President John Remias called the regular meeting of the Residents’ Council [the Council] to order at 3:00 pm on Tuesday February 6, 2024. 85 people were in attendance including association members; Residents’ Council members minus four; Leslie Johnson, Charlestown Associate Executive Director; Jay Spivey, Director General Services; Gladstone James, Finance Director; and Pat Kasuda, Charlestown Representative, Board of Directors.
The Council observed a moment of silence for those who have passed away.
Previously distributed minutes of the January 2 meeting of the Residents’ Council meeting were approved as presented.

Moment of Silence
Before I ask for a moment of silence, I would like to share a few words about some real challenges that we, the Residents’ Council members, are facing:
Just as all of Charlestown is a family, so we too are a family.
First, one of us, our Treasurer, Diane Dunaway, has had 5 surgeries in the last year and is still recovering from the last one. Second, one of us, our Finance committee chair, John Yoder has lost a brother, a brother-in-law, and most recently his sister, in the last four months or so. Third, one of us, our Housekeeping chairman’s wife, Joy Petix, fell down a long set of stairs at their home on the Eastern Shore, and broke her pelvis and sustained many other injuries and is currently rehabbing in Wilton Overlook. My apologies if I have missed anyone.
Now, I ask for a moment of silence for these members of our Residents’ Council family and all the rest of Charlestown’s family that have suffered a lost or are seriously ill.
Mission Moment
Donna Chesson had heard so many comments and comments about Mary Marshall that she began writing some of them down.
Here are some of the things that Donna wrote down:
• When a resident moved from Independent Living to Caton Woods, Mary was there to help with the move and continues to keep in touch with her.
• Mary has brought meals to residents after surgery.
• Then she made sure that people got out to the dining rooms again, walking slowly to encourage their mobility and sociability.
• She has picked up mail when a resident was out of town.
• Mary is a dependable, much loved dog walker.
You get the idea. Mary brings joy to others and is appreciated for just being herself. THANK YOU, Mary!! You have certainly exhibited the Erickson Values of Respect, Caring, Responsibility, Friendliness and Enthusiasm.
Executive Team Reports
John Remias, President
I thought I would give you a mid-term State of the Council report. We have 12 standing committees, and they are all functioning at a high level, as you will hear over the next 45 minutes or so.
In addition, right now, we have two specially appointed committees. One is a committee to update our Residents’ Council Policies and Procedures which have needed updating for a few years. This committee is chaired by Past Council President Pat Rudolph. The committee is about to present their updated recommendations to our full Council very soon. This will not affect you, but the changes will have a positive impact on the functioning of our Council.
The other special committee that I have appointed is the Residents’ Council Nominating and Elections committee. You will hear more about it at the end of our committee reports.
Additionally, in cooperation with the Administration we have organized a Design Review committee that will help the Administration in choosing more appropriate carpeting, wall colors, furniture and the like for future renovations. Right now, I am in the process of recruiting just a couple more residents for this committee to help with the St. Charles upcoming renovations. If you are interested in working on this effort, please see me after the meeting OR send me an email OR give me a call. My contact information is in MyErickson.
Diana Dunaway, Treasurer
Balance – December 2023 $7,805.53
Revenue $ 8.00 – 2023 Dues
Expenses $ 34.96
Balance – January 2024 $7,778.57

January 2024 Expenses Details
Resident Life $ 34.96 — Card Stock & Invitations
$ 34.96

Committee Reports
Benevolent Care, Carol Kefford
2023 was a year of record giving: $1,349,421.00. Of that $589,476 was realized gifts and $759, 945 was from donations and events. The Treasure Sale brought in $236,582 (82%- $183,017 went to Benevolent Care Fund (BCF). Next year 85% of Treasure Sale proceeds will go to BCF. The ruby gala raised $152,000 net (Board appeal $60,000). Unrealized planned gifts were $258,175.
Benevolent Care Fund expenses were down, just over a million, so for the first time in recent history, more funds came in than were expended. Thank you everyone.
In 2024, the focus will remain on planned giving. We will continue to hold “Get the Scoop Events” to discuss planned. The goal is 40 new planned gifts in 5 years) or before the 45th celebration. We also hope to increase the number of persons participating in the Treat of the Quarter.
Next meeting: February 28, 2025,2:00 via Zoom.
Communications, David Elder and Larry Taylor, Co-chairs
Communications and Website Committees will continue to assist Charlestown Residents with ongoing ComcastThe Charlestown Comcast bulk service contract provides basic HD television in the apartments. Address your concerns to General Services. See more information about apartment television and television connections. READ MORE issues. When contacting Xfinity [1-855-638-2855] be sure to verify that you are speaking with BULK SERVICES.
Gregory Johnson continues to work with Comcast/Xfinity to determine what our Residents are entitled to as part of our Bulk Services contract. He is currently awaiting Comcast’s reply. He is continuing to collaborate with individual Residents to resolve Comcast/Xfinity issues.
Gregory also told us about the ongoing mis-delivery & dumping of packages. He would like Residents to report those type of problems to the Communications Department when they occur.
Communications Committee with the Support of the Website Committee will continue to assist Charlestown Residents with Updating their MyErickson Resident Directory Entries to also include a Resident Photo.
Myron Foster, IT Manager, provided an update to his IT Tech Support Staff. Dennis Scurry is now IT Site Analyst and the newest member to this team, IT Site Coordinator.
Additional Note – the quarterly Erickson Tech Bar will be on the 15th of this month from 10 am. to 12 noon. The location is at the Chesapeake Restaurant.

Readability of Slides posted on 972 was discussed. This issue will be reviewed by Community Resources and our Website committee.
We cannot express the importance for Charlestown Residents to visit our Council Website at https://ccicharlestown.org to see what is going on at Charlestown through the eyes of fellow residents.
Next meeting: Monday February 26, at 2:00, via Zoom.

Conservation, Mark Buehlman
Our January meeting with information from our Recycling/Reuse Sub-committee. While there is a lot of information available to residents on traditional recycling material, questions do come up on more non-traditional items such as cell phones. While we don’t recycle cell phones at Charlestown, Best Buy will recycle them.
The 2024 Maryland Legislative Session is well under way. In cooperation with the Legislative & Political Committee, we are tracking Maryland proposed environmental legislation, commenting, and lobbying where appropriate.
In Maryland we often take abundant freshwater for granted. That’s not true for many parts of the country and the world. Our committee started a Freshwater Working Group, to study water usage at Charlestown and to provide practical water conservation tips for both residents and Administration. These tips will be published in a May Sunburst article.
We also began a Sustainable Energy Working Group, to study sustainable energy options at Charlestown. This is a complex topic, and the best solutions may be surprising. For example, approximately 40% of the energy from our current supplier of electricity already comes from carbon-free sources.
Next meeting: Tuesday, February 20, 2024, at 2:00 pm in Brookside Classroom 1.
Dining , Peggy Carey and Stephanie Leddy, Co-Chairs
Comments from Ken Zahn:
• When the new static menus come out, there will be no specials that week to allow the kitchens to adjust to all the new menu items.
• New fruit specials are in addition to the fruit cup. They will be available as a side, or dessert. Some will be whole fruit or selection of a fruit, such as grapes.
• Zack Parks is the new Catering Manager with Valerie promoted into his former role. Ashley Wright, formerly line cook, has been promoted to Catering Coordinator.
• Small Plates – Chef Zack I brand new exec and 3 new Sous chefs.
• Chef Robert is on loan and is Executive Chef at Atrium
• Tablet issues: There is no news except that they are looking for the best solution across Erickson communities.
• CERVY has left the building after deciding it wasn’t the best use of resources.
• We are encouraging people to use the QR codes. This past month the numbers dropped from 1100 responses to 750.
Fireside – As a result of this discussion regarding the MLK brunch menu, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage were added.
Terrace – Consistency remains an issue and salads are still too wet.
Dietary Focus – A Special Guest, Dr. Bart Colbert, spoke on Food/Medication and Medication/Medication interactions. If interested, contact Kate Hauser about getting a copy of his charts.
The next meeting: February 19, at 1:30 in Charlestown Square 116.
Finance, John Yoder
• Charlestown finances remain strong. For the year, operating income (revenue minus expense) was about $2 million above budget. Non-operating income (investments) benefitted from improved market performance.
• Billed occupancies:
o Independent Living – Dec. = 95.2%; Average for year = 94.6%
o Assisted Living – Dec. = 96.7%; Average for year = 98.1%
• Fourteen residents were receiving Benevolent Care funds at the end of December.
Benevolent Care took in about $200,000 more contributions for the year than was spent to support recipients.
• Recurring Question: Occupancy vs. Census: Why doesn’t Charlestown report the number of residents living here instead of percentages of occupancy?
o Census is interesting but it’s only loosely connected to finance, e.g. institutions with large enrollments that are in a shaky financial health, and I could show you institutions with a small enrollment that are financially solid. And of course, there is the reverse: there certainly are small institutions with shaky finances and large ones that are solid.
o The key is to connect capacity with census; that’s what “percentage of occupancy” does. It’s the index usually used in communities like ours.
o At Charlestown “capacity” equals the number of units available to be sold at any given time; a number that varies from time to time because smaller units don’t sell well. Charlestown has adopted a policy of combining smaller units into larger ones What matters for finances is not the number of people living here but, the percentage occupied and bringing in monthly payments. “Billable units” has been inching up month over month and at the end of December 2023 was at 95.2%.
The next meeting: February27 at 9:00 in Brookside #1
Grounds, Dick Voelkel
• A controlled deer hunting has begun.
• The Grounds Department will try native clover and red fescue grasses.
• New black outside trash cans.
• Outside benches need painting and some leveling.
• There are scheduling problems for hydro raking of the lake.
• Grounds subcontractor Ruppert contract ends this year.
• Christmas decorations subcommittee report will be sent to the administration.

Next meeting: February 27, at 11am in Brookside classroom 1.

Health Services, Jean Tribulski and Connie Cooney, Co-Chairs
• Continuing Care: Pat Kasuda and Louise Dempsey reported that due to state mandates, masks are again being enforced in Wilton Overlook and Caton Woods.
• Ombudsman Program: Pat Kasuda reported that the Maryland Ombudsman Program is run by the Department of Aging. Each county in Maryland has one Ombudsman person assigned and Charlestown is in Baltimore County. If there is a time when a resident, a resident’s family or a friend of a resident believes that proper care in not being given at a facility, that person can call the Ombudsman and an inspection of the facility, and its program will be initiated. The head of the Ombudsman program will come and speak at our March 12 meeting.
• Maryland State Standard of Care for Assisted Living: since 2016 there have been bills in the Md. Legislative to improve the standards of care. These bills have not progressed through the legislature. While there are standard codes to be met, these are not laws. Attention will be paid during this legislative session to help insure passage of these Bills.
• CDC reports that the Flu and Covid cases are increasing in the country and in Maryland, but the RSV cases are decreasing.
• Falls Committee: the program scheduled for January 22 has been moved to February 28, 2024.
• The medication take back on January was very successful. We will have another in April.
• Kristen Aybar, Home Care Administrator, along with Capri White-Coleman and Shannon Scranton will speak in February on the roles and the valuable services which they offer to our residents.

Next meeting is February 13 at 11:00 am in Classroom BR 1

Housekeeping, Sebastian Petix
• Contractor debris and noise issues continue to be a problem.
• Harbor View loading dock doors are often left open.
• Management continues to have staff shortages.
• The recycling schedule will not change.
• See something not in order? Report the issue:
To: CCIWORKORDERS@ERICKSON.COM
Copy: joysib@aol.com for follow-up to your request
Next meeting is March 18 at 10:00 in Brookside 1.
Legislative/Political, Paulette Hammond and Art Johnson, Co-Chairs
The committee discussed the possibility of holding Candidate Forum with General Election Candidates – contact Paulette Hammond if you wish to be involved.
To tracking of bills: go to ccicharlestown.org; go to Maryland Bills Tracked 2024; and then Click on “read more.” We are tracking nearly 20 Election Law and Voting Bills Thank you, Hope Tillman for maintaining this site and keeping it up to date as she receives information — as she has done in past years.
Bills of Specific Interest:
• Termination of Prescription Drug Benefits for Certain State Government Retirees (SB349) One Republican sponsor, no co-sponsors and no hearing set as of 1/30.
• There is an on-going effort to inform retirees and to lobby legislature — for more information UMBC’s Wisdom Institute has prepared a YouTube PowerPoint video about the Impending Loss of Prescription Drug Benefits. It is an 11-minute video, providing detailed information about this issue. Go to https://wisdom.umbc.edu/health-information/ to see the video.
• Continuing Care Retirement Communities — Governing Bodies, Grievances, and Entrance Fees (HB68 hearing 2/1 and SB76 hearing 2/8)
• End of Life (SB443 hearing 2/8)
The next meeting: February 14 at 10 in Brookside Classroom #1
Maintenance and Engineering, Jerry Donaldson
Open action Items were reviewed with the following summary:
• Caton Ridge building renovations are expected to be completed by the end of the first Quarter of 2024.
• The contract for elevator replacement in Chapel Court has been signed with Otis and the Grounds Department is working with Otis to get a start date.
• The repair of the St. Charles to Herbert’s Run bridge support washout; the replacement of the wooden bridge on the Nature Walking Trail; and the replacement of the roadway wooden guardrails are all waiting for permits from Baltimore County.
• A solution for the high noise levels for an HVAC unit at Courtyard Crossing has been identified and is in the process of final testing.

Jason Spivey, Director of General Services, briefed this Committee on the status of the Water Intrusion issue. He reported that AJ Adams has completed their evaluation (survey) of the Brookside complex and have submitted their report and recommendations. Their report is currently being evaluated and residents from this Committee are participating in the evaluation.
Mr. Spivey also reported that General Services is continuing the unannounced Response Drills along with continued Employee and Contractor training.
With respect to the Charlestown clogged gutters issue, General Services has concluded that the most effective and practical solution is to either contract an outside service to clean the gutters when required, or to install gutter guards. They will evaluate both options in terms of cost and effectiveness and the results of that evaluation will form the basis for the 2024 Charlestown Gutter Cleaning Plan.
The signage Sub-Committee had its initial meeting and will brief this Committee at our next meeting.
Addition items that were discussed:
• A reminder to snowplow drivers to take more care not to block parked cars in their parking spaces,
• There is a broken exit door on the fourth floor of Chapel Court,
• The Edgewood hot water is off following a power failure,
• The roof of the bridge between Buildings 8 & 9 is leaking,
• A handrail is needed along the sidewalk in front of Courtyard Crossing entrance due to the slope change as you go downhill.
The next meeting: February 27, in the General Services Conference Room at 2:00 PM

Resident Life, Nancy Fayer and Margaret Vincent, Co-Chairs
• Tapestry DIB program held its seventh residents’ listening session on January 24, 10-11:30 PM in Atrium. 40 table hosts and residents participated. The next listening session will be on March 25, at Charlestown square, in Lounge area adjacent to the bar. Attendance is by invitation and by neighborhood.

• Dine Together BYO supper group for new and almost new residents, was held 5–6:30 PM on Monday, February 5, in the Cross Creek Arts and Craft room. 12 New residents participated. It is led by Marie Skane. For those of you who are new to Charlestown, this is an easy and fun way to get to know other new residents. The next Dine Together will be March 4.

• The Charlestown Photo Book Feasibility survey was distributed to all residents Jan 16 and was to be returned by February 2. The resulting data is currently being analyzed.

• Another photo project, the Erickson on-line Photo Directory, is a joint project of the Resident Life and the Communications Committees. The Communication committee is offering to help residents load their photos into the Photo Directory as they wait in line to be helped at the Tech Bar on February 15. Just stop and they will show you how to do it. All Residents’ Council members have their photo in My EricksonMy Erickson is a resident portal. It is provided by Erickson Corporate and is managed by Charlestown staff, mainly Community Resources. See Portal. READ MORE Photo Directory, and you can do it too.

• At the January 17 Resident Life Committee meeting, the Committee faced a difficult decision. After a 9 -month effort to sustain the Resident DIB subcommittee, the Resident Life Committee deactivated the Resident DIB subcommittee, with the hope that it may be activated again in the future. This action does not affect the status Tapestry DIB or Ageism/Ableism.

• The revised biannual Resident Handbook is being printed and will be available to residents in February.

• Dir. Karen Leighton introduced her initiative to increase harmonious living at Charlestown. More details of this initiative will be coming soon.

Next RL meeting: February 21 at 2:00 in BR 2

Safety and Security, Ed Appel
Our January meeting was devoted to the completion of a briefing by Craig Nelson, Security Manager, and Shawn White, Assistant Security Manager, on Charlestown Security. The briefing included Charlestown Security organization, operations, equipment, training and communications. 95% of our Security officers are trained as Emergency Medical Responders.
Once again, we were impressed with the organization and operations of our Security department.
A reminder to all of us: We can all help Security by reporting incidents and observations of concern. If you see something, say something.
NOW A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: On Thursday, February 22nd, there will be a special presentation on the Baltimore County 911 system. It will be at 1:00 p.m. in the Auditorium. And it is sponsored jointly by our Security department, ELLIC, and our Residents’ Council Safety committee. This is a presentation that you should not miss. Come early.
Next meeting: Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 1:00 in Charlestown Square classroom CTS

Nominations and Elections, Mark Buehlman and Joe Carrick
Along with Joe Carrrick, I’m Co-Chair of the Residents’ Council Nominating Committee for 2024.
In addition to Joe and myself and me, we have a strong team consisting of Peg Buehlman, Pat Kasuda, Pat Rudolph, Jean Eichenlaub, Wendel Thompson, and Mary Lee Seaman. We are seeking nominees for the Residents’ Council.

Council Members serve for three-year terms on a rolling basis. Seven members will retire at the end of this August and will need to be replaced by qualified candidates. The committee tries to recruit twice that number to give all residents a choice and to be able to fill unexpected vacancies that arise during the year.
Please be open to a call and consider serving on a Council that lets residents have a voice in making Charlestown the best possible place to live at this stage in our lives. Also, please consider who among your friends and acquaintances might make a good candidate and let any member of the committee know.

Questions and Answers from Leslie Johnson
I want to start off by sharing an email that a resident sent to Don, and he always shares those with me and the leaders because we’d love to recognize our teams and thank you for taking the time to recognize our staff because we love to share and celebrate the great things that go on. “Hi, Don. I’m sending this email to recognize one of the employees here at Charlestown His name is Rob hunter. A few weeks ago, he assisted me with a problem I was having with my car. Apparently, he was out taking an afternoon walk on his break when I asked him for help. I had been trying to jumpstart my car with a system that my son gave me at Christmas. I attempted this on my own twice, unsuccessfully. Rob very graciously took the time to help me out and he was even going to walk to his car and bring it with his cables to give me a jumpstart but with his help that was not required. That day he was an angel on an afternoon walk. Now thanks to him I know how to handle it myself in the future. Please extend my thanks to Rob once again. I’m not sure he knows how very; very grateful I was for his help.”

Update on COVID activity: Of course, Cold Flu and COVID season is not over. And as you heard earlier in the Health Services Committee, the CDC is seeing and we’re still seeing numbers climb unfortunately. So just a gentle reminder again, please if you’re not feeling well, please stay home. Please call your medical provider and to see if he/she recommends that you test. There are also treatments out there such as the antiviral packs for COVID If it’s warranted for you. If you must go out, please wear a mask. It was also mentioned that in Wilton Overlook and Caton Woods we are requiring the staff to wear surgical masks. We continue to be cautious of an outbreak in continuing care. So currently in continuing care, there is one positive COVID resident and we have one positive employee. In independent living we have 19 positive reported cases. We don’t track the trends like we did during the pandemic. When cases are reported to us, we do monitor and track because we’re looking for any connections, any patterns and we would act accordingly.

There was so much talk about the Resident Satisfaction Survey over the last year. This council was tremendous in helping get the word out and helping me with participation, specifically in continuing care. We have received the results and are working through them. We have a thick binder in the office with the verbatims and we are reading every single one. We hope to be able to share those results with you in February at our Residents’ Townhall. We are pleased with the improvements that we’ve seen, but we’ll share those results with you. And then we’ll work like we did over the last year partnering with the Residence Council to develop an action plan with those measurable goals so that we can measure our improvement throughout the year just like we did this past year.

Regarding the historic we had an update meeting at the Residents’ Townhall. We shared some slides, and we had a lot of questions, so we shared them again and we did have a neighborhood chat in the historic district. There are coming up there with that big project. Beginning February 15, the refectory space will be closed and will no longer use that space for meetings or activities. You’ll start to see some furniture being moved out of there as we preparation of the area for construction and then close to the end of the month or early in March. You will see the actual construction begin. They’re going to build a temporary corridor but, you will still be able to access the link from the refectory space to Continuing Care. But they will start to put up a temporary corridor so that construction can occur behind the wall, and I’m told that they’re going to put up a viewing window so we can all stand and see the progress.

Another ongoing project is in Edgewood where the second-floor carpet is being replaced. That’s a high traffic area that doesn’t hold up in all the normal life cycle rotations. That project has started this week.

AJ Adams finished their assessment of the plumbing systems in Brookside. They’ve given us that report and we have a lot to absorb. There two big takeaways though from that report. Number one, our HVAC system is one of the most solid systems in the industry from a maintenance and a durability perspective. We’re pleased to hear that. The other part is a lot of concern about the PVC piping in our buildings, which is old. The other positive thing that came out of the report is that our piping is good. But there were a lot of recommended solutions in this report that we must work through. As we shared earlier 80% of these large loop line incidents were because of human error. The focus will continue to be on training and those unprepared drills. It’s not just our staff that are a part of that we are looping the contractors as well into these unannounced roles. We will continue to do that because that is how we can best mitigate the impact. These other solutions in the proposals will help us prevent and mitigate and limit the amount of damage, but we will continue to focus on that training as well. We met this morning with Mr. Remias and Mr. Donaldson to go through that report. And we’ll continue to review and we’re moving towards coming up with what is the best recommendation and solution for Charlestown.

The Design Review Committee: Mr. Remias just mentioned we have committed to staying ahead of projects and trying to get feedback from residents along the way. We met with the design review committee to help us achieve that goal. I thought the residents were very open about their understanding that we must be mindful of finances. We own the furniture and just to send it all back and buy brand new just isn’t possible. But we were able to present some options and I just thought it was a great discussion and we came to a solution that I think will make everybody happy. We did the best with what we had. But with this committee we hope to move forward now with St. Charles and then the historic project partnering so that we keep the projects moving.

Just wanted to mention briefly about the ponds that gave us a significant challenge last year with the sediment buildup and algae. There are only two companies in this area that do this type of work. Jay and his team met with one of those companies who provided their recommendations. They are recommending that this work occur in the fall, the best time of year. We’re still going to talk with the other company to get their bids and their recommendations. But I just wanted to mention that because fall truly may be the best time to do that. We will go into facing another spring and summer season with this algae problem are concerned, but we’ll stay on top of it and as we move through the project and confirm our plan moving forward.

And then one last thing I wanted to mention we started a Deaf and Hard of Hearing initiative here at Charlestown. We were a pilot for the enterprise and part of that was implementing or inserting hearing loops in some of our larger meeting spaces. We picked the Gallery as the test site. We would use wiring around the room and that sends a signal for anyone that is using an assistive device like a hearing aid, and it helps improve the sound quality and the hearing experience in that area. The upshot of the tests was that we found a successful solution. We’re happy about that. So now we’ll be planning the implementation of it which means taking the Gallery offline for a little bit. We’ll look at the meetings and events that are scheduled now for the best time, but very excited that that will be moving forward, and we’ll get you those dates when we know.

Respectively submitted,
Nancy Meier, Residents’ Council Secretary