Chair Gonzales called the meeting to order at 10:02 a.m.
Re: Approval of Minutes
Chair Gonzales asked if there were any corrections, additions or deletions to the May minutes. Audrey said that on page three, paragraph five, the word recommendation should be changed to resignation regarding Elizabeth Scott’s appointment to the Senior Commission. .
Re: Club Reports
Doug Bly, reporting for the Bethany House Club, said their June meeting on the 9th was a trip to the Golden Bull Restaurant in Gaithersburg for their annual Officer Installation Luncheon where 28 members were in attendance. In closing, Doug said their next meeting would be in September.
Stu Crump, reporting for the Willing 3 C’s, said the June meeting will be held this Saturday, the 20th with a trip to the Cozy Inn in Thurmont for their Officer Installation Luncheon. Audrey beck, reporting for the Young in Heart Club, said there would be no more meetings until September.
Re: R.S.I.
Norene Stovall said she had attended the R.S.I. meeting on June 16th in Pete’s place. She said George Galasso announced that Pete Sante had resigned from the liaison position, as she was welcomed to be the new R.S.I. liaison. Norene said seven (1 new) members were in attendance as they had a lengthy discussion on the budget and heard the annual reports from all the committees.
Norene said Dawn Titmus had given a report on the progress of her stories noting that eleven have been finished and approved by the interviewees while there was one final story awaiting approval.
She went on to say that they had a brief discussion on the expansion then touched on their fundraisers, noting the Silver Diner and FIOS projects only require monitoring while the book sale would require a lot of participation by the Board members. In closing Norene said she mentioned the June 1 letters that were sent out to representatives of all of the sixty-three Homeowners’ Associations within the city inviting them to become more familiar with the Senior Commission, the Senior Center and the services that the city offers to senior residents. R.S.I. requested that we share this type of information with them in the future since they were also thinking of sending out a similar letter.
Re: U.S.M.
Chair Gonzales took a moment to explain to the guests that U.S.M. (United Seniors of Maryland) is a statewide organization and that the Rockville Commission is one of the thirty plus (group or individual) members. He went on to say that they are currently researching the funds received by the state from the Federal stimulus package and are looking for a coordinator, preferably someone with grant writing experience, to volunteer to organize their findings.
Chair Gonzales said there had been a discussion and demonstrations on Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to make it easier for U.S.M. members to communicate with one another.
Re: Chair Report
Chair Gonzales said he had recently attended an all day planning meeting with the Montgomery County Commission on Aging. Secretary Lawler of the Maryland Department of Aging made a presentation on Aging in Place and urged everyone to focus on this as the senior population increases. She said currently, there are more seniors in Maryland than there are K through 12 students. This is significant because the funding for senior services is not increasing as it is for education. She also pointed out the costs of Medicaid to the state. Maryland has to pay 50% of all Medicaid billed to the state. A nursing home costs $72,000.00
per year and it is paid by Medicaid. If the senior ages in place and gets home care from Medicaid, the cost is only $30,000. There is a need to focus on long-term care in the home and community to affect this kind of savings. She emphasized Long Term Care Reform to be essential in Maryland. County Executive Isaih Leggett talked about the 11% growth in expenditures with only 4% growth in revenues this year in the county. This has prevented any increases in many services including those for seniors. He said seniors feel less safe and we need to provide them with dignity and respect. We also need to reach out to a culturally diverse population and get them involved in creating interchanges. This is a challenge in the county. The rest of the meeting involved breakout groups to prioritize issues for Summer Study. The final tally included the following: - Aging in Place
- Partnerships- public/private
- Need for Geriatric/Gerontology specialists
- Mental Health Services for seniors.
Re: Old Business
Kathy Neale, reporting on the 150th Anniversary said there had been no May meeting but that there was a committee that continued to work on the photo contest.
Doug, reporting for the Expansion Task Force, said they had been given three alternatives to the current site plan and two alternatives to the current building layout. The Task Force had reviewed all the plans and had narrowed the choices down to one of each (see attached). In closing he noted that the budget for the expansion is somewhere between $2.6 million and $2.9 million dollars.
Mark Barrick, reporting on the Home Maintenance Program said he has recently received thirty-two phone calls, done six site visits and four follow-ups, attended three staff meetings and participated in the May Health Fair. He went on to note that he and Lorraine had met with members of the McLean Bible Church who have offered their services to assist low-income Rockville seniors with various home maintenance issues such as small remodeling projects, window replacements, plumbing problems, painting and landscaping work. He went on to explain that what they were doing was similar to Christmas in April where volunteer groups spend time helping those who do not have the means and ability to take care of household chores on their own and that they are trying to give one days worth of work to twenty people. Mark said the group consists of a number of qualified volunteers and that they provide all the labor and materials needed to complete each project.
In closing, Mark said he has two seminars scheduled for Fall with the first to be held on October 1 about Emergency Preparedness and the second on November 5 with tips on
Preparing Your Home for Cold Weather. Chair Gonzales noted that the safety and emergency preparedness issues were new to the Home Maintenance Coordinator position and asked that it be made official with a vote by the Commission. Katherine Foti moved that the safety and emergency preparedness descriptive be added to the Home Maintenance Coordinator position. Her move was seconded and all Commissioners present voted aye.
Audrey Beck said she and Katherine Foti had manned the Senior Commission booth at the May Health Fair and were quite pleased with the attendance and interest shown by visitors.
Re: New Business
Norene Stovall asked if it would be all right if she took a few moments to comment on some concerns she had regarding the Commission. Norene said since she had become a member of the Commission she had read a lot of materials on the mission and the duties and responsibilities of the Commissioners and was troubled by the fact that several of the projects
they had brought forth, discussed and begun work on had fallen from the spotlight and faded away with little or no action being taken on them. Norene said she would like to see the Commission come up with a way of keeping track of items so that none of them end up being neglected.
Lorraine reminded the Commission that city elections would be coming up in the Fall and that if the Commission wanted to work on another Candidates Forum for seniors that they needed to begin planning now. Kathy Neale said she still has everything on her computer from the last forum and could bring in the information to begin work again. It was decided that the Commission did want to assist with another forum and that they would begin by working with the City Clerk’s Office to choose a date.
Re: Staff Report
Lorraine again said that the letters had gone out to all the Homeowners Associations in the city but that to date she has only received a response from one. During the discussion it was noted that many of the groups had probably not had a chance to meet since receiving the letter and that the Commission would wait until the July meeting to see if any more had been received before any further course of action was decided.
Lorraine said, on the matter of the Victory Housing project for the Fleet Street property, that the joint meeting with the Human Services Advisory Board and Victory Housing representatives and the Commission has been scheduled for Friday, July 17th.
Lorraine said she also wanted to mention the recent talk with State’s Attorney John McCarthy on Senior Exploitation and how pleased she was with the turnout and representation from the Commission. She also said she wanted to remind everyone of the upcoming program with Delegate Luiz Simmons on Power of Attorney Fraud scheduled for Monday, June 22nd.
Lorraine said she has been working on a new brochure for the Support Services Division and will have items ready for the Public Information Office soon. Once they have gone over the materials and a draft has been produced, she will have something for the Commission to look over.
She said the Farmer’s Market Coupon program is going well and that almost all of this year’s allotment has been distributed. She added that the program was sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and is designed specifically to assist low-income seniors.
With their being no further business to discuss the meeting was adjourned at 11:50 am. |
