Senior Affairs Commission

ROSE CITY SENIOR CENTER 8 Mahan Drive, Norwich, Connecticut 06360 (860) 889-5960  fax: (860) 885-1160 SENIOR AFFAIRS COMMISSION Meeting of May 24, 2021 Members in Attendance: Regular members: Jacquelyn Randall, Frank Jacaruso, Jr., P. Michael Lahan, Janice Stewart, Laurieann Messore and Rebecca Melucci Attending staff members was Mike Wolak. Member Jacaruso determined there was a quorum and called the meeting to order. Minutes: The minutes from 11/18/19 were approved. Communications: Mike shared that the Sr. Center has received many thank you notes, emails and some donations in regards to our assistance that we were able to provide throughout the pandemic. Jan stated that she really appreciated the robocalls and updates provided and felt it lifted the spirits of our seniors. Human Services Report: Very proud of the staff during the pandemic. Sr. Center was instrumental. Home deliveries for YFS, Salvation Army program, food deliveries, medical transportation, calls to Sr.’s and the help with the vaccination clinics. Reopening plan in place, did change a little bit due to no mask rules for vaccinated. Kept programming plan in place to introduce slowly to help build confidence and to continue to see if there are any spikes. Norwich heavily involved in vaccine promotion. Norwich and CT have done great. 21 million to Norwich and another 6 million, school system and other 18 million from American Recovery funds. Meeting taking place now to discuss how to spend the funds. Money is restricted and they want to make sure they don’t go outside those categories because they’d have to pay it back. Don’t want to hire because when grant money runs out it could cause cuts/layoffs. Senior center should be thinking of where we could use some funds. Budget is looking good for City/Senior Center. Put in for garage for vehicles but it was removed. Mike W. talked about catalytic converters being cut off buses in Groton and East Lyme. They are also talking about upgrading our security system and adding some cameras on the outside. P. Michael Lahan asked if we obtained a new vehicle. We did get an 18 passenger vehicle that went into service this winter. Natural gas bus will serve as backup. Senior Center Report: New Hire, Melissa is our new receptionist as Mary retired back in May of last year. During pandemic, shifted our focus to assist anywhere we were needed. Reopening plan-extended membership of the members that did not use our services during the year. Reminded that the membership is a suggested donation. We had many pay again because they felt it was a worthy cause. New membership form was included for us to update information. Wish Leeann the very best. Was supposed to retire in July of 2020 but stayed on thru the pandemic. She’s been very supportive and we cannot thank her enough. Chairperson’s Report/Legislative Report: Jackie thanked the commission members for their contributions to the community. Jackie thanked Leeann for all of her contributions and wished her well and thanked the Senior Center as well, specifically for the transportation program. Jackie announced her resignation from the board effective at the end of this meeting. Mike thanked her for her many, many years on the Senior Affairs Commission. Old Business: Janice brought up whether or not the commission should have been involved in the “rules” changes for the Senior Center. She felt it had to come thru the commission. Mike stated that the changes are temporary to meet our reopening plan. We said we would look at the by-laws to see if it should. Leeann stated that she directed her division heads to make reopening plans. Jan is concerned about instructions for pool room, signup and no visitors. Mike stated that this is a temporary plan and hopefully by July 1 we are back to normal. Leeann again stated that the plan changed even in the last week due to changes from the CDC and Governor’s office. New Business: Laurie thinks the digital message board needs to have fewer messages and be less wordy. Jackie again thanked Mike and Leeann as well as Janice and Frank for their long term assistance to her. Jan really wanted to thank Jackie an behalf of the commission for all she has done and stated that Jackie has done a fabulous job and stated she is happy for Jackie and stated we will miss her tremendously. SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS: September 20. 2021 October 18, 2021 November 15, 2021 March 21, 2022 April 18, 2022 May 16, 2022 Next Meeting: Monday, September 20, 2021 at 9:00 a.m., at the Rose City Senior Center. Respectfully submitted, Michael Wolak Michael Wolak, Director Regular meetings of the Commission are scheduled on the 3rd Monday of Mar/Apr/May and Sept/Oct/Nov