Hello. [Music] And then the cell phone that was disconnected. I said, "Hold that cell phone. plug screen. So I'll text. Good afternoon every
Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the council media board meeting of October the 6th at 24 the afternoon. If everybody gets a chance to read their minutes over the at home on their laptops or
computers have a motion to accept a minute then motion accept. Okay. Second. Okay. So now before we go any further today, um you you need to actually call for
vote. All eyes in favor. [Music] Okay. Any uh all in favor? Any motion? Any opposed? So voted? So close. Yes. Everybody's Yes.
Everybody's yes. Okay. So voted. We're all set. Before I go any further, I have an announcement to make before we start the regular part of the meeting. Any person may make a video or audio recording or a poker session of the meeting or may
transmit the meeting throughout any medium subject to reasonable requirements to the chair as a number and placement of operation and equipment used to use so not to interfere with the conduct of the meeting. Any person intending to make such recording shall
notify the chair forthwidth. All documents be referenced be used during the meeting will be submitted duplicate to the chair pursuant to the open meeting and public records law. All documents shall become part of the official record of the meeting. Anybody
recording anything? I thought you going to say yes. I thought you okay. I guess we're all set. Okay. Uh treasury report. [Music] depends on how we
treasure the TV is right up and we're very sorry that we would like to like have every account be on its own page but because of the account that I go into now we uh had to
have two pages so be patient with us. The first page up is uh the general Oh, okay. Back again. Has everybody found the financial reports at the end of their packet or if
they ran it off from home? They are they are numbered as well. So, they are numbered. So begin with lesson we will try to guide you right through um we we start off on pa it's called page
one page one page one page one that is our general fund and um there is one little error at the top of the one column but that's uh u no biggie we have
August 25 in the second column over and it should be September 25, but that will be changed in the future that they are September's figures. Okay, there's nothing much to report on
nothing but no changes in the main account in the uh money that we get from the city. Uh if there are any questions at all that we anyone can answer, everything is pretty standard there. We do have one contract outstanding a
purchase order rather and that's for uh the generator 9,182. Otherwise at the moment we have a balance in the general fund of 168,83825 and that's right where we should be. No
nothing else outstanding at the moment. Any questions on the general funding? This is the money we get from the city to operate. Just a second. Um, note the other purchase order that has been encumbered is the 10,533
site manager. I'm sorry, I didn't go up high enough. Sorry. And um, for all other accounts, that information is um, inserted into the bottom line, but not on this account there. It It's not taken off. is not
backed off because it's already budgeted. But in other, you're going to see as we go on that any of the purchase orders is going to reduce the available funding. That's basically um you know what we're doing and why we do that. So now you have a description of what it is.
Any other questions on just that on the general fund? If not, we will move on to the gift fund. During the month, we received a nice donation of $130.
And so that brings our balance in the gift fund of $94,000 58780. That is our ending balance. And um just want to remind you on the gift fund.
We don't we don't have to remind the money that's been set aside. No. Oh, sorry. Yes, we need a reminder. The gift the gift fund is used for long-term items like fixtures and equipment. And even though we now have a
healthy balance in there when the move comes, I'm sure we're going to be asked and of and the council has to approve any expenditures out of that fund. But I'm sure that we will spend some to make our new home more beautiful and lasting.
And what did we learn? Never question Terry. She knows she's got the info. Thank you. Well, you know, sometimes you just you forget. I forget. I forgot how to turn this thing. Okay. So, that's page all of page one.
The general fund and the gift fund. Everything seems to be in order. Okay. Turn the page now over to page two. And that is our um revolving fund. And um
so uh we uh we started off 31,92385. We brought in some income from various uh uh programs 5,68386 and uh year to date uh we have spent
49,000 to 2058. No, we took 49. Oh, I'm sorry. See, that's why we income. So, income. So, uh you can see all the uh you can see all the
expenditures under the September 25 column. We do have one contract, a purchase order outstanding, $19,000 for sell contacts and uh 3,000 for Hannah's.
And I bet that's for turkeys and 3,000 for McN. Those are those are the purchase orders and they are in the purple column. And the U and then on the second page, they're written. Oh, more on the Oh, yes. And on the
second page, which is on page three at the bottom, it is a short page. Handover theater, we're under contract for 14,323 and for Wilson bus 2,33208. So we have outstanding purchase orders
of 41,658. And um during this month uh September we spent $2,17020 and here to date out of revolving we have spent 23,55452 and at the moment we have a balance of
15,93483. Are there any any questions on what any monies or anything was spent in the revolving fund? Yes, Paul. [Music] So, we have 15,000 and that's supposed
to last till June 30th. No, when it keeps coming in fluctuating. Okay. that keeps coming. Oh yes. Every you know every activity money is collected and every you know that all goes up in the income right?
Correct. Yeah. You shut yours off. Yeah. Yeah. It's a revolving fund. Money in money out. Yep. Every month you're going to see the income go up and every month you're going to see the expenses go up. So we
may deplete the 15,000 if we have extraordinary expenses between now and the end of the year. But as programs are generated, revenues generated offsets most of the expenses. So we certainly won't be in a deficit or be
running behind in another year. You didn't want to go out and be shoveling. Okay. No, that's good. Somebody else might have wanted to ask a question. He was afraid to. So, that's good, Paul. Very good.
Anybody else? Anyone else? I I want to make a comment. Uh when Terry and I were reviewing the financials, if you go back to your August uh financial report, you're going to see some of the line items have much larger
expenses year to date that are reported in the line items for the September financial. And that's because in August, we also showed you line by line the transfers, the general ledger transfers of expenses between revolving fund, the grant fund. So if you try to reconcile
the two without taking into consideration the very specifically yellow highlighted sections that show the transfer, you're not going to be able to do it. But in the August, we were very um maybe a little bit overzealous in showing every transaction
so that there's paper trail and tracking of those different general ledger transactions, adjusting transactions. Okay, just any any other question on revolving fund? any any anything at all? Okay,
moving on to page four, which is our state uh 24 state grant. And we had a beginning balance there of 13,23925.
And you can see uh only a couple of expenditures in September there, mostly supplies. And then the next column over is the year to date for all those different accounts.
And on page five are your balances. Uh the balance before the the outreach coordinator salary will eventually come out of this account 4,03633.
So the balance after salary will be 5,53614 and that's the 24day grant which we are working on getting closed out. 5 years ago when we gave the financial reports we included the outreach salary
lump summed as a salary account line item. Um the problem with that is at the end of the day if you took our financial reports and looked up in Munice what the balance was it would be off and it would be off the salary account because they're actually two separate sub
accounts of the state grant. So um and I'm giving you the account numbers just to show the difference. One is the 5290 which is the general expenses and the 510 which is all salary expenses. We broke it up separately because it's easier for you if all of a sudden
somebody went back and said, "Where does this number come from?" You can tie the mun number directly to the 52990 account and you can tie the uh coordinator expenses for the 54124 grant fiscal year 24 to that salary related line. Just so
you all know like and we've been doing that for a couple years, but people are kind of wondering like why do we have a balance before salary? Why do we have a balance after salary? The salary account is separate than the regular general assigned 59 item. Okay. Any any question on the FY24 state
grant? Then moving right along, we'll move over to page six, which is our FY25 state grant. And this is the one that we will hopefully be working more on as we
go through this year. In the first column, the purple, you can see all the uh purchase orders that we've got lined up. And uh some a good part of them are the salaries for the instructors for the
various programs. And it's good to have them all lined up there so we know life knows that we have that money to pay them. they as their invoices come in the next and there wasn't too much expended in September
actually in September 2020336 oh no I'm sorry 36271 I'm sorry you're right oh two 202036 is the salaries
and now The ending balance in our state grant is 33,57069. Are there any questions on that one? So once again, our monthly expenses were 36271. And you'll see in the September
25 detail uh under Brisbane, somebody else does. It's a positive number of 200, not a negative number. That's because we issued a check in August that was returned, refunded um and the correct amount was uh reissued. So that shows the negative
positive as opposed to the negative on that one line item. We have a question over here. I have a question about the lifeline. Good. Um we're sort of in a trial period for a
year on that and can you tell me you know where are the expenses coming from and some of it's volunteer work that's being done but what's the cost? The cost is all equipment. I think it says lifeline equipment in there. Um, let me just make sure. Oh, technology. So,
technology, lifeline. That's equipment cost. So, what we do is we get the equipment, we keep it in inventory, and when somebody subscribes, we're able to pull that equipment out of inventory and set up the installation immediately as opposed to waiting for the week or 10
days that it takes for the equipment to come in. The second reason we have the equipment on hand is in the um I think catastrophic event that somebody's equipment fails on them and they own that equipment, we're able to give them
immediately a new device so that they don't go a period of time without having a lifeline coverage. And that's the whole idea of lifeline is to make sure that they have that continued monitoring. Um it's worked out really well for us. We only pay for the equipment and then we get reimbured for
that. So if you are on the go, um there's a $100 cost of that equipment. We buy the equipment, we have it in inventory, you subscribe, we take it out of the inventory, we get the $100 back. So all of this equipment is it it comes
back in uh on the revenue side. However, you should know why do we have that? Any anticipated expense of over $1,000 to the same vendor for the same types of stuff where we anticipated anything over $1,000, we're required to
do a purchase order. There are additional procurement requirements. Over a certain threshold, we're required to get three bids. Over a second major threshold, we're required to to three quotes. We're required to bid it, which is a public announcement with documents.
um uh we are able to do for service trade type work that's plumbing electrical we can use folks off the state vendor list so we don't have to bid it only under a certain amount so there are a lot of different restrictions and stipulations on how we
purchase but the most important things and why we're are reflecting the purchase orders are it's required in the city of gardener anything over $1,000 requires a purchase order and the other reason is if you want to tie this account out like I always think about
god forbid I'm not um able to be here you know that uh some my untimely demise and somebody goes back and says well where the heck did these numbers come from you can absolutely tie these numbers to munice so you can see the actual amount spent because it says
actual amount spent and then it has a line item called encumbrances and encumbrances are purchase orders that match up directly to the purchase order total at the bottom of the page. We update that every month as we start to draw down on these amounts. You'll see,
for example, one of our line item for our vendors is $4,800. If I spend if I spent $200 this month, you'll see that line item come down on the purchase order is 4,600. We have to keep that real time accounting because it's the only way to tie into news. So that's why
now we have the detail on the purchase orders. I used to just have it as a lump sum but now you know and you can see the transaction history month to month on those fields. Does that make sense? All right. Any other question? Any question at all?
Ask ask no. Okay then. Uh moving on to page eight. Last page. And that is a good one because there's nothing there. That's our FY26 state grant. So, we do have a good
amount in reserve. So, the balance in that account is $89,136. And uh so we u we will be in good shape if we spend all of FY24, but we'll try not to, but we at least have that. But are there any any questions at all?
[Music] Okay. Can I have a motion during the treasury report? I make a motion. Second. Okay. Thank you. Any discussions? All in favor? Any oppose?
So voted. Okay. Thank you very much, Carrie, for the report. You're everywhere. You're well done. You're welcome. Next thing on our list is going to be the under old business any updates on new business from the prior meeting. And I guess Michael will probably tell extra
viewers. I'm hoping that uh you were able to attend the information session that was hosted by the senior center for uh Mayor Mike Nicholson, council president Tyrros, and councelor Hegeland to give us an update of Waterford Street. and it
was really meant to be a comprehensive presentation to talk about all the different moving parts and what's happened in the last 5 years. I was delighted that they came and did that. I think a lot of folks um had their
questions and concerns that were more than adequately responded to. Um, since then I, you know, you need to know we've gone through Waterford Street a couple times for the purpose of really trying to define space and determine what work
needs to be done from a aesthetic perspective or operational perspective before our um, impending move. And a couple things I just want to note. Um, first of all, I think the rooms are in great shape. The the whole area over
there really looks good. Um they're working hard on finishing up the bathroom renovations to get those operational. Um you know heat splits are in. All of the priming in that entire wing has been done. First and second floor will only
be on the first floor. Second floor is nonoperational. There'll be no senior center on the second floor of that building. Um, but it really gives us a lot more space and I think the opportunity to not have to turn over
rooms as much. Some storage space, a little bit of secure space, um, uh, a hot tub, no hot tub room, but honest to God, the space really affords us a lot of opportunity. I I want to say for those who weren't able to make that
meeting um and I know there were several of you there were a few people about 100 people in this room for that information meeting it was very well attended and the questions that were asked by the audience I think were very appropriate and respectful for the most part um at
one point you know we went off topic a little bit but we're able to get right back on topic and keep people focused on the purpose of the discussion which was the senior under Water Waterford Street. But one of the things that came up was this uh issue of water. And I've been a little tongue and cheek joking about the
fact that the school is called Waterford Street and not Dryford Street. Um because there's water and there's water in just about every basement in New England. Any house that was built before, you know, 2000 has water in it. But what we've learned to do as New
Englanders is mitigate that water. We've put in French drains. um particularly relevant in garden with this French community. You couldn't call them Irish drains. They have to be French drains. We put in perimeter drains, right? You probably have perimeter or we put in
some pumps. Um and I have recently told the story about my wife and I going away in March and coming back to find 10 in of water in our basement. And why do we have 10 in of water in the basement? Because the sump pump got unplugged. The sump pump when it's working, my cellar
is dry. It's not damp, it's dry dry. Um, and that's the reality of Waterford Street. When you shut pumps off and during the trans the transition between the school and the city, things got shut off. There was water there 5 years ago. Now, I'm telling you this today on
October 6th, um, as a testament to the reality of this situation. This is something that's bugging you. Last Thursday, bug. Last Thursday, I walked through the building again. And I climbed down the hole into the basement and there's
dampness in there. That's, you know, I'm not going to pretend it's uh the Sierra. There's dampness in there, but there is I mean, we walked through that space. I walked through it. I wasn't up to my ankles. Um, I was barely up to the sole
of my foot in very very certain areas. Like there were areas you could walk with no moisture. Like it was there. It's it's um I think that this is important for us to start to counter some of the false reports that are out
there. And maybe it their faults because people just don't know and they're assuming from their history 5 years ago knowing that there was water in there. There's still water in there. there wasn't, you know, 10 million gallons of water pumped out of there and secretly in the middle of the night by tanks. It
just never happened. Um, and as board members, you need to know that I am doing my my work as a director to ensure that the facility we go in is appropriate, it's healthy, it's safe for our seniors. And a little bit selfishly,
I have to say this. Um, I'm in there. And you would think if I saw a risk, if I saw a healthcare hazard for my own self-preservation, I might say, "Nope, we're not going in there." I'm I'm eager. I'm willing. I'm ready to move in today. I'm so confident
that this space is healthy and safe for us. Um, I'm in this building for many, many more hours than anyone else. Um, and that's a fact. We won't talk about how many hours, but you know, for a typical senior on a for a very
active senior, maybe they're here six hours a week. I I absolutely blow that number out of the water, as does Nancy, as did he Burman. Um why in God's name, it bels any kind of intelligent conversation for anyone to
suggest that we would be okay with going into a place that had health or safety risk for us? Um, I' I've been doing project management a long time for the city of Garden and we know how to mitigate, we know how to manage uh these kinds of situations and I think that
what's being done is super effective, very responsive. Um, and you know, this is this is going to happen, but it's not going to happen in the middle of the night without a lot of contemplative um
decisive action being taken to make sure that that we're able to go in there and and operate efficiently, effectively, in a safe way. So, I wanted to just tell you that I've included uh just uh for your education, councelor Chyros had some great uh imagery of what this
center might look like. So, here's a picture of it today. Here's what it might look like. And it absolutely spoke to the vision that this board has had for the last 3 years talking about this move that being a real homey space, putting a little bit of AI touches on it
really made it real for so many people in this room. Um, the other thing he did, by the way, which I thought was great, when asked about the water in the cell, the five feet of water in the sub. So, well, this is a picture of Mike Nicholson and I an
hour ago in the basement of Waterford Street Schools sitting on lawn chairs. Um, you know, legs crossed. So, here's my phone. It's public information. It's a public document. we can foyer it to make sure it's legit and that we didn't um you know mess with it which is really
cool in in though in in that spirit we might have some different uses. Uh so I've included just a sketch of what this might look like for us um from an operational perspective. I also want to address the fact that I think there was some uh misunderstanding on where the
entrance for the the senior center would be. The entrance to the senior center is on the same face of the school as the main entrance. It's not in the back of the school or on the side of the school. It's on the same face. So, it's set back a little bit. Um, but if you look at the
front door, you'll see the front door of the student center. And I think that's really important because folks were a little concerned that maybe there wasn't enough parking or the access was a little wonky around the back. I would agree with that. I didn't hear that until after the meeting. So, um, we've
given you this idea of what it looks like, uh, and what our flow might look like. I think some of the really cool things it allows for us to do is have a separate computer room. We have six a minimum of six brand new computers that have been uh, set aside for the new
senior center at large. So, we'll be getting rid of the two dinosaurs downstairs, have some really updated access, and it affords us the opportunity to build the technology focused room. We'll have a consult room. Um, much to my shin and I I am
transparent, so I tell people this. When I first started, we started during CO, but I was eager to get the place opened up. We opened up and one of the first calls I got was whether or not we were going to do pedicures in the senior center. And I'm like, that's, you know, it was a very popular service. You need
to know like people coming here having their toes, but um what kind of freaked me out in and absolutely and I hope people hear this message cuz it it ties into what I just said earlier is the pedicures were done in our kitchenet. And I said, "Nope. I don't think that's
healthy or appropriate for us to be doing that kind of service." Although I like doing the service, but we need to have a dedicated health room that we can, you know, clean and sanitize in an appropriate way. This new design allows us to do that and maybe provide some
services that either we had to stop or haven't been able to offer because of the lack of space here in the building. Um, the conference space will be much bigger. We'll have two conference rooms, a small conference room for small
meetings and a large room for things like our COA board meeting, which would be really nice. Um, private private access rooms, but uh pool room we're currently think about because we have five pool tables and designing pool table space, it has to be very specific.
There has to be 7 ft between pool tables and pool tables are 5 ft. So, just looking at the dimensions, we really could only truly fit uh three tables in a row. But downstairs, we don't really we don't
really meet that that kind of industry standard now. So, if we tighten it up again, we can put four in a room at Waterford Street with no problems. We have five tables. Um so, one table would have to be out in the hallway. Duh. Uh either we either we open two rooms
because we couldn't put five in a room if we wanted to with three and two or um we are we are pretty confident one of the pool tables is on its last leg. Um and while it's great downstairs as long as we don't move it, I think moving it
might cause some problems, but we'll see. We'll we'll deal with that uh when the time comes. Um so a lot of cool stuff. Do you have the concept in front of you? Any thoughts? Uh, I'm eager to hear your feedback. Like, Mike, are we going to do this? Can we do this? Um,
one of the things we're struggling with right now is our games. So, our pitch and bridge games, uh, pitch pitch and cribage games, no. Um, those games take nine tables. They're tables of 4T. You have to have at least 4T. The dimensions
are just a little short in these rooms for us to put the card games in, but we're going to see what that looks like down there. So, um, we're going to go down with a couple card tables and just set it up, set the layout up, and see
what it looks like. Um, from a real, uh, you know, perspective. The cafeteria will be used with the bigger programs like all of our exercise activity programs, our bingo program. If not the cafeteria, then the gymnasium.
So, a lot of stuff. Uh Paul then stand. Um I'm looking at the schematic here. Um I see the front door. I see over uh going places from the security point of view. Those are things that'll keep that whole area
secured. I'm also curious if the other side of the building had girls class is that too. No. So there there are no so the elementary school side did have doors
access eress doors from every classroom. That's very kind of old school. Um that's how it was built and constructed. They don't do that today. Um the the doors let's talk about that first. The front door which would be the main access to the senior center and the
secondary door which goes by the growing places offices are able to be secured. So those are going to be able to be locked, latched and secured during off senior center off hours so that nobody has access to our space. There's actually a third set of of interior
doors into our space in that green area between the line where it says door and that gray area. There's a door there that gives you full untethered access into the cafeteria gymnasium. That will be a secured lock door as well. We'll be alarmed and secure in our entire space.
If somebody's using that facility at night, they won't be able to get into our space. It won't be open access. There are some back doors. In the very right side, you'll see a blue pad, a blue box. That's actually an entrance into that conference room. And then uh
as you come down from that green that blue box and that green conference room, there's a gray area of storage and then a green, you know, lab and then the stairs next to it. There's actually an access door from the stairs. Now, initially people were like, "Oh gosh, that's a long way to walk. Um it's about
230 ft 250 ft from the front of the building to the back of the building or it's even less from the front of the building to that staircase. So that really makes if you split the difference about 125 ft people would have to walk in an emergency to get out one of those
exits. Um that is not precluding us and we have not taken off the table the possibility of cutting into the walls of one of these rooms and providing a second uh means egress on either side. So let's pretend in the crafter's room
we have one going out to the to the field or in the library one coming out to the field on that side. We could do that. It's not in the plans right now. Um, one of the initial thoughts we had that might have prohibited us from doing that are the unit ventilators. In schools, they have
those those wall-mounted units right along the exterior wall. And typically in old schools, they just it's one seamless line from room to room to room to room to room. Um, which would mean if we wanted to break into those, we'd have to cut the unit ventilator, cut the
piping, cut the wall, cut the windows, build the uh door, and then repipe that. That's not the case in the and I was surprised. I was under the assumption it was, but it's not. In every room, there is unplumbed wall space. So, if we really
determined that this was a something we wanted to do for the convenience of our seniors and create that additional escape uh route, it it would be a lot less uh of a of a construction project than I think we have first initially
assumed. and a couple people uh we'll be we'll be poking to just come on some very small um with regards to the the specific things you've asked. We'll bring you in to to address those. Mary uh you want to
just hit your your mic for me. What about what about bathrooms? Yep. So um there like I said bathrooms are currently being constructed. If you look at the schematic, go to the office
space, the 40 lap. See that white office space right at the top left hand side? Come directly down, you'll see a gray area called storage, a white area next to that, jan, and a white area next to that. That's a men's and ladies rooms. There'll be full handicap bathroom uh
stall in each of those bathrooms. And the number of fixtures we'll have in this space matches the number of fixtures we have upstairs now. like it's not less than what we have. In addition, around the corner where you see that 20 BRB um that 20 BR are two additional
bathrooms. Now, those bathrooms are single stall, single units. We're not going to really open those. Our plan is to not really open those to the public, but they would be available for kind of unique and special circumstances. a senior maybe needs a little bit more
privacy um because of an issue when it happens here maybe um you know isolated for staff they're not really set up to be fully uh well they are set up to be fully public but where they're located kind of makes them a little wonky so
we'll probably isolate those for staff or for um you know unique situations that require a little bit more isolation and um you know protection of people's privacy.
I'll talk loud. Is that okay? I can hear you. Okay. Um who handles u our health and first aid centers? Who handles our health and first aid? Can you be more specific? Like um well when when I was teaching we
used to have a first day and and medical supplies. the student got hurt, you know, we knew where to go. Yep. All that. Do we have a company that does that? Yes. It's called the senior center staff. Um, we have two differents. All
of our staff, anybody who works here more than uh 19 hours a week. It's required to have a current CPR and first aid certificate. We're trained on the AEDs. We're trained in choke saver, allergy, safe serve. Those are all
required for our staff. Um, not only the staff at the garden of COA, but the garden of the CAC are also um required. We have two defibrillators located in this building on this floor in the basement floor. Um, and we have two huge med kits. And by med kits, I'm not
talking about the old shoe box of band-aids. Um, a couple years ago, Garden Rehab donated a unbelievably stacked um, and supplied med bag, first
responder bag for the senior center that has everything you could possibly want and more. In fact, some of the more we had to take out because it probably wasn't appropriate for us to have. Um, but we have ambute bags for adults, ambient bags for children, you know, you
you name it, we pretty much have everything in this bag from a first responder perspective. Um, we do have EpiPens or we did have EpiPens and EpiPens was specifically the thing that I said, "Ah, maybe that's something we shouldn't have." We're not licensed um or trained to administer
EpiPens. Um, typically somebody who has an allergy will have an EpiPen with them. If they have their own device, we can um deploy it, but we don't carry it and store it. The other thing about Epipens is um they go out, they expire.
So, you know, for us to be able to um you know, renew those those we don't have our skirts. They were given to us as part of the bag. They've expired. We've let them go. We're not going to keep up the pens. Um that's our Yeah. And there were a couple other wonky
things. We had um glucose tablets, right? So glucose taps we've used a number of times here. It's an absolutely appropriate and there's really no contra indication for a glucose tap. You know, somebody who's not having a diabetic issue maybe is
feeling a little off and they might think it is if they took a glucose tab. Isn't going to hurt them, right? The sugar caps. And by the way, they're really good. very very tasty. Sometimes I pray to have low sugar so I can just eat like a handful of them. So really good.
So it's like the wood covers. We've done it. Yeah. We So you know the wood covers. Uh somebody asked about the wood covers. We've had somebody drop a knife in their leg during a um session here. We administered first aid and um and called the EMS.
They know we're getting the bandaid. They let the staff know any in so we don't we don't we don't have untethered access to emergency medical supplies by the public who aren't trained. That would be um irresponsible. So if somebody came up and said, "Oh gosh, Mike just dropped the knife." It was
like we'd respond. We'd bring the bag down. We'd um you know, do the things we need to do to address the situation. And some of the other things that have come up just, you know, like we've had we had somebody fall out in the parking lot. Um, and when she fell there, her decided
that, you know, her hands weren't the appropriate thing to put down first. They just didn't. But you can imagine how ugly that looked. Our first respond, we were able to respond to that. We've had a number of falls. I can't even count how many on the front staircase um
that have required us to come in and and provide some intervention before EMS comes. So, they come once they're here, we walk. They are the trained people on first responder, but we do the things that are needed to make sure those people are able to um you know be
treated in the 2 minutes it takes to really come down the street. So we've deployed it a number of times from from big stuff to little stuff. Yeah. And we'll deploy the same things. It's like we we imagine having both figures back on our first floor. We're
going to have both of them there. But we're also looking now at trying to find funding and resources for nonprofits over there to have those kind of devices situated in the other parts of building. It's not going to be our we're not responsible for that. It's not our burden to do that, but we're trying to
do that because for example, this the council the the um community action committees, they share our building, so they share our resources. They're going to be a little bit farther away. So we want to make sure that they have the same stuff. By the way, if you didn't know, we also have a biohazard response
uh kit. So, if somebody and you biohazards are anything that contains human um kind of elements. So, you could imagine what that might look like. We're required by law to have that biohazard kit and be trained in that.
Any other thoughts or comments? Yes. Oh, can stand up. I'm sorry, Sam. And then we'll go to Mary. I was wondering uh where would you do the bread raft? We do the bread raffle in the gym.
Oh my god. Yep. Yeah. Either in the gym or I'm sorry with the cafeteria auditorium. cafeteria auditorium is probably two and a half three times the size of this room and therefore two and a half three times the size of the existing
dining room. Yeah. And we could use a room that they're going to open healthcare. Yeah. In the gym. Mary question about the space that right now says possibly yoga and taichi which
are quiet activities. Um, it's right next to the cafeteria and we don't know yet how much noise is going to come from that cafeteria. Um, is there a possibility like that where that ping pong table is even maybe not set in stone in case you need
some of these spaces for other uses? You open to that? Yeah, every room. So, with the exception of the ping pong table, well, that's not true. the ping pong table room, the pool room, the library, those are going to have static uh furniture and equipment
and furnishings in them. Right? So, the library, you can imagine we're going to have bookshelves. Um we're going to have some seating area. Um the ping pong tables are going to have ping pong tables and the pool tables are going to have pool tables. We're not going to be able to move those out and reset those
rooms for other activities, but our fallback is the gymnasium. We have a double wide gym in that space and your concern is a concern that's been raised not only by senior senators but by elected officials. It's the same thing and you know appropriately the best
answer to that is let's get in and see. Let's get in and see what it looks like. Um could you imagine if you if you've never done or run or been part of bingo imagine doing bingo with clanging pants in the back. Never going to happen,
right? So, you know, we know that there going to be some growing pains and some of this stuff we talk about may not indeed happen the way exactly we think, but worst case scenario, if we can't do those quiet activities, and I would say
yoga is probably one of those quiet activities. If it's too, you know, demonstrabably loud or noisy in the cafeteria space, we'll move into the gymnasium. Councelor Tyros and Mayor Nicholson um have both separately but
publicly said that you know it's a public building and the senior center has first priority on that chair space. though um logistically it creates a wee bit of an issue for us in terms of like how do we manage folks if all of a
sudden our program is going to be in the gymnasium separate door separate entrance um you know we're looking at some strategies to include computer on wheels some rolling um kiosk which isn't impossible um these
kiosks are all wireless they're not wired into they're not Ethernet based they're wireless They do require power, but we can have the same solution using the laptop, put the same software on it, and it wouldn't need to be plugged in to do a rolling
swipe in uh option for our seniors. So, it's a little bit of a challenge, but not so much so that it's um insurmountable. There's nothing, you know, it's different. And I think that's the thing we have to keep saying to ourselves. It's different. So what we
think here we have to kind of stop thinking because it's not going to be the same. Uh which is good in some ways right? So it gives us an opportunity certainly gives us an opportunity to grow and offer more programs. I see Paul there's smoke coming out of
Paul's ears. I'm watching the next thing. No. Okay. Going back to staircase. Yes. When you were down there, was there a smell? No. There really? Oh, yeah. No, there really
wasn't. Um, and this is very personal. I am very um reactive to smells whether it's mildew or it's um you know you know body related gasoline.
Um I I am very sensitive. I didn't find any smell at all. There was no offensive smell. In fact, one of the days I went through with a contractor. They were cooking something and I was like, "Oh, this is going to be great. I'm going to just invite myself to lunch every day."
They um uh they weren't cooking stuff in that way though. So they weren't making prepared meals for an individual. They were doing like big bulk uh squash or whatever. I think the other day they made apple chips which were really delicious. Um not that I stole any but I
did. So um yeah. No, I didn't I didn't find that at all. Nope. And again I I was looking for that. I went in specifically uh you know 3 months ago and again this week just to see if anything has changed. Nope. There's no pervasive
order. What I was teaching down there we always call that the stinky hole. The stinky. Well, yeah. Maybe the stinky hole is stinky. Um and it could be cuz it's you know right right in the um you
know right in the the seller hole but I didn't I didn't find it. And I really honestly I looked for it. I even mentioned to them like, "All right, I'm going to go check this out." And uh they were like, "Yeah, go ahead." So opened up the the thing, checked it out, sniffed around,
looked around, walked around, climbed around, did everything you could imagine. And I'm very confident that the details that have been provided by the leadership of this city are not erroneous and they're not misleading. And I'm telling you that very
specifically from my own personal experience. I went down and for folks that are watching this that have doubt, I hope that you will rely on what I I hope is the relationship we've established over the last 5 years that I'm transparent. And folks that know me know that I tend to be a little
aggressive. If there's something um aggressive in the sense that that I will follow up on things. I'm not going to just let something go. uh if there's a problem, we're going to address the problem and I will keep bringing it up, right? So maybe that's passive
aggressive, but everything so far we've asked, they've done. Um, anybody else want to fight that sh? I just asked a question. Um, the room that had you thought you might be able to use it as a um would that just be for emergencies only? I don't know which room you're referring
to. No, it can be any one of those. Uh, wrong. No, I I wouldn't say that we're dedicating library. I made that as a for example. I'm not proposing that a wall be cut in the library for an egress. It could be any if we decide we need it. We're going to look at the best room in
the the best response to that need, whatever that need is. So I don't I'm not at the point of saying that we are absolutely committed to doing that. on saying that if it becomes an issue like the issue we had downstairs with the
broken sewer pipe, the issue we had with the air purifiers, we will be as adamant and persuasive on making that happen if it needs to happen. But right now, I would say it's not happen anywhere. You know, the reason I was asking is because that whole area down below that
is all green grass area. I know we talk about having or something that would be a spot to have it in the sunny area on that side of the building on the south side in which you got to open up anywhere those rooms that put door in that would work people at least and I thought was library room get a book
bring it out to sit and read if they want whatever type of thing that's why I ask that specificity I don't disagree but I just think that discussion is way too preliminary for us to have um and I I think that people get a little,
you know, first thinking when we start making plans that aren't necessarily needed. No, it costs money and we really need to do is is get in there and then once we're in there, we can kind of feel out what additional needs we have. Yep.
Anybody know what a WAP is? WAP. Do you see WAP all over this? It's just WAP wireless. It is. Yeah. So, we're proposing what the wireless access points are. So, I decided when I sent this, I sent it to our tech person just for the idea for
for coverage. WS now are shorter distance but more power. So, you need more of them, but you get faster speed. We could do two WS in that whole side and cover it adequately, but we're going to put I think uh 6 to 8 Ws on our side
alone to ensure that we have good internet access. Bring it way down. So HW is hardwired. Uh HW is not hardwired. Yeah, it's your you're way too high.
So, if you don't if you're not using your mic there, you want to shut your mic off. Um, we're getting feedback and the mics are set super sensitive uh so that when you speak it will um pick up, but I imagine people who are watching this now are going to be pretty upset
that they hear that squeaking more upset than you. Um, so yeah, HW is hardwired and we have to we're going to hardwire the laptops in the library. Um, so initially the the technology would be in with the the library like we have
downstairs. That's changing now. We're going to put the technology in that far right green room next to the conference room or vice versa. Flip the console room and and the tech room so that we'll have a dedicated space for technology
and that will be hardwired. That was a good discussion. Very good. Okay, next thing on our list is new business. Michael did a pretty good job already. I don't know if he's going to have a report for it. I hope none of you have an appointment
at 3:15. You know, um what I what I really wanted to tell you uh Mr. Jared and members here just you know I think this year has really given us cause to look at what value the senior center has other than being a great place for
seniors to have social connection um and helping other people's under other people understand that impact um you know we do a lot of activities and social programs that's a fact but those activities and social programs have more
than just a recreational purpose three years ago when we kind redefined our mission to connection and purpose. It really spoke to the idea that there are a lot of seniors out there that are isolated and lonely. And that can have these really consequential adverse
impacts on their mental health and physical health. And so how do we as a city body address the health needs of those seniors? And so clearly interaction, connection, recreation, social programs is one way to do that.
But I wanted to give you this summary. You know, I was I afforded the opportunity twice a year we go before the city welfare committee at the very least to give an update on what we're doing as departments with under under the purview of that committee that we're assigned and we are assigned the welfare
committee for the city council. So I went to put city council and offered this update after getting doing a lot a lot of work. And so when we submitted our annual report to the executive office of age and independence for fiscal year 24 we registered about 4,000
unique individuals. We had about a little over 9 almost 960 volunteers who did about $300,000 worth of work that they donated here. That's using a very conservative estimate of between $15 and $18 an hour, not at $150 an hour for
volunteers. Although you can assume that the nurses and the doctors and the pharmacists and the financial planners and the lawyers that gave their time so freely to the Gardener Senior Center certainly make more than minimum wage. Um those were all FY24 and explained to
the city council. Those numbers are going to change for FY25 and FY26. If you remember what was happening between June of 23 and July of 24, we were doing a ton of COVID clinics and we were doing the migrant response unit and we had a
lot of kind of these ambient activities that maybe would be unique um but not necessarily unique but might be considered unique. So that drove up the number of individuals that we served that year remarkably. Our number this
year is going to be probably pretty close, but not hit uh the 4,000 mark. We did uh 350 meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas, right? So that's 700 people that otherwise weren't connected during two of the of our community's biggest
holidays. Pretty significant. Um we served,00 people, which was great. If you came to the National Night Out in Gardener this year, 1,100 pieces, burgers, and hot dogs went out to the community. We had a line at any given time of 60 to 80 people for the Gardener
Senior Center suicide prevention co-sponsored tents. We had our own tent set up with Garden Senior Center members handing out um collateral materials and items to folks that came by. And at the very least, it gave us a heck of a lot of exposure. Um, but here's the real
bread about our stuff. The Garner Senior Center has created connection and has helped register and enroll 430 seniors into the senior buying program. The senior buying program is a Medicaid program and in part, one of the many benefits senior buying does is it
eliminates the $187 co-pay for part B of your Medicare insurance. Eliminates it. So that means every month $187 went back into the pockets of seniors. Not pretend, not value added, real money, $187, $430
seniors, 12 months. That was $964,000 of real money in their pocket. In addition to that, about 10% qualified for senior uh buying, I'm sorry, the low-inccome subsidy to senior buying. The low-inccome subsidy um allowed them
to save $264 per month on their medics plan. It also eliminated the highcost drug co-pay and reduced their overall co-pays for prescription drugs and hospitalizations and doctor visits substantially from 50
to $50 and $25 in the tier to 15 and five or 10 and five. I can't I can't possibly give you a number for what people's co-pays and hospitalizations were because I know each of them individually and I don't know what they
were. But I can tell you this or $267 a month 43 seniors 12 months gives us another I don't know 136,000 bucks between a senior buyin the low-inccome subsidy that same seniors put in their
pockets last year over a million dollar like I never I never thought of that in terms of these numbers but these are huge in addition um that that annual co-ay for high cost medication was estimated at about 86,000. We gave out
$15,000 in farmer market coupons over the last 2 years to seniors. Those farmer market coupons are treated like cash, allowing them to go to farmers market and fruit stands all over this great and glorious Commonwealth and buy fresh produce and um fruit at no cost to
them. We enrolled um about 54 seniors last year in the SNAP and HIPPA program. SNAP and HIPP supplemental nutrition assistance program, HIP healthy incentives program, affording them additional funds for their budgets. The budget conscious seniors that we have
here that gave them, by the way, an average benefit of $215 gave them another $134,000 in their pockets. Not fake money, real money that they're going to Hanford's price shop, Walmart's Shaw's Market
Basket, um, and spending to supplement their food program. We provided 30 individuals uh enrolling in the rafts program providing them uh rental assistance for over $210,000. Our vented cafe and this number I was a
little uh surprised about. I I had the opportunity to speak with Corey Hasselman who is now the former VSO for gardener. They connected at least 40 veterans to the VSO and gardener that had not been connected before through our vet campaign. So they met them here.
They enrolled them here and those veterans received a benefit of uh between $175 and $4,000 a month. Well, I'd love to say they all got $4,000 to be able to report that out, but I didn't. I said, "All right, at the 175
lowest amount, that equals $84,000 of benefits, real dollar benefits in the hands and wallets of the veterans that were participating here. and gave them an average of $2,600 in chapter 115
benefits. Um, which by the way is 100% contingent upon the percentage of disability of service related disability they had. So at 100% they get $2,600. At you know 5% of service related disability they would get 5% of that.
Um, we made about 10,000 calls last year and we get in 10,000 calls and how do you you ask how do you figure that? Well, I get a report every month. I've asked I'm probably one of the only departments with the exception of EMS that tracks that. What's our call volume? Um, our VoIP
midnight management system, our company sends me those reports and last year we did about 10,000. I think it was like 9,820. We made 10,000 calls and those 10,000 calls include ROOC calls, right? Um, but we've only ratcheted up our roocalls
from there. We haven't ratcheted them down. So that 10,000 number, if you include every single time we send out a robocall, that's 2600 calls we make in 30 seconds. Um, with highlights and information that gets people connected, pretty significant. Our Facebook page
has received almost 40,000 views, which by any metrics for a senior center is huge. We have reach of over 6,300 people. We have likes of over 700. We have followers of almost a,000 people that follow every single post that comes out. Our Google profile has seen 2,700
views in the last 6 months. 27 in the last 600, which allows them to make calls right over their computer to us or have access to directions or programming. And which is kind of cool. This will probably get a lot of people to go in and change my ratings, but my
Google ratings are 4.7 out of five. And my Facebook ratings, my the Garden Senior Center's Google ratings are 4.7 out of five and Facebook is 5 out of five, which is pretty good. We recycle 3.16 tons of And that's my that's Ron
trying to tell me I'm done. 3.16 tons of paper, 12,000 lb of textile. If anybody's wondering where I get that number, that comes directly from Semark. Semark picks it up in a truck. They bring it and they weigh it. And why do they weigh it? Why do they care? Because
they pay me 7 cents a pound. So, they want to know exactly how many pounds are coming in from the senior center so that they don't overpay. Um, 12,600 lb of textile and we recycled almost 1,000 lb of electronics from our uh community. We
did about $18, almost 19, $18,750 worth of tax returns last year, which we were on pace to do again this year easily. and uh provided about $50,000 worth of transportation services just
for the trans medical transportation program that's managed by the CAC. 547 individual unique individuals taking advantage of the senior medication medical transportation program. That
doesn't include the many hundreds of people that we subscribe to the MARK senior transportation or power transit. Those are huge impacts. Um and it took a little bit of a kick for me to start to
put together like what really is the impact that we have on the senior center. So when as a member of the council on aging, you need to know that you have a very important role to play not only for the social welfare and the mental welfare of our seniors, but as
this paper demonstrates, the financial welfare and well-being of seniors in our community. I'm really excited about it. Can you imagine? Uh so I get asked uh how many staff do we have? I'm going to share that with you as well. For those of you who don't know, we have three full-time staff. myself, Nancy, and
Burman. Nancy is administrative assistant, administrative coordinator. She helps me with the programming side of it, and Burman is our facilities person. He takes care of the helps me with the plant side of it. Um, we Nancy and I work as a team. Burman and I work as a team. We're lucky to have some
volunteers that help with some of the heavy lifting that some unbelievable uh volunteers. In addition, we have a couple part-time people. We have Karen who works 6 hours, Ann who works 12 hours, Anita who works 8 hours, and
Lauren who works 15 hours. Those are paid people who allow us to plug in um a second person in the office to make sure we always have two deep staffing and leadership at the building at any time. And that's really important especially
for protecting not only our seniors but protecting our staff. Then we have a cadre of administrative volunteers who but for them on you know the Fridays when people are taking days off we we would literally have to close down.
Imagine on a Friday or Monday morning how busy that phone is with 10,000 calls. Um it couldn't be done without those folks and I am super appreciative of them. And so when asked that, the
counselor asked and and I applaud them for having the the insight to ask this question. He said, "Well, who does all of this case management stuff? Who does the advocacy and the follow-up calls?" And that's that's that's me. That's our
staff. That's it. We don't have outside people. We don't have paid social workers. Um we do that. We pick up what we need to pick up to get the job done. I also want to make sure that you understand I mentioned volunteers and how important they are to us and I say it every time I'm in front of the seniors.
Volunteers at the Garden Senior Center drive this engine 100%. We'd be dead in the water. We could not do one fifth of what we do without the volunteers here. They are incredible, dedicated, beautiful people and we're so appreciative in our partner
organizations. Um we talked about the COVID clinic. We're doing 800 people at a COVID clinic here at the Gardener Senior Center. We when we were partnering at the PACC, we had 27,000 calls in a minute. Like people were coming from all over New England. But
for our partners, our healthcare partners, our community partners, our assisted living partners, our food pantry partners, our utility partners, um uh oh gosh, that in so many ways. Today we we needed some services for a
um hearing impaired person. We're able to call a partner and get a interpreter that did sign language over Zoom for us. Um where would we have been with that senior if not for that help? And so again I can't ever um express my
gratitude in words enough. But I hope you join I think if enough of us let people know how important the work that others do are, they'll feel the appreciation and gratitude I think we all feel. Take a breath. Get your glass of water.
Thank you very much, Michael, for that report. Next thing on our list is open discussion. Okay, Kevin, I just want to set up a new a bylaw committee to review the bylaws, especially the fact that
we're moving in 2026. Maybe we should look in the building and know what we're doing. just reiterate for people who didn't hear.