03-27-2012 CC RPT 08 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Em VI. Goals for 2012 • Goals for the coming year were narrowed to three to enable the Commission to: 1. Focus our time and efforts more specifically, 2. To begin the process of working on behalf of seniors in individual neighborhoods, 3. To help meet the Mayor's goal of engaging senior citizens in City activities. To determine which three goals were both the most critical and had the most opportunity for success, Commissioners spent time discussing concerns of the various seniors who attend our meetings with experts out in the community, gathering data to help us make effective decisions. We meet with the Mayor, with representatives from the Office on Aging, with Ralph Nunez at the Parks, Recreation &Community Services Department, with the directors of various senior centers in the City, and with several members of the City Council. What we learned helped us narrow our list of potential projects to the following three: • First, a focus on fitness & "senior community building" that will dove -tail with the City's work of expanding and improving its bicycle paths and creating a senior bicycling group. We will partner with the City's consultant in order to designate portions of existing bicycle paths as appropriate for the use of seniors. Beginning with the Ward 7 area, we will work to create simple maps and planned activities to get seniors involved in riding together one neighborhood at a time. • Second, a focus on involving our seniors in the community gardening movement in Riverside. Our goal is to involve seniors and perhaps youngsters in a partnership we've been calling "Old Expertise, Young Knees ". Commissioner Fish has significant background in this area, and is heading this project focusing on 3 -4 fenced area appropriate for community gardens in the City. • Third, we will be working on distributing useful resource information into the hands of seniors in the City. The Parks, Recreation & Community Services Department are working to revise and renew the existing publication, called "Riverside's Guide for People 55 Years and Better." We have collected more extensive guides from other cities and would like to •