APPT-2024-22 : Appointment of Philip Hermann to the Council on Aging, 83 East Foster Street, for a three year term, said term to expire the last day of February 2027.

Transcript (~6 min @ 1:39)

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▶ 1:32 Cal Finocchiaro: Tonight on our agenda, we have three appointments. The first appointment is appointment 2024 dash 22. Appointment of Philip Herman to the Council on Aging 83 East Foster Street for a three year term, said to expire the last day of February, 2027. And without objection, I will motion to suspend Rule 37 B. This will allow non-cost members to speak at this time.

▶ 1:59 Speaker 1: 37 B is now suspended. Thank you.

▶ 2:06 Jen Grigoraitis: Good Evening, counselors. Madam Chair.

▶ 2:09 Speaker 1: Mayor. Here we go.

▶ 2:15 Jen Grigoraitis: I'm pleased to present to you tonight, um, Phil Herman for consideration to the Council on Aging. And I do also want to acknowledge that we have Erica Brown, our Council on Aging director in the audience to support these appointments in Reappointments. Um, Mr. Herman is a regular at the Milano Center and is an active participant in the painting classes. And he and his partner are, um, aficionados of the arts and are, he really brings a wealth of ideas and sort of a new lens to how we can engage some of our older residents. So I'm really thrilled to have him here tonight, and I'll turn it over to you to say anything.

▶ 2:47 Speaker 3: Hi. Hello everyone. Uh, I've been a resident of Melrose for 34 years, and in that period of time I've been able to move into senior activities. So initially when I came into the town, I worked on volunteering on with different organizations. So I like the Human Rights Commission. I was one of the founding members of the recycling committee, and I was the, uh, co-president of the Recycling Committee with Bob Costa. I don't know if you guys remember Bob Costa, but he passed away a few years ago. And, uh, I also tried to do, uh, a lot of stuff once I became active for about 15 years at the senior center, taking watercolor classes and also learning how to do caneing and also doing some ballroom dancing. So I felt that I should give back to the senior center since I spent so many years there trying to learn new activities or new crafts. And I still take, uh, watercolor classes there for with, uh, brother Ed Rice, which is just a wonderful class. And it reaches out to like 30 people every week to learn how to paint. And, you know, we have all kinds of different results. But today I just finished a painting at home and I had to cut it up into scrap paper because I messed it up at the end. But that's what happened. Somebody said, to be an artist means to take risk, and I took too big a risk. Um, you know, I've had some new ideas for implementation at the senior center. One of them is we never had the seniors participate in a Melrose wide art show. And we do have a lot of seniors who have artistic talent. So we were thinking that, uh, Eric and I had been talking about, you know, setting up an art show in the BB and probably also in the Milano Center. And, uh, one of the crazy ideas I had was that maybe we should have a system-wide, uh, game competition. It turns out we have people who come in, you know, and play Scrabble and Checkers and so on. But Wakefield and Stoneham Senior Center have a group of people who play the same games. So we were thinking maybe we could run sort of an Olympiad of all these seniors getting together and playing. So I, about a week ago, I got in front of our game group and I threw it out to them and they started to complain already saying, well, what if they're too good? We won't win any games. They said, well, that's what happens in the Olympics sometimes. So that's, you know, I, I have a, a great sense of humor. At least my wife tells me that when, uh, she's not mad at me. And, uh, as I was telling Erica that, well, they have to put me on this committee because they've already, they've already given me the mug where it says, Melrose Council on Aging on it. And I have it at home. And I'm still trying to figure out how to open it and close it because it has one of these tops, you know, that's difficult to maneuver. But, uh, I think I will enjoy being on this committee.

▶ 6:20 Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. You, um,

▶ 6:22 Speaker 3: I don't want to talk too long 'cause I know you have the exciting budget coming up.

▶ 6:28 Cal Finocchiaro: Well, we, we appreciate your willingness to step forward and be, be a part of the, the Council on Aging and volunteering your Time. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Herman?

▶ 6:38 Kimberly Vandiver: Yeah, no questions, but I, I love your enthusiasm and all the ideas, and I think It'll be a great Thank you.

▶ 6:43 Speaker 3: Great addition.

▶ 6:46 Speaker 1: Any other questions? Okay.

▶ 6:49 Cal Finocchiaro: Um, seeing there are no other questions, what is the will of the committee

▶ 6:56 Cal Finocchiaro: Motion to Recommend Second Motion to recommend by President me Exofficio seconded by, uh, councilor Vandiver.

▶ 7:06 Speaker 1: Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

▶ 7:10 Cal Finocchiaro: Okay. This motion carries will be moved to the next full City Council meeting. Um, Mr. Herman, you do not need to appear at this full council meeting, but of course you're welcome to if you so wish.

▶ 7:23 Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you Everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you.

▶ 7:26 Speaker 5: Additions taking place. We'll place some bets. Okay.