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1991 07 19 " , CHANHASSEN SENIOR ,COMMISSION REGULAR.MEETING ~". J~LY 19. 1991 , Chairman Montgomery called the meeting to order at 9:35 a.m.. MEMBERS PRESENT: 8arbara Montgomery, Sherol Howard, 8einice 8illison, Jane Kubitz, Selda Heinlein and Emma St. John ABSENT: 8etty 8ragg STAFF PRESENT: Paul Krauss, Planning Director and Sharmin AI-J8ff, Planner I APPROVAL OF AGENDA: Chairman Montgomery moved item 3 until Glenys Butler arrived and item 5 would' be moved until Paul Krauss arrived. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: 8i11ison moved, Howard seconded to approve Minutes of the Senior Commission meeting dated All voted in favor and the motion carried. RESOURCE DIRECTORY. Montgomery: Okay, we need to talk about the Resource Directory because we find that the, well maybe you can address that Sharmin; are short handed andlSharmin can tell us what. . AI-Jaff: We just hired a fourth person so it is definitely ~aking the load much less. I have a lot more time to work on Senior Commission assignments. Whatever you would like me to do. Montgomery: That is wonderful news. Bil11son: That's what we've been waiting to hear. AI-3aff: So we definitely have more time now. My suggestion or what I th1hk would work out well is, and tell me if this is out of the question please or if it doesn't sound like a good idea to you. If we have maybe one or two volunteers that would come into City Hall once or twice a week and start gathering information for a Directory. I have an open desk in my office. There are two desks in my office~ Two phones so one half of my office is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Do you think it would be a good idea to have volunteers come in and start contacting numbers? Asking what type of services they offer and then listing all those services in a directory and I would assume it would take us a couple of months to gather all that information:. Hopefully th~n we could produce a direcctory. -- Montgomery: I have a couple of suggestions. One I think is that the . volunteers really need to be trained. I think that's really important. And I think there are some resources for that. One of them is this Senior Resouy'ces that does the Senior Answer Line. They are looking for a contact in Carver County and although they're not. going to establish anything as I understand it until next year but they haven't established anything yet. So that's open and I: do have something here that I thought you might want to look at that pertains to the trainings that they offer,. I'd like that back but maybe you can make some copies of it. That's an old bulletin but apparently it still applies. I thought the Mayor sounds as if h&'d like to Senior Commission Me~ting July 19, 1991 - Page 2 - recruit some people. I think that what we can do is to contact them and at least find out if that training is still available and if they do it. The Mayor seems to want 'to involve volunteers but I think that'they need to be trained volunteers and I'm wondering if what we need to do is get some kind of volunteer coordinator in the first place or at least for t.his project. to get people trained and offer something t.hat.'s really something fascinating. Rat.her than saying please show up and file because nobody wants to do that But I have a feeling that if we announce we 1;.Jere going to have a research project and would be training volunteers for that job, I have a feeling there might be some interest. What do you think? Do you think that's feasible? We need everything we can get because ther~'s informat.ion we, need and if we can assemble everything that. and hand that in. . . . Kubit.z: We're alre~dydoing some of t.hat.. Al~Jaff: We need t.o find out. what. type of services Hennepin Count.y offers that are available ~or Chanhassen. Then what type of services in Carver County. . Montgomery: But I think these people, that's what they do. They're trained to do that and I think also teaching how to ask the questions also train t.he people who are going to man the phones afterwards. How do that skillfully because there's a real trick to it. You don't just up the phone and do this. YoG really do need training. Heinlein: What was the. directory that Jan Gray showed us? Was that a Hennepin County.. i Montgomery: Yes. It's one they have done in Hennepin County. Howard: But she said to see what Hennepih has available for us. AI-Jaff: Exactly. [But not every service that Hennepin hasls available forChanhassen. Howard: But. that book would say wouldn't it? Montgomery: Not necessarily. I think they are better. ..than some of the ones that are listed. That would be quicker service to Carver County. I don't know. That's what we have to find out. Do we want to talk about this a little more about what other possibilities there are? That we might be able to do? Do you see any other way we could handle this? - AI-Jaff: I don't think that we do have funds for hiring a person to do this. It'd be dedicated to that project only. Montgomery: But there might be.. .volunteer coordinator of some sort. and they do offer trainIng, I think still from Senior Resources in I&R work. Information and Referral. Now whether they would train somebody or train our volunteers, I don't know but I thought it might be worth looking into. Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 ~ Page 3 e Krauss: I think it's a wonderful idea. Sharmin's right. We have no money in city funds for hiring. In fact we've been cutting... We needed to hire somebody and we managed to squeak in somebody part time.. .but the Mayor is" very seriously interested in promoting volunteerism from seniors of all aspects of City government. He's been talking about having retired people helping in patrolling parks. Helping out at City Hall. This might be an ideal spot to be looking for volunteer assistance. Montgomery: And I think that this training is really, I think this is something we offer but that's what we'd have to look into and maybe if we can get a grant for it or I don't know. But at least I thought that tied in quite well with what we wanted to do. Krauss: Can we follow up on that? I know. the Mayor's looking for ideas... to help out and the paper's picked it up a couple times. I don't know if anybody's called just to volunteer but I think you really have to layout what you're.asking the people to do before they'll pick up the phone and ask about it. To volunteer. Montgomery: Right. That's why I think some training makes it, enhances the idea of doing something. This person's name is Julie Bentz and this is her phone number. She works with Senior Answer Line. I don't know but I know through the year I've been in contact with her and they are anxious to establish something eventually in Carver County. Some connection. . Krauss: We'll follow up on that and have something for you next meeting. BUTLER. RN CENTER. Montgomery~ Okay let's go back and we'd like to welcome Glenys Butler. Glenys is here from the Carver County Mental Health Center where she's the Chemical Health coordinator. Do you want to come up here Glenys and maybe you can sit down at the end and tell us some things about what you do and how we can use your services. How you can use us. . Glenys Butler: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I'm Glenys Butler from Carver County Mental Heal th Program. I have a couple positions or roles with the center. I'm a therapist in the out patient mental health program and the Chemical Health Coordinator for the County. I'm also responsible for the Mental Health Education Prevention programs in the County so I wear a number of hats. And Barb asked me to share with you some information about the services that we provide so I have brought a number of brochures and suddenly found myself embarrassed to find that I probably for dot the most important one. The Carver County Mental Health program renamed itself to First Street Center last year when we were moving in, we moved to 540 East First Street which is the old United Telehpone building for any of you who are familiar with Waconia. We're part of Carver County Community Social Services. As an out patient program we. provide services to any Carver County resident. Services can be provided on a sliding fee scale or we do have third party coverages for those who do have insurance and medical assistance. This is the brochure that I'm sorry, I only have two copies with me today but I can get some mOfe to you at a later time. Our staff consists of a psychiatrist, a part time Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 4 . psychiatrist, psychologist, social workers and myself and a psychiatric clinical specialist, a psychiatric nurse. The therapy that we provide is for all ages. We see families. We see .individuals. ChildY"en. We. provide psychological evaluations. Medication management for anyone who is on medications and isn't in need of therapy as such but does need to have their psychotrophic medications monitered~ And this is the Senior Commission? Is that correct? I might add that we actually do not see very many seniors as such in individual therapy or even family therapy except in special situations. However a lot of seniors that are on psychotrophic medications are seen at our center for medication management and if any other needs are identified at that time, they of course are referred to other clinicians for those services. Some special programs that we have right now are, there is a program called the Youth Resource Program. I brought enough of these. This is a program that was established through a grant following the passage of the Children's Mental Health Act and this program provides services to the seriously and persistently emotionally ill, emotionally disturbed children in the County. Some of the services that are in place at this time are some therapeutic foster homes have been established with special t.raining for those foster homes so they can take emotionally disturbed children . . They also provide training and support to other parents who have emotionally disturbed children in their home or to other foster home families. They provide case management services. A lot of these families are very disfunctional. Their children are disfunctional and they have a great deal of difficulty accessing and making use of the services that are available so the case management people make sure that they kind of coordinate all those services and programs that these families might be involved in so that no one is kind of falling through the cracks as such. e May I ask a question Clenys? Glenys Butler: Yes. . Montgomery: Say a grandparent is concerned about her family and the young people in it and they're having a,terrible time. Is it appropriate for ~er to call you, or him to call you to ask about it? Glenys Butler: Very definitely. We receive a lot of calls from people in the community who are concerned about a family member or someone else. I received a call the other day from someone, a business person working in one of the Carver County communities who was concerned about another business person, person lJ.Jorking in a business in that community and was noticing a lot. of changes in that. person and wondering how me might. help intervene so a grandparent. could certainly call and express their concern and we could say yes. That does sound like somet.hing t.hat you should be concerned about and here are some things that you might do or here are some services t.hat we know are available eit.her t.hrough our agency or somewhere else in t.he County and try to help them determine how to intervene or what the next st.ep might. be. Is that.t.he kind of t.hing you're interest.ed in? Another program that we have is called t.he Communit.y Support Program. The Community Support. Program is for adults in Carver County who have serious and persistent mental illness and this program was established for those folks who had very often spent a great. deal of time being hospitalized and wele generally not functioning well in the community. People lJ.Jith Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 5 schizophrenia. Chronic. Any other chronic mental illness. The lower floor of our building is pretty much devoted to this program. They have social recreational activities and again the case management activities. I don't have the exact statistics but since this program has been in place, the number of hospitalizations for people with serious and persistent mental illness has drastically decreased. I won't belabor you with a lot of information about this so if you have questions, please feel free to ask. We also provide crisis services in the County. So if someone is experiencing a crisis of any kind of an emotional or mental nature, they can call our center and can be seen that day or on an emergency basis. We also have an, the County has contracted with an after hours, holiday and weekend telephone crisis service which will then refer that person to an appropriate resource. And we provide education and consultation in the community. That would be both in the areas of mental health and chemical health education and that takes a variety of forms. I don't know if any of you have seen the chemical awareness newsletter that CAN that is mailed 6 times a year to every family in the County with school aged children. That has more of a primary prevention focus dealing with both mental and chemical health issues. Montgomery: Glenys, do you have anything that's focused on seniors about, for instance pi lIs. or medications or that sort of thing? Is there any sort: of liteyature that's available? . Glenys Butler: There's literature available but I'm not sure that there's a real. systematic way set up for getting that out t.o seniors in the community. For the last few years with the exception of 1991, we stage a County wide Chemical Health Aw~reness Week and involved every sector of the community as much as possible. During those weeks a special point has been made t.o go t.o different places where seniors are gathered. Whet.her it's congregate dining or senior centers. That sort of thing and a presentation was made about medication management as well as alcohol and other drug use. But I think that is an are~ that should be looked at and should be addressed iri a more systematic way. For instance if we were concerned about somebody that we thought was acting strange or seemed to have a problem with the medication, would your number be a good one to call? Glenys Butler: Okay. If you felt like, for example the person was abusing their medication? Mont.gomery: Yeah. Or sometimes people are concerned about their husband or wife or somebody in the family who doesn't seem to be acting the way they usually do and they don't know what's wrong but they need somebody to talk to to find out if there's something wrong with the medication or whet.her they need to go back for more medical advice but where would they call? Glenys Butler: Well t.here could be a number of places they could call. e ~~~~ ,~e~~:f n~~a~o~~d h~~: I c~~Idc:~;~Id:n~h~i~~~:S t.~~/~~~~d~~, a:~ ~~u~~ certainly make suggestions as to lJJhere they could call. Clearly another access ~ould be to call their medical doctor who's prescribing the . Senior Commission t"'eeti ng July 19, 1991 - Page 6 _medications and discuss it with them. If It was pretty clear that let's say the person was using alcohol and mixing that with their medications and you felt that it was prett~ problematic, then perhaps the best place to call would be a community social services where they have chemical dependency social workers on staff. Community Social Services is located in Chaska. They have 3 chemical dependency social workers who do InterventIon and work with families t-'Jho are concerned about someone elses chemical use. They' ca~ see a person and make an assessment as to whether or not they think that person is chemically dependent. Do they need out patient treatment? Do they need in patient treatment? They work with us all the time and so let's say they were seeing a senior who they decided had a chemical use problem. They know which treatment programs work well with seniors or specialize in working with seniors. They also have access .to any public monies that might be available. Let's say the person doesn't have money, insurance to cover CD treatment. Or again, if a senior was concerned about their son or daughter and so on, the senior could contact them and talk with them. e t"'ontgomery: What number is that? Glenys Butler: The number for Social Services is 448-3661. I can give you some non-metro numbers if you're interested? In this area would you pr imar ily be interested in the metro number? They. also have 446-1636. This is another card that vJe make available and we try to distribute it as widely as we can through the community. It's just a nice little resource card that people can put in their wallet and we try to give what we consider some of the primary resources in terms of mental health. Alcohol and drugs as well as the physical abuse and neglect programs. This is a card that's periodically updated and in fact it's out of date right now and a new one is being printed so when you see a flourescent green around, you'll know to replace this one with that. Montgomery: Do you find that to be a real problem keeping the up to date? e Glenys Butler: Oh yes. It's a big problem. For example now Waconia and some of those areas will be getting metro phone lines and so that's, even though the agencies haven't changed as such, the phone numbers will be changing. But we probably update this at least once a year, if not more often than that. And we find that we have to call every place and say, do you still exist and are these still your numbers and has anything changed about your services? In terms of chemical health, we've just formed a group that's called the prevention network that includes people involved. in a lot of different areas, whether it's in the schools or we started primarily with the people who are implementing or developing prevention programs and trying to bring everyone together to start communicating with each other to identify areas of duplication and overlap. We plan ~o be expandIng that and to at some point have, to address seniors through that commi ttee. And so r would be interested in knowi ng hovJ we might wor k together at that point to address the needs that are there. What are the resources and how can we begin to address some of those needs in a better way. Montgomery: Can you tell us who the contact person for that? Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 7 e Glenys Butler: Myself. We're looking at the interplay of so many of these problem areas. None of these problem areas stand alone. Alcohol, drug use problems don't stand a.lone. They affect family life and family health. . Sexual decision making. Suicide. School drop outs and that sort of thing and so we're trying to address all those different prevention areas and t.ry t.o coordinat.e and integrate as much as'possible. It's a big task at this point.. A beginning step has been to eit.ablish a clearinghouse resource directory for all of those kinds of programs that do exist and t.hat's located now at First Street Center. Part of the reason by the way that we changed the name to First. Street CenteY' was trying to eliminate a little bit of that stigma when a doct.or or a friend suggests t.hat someone go to get some help and say ,why don't you go .to the Carver County Mental Healt.h Program and a lot. of people go, clutch a~t that and especially kids. The kids ~'Jho the worse thi ng in the world is to be, oh you thi nk I'm mental. So Firsb St.reet Center was a name t.hat. we hoped would be a lit.tle bit less onocuous and to make it a little bit easier for people to corne. I'm not sure if it's worked out that way or not. Howard: Just where is this First Gl,enys Butler: We're in Waconia. Are you familIar with Waconia? The United Telephone building. ,It's down near Floral View and ~/Jhat's the Lutheran Church down there. e st. John: Trinity? Glenys Butler: Trinity~ We're about2.block~ from Trinity. Montgomery: She was kind enough to invite us to visit and she promised coffee and cookies and stuff if we do. Glenys Butler: At some time in the future I'd be happy to have you come. We have a lovely conference room that looks out over the lake. It's real pleasant. I'd be mOY'e interested in terms of working with trying to address both mental health and chemical health needs and programs in the community. To hear any of your th6ughts or ideas about services that you ~"ish were in place or needs and so on7Not that we can so easily address them but just at least to be aware of them. Krauss: I've got a question. This is a new commission and they're talking about a lot of areas and one of the areas that surfaces periodically is in home services. Ways to keep seniors in their home and bring services to them... And one of the things that...seems to happen occasionally is depression and people shutting themselves off and the need for some sort of intervention. We hear all the horror stories of the garbage homes developing and all that kind of stuff. If we can get our act together more to have a more sophisticated in house services type program, is there anyway that we can get advice on how intervention should be handled or who shbuld do that? How to periodically make sure that people aren't getting depressed and their mental health is good. Something along those lines. e Glenys Butler: L certainly think that we could be available to consult or would you be providing the training for that staff? Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 8 eKrauss: Well this is in the ven' early, initially all we spoke about doing is trying to funnel...funding available for programs to help people physically stay in their homes...block grant money for that or be, sure that they're getting meals. Make sure that our public safety folks know that there'~ people with special needs.. .volunteerism aspect. Make sure that they're visited periodically. Those kinds of things but you're talking about a relatively unsophisticated effort. I mean the City is never going to be in a position to hire psychiatric professionals for that kind of need. We're going to have to rely on what's out there to provide those types of services. Glenys Butler: I think some things certainly could be arranged to, you know whether it would be playing some kind of role in training and working with volunteers to recognize the signs and symptons of depression and when to be concerned and how to access or use the resources available. When to refer someone or what other kinds of services can be used and then certainly can consult wi'th people. If they're volunteers in the homes or someone who's delivering the Meals on Wheels might call and say we're concerned about so and so. Here's what I'm seeing and does this seem like a legitimate concern. It sounds like a good program. Krauss= Hopefully we'll get something like that. Montgomery: It may take us forever b8t we're working on it. We're trying. e Glenys Butler: We work in the, we share the building with the Community Health Services. The public health nurses for Carver County and of course they're in the home and seeing a lot of people and so we consult with them. "'10ntgomery: Right nOf'" one of our problems is we don't have any space that is ours to work from but we're working on that too and we're hoping that will have something so perhaps we would be able to have some groups and seminars and things of that sort. Glenys Butler: Sounds very good. Montgomery: I think one of the main concerns that I hear is depression and people scared to death about what's going to happen to them if they have a ph~sical disability. I hear a lot of that. Worry about the future. Not ~\Janti ng to be a burden to thei r chi Idren but not bei ng able to manage their home and not knowing if they can afford to go anywhere. I think it's a real concern of a lot of seniors. Glenys Butler: Yeah, they face a lot of life changes Does anybody else have some questions of Glenys? e Glenys Butler: A couple other brochures here, as long as I brought I might as distribute them. The hot pink brochure we call our help brochure. It's something that I;Je distr ibute in the schools to young people. A directory of services availabl~ for youth. This brochure describes our housing support program. The housing support program is for the people ~\Jho are i nvol ved in the program that I call the community support program for the sSI-iouslyand persistently mentally ill adults and Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 9 there is a person on staff that works very closely helping these people find housing and then helping them maintain themselves in those housing unit.s. Krauss: Glenys, when you produce your neW brochures, or you t.ry to distribut.e brochures, do you have a list of places that. have public informat.ion racks because we do here and we'd like to get. a supply of these things. For youth services, and Jay Johnson's her"e. Half of t.he cit.y's or. thei r youth come t.hrough here t.o sign up for' teams and what not and we ''Ie t.rying t.o put. toget.her t.he informat.ion for the seniors so we'd love t.o have anyt.hing you have so we can distribute t.hat.. Glenys But.ler: Great. So where would we bring t.hem? Krauss: Send them eit.her t.o we'll make sure that it gets fine. Glenys But.ler: Paul Krauss and who's t.he ot.her person? Krauss: Sharmin AI-Jaff. It Glenys Butler: Okay, t.hank you. Appreciate that. One of t.he t.hings is put.ting these brochures t.ogether but t.hen get.t.ing t.hem out into t.he places where people can pick them up or referral sources. That.'s a big problem. Krauss: We also have a quart.erly newslet.t.er t.hat.'s been st.arted up in last. year. When t.here are programs with specific nature...it's mailed everybody in the cit.y so information can be brou~ht. out. that. way t.oo. Glenys But.ler: And that. would again be through you? Krauss: Yeah. I can put. it through to whoever's doing the report. Mont.gomery: What.'s t.he deadline for the next. one? Krauss: We had one in April. We're due for one. I t.hought. it. was the end of August. Glenys Butler: Well t.hank you very much. Montgomery: We really appreciate your coming and we'll be in touch I'm sure. Glenys Butler: Good luck in your mission here. e Krauss: Hopefully we've got some interesting and good news to report. You know we keep looking for space around the City and there isn't any or what there is is expensive and needs to be rented and honestly there's no source of rent money. I mean we can use some Block Grant money but. it's a lot of money. Well we were talking to the City Manager again about. it here last SenioY' Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 10 e lAJeek and the idea agai n about the space down heY'e came u.p and foY' a numbeY' of Y'easons Don is now looking at it with some inteY'est. It's still a keY'nel of an idea but I think that we should staY't looking very seriously in using this space OY' adapting this space as an inteY'im space foY' senior pY'ogramming. To that end, I mean we're still not sure what it's going to cost. We' Y'e sti 11 not sUY'e that it's even adaptable. I IIJas wal ki ng around there earlier in the week and when you see wheY'e the plumbing is piped in foY' the bathY'ooms and you need bathY'ooms down theY'e, it chops up the space so what we want to do is we've got a call into the architect who designed the City Hall expansion. We're going to ask him to develop some concepts of how that space might be adapted. We need to house groups of 40~50 people foY' the SenioY' Club and see if that space could then be divided up for some other pUY'poses. I don't think it's going to be a perfect space, keep in mind. You know it's not real well connected to the rest of City Hall. I'm not sure how it's going to be outfitted. Will it have a kitchen? Won't it have a kitchen? How much does it cost factoY'? I'm not sUY'e how the space is broken up and We're not even sUY'e what kind of pY'ogY'amming and that's an important thing, would be going on theY'e. But we do ~"ant to proceed and get some information back to you so we aY'e goi ng to wOY'k with the aY'chitect. And I'd like to have him develop some bluepY'ints so you can see how it might layout and see if you think it's adaptable. We would then want to hY'ing in not only, get a feeling of opinion here but ask the Senior Club if they think this sp~ce might be useful to them. e St. John: Where is this spot? KY'auss: We'll take you over there. Montgomery: Do you knov.JIIJhat the squaY'e footage is Paul? KY'auss: It's a faiY'ly large space. As s60n as we're done here we reconvene over there. Just v.Jalk over theY'e and just take a look. I think if you're going t.o do that you've got to think seriously about a couple thi ngs though. Clear 1 I' the Cha nhassen SenioY' Club would go in thet-e Y'ight a~"ay, probably we think. If furniture can be provided. It's a space where they can stay as long as they want to and they don't have to cleaY' out because of a gym class comi ng through. We assume that.'s an advantage for them. But I think we know enough now to know that a senior facility is not just a room. It's programming and there's limitations on how we fund programming and what not but I think it would be useful to not only have the arechitect come in but also to talk with Senior Community Services, Manager Scott Shore. We've already talked to them on a preliminary basis. If hIe had a space avai lable, what does it ta ke? Is it feasible to get. somebody ~n a part-time basis? How would that work? What sorts of things could we offer locally? At Barbara's request we've got a letter going out to the Mayor on a committee to help work'~ith a senior facility and senior housi ng task force and we looked at get tax free st,atus for it so donations could be solicited for furniture and what not. I think this is starting t.o t.urn int.o a legitimate idea. I don't. want to oversell it yet because we might find it's too costly. We might find the space isn't good. There's ... lot. of t.hings'that could happen. Also, t.his has all been knocked around on ., a staff level. l.Je need to talk to ultimately the City Cour:'icil li.Jill have to decide l-Jhat happens to the space and our- HRA money may even want to be involved with 1ttoo. I don't knov.J if they l..Jant to kick in some money but Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 11 . they've funded other things in City Hall. I called Larry Blackstad up at Hennepin County Block Grant ~rogram and he did say we can use Block Grant money to help outfit this room as long as it's. for seniors primarily, which is a little bit of a problem because at a. staff level we see it, you knov.J we ',"e out of space for all ki nds of public meeti ngs and we 'really see the need to develop a space that the seniors need and programming it but \JJhen it's not being used for that, to make it available for other things as well. You've got to walk a fine line with the Block Grant because the Block Grant's supposed to, you can only specifically use it on those below the poverty line or seniors or handicap so w~'ll have to work on something like that. st. John: And when he said that you could use some of that Block Grant money, would that be in furnishing it with things that are statiqnary and implanted in there that could not be removed afterwards? Krauss: Well not necessarily because we bought the furniture for Sojourn. Outdoor furniture. St. John: Yeah, that is moveable but I mean install 1ng stoves? -- Krauss: Oh yeah, certainly. We could do that too but I don't kno~IJ if it costs $30,000.00 to redo this space. I d6n't know if it costs $$0,000.00. I honestly have no idea. We only get about just under $40,000.00 in Block Grant every year. We've spent all of this year's. We have $26,000.00 or $23,000.00, whatever it is, in the bank from last year's that we haven't spent yet. That we're holding for those feasibility studies. I'm not sure how you want me to proceed on the fe~sibility study either. I sort of, you keep hearing about the dual track approach for the airport. I sort of think we need to be on that too. I don't think you ought to lose sight of the fact that our goal should probably be a legitimate senior center and this room would never be that. I mean it's just not big enough. Montgomery: It's justa temporary. That is one concern. I would hate to k that that was all we were going to do. e Krauss: But the reality is, a free standing, building with a senior center because of financing and getting the support and the feasibility's is a 3 to !:" year time hor izon. Maybe this room helps to fill the gap i nbetv.Jeen. One of the things you should know about too is we're working on, well you knot..-J we had this block over here across from Ci ty Hall and 78th Street that's la,rgel y vacant. The old bank bui Idi ng is on it but otherwise it's all green? We're looking at making a plaza park out of it. Here's City Hall right now. The door to that room is someplace around over here. This plan is not the final one. It really needs some work. We were showing it to the HRA last night and they asked for some further study but it's basically to get a public square, kind ,of public park in downtown Chanhassen. So you're right across the street from the shopping center which looks like it's going to break ground by the end of August or early September and it would have an amphitheatre and the stree that's there right now would be taken out. So the room that we're looking at is right down here to look out on that and it could be kind of nice. Especially if ~.<Je figure out a way to get parking closer to it and build a path over to the door. One of the problems for us, or the City for that space is you Senior Commission 1"1eeting July 19, 1991 - Page 12 can't get there from here. It's a space in City Hall but you almost have to leave City Hall to get to it. We have a shortage of space upstairs. We'v~ got people working in clos~ts again but it's not really feasible for us to stick them down there too easily. Heinlein: You mentioned th~t before and r wondered how that would work out with if the seniors were to use it, would you forestall the other emplOyees using it for 3 to 5 years? Krauss: I can't offer guarantees. It's one of those things that ~.Je're convinced that if the city really grows ,~Ale have cut <::i ty staff, per capita city staff, staffing levels have actually gone down. Our population's doubled and our city staff hasn't doubled .and vJe have a few spots to put a couple people we need upstairs and that's probably going to be all the staff we're going to be able to get to ride out the next' few years. That's a year or bAlO dOvJn the line. L~hat happens after that is anybody's guess but actually City Hall tAlas designed so that there's another expansion built into the plan so that's another wing of City Hall right here. It's kind of the mate of what this is we're doing over there. There's also talk, fairly serious talk about the .library back here being relocated to a new str0cture where Pauly's is. Pony's. We own that whole block and they're on a year t,o year lease. We have a par ki ng lot behi nd there and the thought. would be to tear dO~Aln those 3 buildings on the corner and build a nevJ library over there which would free up that space and that is accessible by staircase from City Hall. e Jay Johnson: That could be a spot for. a senior center also t..-Jith the library as part of that as has been mentioned in the past too. Nota community center that has any sports activities but the community center far as meeting rooms, library, senior center, whatever. Just a non-administrative city functions. What you'd consider a municipal function but not with the administrative folks like at City Hall. Howard: I personally have thought it would be very appropriate for a senior center to be somewhere around this complex. Fire station, the City Hall rather than blocks away. Krauss: Well one~fthe things that I keep repeating to the Planning Commission and the HRA and the Council is that you look down th~road and downtown Chanhassen isn't over there by the Dinner Theatre anymore. Downtown Chanhassen is Market Blvd. and~ity Hall's right on top of that because of all the commercial developmerit going on to the west and people moving in~ So yeah, in terms of the central location, that's certainly correct. There's also, well one of the advantages of thIs space right now here is there's no rent. It's free. Montgomery: Pretty big advantage. Is it Krauss: I hope so. One of the things we should think about I'm not sureholl.J much this is goi ng to cost .We had this, I $26,000.00 we have to spent by Christmas. It Heinlein: Can't we get volunteer help with some of the things? Volunteers? Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 13 e Krauss: Well, there's a lot of potential for volunteer help. I'm not sure we'd want to use it on finishing off that space. Professionals do it, I mean you're paying for their time but they tend to do it quicker and do it right to meet Code. There's a lot of things but that's not to say it can't be done. The question I have though is, it becomes one of timing. We already spent the 1991 Block Grant. We went through the appropriation process. South Shore Senior Center has $8,000.00. Sojourn Daycare as $3,000.00. Some of the money went to finish off the handicapped acc~ssible park over here. The next round of funding starts it's like next March and that doesn't sound like, it's a ways off but it's not all that long a time off. What I'd sort of like to do if I could is i was all set to send out proposals for people to do the feasibility studies for us. I mean it's till set to go. We've got the list of people we're going to send it to and everything. What I'd like to do if you agree is hold off on that for another month or so. Let's get some preliminary cost estimates back. I mean if this thing is going to cost $80,000.00 to convert, then I think we can go ahead and do our study because we're not going to be able to put together enough money to do anything with the money you're getting and that would take some HRA support and then next year's Block Grant allocation. But if this thing's going to cost $25~000.00 to do, you may want to spend the .money on that right now to do it and then do the feasibility studies next year. So in the interest of preserving your options I'd sort of like to wait another month. We have the, the $26,000.00 that we have has to be, doesn't have to be spent by December 31st but it has to be under contract and we still have some time to do that without losing it. Because if we don't spend it or contract it by then; the government takes it back. So that's where that sits. Sharmin and I are going to set up a meeting in house to get the architect going and ho~efully we can have them at your next meeting. We'd also like to set up a meeting ~\jith the Seniof Community Services. We'll call them and see if they have some thoughts and we can get them into your next meeting. . e Montgomery: How about some of this tax increment funding? Is thete anything available there? Krauss: That's somethinci that the HRA controls in the downtown area. question hasn't been asked yet. There's support there for vJhat's happening. I can't commit to what they're going to do. I guess I wouldn't be surprised, you know if this thing costs $50,000.00 and we had $25,000.00, I wouldn't be surprised that they'd kick in some because they can and the money is slowly becoming available as development continues. Hei nlei n: I had an idea. I spoke to Barbara about it. I thought just to get. .'.w,hat these people really want. Make up a list of different questions just exactly what do you want? Howard: Who is you? Heinlein: Senior Club is who I'm talking about and either put yes or no up on above each one of these questions. e Krauss: Do you know if there's a membership list? Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 14 - Heinlein: Yeah. And to see whether or not if they are actually interested in doing something else besides cards. Like if they want to have potluck luncheons or things like that. Do they want to do crafts? Do they want to have programs where speakers come in and talk? Or gi0e a film or something to explain different things. I'm sure that there are some of these things available. Montgomery: Do you think that this would help to plan the space? Heinlein: That's what I thought. It might help give us an idea of just what we would need. Krauss: See one of the things we have to be real diplomatic about is to make sure that the Senior club knows that we want to provide facilities for t.hem but that if this happens, it's not solely t.heir room. That t.here's going to be a lot of other things happening in it for seniors potentially. 1 don't. know what your t.hinking is but you don't want to have a sit.uation develop where they're in there for 6 months playing cards and then get into an argument. because somebody wants to have a speaker come in after t.hem. st. John: Does it make any difference where these people that belong to the club live? Heinlein: Well that~s part of it. We've got some from where is it, Chaska and they've been members for years. -- St. John: They used to live in Chanhassen. Krauss: I don't know. I think it gets down to a decision by the City Council. Clearly City Councils are in the business of providing services for their residents. St. John: I don't mean to put a damper on it or anything but if there is anything that is from the tax of Carver County, if it would make any difference if there were people not in Carver County. Or Chanhassen, I'm sorry. Would sway a vote or anything. Heinlein: Really there's quite a few t.hat. are basically not exact.lyfrom Chanhassen. They have lived here and... Krauss: I'd rather not see the question be asked that way. I'd like to take a more positive tone. Rather than say your opinion doesn't matter much because you don't live here, say we're trying to work something out. that meets the Club's needs but also meets the needs of the seniors in the communit.y who haven't. been served yet. I think that can be done. We just' have t.o be careful on how it.'s handled. Montgomery: Sometimes people pay ext.ra if they're out.side of Chanhassen for certain services. e St. John: I 'just. meant nothing would come up aft.erwards saying t.hat t.hey weren't included or anything like that.. Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 15 - Jay Johnson: Sometimes in order to have enough mass or enough people to do something you have to include others. All our sports that l.ole do here in town, I!m involved in youth sports here~ we invite people from any city in order to have the numbers of kids we need. We're getting to the point now we have so many kids that we.~re actually considering not doing that. But l.oJe actually provide most of theChaskaSchool District and Minnetonka School District covers the Test of the sports up there but. Everybody's welcome. There's like Sdifferent sports organizations or somethin~a~d all work together and shar~ the facilitie~ ~nd everything... The 6ther point is that the Block Grant money is HeMnepinCounty money. It's not Carver County money that we'd be putting in here. There may be, if I remember right, there is some Testrictions about openness of the facility. I don't remember, it's been a long time since I've been involved with that. Krauss: It's federal money that's channeled through the Hennepin County programs but no, there's nothing that says it's more for one community than another...gets the most bang for the buck for our residents. If people~n Chaska or Excelsior happen to like it and come, that's great. Heinlein: Because I'd hate to have to tell these people who have been coming for years and belonging to it and say well you can't, you won.t be with us .anymore. St. John: Well that~s what~ was trying to find out... e Krauss: We talk from time to' time about sending Senior Club. I think maybe now's a good time to some questions. We can offer to meet with them. this is going to happen, what do you really need facilities? an open letter to the do that and we can ask We want their input on if for space? What kind of Jay Johnson: Part of the friction, the designation of Senior Club. I know that some people in the Senior Club oall it the Senior Center. Some 6f their literature says they are the Senior Center for Chanhassen and so I think there's this terminology stuff that are they a center or are they a. club? The By-laws read like they're a club. Montgomery: Well they were originally started by Carver County and there we're several of t.hese County groups. That's the origin. It wasn't founded in Chanhassen. So it's a little different. St. John: is not a center. Krauss: That's where the diplomacy needs to come in because I think they need to be eduoatedto the fact that they play cards. They have a good time. It's a good social hour but a real senior center does a whole lot more and let's get away from this is my turf, leave us alone intoe~~anding their horizon a little bit. If they want to participate in some of the other things that are happening, then that's their choice. e Kubitz: They could play cards on Thursday but we could have other things going on the rest of the week. Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 16 e Montgomery: Sure. Nobody's saying they can't do what they door we don't want to find a place for them because we do. I think we can work around it. But I think the l~tters igood idea. How do you feel about that? Do you think a letter? Kubitz: I think Selda's idea of a, when she was telling me about it, was getting it out and then giving it to them at one of their meetings and sit down there and fill it out. Krauss: I've been to. one of their meetings and they're tough to talk to at their meetings. Jay Johnson: You have to sit at each table and talk to play. Krauss: I'd be happy to go to one of their meetings. We could talk them about it. In fact maybe we should send them a letter and offer t.hat or whichever they want. Come here, go there, whatever. Kubitz: We are coming to one of your meetings to get some information. Will you make time for us? Montgomery: I thi nk that's o. good way. Then they can decide want to do. Howard: I think Selda's questionnaite sent through the City. -- Krauss: We could do~hat. st. John: They'll get it at home and have time to look at it. Jay Johnson: And if you have any questions we'll be at the meeting and such"day to answer your questions. Montgomery: Yeah, come to the next meeting or whatever. However we Want to respond. Montgomery: I think you know. You certainly know That would be a good move. Krauss: Should we bring it back to you first? :st. John: Did you have some questions made up? Heinlein: I had a few. I haven't been on the ball weeks. Mentality was very low. I did start having speakers on important issues. There are many things that they should I think be willing to learn about. Or did they want to do crafts. Do they want to do anything else? And having luncheons like they talked about. Potluck or other things which they cannot do now. e Montgomery: Well that would depend again on the facility. Heinlein: And card playing only. Does anybody else got any ideas? e Montgomery: Volunteer work? Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 17 Kubitz: There are a lot of programs. H()~-.Jard: Would we have this eVel"y day of the week if this Krauss: Well aga!,n, we're kind of talking hypothetically because we're not sure yet. If the space was created, the space would exist and my guess is certainly whenever the seniors wanted it, particularly during the day, it would be set aside for those purposes. But exactly what happened in there is who knows. We don't have a, you know the one over at the Minnetonka Center and you saw that Minnetonka has a permanent senior staff that full time does programming and managing space and bringing people in and all that. The 'meals and all. We don't have that and I've got to believe tha,t we're not going to have anything like that for a good long time just because we've got a community of 12,000 versus 48,000 at Minnetonka. But think that there is some potential. I don't know if they're receptive to it but the Senior Community Services have been very useful and very good folks to talk to and they're very interested in working with us. I've got to believe that they'd at least discuss with us the possibility of working out something so we had somebody here to some part time programming and it may even be Jo Ann. I don't know...if all her time is used up at South Shore. There's a possibility too and we've'had Todd Hoffman from our Parks Department down here. Heinlein: I was thinking of him. Is there any way he can set up e of somethi ng that they could do? Krauss: He's interested in it. He really is. Now again he runs with Jerry, they run all our recreation programs. It's just the two of them and they get rather short handed too but they hire a lot of kids to help out in the summer and things like that but he's talked to me and Shannin about they do all this programming for kids. They ought to look at doing some for seniors as well and they're good at it. It wouldn't be as sophisticated or directed necessarily as. South Shore Senior Center but he's looking into it. He's interested in it and I think if we had a space for them to work out of, they would get a program together. They're quite good and they're energetic and excited about it. So yeah, that's a possibility. St. John: Because you couldn't open that,room and just have it sit there. Somebody would have to organize it that things would be going on there that would be feasible for other senior citizens to come,to. Howard: My reason for asking the question was, Minnetonka Center and Excelsior. St. John: South Shore. Howard: South Shore. They have one afternoon for 500 and anoiher afternoon for bridge. A good question to include would be, woould you like more than one afternoon of cards? Would you like an afternoon for bridge and a second one for SOO? This will, if they're this interested in playing cards. e Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 18 St. John: And they also have 8ingo. Howard: Well I think this would make them answer the questionnaire and send them in if they want mOl"e cards. Kubitz: Are there people who want to play checkers or chess? Howard: Backgammon. Krauss: We can ask for other card games and leave it blank and fill in where other things. Howard: Then they will answer. Krauss: And if we have the ability to do some programming with our department, I mean to some extent you.re only going to have one speaker every so often. You're going to have some things going on but if you also have a room where seniors felt comfortable in that was downtown which they come in to do their shopping, maybe they want to go socialize for awhile. Kubitz: That's exactly my point. There should be a room there to just socialize. Montgomery: I was just thinking too that a professional who has done this can arr.ange programming i nvery little time as compared to whati twould take somebody who's not experienced to do that. e John: I think we ought to ge~together with Jo Ann and Ben Withart ~nd their input in. Krauss: We've got a lot of respect for that group and if at all possible, we prefer to use their expertise and they've got a commitment to the community. Again, I find this whole proposal, or this potential real exciting but keep your excitement in check because a lot of things that. there's still a very good chance that it won't happen for a lot of reasons and we have to learn more about it. We have to see what's going on. We have to bring other people into this and work it through. We're willing to start that. Montgomery: Could you tell me what the steps are that you're going to go through? Krauss: Well, as I've laid it out so far, I don't have anything form~l to present you but we're going to bring the architect in. We want the architect to do .a concept plan here and a kind of cost proposal. Estimate projected cost. Heinlein: It doesn't have to be real fancy. e Krauss: Not yet. r mean it's not a construction plan. It's tell us, he knows what the space is. If we give him some ideas, we want to bring him to talk to y00. After we get some information clapped out, we'll bring him to talk to you and hopefully to the Senior Club and you can tell him and they can tell him what you think you need the space to do. There's lots of Senior Commission t1eeti ng July 19, 1991 - Page 19 . ways. You're not just going to sheetrock the walls. Do you want things partitioned? Do you ~1.Jant separate areas for ongoing activities? Lots of things so hIe want to get that done. We want to bring in Ben Withart and ta 1 k to. St. John: Would you do that before you talked to what facilities yOU want? Krauss: I think there's a lot of things we need to pull together in sort of the same time frame. I almost see us .being able ideally to come back with the architect and maybe with Ben at your next meeting. Montgomery: That would be great. Krauss: Sharmin can try to set all this up early next week and hopefully we can pull that all together: There's going to need to be discussions with the City Council and the HRA. There's a~l that stuff. Now we're tlaking about, talking to the Senior Club is ~ne thing that I thought was essential. I don't know that I have a time schedule for this b,ut I thi nk over the next 2 to 3 months we can find out if this can be done and when it could be done by. We'll hold off on those feasibility studies until we make this determination I guess. Montgomery: Then what happens? If we spend the money on this. Krauss: Then your feasibility study gets delayed. ~ Montgomery: Until March? Krauss: Yeah, or until the next time. Montgomery: Well we don't know yet, anything sol guess we need to. Krauss~ But after this meeting is over we can just .walk over there and take another look. OF POSSIBLE Montgomery: Does anybody haVe any more. concerns? Questions? think you talked about settiilgsome kind of fund, I was just that this was a long time ago but in my experience yo~ needed a Board of Director~and a budget and all that stuff. On your application. Now is that still true? And if sO, where does the Board of Directors come from? AI-Jaff: We put Don Ashworth, the City Manager as the Chair of the of Directors. They just needed a number. t10 ntgomer y : Okay, and that's sufficient? That will do it. Al~Jaff: And this should take 3 weeks ~nd then we have the status established for the Senior Commission as a non~profit organizatio~~ Donations can start. e Senior Commission Meeting July 19, 1991 - Page 20 II Montgomery: I think what we ran into is Was they gave us a year on ~robation and you had to prove what you got was anon-profit and then you get permanent status after that. And if you don't prove it, then the money they've given up until then is okay but from then on of course it will be taxed S6 you have to be careful we're not spending money on something that's not~ FORMATION That's where Paul comes in. Montgomery: How are we going on this Senior Housing Center Subcommittee? Is this, the letter from the Mayor is to go out and then what? Krauss: Well the letter basically asks the Mayor to find interested and appoint them to serve or ask them to serve... I'll make some suggestions but he knows everybody in the community. t10ntgomery: Right. That's up to him then the next step. Krauss: He may wish to advertise it in the paper too. That's fairly common practice. And t~e paper gives it to us for free usually. Montgomery: Going back to our work, having volunteers and pollecting material for the brochure or something. Would any of you like to do that.? Would you like to use Sharmin's office and put. in anytime working on t.hat? I'm thinking this is separate from the group that might get trained but I was just thinking if anybody wanted to work on anything. Maybe you don't have to say now but give Sharmin a call. She says she has some space. Okay, then shall we, if lrJe adjourn now, does anybody else have anything else? -~ -:., st. John moved, 8illison seconded to adjourn the meeting. All voted in favor and the motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 10:55 a.m.. Submitted by Paul Krauss Planning Director Prepared by Nann Opheim "