Town staff to consider contracting for a senior coordinator

By Nathan R. Huff

The question of whether to hire a senior services coordinator may already be decided, but the town still hasn't decided how it's going to go about doing so.

Almost three months after the council-appointed senior task force presented its recommendations for improving senior services in Los Gatos, the community services commission submitted its own evaluation of the task force's suggestions.

The commission supported the idea of hiring a senior coordinator, but argued it should be done solely through the town. The task force had suggested a joint venture between the town and Los Gatos-Saratoga Department of Community Education and Recreation. The council has already budgeted $40,000 for hiring a coordinator, with the recreation department, in theory, paying the remainder of the position's salary.

But the community services commission, arguing that the town provides more comprehensive senior services, recommended the coordinator work as a full-fledged town employee. In its report to the council, the commission said doing so would give the town more control over the person's job assignment. It also would ensure the town's "best interests are protected" when the coordinator makes recommendations regarding potential neighborhood improvements.

Acting town manager Jim Piper said, however, that he would also like to look at the possibility of contracting with a local nonprofit, which is the way the town now provides a number of senior services. "I would like some opportunity to look at some alternatives before we commit to hiring a full-time town employee," Piper said.

Regina Falkner, the director of community services, said those options could include hiring a coordinator from another center, or contracting with a nonprofit. "However, they would definitely need to be located [in the neighborhood center]," she said.

John Lochner, former chairman of the now disbanded 21-member task force, said the idea of contacting with an outside person was a new alternative that "certainly could be tried." It would need to be changed, however, Lochner said, if it didn't prove effective.

Lochner was more enthusiastic about the commission's recommendation that the new coordinator work solely as a town employee. "It gives the neighborhood center and community services commission an edge to make sure all of the needs in the community are met," Lochner said. He also applauded the idea of hiring an architect to evaluate the neighborhood center and to develop concepts and budget estimates for making the center more senior-friendly.

Revamping the neighborhood center, which many say lacks warmth and enough dedicated senior spaces, was another key element of the task force's suggestions. The task force was formed last December, after a block of seniors approached the town council, questioning the level of senior services in Los Gatos.

The Task Force was charged with evaluating senior services in Los Gatos and other similar towns and making suggestions for improvements. While the task force stopped short of recommending the town immediately build a dedicated senior center, it made a myriad of suggestions on improving existing services. The cornerstones of the task force's report were hiring a senior coordinator, renovating the neighborhood center, providing case management services and beginning to plan for a new center.

In addition to the $40,000 budgeted for a senior coordinator, the council also agreed to spend $50,000 on case management services. Falkner said the town would put the contract for management services out to bid and would award some type of performance-based contract with annual evaluations. Again, a case manager would operate out of the neighborhood center, though much of the job would be spent visiting clients.

The council accepted the report and the commission's recommendations, but asked that town staff move the process along and hire someone sooner rather than later.

"Through the years I've watched the senior forces get strength and fail, get strength and fail, and it's been kind of miserable to watch that," Councilman Randy Attaway said. "Yet we've never taken a strong role ourselves as a town."

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