South East Regional Coordinating Council

July 16, 2014

Attendees: Sarah Alden, Bill Shine, Angie Azevedo, Jo Yasaian, Rachel Fichtenbaum, Aniko Laszlo, AbrilNovoa-Camino, Joanne Laferrara, Mary Basilone, Janet Richardi, Cindy Curran, Julie Boren, Margaret Chaisson, Stephen Salwak, Anne Bisson

Introductions

  • Joanne LaFerrara welcomed the group.
  • Attendees introduced themselves. Abril Novoa-Camino is a new staff person at MassDOT, so she introduced herself to the group.
  • Julie asked everyone to check their email address, as some emails she sent to the group bounced.

CHST Plan(see SMMPO handout)

  • Angie Azevedo presented SRPEDD’s plans for updating the Coordinated Human Service Transportation (CHST) plan.
  • Federal transit law requires that these plans be locally developed by Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). The MPO is made up of elected officials and municipal leaders. SRPEDD acts as the staff to the MPO by developing the draft plan, which the MPO reviews and approves.
  • SRPEDD previously created the CHST plan in 2008. However, the plan needs to be updated to conform to new federal transportation legislation. MassDOT has asked all regional planning agencies across the state to update their plans by the end of November 2014 so that organizations can review the updated plans before applying for Community Transit Grant Program funding in late January or early February 2015.
  • The SRPEDD CHST plan will cover the SRPEDD area, which includes all 10 SRTA towns and the “middle chunk” of GATRA’s service area. The rest of GATRA’s service area will be included in the OCPC and MAPC CHST plans. Angie will email her contacts at OCPC and MAPC to make sure that themes that emerge from the GATRA area are reflected in their plans.
  • The CHST plan will include an inventory of services (Ride Match, and maybe text descriptions of types of services), identify service gaps, and outline criteria for evaluation. The list of service gaps can be broad and does not need to be extremely detailed.
  • The CHST plan will include the RCC’s work plus any other relevant work.
  • Updating the CHST plan includes public outreach and stakeholder involvement. Public meetings will likely be held in September and either October or early November.

Minutes from June Meeting

  • Mary Basilone will serve as RCC Secretary instead of Rachel
  • Margaret’s last name was misspelled
  • Once updated to reflect these changes, the minutes are accepted

Policies & Procedures(see draft)

  • The group decided to change its name to “South East RCC” since GATRA is one stakeholder but is not in charge of the group
  • “SERCC” for short
  • “South East” will be defined as the GATRA service area
  • The RCC may meet as often as monthly but will meet at least quarterly
  • Julie will update the draft to reflect these changes

Listing of Medical Facilities (see handout)

  • Angie reported that it was hard to find contact people who deal with transportation for many of the medical facilities. In particular, some office buildings house multiple medical practitioners, but the practitioners do not work together.
  • What other facilities should Angie add to the list?
  • Cancer treatment centers
  • Types of medical care where people have to go every day
  • Saint Anne’s in Fall River
  • Manet – opening a new healthcare center in Taunton
  • Possibly assisted living & nursing homes
  • Angie will follow up with Melanie from Bristol Elder Services
  • Other contacts to invite to the forum
  • Councils on Aging
  • Public health nurses
  • Aging and Disability Resource Center
  • ASAPs
  • Veterans’ Service Officers
  • Community social workers
  • Angie will update the spreadsheet next week

Medical Forum(see draft agenda for forum)

  • We will aim for November 6, from 9 to 11 AM at the Holiday Inn
  • Need to confirm that the Holiday Inn is available
  • Aniko can get statistics for this region from a DPH study, to share at the forum
  • GATRA can pay for breakfast at the forum
  • We could assign seats and have people discuss with their tables and then report out at the end. This has worked well at past forums. We could do seating arrangements so that each table has some medical facility representatives, transportation providers, COAs, etc.
  • We should capture everyone’s contact info so we can be sure the conversations are ongoing, since we won’t resolve everything at the forum
  • Try to get about 50 attendees
  • Make sure the title & description speak to the correct audience – so that medical facilities know this is targeted to them

Medical Facilities Survey (see draft)

  • Ask if the vehicles are accessible
  • Aim to get the survey out October 16 so that it is not so far in advance of the forum that everyone has forgotten about it
  • It will be on survey monkey online
  • The survey will only go to medical facilities, although we will invite transportation providers & agencies to the forum as well

Joint Meeting with South Coast & Brockton Area RCCs

  • Frank wants to schedule this soon
  • Julie will attend as SERCC Chair

Next Meeting: August 26, 9-11 AM

Tentative location: SRPEDD, 88 Broadway, Taunton