senior center mission is pretty amazing this is such a neat community and the services and resources that this place offers are outstanding so I'm very happy to be here to be part of this community it's pretty cool if I can help you in any way I may be a little slow at first but I'm happy to do that welcome welcome thank you cool stuff thank you Teresa good to meet you good to meet you all I'll have it ask your name several times so we'll have that presentation next week and I'm just very excited for that just to introduce this work to our community so it's been done what's been accomplished on the youth side and how we want that to transition and carry over to our senior side and what is the theme? that is next week it is on Thursday the 11th from 230 to 4 11th from 230 to 4 so I'm going to have that I'm just having a lot of other things just a few so I'm very excited about that one though it's been it's been a lot of work and it's worth it it's worthwhile and I'm just excited to share that with our community our Go Magazine has arrived for December through February which we have in here in your binders and our Spring Go has been submitted for print so we're getting ready to solidify our Spring Go catalog coming up day trip departures have launched last month in December from Lashley Street Station so we're excited that we're officially utilizing that space and being meaningful with this we're not just doing a program here or there that is our new hub or new location for all of our day trips it's been a nice big parking lot so sometimes we come here where we have a lot of programs and this parking lot is this very jam packed so we have those day trips where they're gone from 8am to 5pm and we have a charter bus that carries 50 plus people and that's 30 vehicles in our parking lot that leaves whoever's coming for our day programs here our classes here to park over in Recreation and walk all the way down so this helps alleviate some of that congestion and having that central location to where all of our trips to park is very important we need to identify that space for that purpose it's going well of course there's we're hearing a lot of feedback which only allows us to get better and what we're doing so we're taking that feedback into consideration and identifying what requests I need to make moving forward as well for a group budget to make some improvements that makes us lighting is an issue like the parking lot yeah when it starts at 9pm yeah so we just want more we're getting there it just launched in December so we're collecting some feedback so we can go to and see what adjustments we can make um we're excited for that change for sure I don't want to take too much time because we have work other so with that information do they don't have any questions for me? let's go on with that I've had a lot to say already um so yeah just reiterate I do think being vocal about the portability of the senior homestead exemption is a really good thing um this board could, for example, write a letter to our senator and representatives from Longmont in support of it there's no reason why you can't do it um you can also make a request to the council to write a letter in support of the portability of the senior exemption I don't know why any seniors voted against H.H. because there were a lot of disinformation around that I voted for it just because of the senior exemption yeah, because the rest of it you couldn't understand but everybody can understand that and that's the piece that we really need um because uh I think I was trying to talk about the ways that this board can use the power of council to get the right things done I'm looking forward to them thank you can we come up with a draft letter that we can use to all send something you know, and then give us contact information on who to send it to as easy as possible people could personalize it somehow but at least we get the right information we will have who will we think about as far as drafting it I don't know I don't know but I know the ins and outs enough to uh to draft a letter like that but someone could make an appointment with Sandy Cedar and ask for her advice okay because she is our legislative liaison and she wouldn't draft a letter for you but she could probably help us get you the facts okay she said she wants to give you a hint of that while we're having connection issues so the computer might die okay and uh notice that she would go ahead and follow through with this uh area agency on agency that's amazing well yeah I said the report we basically we had it in Lafayette and they recently renovated their senior center so there was a lot of talk about that and then they talked a lot about um um they talked a lot about their upcoming recruitment and who's gonna stay on the board and who's not um I wish I had access to my report I'm sorry I don't but I did include it so anybody would like to get more information and again there's a big thing on uh the Proposition H Proposition HH um they talked about sister Carmen community supporting and serving older younger and older adults in the community and there's a web page that you can look at um and this is um a prepared statement on what happened with Proposition HH what was done in special session um Lindsay has contacted um some people about any proposed legislating around around legislation around portability of the tax exemption and uh she'll follow up with that information so that she'll be another resource that I can go to and find out exactly where it's at along with the letter that I'm going to be got so um she definitely put in what bills passed during the special session so if you want to go in and click on the links you can read all the different things that were passed during the special session such as emergency rental assistant grant program increase income earned income tax credit summer electronic benefits transfer program property tax relief um and so on it also I added a link that showed uh kind of a overall consolidation of what happened um during the um special session in November so they are going through recruitment um recruitment one runs through January 19 so if anybody's interested in getting involved with the Boulder county agents area agency on agent please let me know and I can point you towards the right person and talk to you into coming um and Caitlin from the association for community living did a presentation um the link is was included is included um and basically it was several aspects of living in a community where disabilities are embraced um and she did her presentation and several resources that she shared and that's it questions? you know I know people busy so if you need to leave we can definitely understand but if we can if there's anything we can table for next meeting but uh somebody with friends wants to so that was Sheila and she did not attend this last meeting Dave got that notification too late um but really all he did is identify two new board members um there wasn't too much miss right now they're reviewing our proposed uh budget for for the senior center for next year and so they just spent a lot of time there reviewing those nine hours they've been invited to attend the next meeting what's that? friends they've been invited to attend the next meeting new new new presidents um Chuck Beeler and um previous presidents uh Linda Federman they've confirmed that? yeah yes sustainability? uh it's getting late so well and they say I included the report I didn't summarize it because I just have a hell of a time typing well I just gave you the report one thing I want to highlight though is something that's going to be a big issue in my opinion last this year this last year was the hottest done record next year according to the experts is going to be worse heat mitigation is going to be a problem in the future particularly the group of people I was talking about before so uh I have nothing specific right now that this is just but that's something we need to track and it's going to be a problem in the future any questions on that engaging caring communities who says I don't think they could be that group I don't I don't think we have anything else okay uh I need from the board it's a new business yeah any new business what would you buy if anybody has any comments okay anybody have any comments any questions okay uh motion to adjourn second so okay okay thank you folks I appreciate you coming and we'll just a couple of minutes