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OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD

Record of Proceedings

Carmel Senior Living Commission Meeting - September 23, 2026

City Council — Wednesday, September 23, 2026

BodyCarmel, Indiana

SessionCity Council

DateWednesday, September 23, 2026

StatusFILED

Video Record

0:00 / 1:02:27

Transcript — VerbatimClick a timed line to jump · ⧉ to share it

0:03

Okay, I'll call this meeting to order.

0:05

This is the um this is Wednesday, September the 23rd, and this is the mayor's advisory commission on senior living, and I'm Carol Applegate, the chairman of this committee.

0:14

I have Anna Stout here.

0:17

I have Tammy Heaney, John Schuler, and John O'Donnell here and some others in the audience.

0:25

So I welcome you to our meeting tonight.

0:28

First of all, I'm going to talk about our old business that we had.

0:34

And I'm going to start with I've got a couple things on the agenda, which was approval of the action plan and also review of the completed application, the survey results in our action plan to ARP.

0:47

And we're not going to be able to act on and approve our action plan tonight, but I'm going to move over to the camera, and I want to at least show you where we are with this, and we'll go.

1:01

Hi Dave, Dave Morgan is joining us as well.

1:04

So glad to see you, Dave.

1:06

So I'm going to move over here and show you a little bit what we have and where we're going with this.

1:21

So I'm happy to announce that we have this is our action plan that we have worked on so diligently over the last few years, and I think you're going to be satisfied and happy with what we have done so far.

1:36

I will say this is not the final form.

1:38

We still have some work to do.

1:40

It's been a difficult, and if any of you know, we've had a flood in the meantime as well here in Carmel.

1:49

So that's taken a lot of our our staff time to work with that.

1:53

But so I'm just going to go through this.

1:56

You I think Kate did send this out to each of you in your emails before you came tonight.

2:02

So but this is basically what it's going to be looking like.

2:06

So I think you're going to be real pleased with this.

2:09

We have all of our different areas that we're really concentrating on.

2:17

Then we have a letter from the mayor.

2:27

Yeah.

2:29

Yeah, we got the administrative report in here as well.

2:34

All right.

2:35

So this is our our mayor's summary from the mayor.

2:42

And also then I did do a at the suggestion, I think of Dave was to do an administrative sort of a summary of what we went the process we went through and how we came up with what we did.

2:54

So that's our administrative report.

3:02

And then I'm not going to go through this in great detail because you all have it.

3:07

And that's just a continuation of what our administrative report says.

3:12

The important thing is this says our goal is to add life to our to the years that our seniors have here.

3:21

So we're not just adding years, but we want to give them something important for them to work on.

3:28

And then our mission statement.

3:58

So we have the housing, and I've tried to back it up with what we our statistics from our survey and what those recommendations were, and then our tactics and action steps, and some of our recommendations are potential partners.

4:17

Now we in our retreat didn't get to look at that real closely.

4:21

So I just put a lot of these things in here so that we could potential.

4:26

And remember, this action plan is a document, it's a working document.

4:31

It's not that we're we're we're gonna finish this and it's gonna be done.

4:35

We're gonna look at it every single year, and as we go through in every meeting that we have in the future, we'll go through some of these.

4:41

So and then more and importantly, what are our measures of success?

4:46

How do we know we're being successful in this?

4:50

Um just going through some of these.

4:56

Our transportation.

5:00

Our transportation, John, I think you'll like that picture of some of our Hamilton County Express buses, our work, civic engagement and entrepreneurship, community health.

5:19

And we did talk, I think David is your recommendation we talk a little bit about our senior center.

5:24

So I did include that and finally put that in there as well.

5:28

Um so what we'd like to do with that.

5:34

Our respect and social inclusion, community engagement, which we're gonna be talking a little bit about our conference, and then I think one that we may want to look at, especially after we've had the flood, is that and I added this with sustainable sustainability in our emergency procedures because that really brings up it was brought to light with our flood.

6:00

And I thought, and I don't have anything a lot written on that yet, but I think that's one that we're gonna have to you know try to take a look at.

6:08

So do you have any questions about this?

6:11

Community for the lifetime.

6:14

Any comments about what you think this how you like it?

6:19

Uh, and again, you've got you'll have one, you've got one in your email, so we'll want you to take a look at that.

6:26

You also sent it to us.

6:28

Yes, so there's you've you've had sort of there's been a couple drafts come through.

6:35

So you this is the latest one, just off the press.

6:40

Kate did it this afternoon.

6:42

Dave, I think you had a question.

6:43

Yeah, it looks good.

6:44

I'm gonna appreciate your work on the graphics and pulling together in more readable format, so it's looking better and better, Carol.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting

Senior Services█████████████████████████████████████████████70%

Public Engagement████████████19%

Transportation Safety███4%

Fiscal Sustainability██3%

Youth Programs█2%

Community Engagement█2%

Summary of Proceedings

Mayor's Advisory Commission on Senior Living Meeting - September 23, 2026

The Mayor's Advisory Commission on Senior Living met on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 6:00 PM. Chair Carol Applegate led the meeting with members Anna Stout, Tammy Heaney, John Schuler, John O'Donnell, and Dave Morgan present. The commission reviewed the draft action plan for the age-friendly community designation, received transportation updates, and focused planning for the upcoming intergenerational connection conference.

Discussion Items

Action Plan Update Chair Applegate presented the draft action plan developed over the past few years. She noted it is not final and continues to be a working document. The plan includes sections on housing, transportation, civic engagement, community health, respect and social inclusion, and sustainability/emergency procedures (added after the recent flood). The application to the AARP for age-friendly community designation has been completed and submitted. AARP review in Washington D.C. is expected to take two to four weeks. Chair Applegate expressed hope for designation before the conference but acknowledged it is uncertain.

Transportation Report John Schuler reported on a meeting with Hamilton County Express. Key developments:

In November, Roger McMichael will present a request to the school board to allow fueling of Hamilton County Express buses at the 126th Street fuel depot. The request is expected to pass without obstruction.
Several buses have high mileage (265,000 miles) and increasing repair costs. Commissioner Mark Herbrand will raise the issue at the next commissioner's meeting. The possibility of purchasing smaller retired Carmel buses (which have lower mileage) to expand the fleet was discussed.
A newspaper article promoting Hamilton County Express for seniors is pending. Once published, usage numbers can be tracked.
Regarding the conference, Hamilton County Express cannot reserve buses but will accommodate ride requests on a first-come, first-served basis.

Conference Planning The conference theme is Intergenerational Connection. It will be held at University High School (Fairbanks Hall) on Thursday, October 17, 2026 (during fall break, so school is not in session). Layout includes first-floor classrooms (seating 24-30) and second-floor larger rooms (accessible by stairs). Parking is abundant on flat land. The agenda:

9:00 AM: Registration, coffee, and sweets
9:30-10:00 AM: Opening remarks by Mayor and Councilman Rich Taylor
10:00 AM: Keynote speaker Dr. Carolyn Gurner, IU Kelley School of Business, focusing on intergenerational connection and later a breakout session on loneliness
11:00 AM: Dr. Bastani on healthy living from a young age
Lunch donated by Traditions at Solano (box lunches)
Breakout sessions (seven confirmed, hoping for eight to ten): grandparenting, intergenerational housing, retired firefighter service, government involvement, neuroscience, yoga, AI, and possibly caregiving or memory loss support.
3:00-4:00 PM: Summary session with storytelling from older and younger generations (e.g., a grandparent and a college-bound student).

As of the meeting, only 35 people had registered. Last year's attendance was 185. Promotion efforts so far include an ad in the paper, an article scheduled for tomorrow, Carmel News, the city website, emails to last year's attendees (sent twice), and University High School's grandparent outreach. Chair Applegate asked each member to recruit at least 10 attendees. Members noted that walking people through the QR code registration helps, and providing specific conference details (rather than a generic flyer) increases interest. The registration system is RSVPi; texting was not used due to legal concerns but may be reconsidered.

Budget

Total commission budget this year: $10,000; $7,800 remains unspent.
Leftover from last year's conference: $5,400.
Major expenses: keynote speaker ($3,000, negotiable), table/chair rental ($2,000 if over 90 attendees), food (minimal, with donations), AV equipment (provided free by school).
A $2,500 donation was received from a school trustee. Additional sponsorships are being sought from local businesses.

Other

A recommendation was made to include the conference in city council meeting announcements and on the housing department website.
Chair Applegate shared a leftover ticket for the Art Garfunkel concert (postponed due to illness) for any member interested.

Key Outcomes

The action plan will continue to be refined and reviewed at future meetings; no formal approval was taken.
The AARP application has been submitted; designation decision expected within 2-4 weeks.
Transportation efforts are progressing with Hamilton County Express; next meeting on October 14th.
The conference is scheduled for October 17th; members committed to promoting registration and seeking sponsorships.
No formal votes were taken during the meeting. Meeting adjourned at 6:38 PM.

Meeting Transcript

Okay, I'll call this meeting to order. This is the um this is Wednesday, September the 23rd, and this is the mayor's advisory commission on senior living, and I'm Carol Applegate, the chairman of this committee. I have Anna Stout here. I have Tammy Heaney, John Schuler, and John O'Donnell here and some others in the audience. So I welcome you to our meeting tonight. First of all, I'm going to talk about our old business that we had. And I'm going to start with I've got a couple things on the agenda, which was approval of the action plan and also review of the completed application, the survey results in our action plan to ARP. And we're not going to be able to act on and approve our action plan tonight, but I'm going to move over to the camera, and I want to at least show you where we are with this, and we'll go. Hi Dave, Dave Morgan is joining us as well. So glad to see you, Dave. So I'm going to move over here and show you a little bit what we have and where we're going with this. So I'm happy to announce that we have this is our action plan that we have worked on so diligently over the last few years, and I think you're going to be satisfied and happy with what we have done so far. I will say this is not the final form. We still have some work to do. It's been a difficult, and if any of you know, we've had a flood in the meantime as well here in Carmel. So that's taken a lot of our our staff time to work with that. But so I'm just going to go through this. You I think Kate did send this out to each of you in your emails before you came tonight. So but this is basically what it's going to be looking like. So I think you're going to be real pleased with this. We have all of our different areas that we're really concentrating on. Then we have a letter from the mayor. Yeah. Yeah, we got the administrative report in here as well. All right. So this is our our mayor's summary from the mayor. And also then I did do a at the suggestion, I think of Dave was to do an administrative sort of a summary of what we went the process we went through and how we came up with what we did. So that's our administrative report. And then I'm not going to go through this in great detail because you all have it. And that's just a continuation of what our administrative report says. The important thing is this says our goal is to add life to our to the years that our seniors have here. So we're not just adding years, but we want to give them something important for them to work on. And then our mission statement. So we have the housing, and I've tried to back it up with what we our statistics from our survey and what those recommendations were, and then our tactics and action steps, and some of our recommendations are potential partners. Now we in our retreat didn't get to look at that real closely. So I just put a lot of these things in here so that we could potential. And remember, this action plan is a document, it's a working document. It's not that we're we're we're gonna finish this and it's gonna be done. We're gonna look at it every single year, and as we go through in every meeting that we have in the future, we'll go through some of these. So and then more and importantly, what are our measures of success? How do we know we're being successful in this? Um just going through some of these. Our transportation. Our transportation, John, I think you'll like that picture of some of our Hamilton County Express buses, our work, civic engagement and entrepreneurship, community health. And we did talk, I think David is your recommendation we talk a little bit about our senior center. So I did include that and finally put that in there as well. Um so what we'd like to do with that. Our respect and social inclusion, community engagement, which we're gonna be talking a little bit about our conference, and then I think one that we may want to look at, especially after we've had the flood, is that and I added this with sustainable sustainability in our emergency procedures because that really brings up it was brought to light with our flood. And I thought, and I don't have anything a lot written on that yet, but I think that's one that we're gonna have to you know try to take a look at. So do you have any questions about this?

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