Too much talking, not enough help for seniors

As president of the Greater Glendale Council on Aging, I was outraged that frail, sick seniors are once again the big losers in the new Glendale budget.

Since money is scarce, it's always easiest to cut the programs of those who can't speak for themselves.

I decided to show up on June 13 for the City Council meeting to speak for these seniors, and I was amazed to watch democracy in action in Glendale. About half an hour into the meeting I left for about five minutes and when I got back, two policemen were getting ready to cuff a speaker and carry him out. From what I could tell, he was questioning giving so much of the budget money to police and fire and very little to the libraries. Apparently he asked the council if they got campaign contributions from the Fire Department and the Police Department. What happened to the 1st Amendment? And what would Mayor Dave Weaver do to me when I started to complain about the funding cuts to the seniors? Maybe a little jail time?

They spent around an hour on how their expense accounts should be spent, another 45 minutes on salary raises and many minutes arguing about historic preservation. As I sat there listening to these good causes, I was pondering on my elderly clients who have no expense accounts and, in fact, don't have enough money to pay the rent. They have to decide if they should get a medication or buy food this month. Some of these seniors get as little as $500 a month from Social Security, so a nice raise would be very much appreciated. Many seniors in Glendale are being forced out of their apartments due to rising rents, so forget about preserving their historic abodes.

I was also thinking that this "caring council" might not know what a care manager does, and if they did, they might not be so quick to cut the program. So I decided I was going to tell them when my time came to speak. I was going to tell them about a 62-year-old client who was referred by Glendale Adventist Medical Center to my Providence Senior Outreach Program. He was a blind amputee with no family or friends left, who lived on the third floor of an apartment building in Glendale with no elevator. Since he wasn't eligible for Medicare yet, he needed to have someone fill out his Medi-Cal paperwork.

My care manager spent three hours filling out the endless forms. She will also need to spend the next couple of days on the phone to various state and county workers to complete the work.

From that visit, she went to see an elderly couple referred again by Glendale Adventist. Since he can't drive anymore, the 85-year-old frail, sick husband takes the bus to get to his specialist doctor in Burbank. My care manager spent the next couple of hours trying to find alternatives to the MTA.

Who will help these people when the funding stops?

I never got to ask that question.

After two and a half hours and no end in sight so that public could speak, I left. If the mayor and the City Council intended on intimidating, frustrating and talking the public into a stupor so that they would leave and not speak up, well, they met their goal with me.