Welcome to the uh Wednesday, May 27, 2026, Mayor's Advisory Commission on Senior Living.

We'll call the meeting to order at 5 32 p.m.

If everybody wouldn't mind uh since we have some new committee members, uh we'll start down here.

Please enter to introduce yourself to the audience.

Naomi Paradise.

And I'm John O'Donnell.

And I am Carol Applegate.

Tammy Haney.

John Schuller.

Anna Stout.

And I'm Counselor Rich Taylor.

Carol and I serve as co-chairs of the commission.

We'll now move into our order of business today.

First item on our agenda.

Carol, if you wouldn't mind making an introduction on item A, the Carmel age friendly community survey findings.

Yes, I sort of wanted to give a history of how we got to this point tonight.

And so back when our committee started, our commission started, we uh decided as a group to go with the ARP age-friendly community for seniors.

And that is kind of a process that we've had to go through.

And some of the things that you have to qualify for being an ARP uh age-friendly community is that their goal of live ability is to feel safe in the community, participate in community activities, be treated with respect, have access to safe, appropriate and affordable housing and transportation, have access to recreational opportunities and health services, and know what services and activities are available and have access to information by means that they prefer.

Be active, vital contributors to the economic, civic, and social life of the community, and receive appropriate support if they can no longer look after themselves.

So that's really what ARP is trying to do and help us with to become a very um great um city for our seniors to live.

And the first step in that process was to conduct a survey, which many of you may have gotten a copy of that.

And Dr.

Bastani and his group from IU was very um so generous to have conducted that survey, sent it out, and then brought the results back into their um into their offices, and they analyze that data.

Um so that data is what we're gonna present tonight to show you what was the results of that survey.

And once we have that done, our this committee, this commission met last Friday afternoon and as at a retreat and worked on our plan of action.

And so when we get all these things done, um we get the survey done, we get the plan of action, we submit the application to ARP, and then hopefully we are being we will be certified as an age-friendly community.

Uh, that is not a it's an ongoing process, so the things that we looked at at the in our meeting last week were just some of our priorities, and our plan of action will be ongoing.

We'll look at it in a two or three years, we'll review it, we'll add to, we'll subtract, we'll give them a report on an on an annual basis.

So tonight I have with us um Nick Stewart from Dr.

Bastani's office.

He's not able to, Dr.

Bastani was not able to meet with us tonight.

And so Nick is going to review that the survey results uh and give us an idea of what they came out with in the final findings.

And I and for the commission members, I gave you a sheet that we talked about last Wednesday.

So as Nick goes through this again, I would like for you to maybe make notes on things that we might not have included in that report.

And Dave was so kind as to sort of summarize that.

So those are in front of you, and as Nick goes through his information, we'll sort of add to and so forth.

So Nick, it's yours.

Thank you, Carol.

I appreciate it.

So just to give a little bit of background and some uh information about the survey.

We did randomly select 10,000 residents of Carmel, age 55 and older.

We sent out surveys to those people.

There is a lower return rate as there often is with surveys.

We received approximately 500 back.

This data is derived from the 500 that we received.

So if you see something that you're not sure of, maybe not sure that answer came from, just know it's from those 500 responses.

We cannot be certain that this is perfectly accurate, but we are certain that it reflects the respondees.

And Nick, could would you do a favor, just talk about representative sample and some of that?

We had a lot of discussion with that early, earlier with Monica, just how you know the minimum number we wanted to receive and whether or not we achieve that, etc.

So my understanding was that the minimum number that we wanted to receive was at least 300 to have a representative sample.

We've beat that benchmark at 500.

So we can say that this sample is representative of the community at large.

There will be variants within, but we're relatively confident this represents the community as best it can.

Thank you, Nick.

You're very welcome.

The AARP has eight domains of livability, so we're going to break this down into those same eight domains just to give you an overview of what you will see.

First, I will show a domain of living, the associated data, which I won't talk about too much, and then we'll go into what those notable findings are from the data and some possible recommendations from that.

Our first topic will be housing.

We have these slides here.

Highlighting some important data.

Notable findings.

74.2% of respondents say that it is very important or extremely important that they can remain in their community as long as possible.

When considering remaining in the community, the following factors are major factors for respondents.

42.6% said a major factor would be wanting a smaller home.

34.4% said home maintenance costs would be a major factor.

And wanting a home suitable for independent living, 63.7% reported was a major factor.

24.6% of respondents report that their home needs repairs or modifications for them to continue living there long term.

69.7% of respondents report that there are fair, poor or they are unaware of low-income housing options within the community.

And 79.1% of respondents report that they are fair, poor or they are unaware of repair maintenance services available for low-income or senior residents.

Looking at this data, we can tell that people enjoy Carmel, they want to stay here.

The important data that we're pulling from this is what it takes to allow them to do so.

We're finding that smaller homes, affordable situations, affordable maintenance costs, and being able to live independently within the home are going to be most important for the members of this community.

Knowing that, knowing that a number of respondents said that they're not sure of these options or they don't think there are good options, that could be an area to look at in the future.

So some possible recommendations.

Increase availability or awareness of housing for seniors with accessibility concerns.

Increase availability or awareness of housing for seniors with low incomes, and to increase the availability or awareness of home repair and maintenance services for low-income seniors.

Specifically give services which can make a home suitable for independent living, given that we saw that there are a number of home, a number of people who responded saying that they would need some repairs or additional work done to their home to be able to continue living there long term.

Next, we'll talk about outdoor spaces in buildings.

Again, we have the data here.

Participants overall rated outdoor spaces and buildings highly.

So we've looked for what could we possibly do, knowing that responses are generally high.

60.4% of respondents reported that the amount of separate bike and pedestrian paths is they were unaware of it, they were poor a poor amount, fair amount, or good.

So even we're saying if this report is so high on these scores, that maybe even good is our low benchmark, and we want to aim for a higher percentage of very good or excellent.

46.3% of respondents reported public building accessibility as they were unaware, it was poor, fair, or good.

56% of respondents reported that the availability of public benches for resting as they were unaware, poor, fair, or good.

Based on this, a few recommendations, increase of increased availability or awareness of separate bike and pedestrian paths, increase availability or awareness of public benches.

Increase the accessibility and signage of accessibility options within public buildings.

Specifically, that signage piece, as there is we can be relatively sure and relatively certain that there are accessibility options within public government buildings.

So this might just be an issue where people are rather unaware of it or haven't been able to see it easily.

Increasing signage could assist with that.

Next, we'll talk about transportation.

Here's our data again.

Notable findings.

That is higher than we would typically see, given that this survey was only given to those 55 and older.

So it's something to be aware of that's going on in the community.

Public transportation was rated poorly overall, with each question being rated as poor, or that the respondent was unaware.

And that was those two items, poor or unaware, accounted for 72.5% or more of the responses.

So the pretty general trend for transportation overall.

Nick, could I ask a question?

Does that um would that be because a lot of our our seniors are so still so active in our community?

Was there anything in the other surveys that would say, okay, this is why that's so high?

Why that would be so high?

We don't have any specific questions that may indicate why it's high, knowing that so many people are still driving themselves.

It could be that they simply haven't looked into it yet because they haven't found the need.

We can't really determine causality from this.

It could be either direction that people are driving so much because they don't find the they don't know about or don't find that the services are there for them, or it could be that they don't know the services are there or much about them because they are still driving so much.

But we don't have any question that can help us determine causality there.

Okay.

Anecdotally, that does sort of correlate with the I think increased uh calls for ride service between the two providers that service Carmel.

Um they both have seen an increase, whether you're Hamilton County Express or Prime Life and Ridership.

Um and as we probably see you know the population age, um, that could maybe become more critical.

Absolutely, that could become more critical.

Um, what I would recommend over the next couple years is keep an eye, and as that if that number continues to trend up, then that's probably that's probably where you're at.

We just don't have the data here to make that call today, but it is definitely worth observing over the next few years to see if that aligns.

Um possible transportation recommendations, uh, place a high priority on increasing public transportation services, uh, especially in locations with a high density of senior residents and include senior community centers or places with activities for seniors to prevent isolation due to a lack of transportation.

It may just be that it's an awareness issue, and so it may be an awareness campaign to hearing that there are services available, that awareness may be low.

We could also increase the availability or awareness of public transportation services for older adults, or provide additional technology support services to help older adults access private transportation services.

So you know, we have the public and the private sphere.

Um we can increase availability or awareness for those public services, but we find and we will talk about later that there are some questions and difficulties with technology, and offering some service to support those may make it easier to access private transportation services where that's appropriate.

Next is civic participation and employment.

Again, our data.

The primary thing would be public outreach to the community about those opportunities.

See if you know, in a few years when we conduct another survey, if those numbers change, and then identify some areas for f for more targeting and more support.

But so many people were unaware of specifics that we can't really make many recommendations at this time beyond increasing awareness.

Next is communication and information.

Okay.

Respondents were generally unaware of information available availability except for access to free public computers and internet.

And we can look at specifically what that question was about back here.

So they were very, you know, more sure that there's free access to public computers and internet, but were unsure of one central source of information, printed info with large lettering, in-person delivery of community information, and information available in multiple languages, just so you know what those other categories were.

Respondents were open to hearing information from multiple sources, but are most likely to seek information from family and friends at 94.3%, internet resources at 88.1%, or their doctors at 86.3%.

This could be if we're trying to increase awareness, increase information, these are likely pathways that people will trust and understand and connect with.1%, television at 24.8%, or newspapers at 16%.

Respondents preferred method of receiving information was different in adults 75 and older, with them being less likely to use news websites or apps than the entire group, and more likely than the total group to prefer information from television.

So for the entire survey group, that was 43.1% for internet website or app.

For the 75 and older group, it went down to 39.4%.

Television went from 24.8% with the entire pool for 75 and older, that jumped up to 30.3%.

So if you have information that is specifically targeted towards adults 75 and older, that may change the weighting of how you want to communicate that information.

While respondents did prefer to get news from newspapers, they reported that they never receive information from a local daily newspaper at 38.3%.

So we know people are using newspapers, but we also are we also know that 38.3% of them never use a local newspaper.

So that may not be the outreach method for them.

66.4% of respondents indicated they hardly ever or never receive news from local government agencies or officials.

Nick, could that could that be a caveat because our main local newspaper that's delivered to each household in Carmel is a weekly versus a daily skewed that could have skewed that absolutely.

So you know we're tied there.

But absolutely, that could have been what skewed it.

We would probably need to do a follow-up or in a future year, split that question into a daily and weekly, and then we could identify if that's what led to the discrepancy.

But definitely worth investigating, and we have flagged it.

You know, if we continue in the next few years, we flagged it as a question we want to ask.

Thank you.

Absolutely.

Given the awareness that we know we're communicating now, it is likely that we're just not utilizing the correct communication methods to reach the population.

So this may be a call to look at your outreach media information strategy and see where you're missing people and where you might be putting a lot of effort that's just not making it to the public.

Respondents age 75 and older reported that technology being too complicated or difficult to learn proved to be significant barriers to using technology.

We had that at too complicated as 34.9% or difficult to learn at 23.9%.

So a significant portion of the respondents age 75 and older are feeling that way.

Some recommendations from this.

Increase the level of easily accessible information on local government websites and local news programs, perhaps looking to usability, user design, ease of access.

Partner with area health care providers to share important news and community services that are available.

We know that many older adults are attending doctors' appointments.

We know that they trust their doctors.

That may be a way to further communication with some of those people who are harder to reach.

Also, we could recommend creating local supports for residents age 75 and older to learn to utilize technology or receive technology support to ensure that they can access vital community news or ensure that more information is available for them than just television sources.

A system like this could also support in the transportation where we talked about the having technology support to access private driving services.

This also could tie in there and support that as well.

Next topic is respect and social inclusion.

Respondents reported that they do utilize community sources for continuing education, though there's not really a clear winner.

Respondents also responded poor or that they were unaware of activities that are targeted to older adults at 37 point or 37%, or offering senior discounts at 45.6%.

So the people just aren't very sure of those.

Respondents that they are unaware of schools involving older adults at 52.7%, continuing education clubs at 36.4%, and driver education refreshers at 70.4%.

So they're just not sure of where to go for continuing education, you know, even the social interaction that comes with learning, they're not sure where to access that, or they're not sure that there are good opportunities for that.

Recommendations based on that, we can increase the offerings or increase awareness of opportunities that allow older adults opportunities to continue their education.

So look at the community.

If there are many ways to continue education for older adults, it might just be raising awareness, supporting some partners in the area.

If we find that there aren't enough, it may be supporting those or incentivizing those groups to work within the community.

They could also serve as an additional hub for those learning opportunities and have a physical space where people who may not have physical space around the city could come in and teach those additional learning opportunities.

Next is social participation.

Respondents have frequent interactions with people outside their homes and do not feel isolated in most cases.

Respondents tend to have strong support networks and communicate often with close family and friends.

Often in this work, often when other people conduct the survey, they will find that there is a growing problematic loneliness epidemic among seniors.

We're not finding that in the data.

We find that this community is often deeply connected.

They have frequent interactions with others outside their homes and have people that they can trust and call upon when needed.

And is this the 75 plus that you're making that statement for?

Is it also the 55 to 75?

Both.

We found it across both ages, with no notable difference between them.

So we did just for the sake.

We did go through and split the survey, the survey responses by a 55 to 74 cohort and a 75 and older cohort.

We indicated any places where we found that those two groups diverged a statistically relevant amount, and this was not one of those areas.

I think that's a real plus.

I think that's a real plus for Carmel because when we have you know pandemics of depression and loneliness in our senior populations throughout the country, and just to think that our seniors here feel very included.

And I could see that it also speaks to our younger generation in that they're coming here, and our we as grandparents want to be involved, and so grandparents are now coming to this area as well.

So I think that's I think that's great.

What would be what statistically would you see in uh traditionally across the United States for this type of data?

I would not have that top of mind.

I'd be happy to look it up and pass it along, but I I'm not deep enough into that research actually.

But it's significant, it's significantly different, you would say.

I would yes.

I um Dr.

Bustani and uh Dr.

Umica.

Monica, yeah, sorry.

Monica both um have told me that that's a relatively significant finding.

Thank you.

Because it's such a significant finding.

I would be curious to dive a little deeper into that, because the people that took the survey, the average age was like 68, and they were married.

Um that could have something to do with it.

Absolutely, it could.

You know, the questions we had tempted word them in such a way that it's with people outside their homes.

But what effect is having you know a spouse or a partner who is helping get the other partner out in social.

Can't speak to that effect, it's not covered within the survey.

Um, but absolutely there could be some deeper diving there to see if there is a group that maybe is not included in that, uh, but we don't have anything in our data to indicate that at this time.

Because you would have cross tabs though of whether they're single or married and then how they responded to this survey, right?

We can absolutely do that.

We have not done that analysis yet, but it is possible with the data.

That'd be interesting.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um recommendation is very light here because, quite honestly, it is already so fantastic that there's not much to do.

Um that is pressing, but you could increase opportunities for isolated seniors to socialize outside of their family and close friends.

Um people indicated that they are socializing heavily with family and close friends.

Um, but if they do not have that kind of support network, opportunities to build a support network like that would be incredibly valuable.

Health services and community support is our next topic.

Here are our noble findings.

Uh, the majority of respondents reported that they are unaware of the availability of affordable and easily accessible home health care services and well-trained certified home health care providers.

This is especially relevant given earlier on we said that many people want to age within their home, and that the lack of awareness or the available lack of availability, whichever it may be, um, to affordable and easily accessible home health care services could be an impediment to that.

So that would be an important to look at and um determine if we need to raise awareness or if we need to increase those services within the community.

The majority of respondents reported that they are unaware of healthcare services that support languages other than English.

Um that seems to line up pretty well with the demographics we received, but as more people move into the community or as we want to support all the community, it's going to be important that we look at that and just assess whether people are unaware because they don't need it, or if they are unaware because they don't see it.

Uh the majority of respondents reported that they are unaware of affordable health and wellness programs and fitness programs for older adults.

Again, this may just be a thing to where people don't know.

Um we know that those kinds of programs support health and longevity and decrease uh health care spending, so they're important, um, but many people just reported that they are unaware of them at this time.

I'd just like to put a plug in for Carmel Clay Parks for those watching this if they participate in Silver Sneakers or a similar program.

Through that program, they're able to attend the Monon Community Center for free for physical fitness reasons.

Absolutely.

And Carmel Clay Parks will adapt any program to fit the needs of participants, such as seniors or those with disabilities.

Thank you for that.

I was actually just there earlier today picking up my daughter, and we got to say hi to many people who were enjoying those services very happily.

Other notable findings, respondents indicated that they were most commonly unaware of services to help seniors find and access health supported services at 58.6%, affordable home care services such as housekeeping, house maintenance at 51.9%.

That it was they were unavailable of sort of unaware of services to help seniors find helpful understanding hospitalslash clinic answering services at 34.1%, or to find access to telehealth care services at 36.3%.

Again, this just kind of indicates that the respondents don't know who to reach out to if they're looking for these services.

Recommendations.

As we I said before, many people want to age in the home, want to age in the community.

Having access to these services will allow them to do so safely and with more ease.

Again, this may just be an awareness piece of the community based on the demographics we saw is not in need of it at this moment.

There's not a severe need, but there were a few respondents who could have benefited from that or new people who did.

And so making sure that those are available is important as the city continues to grow.

We can increase access or knowledge to our knowledge of affordable and accessible health care and support services.

There comes a time for many people where things like mowing the lawn, upkeep at the house just aren't safe activities anymore.

And so making sure that people know how to access those can be important for protecting the citizens and for making sure that they can continue to age safely within the community.

And that finishes our notable findings.

Nick, I have another question for you.

Absolutely.

If we wanted to, what's our next step here?

So if we if there's areas that we want to dive in a little bit deeper, do we have to devise our own survey?

Do we do a survey again, or do we how can we get into this deeper?

So there are a couple of ways we could go about it.

One could be to wait three to five years, conduct the survey again, conduct it, hopefully we get some more respondents, find new people, and then as we go to do that, we can change some questions to dive into topics that we know we wanted to know about.

For more immediate survey results, more immediate support, we would have to find some way of reaching out with an additional survey.

For a number of the questions.

There are a few things that we can dive deeper into because we have the demographic data, such as we discussed, where wondering if being married supported social connections, things like that.

We can just go and do an analysis of the data we have and come up to see if there's anything significant.

But for additional questions or things that we're looking to clarify, we would at least need to send out a smaller survey, which you know, quite honestly, is much easier.

Part of the difficulty of this survey that we use is the size of it, and that it was not the easiest to send out in paper.

And so what we had to do for many, many people is send them a letter that required technology usage to access or give them a phone number to call where actually they called me and entered their survey results that way.

If we were to do a smaller survey, it would be much easier to mail out just the survey, and people can complete it pen and paper.

Also, we could look at increasing the scope of the survey.

So we went to 10,000 people this time.

We could in the next few years allocate funds because of the cost and possibly reach out to more of the citizens with those improved questions or more targeted questions you have, and really just build a process of continually improving on the survey and sending it out every few years to assure that we're keeping up with what the community needs.

And do put are public forums helpful?

Or is it hard to get your statistics from those?

Public forums are not typically where we would want to pull statistics because there are so many factors that go into attending a public forum that there's often a selection bias that allows us to not collect what we would call representative sample.

And lastly, um, there's I know there's some populations that we've missed, like those in a nursing home or an assisted living, perhaps.

Um is there a way that do you do a separate survey for those?

Or do you we can potentially we can potentially do that for this survey?

What we took are the addresses used for voting registration.

So if someone from a nursing home did register to vote and use their nursing home address, they were included in this survey as well.

So our hope is that we reached them.

Okay.

So you're not worried about nothing.

Not worried about not reaching them simply because we just it was um we received approximately 20,000 addresses.

We used random, uh we randomized it, select 10,000 randomly, sent out to those people.

As long as they used their current residents as their um residents for registering to vote, they were included.

Any other questions?

Nick, I know that this has been a big job for you guys, and I really want to give my thanks to you and your team and Dr.

Bustani.

And I know it was you it was done under no expense to the city or to this committee.

So I really do appreciate that.

This has been great information.

It's helped us tremendously.

I know it felt like a long time, it felt a long time for you and a long time for us, but I think it's um it's been well worth the wait.

I really do appreciate you, and I'm sure that everybody on this committee feels the same way.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

If just quickly to say, as a resident of Carmel, it has been a great joy to support this.

Uh when Dr.

Bustani brought it up, I pushed and nudged and made sure that I could be the one to assist with this.

Thank you because happy to hear how much.

You'll get some of the benefits, maybe.

One day, yes.

Yes.

Nick, I um from the council and from the mayor's office.

I just want to say a deep thank you on behalf of the city for conducting the survey.

Um, this to have a professional research staff that you're a part member of the team of to um take the time and effort again, as Carol mentioned at no cost to the city.

I mean, this would have been a huge lift.

I wonder if it's also always important to work off of relative data when you're addressing matters like this.

And I wonder if there's it's cost prohibitive for many communities to go through the AARP um age-friendly community designation process because if they don't have a if they're not lucky to have a partner like the IU School of Medicine and your team with Dr.

Bustani, uh, it's probably cost prohibitive for many communities to execute a survey such as this with a representative sample in the scientific manner that you guys approached it.

So huge thank you, and um we we truly appreciate it that we're gonna be able to drive some good work and focus in on this.

Um, one last question before you go.

Um I know it probably wouldn't be necessarily representative, um, a representative sample, but is there any point that uh you it would be worth diving in to focus group small focus groups on any of these matters and and from a professional standpoint, you know, how do you look at using focus groups and if that would even be a fit for further diving in, besides you know, you guys being able to dice and slice the data crash tabs yourselves, but of the data you already have.

Um so this is a little further outside my area, but close enough that I can give some support.

There are ways to use that in a scientific manner.

We can do qualitative assessments.

Uh primarily what we've done here are quantitative assessments.

There are some systems that have been um used, worked and respected in the scientific community that do use qualitative data, which could be used to analyze focus groups.

Um and I will say we have a few people within our group that are currently conducting studies in that manner.

So that is something that we could further partner on given time and things, you know, all the logistics and decisions that are above me.

But there is the possibility, and the tools do exist.

Thank you, Nick.

It's residents like you that make a strength the number one place to live in the country.

And be and to be connected with IU is a big you know, a big plus for us, and you know, even for the care, the health care that IU provides to this area, and to uh especially Dr.

Bastani's work in in Alzheimer's is tremendous.

I'm it's uh it's a hidden gym down there, I'm sure.

I know it is.

It is, and we're we're working on being less hidden, but yes.

Thank you, Nick.

I know you have to run right away, and thank you so much for your time both today and last week as well with us.

So appreciate it.

Happy to help.

Have a good rest of your evening.

Thank you, sir.

Okay.

Um well I I do want to say and to the daily paper component, I think, and a lot of this comes down to awareness, and we'll be able to work with um, you know, maybe we can have a conversation with our weekly newspaper, the current Carmel, to see how they can help promote uh senior issues and then working with the um mayor's office and the marketing team to see if there might be connections through um television, uh local news stations that might be able to help once we dive once we execute our um plan.

And I will say that they're um following this meeting and have once this is released, we will be able to um we're gonna we're planning for a a large paper, an article or story in the paper so that everyone is aware that this these uh you know these results are open and uh ready to be looked at and from there go from there.

So I think communication is a big is one of the big issues that we've got, so we're gonna have a lot of work to do on that.

Um so if nothing else, it shows us that we have lots of work to do, but we also have we can make a big difference, and so I think that's kind of exciting.

Um any other follow-up questions about that?

Next report.

So our next step, as you all know, we have spent Friday afternoon together, and so um we're we came up with uh some of those our priorities and some of those things that we really want to start working on.

So I think every meeting we have sort of helps us gather some of our thoughts on that.

And um, so I gave you the rec the recommendations that we came up from from Dave summarizing it.

So take some time and take a look at those and see if there's other things that we can start working on.

And and I think we'll each have um if there's errors certain areas that each committee member wants to be involved in, let me know so that we can start forming some committees and some some subcommittees and and go from there.

So um okay.

I think John, I was uh I wanted to just have you update us on transportation for a reason, and that is in our um our action plan to AARP.

If we've already started working on things like we have in the past, like John and his transportation, that will also be included in that plan.

And so they will know that we've already been working on things as well.

So did you have anything, John?

You wanted to update us on that?

Yes, I had a couple of conversations today with the people at Hamill County Express.

And um I believe Tim is on vacation once he gets back.

We need to meet again and talk to him and kind of put our arms around everything I learned today.

And we don't need to go into it right now, but um yes, we need to get back with Tim and try to finalize the um program for transportation from Hamilton County Express here in Carmel.

That's it.

Um also let's see.

Um I plan, I think what we'll do is either plan another session where we can go into a little more depth in our action plan.

Before that's released to the public or before we can send that in, it does have to be approved by the mayor, which is only right.

And so I'm where I've already worked, I've been working on some of the action plan.

We'll have some rough drafts for us, and we'll either meet prior to the next meeting or at the next meeting.

We might be able to just do a working session and formalize and approve that as well.

So it's going as scheduled.

Again, my my goal is July, get our certification, hopefully, and then we're on our way.

So the library is open, and I'm working on uh I'm working on securing that not only the three big rooms downstairs, but some upstairs so that we have some breakout sessions and some other things.

So I also have the plan for the I'll need I'll start getting our committees together and uh you know the things that you need to do in your committees to be prepared for that conference in October, and hopefully I'll be able to uh be there this year.

It was although it was kind of nice just to get it all planned and then leave, but no, it really wasn't.

Uh so that's the fall conference.

I also have put our application in for a float or something in the parade for um July, hoping that we can make an announcement or something for our our seniors having an age-friendly community at that point.

So uh I haven't gotten the no yet, but also we're I'm working on that as well.

Is there any new business that anybody want needs to bring up at this point?

Rich, you have any other new business?

Amen.

Just uh clarify.

So the goal, you know, we had um and thank you for uh to Phil Anderson for um conducting our uh uh retreat to review this information and start coming up with ideas uh for the action plan.

So the goal is to um review what was produced, um what was this draft discussions from that meeting, and then a draft plan will be circulated, and then we'll be reviewed by the city and the city departments and then um with the hopes of releasing and then uh applying for our age-friendly status by July.

By July.

Okay.

So the the um action plan is more it's not it's it's not we just want to do this, but it's the reason why we want to do it, the reason um what it will improve, what our obstacles are, and all those kind of things.

So it's much more detailed and really wants to see what are we doing and why and how it's gonna affect Carmel.

So we're hoping to, I'm hoping to have that a rough draft so we can vote the next time and then based on the things that we uh that we identified at our meeting, uh, our retreat, and then we can add to or you know, subtract, make additions, and hopefully then go to the mayor's office to have her signature and all of it will be sent in at once.

Okay.

I know you guys like to be out of here by at a decent hour, and we've we've made we've met our goal.

So uh if there's no other business.

Oh, I should say I am going to be speaking tomorrow morning at the housing commission to work with that commission to see and address some of those issues that we're gonna be working on with housing, and probably we'll go into our report as well.

So I like to see that coordin coordination and cooperation amongst other commissions in the in the city.

Thank you, Shannon, for reminding me of that.

I hadn't forgotten it, but I will it's an early meeting, so okay.

If if there's no other business, I this meeting is adjourned at 62.