Residents’ Council President’s Report March 2024

In last year’s March Sunburst, Past Residents’ Council President Merci Izquierdo-Whitaker wrote about the forthcoming startup of a Falls Prevention program. Well, here we are a year later and as you know, the Preserving Independence program has indeed started with a wonderful introduction just a couple of days ago. Many thanks must be extended to Associate ED Leslie Johnson for her leadership in the effort along with the perseverance of residents Janet Allan, Bill Miller, and Merci and the support of the Residents’ Council Health Services committee. Now, it is up to each one of us to ‘preserve our independence’ with all the help available.

As you heard at the last Town Hall meeting, Admin has received the results of last fall’s Holleran Survey. Though the improvements in the scores for Independent Living (IL) were very significant, there are still opportunities for Admin to improve their services to us. They will be developing their IL Action Plans, which will be reviewed by the Residents’ Council for possible improvements. After that, our committees will be working with Admin to help implement these IL Action Plans where appropriate. Stay tuned for the results of the Holleran Survey related to the Continuing Care (CC) segment of our population. Just as with IL, there will be Action Plans for the CC area with the continued involvement of your Residents’ Council.

You will also have heard of the establishment of what we are calling Design Review (DR) teams to help Admin with the materials selection process of the refurbishment of our buildings with such things as carpeting, wall colors, furniture, lighting and the like. Since it is next up for refurbishment, the St. Charles DR team has been established and has already met once in late February. As part of their efforts, they will be soliciting ideas from other residents. I do hear that some residents feel that “once again St. Charles is being treated specially”. This is not true. After the St. Charles renovation plans are established, we will move on to establishing a Design Review team for the Historic District. And on and on from there.

Finally, several residents were not pleased with the scope of holiday decorations that we had this year. So, a group of residents headed by Board member, Pat Kasuda, and organized as a subcommittee of our Grounds committee, has developed a lengthy list of suggestions for the improvement of THIS year’s (2024) decorations, both inside and outside. After review and approval of our full Council, these suggestions will be submitted to Don and Leslie. We do fully understand that not all the suggestions can/will be implemented in one year, but we do feel that any material improvements will be appreciated and expected.

As you will read in another article here on our RC pages, we have begun the recruitment of candidates for next year’s Residents’ Council. The goal is to get about 15 candidates for our 7 open positions. It should be noted that even though there will only be seven open positions on the Council, if history repeats, we will have some resignations (for medical and other reasons) and those not elected this time will be asked to fill those openings, in the order of their voted position in the election. Please consider joining us or recommend others that you feel could be good candidates.

Just to repeat my motto – ISOLATION is my enemy; SOCIALIZATION is my friend!!

John Remias – Council President