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General (10)Public Comment From: Rick Pollgreen < Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 8:31 AM Subject: Opposition to Holden Anaheim Hills Assisted Living/Memory Care facilit y Dear City Councilman, My name is Sandy Pollgreen, married to Rick, and I live adjacent to the Mormon church property on Nohl Ranch and Royal Oak. I am writing this to share my opposition in regards to the Holden Assisted Living/Memory care facility...BUT I am actually writing on behalf of, and as an advocate for, the 127 elderly patients who will be living in that place. Recently, we've been accused of being NIMBYs because of losing a good portion of our view due to this project. It was even pointed out to us, as the developer thought it would be a "good idea" to fly a drone directly above and inside our backyard without our permission. The photo taken was used in a very smug way to tell my husband, "You and your wife get out of your jacuzzi and look to the north! See, there's your view!" (Wow! That's not invasive, or creepy!) I would like to say that I really wish the people with accusations knew me. If they want to refer to me as a NIMBY, I will plead guilty! You see, I definitely do not want 127 helpless, vulnerable elderly people living there ***in this location***due to the EXTREME wild fire danger! The evacuation process would be a logistical nightmare and so many lives would be in danger! This is becoming the "elephant in the room" that some are trying very desperately to sweep under the carpet. I am 100% an advocate for all of the elderly. I believe ALL seniors deserve the very best care as they age. I am firm believer in keeping the elderly either in their homes or with family if possible, til the very end! It's too frightening to stick them in a facility and "hope" they get involved in all the activities that "fill the calendar daily." It can be "high tech state of the art," but is STILL a facility, an institution of sorts. The personal, individual care just isn't there... unless you can afford to bring in your own private staff. Quite exclusive. Nowadays there is so much available for IN HOME care along with transportation and adult day care. If you can afford to place a loved one in a facility just so you won't have to deal with them, you can certainly afford private in home care or board and care, where the qualifications will be higher in tending to your loved one's personal needs. Fewer infections! Fewer falls! No isolation! There is no good excuse to just dump the elderly in a facility just so a family member can "have a life." To that I say, please make a sacrifice and step up to be there for your aging parents. They took care of YOU. Do not dump them! (If asked if they'd like to go live there, by choice... the answer would most likely be a big NO.) I'd like to encourage people to be the care givers. Spend the last days with those lonely elderly talking about their stories of their lives. Be there every day for them! It's a sacrifice, but the regrets afterwards are few. My passion for caring for the elderly comes from life experience starting an early age. My parents struggled to make ends meet. They were both children of immigrants who were proud to be in America, but always struggled to get by. My dad worked 2 jobs (one driving to downtown LA 5 days a week, and an evening job in Buena Park, also almost full time.) He died in his early 60's due to the hard life he had. My mom worked full time as a legal secretary for Autonetics (which became the Fry's Electronics.) we were latch key kids so our parents could work hard to provide for us. Finally, one day my parents were able to actually buy a home, where I was raised. It was in District 1 off Beach and Ball Rd. Brand new in the 1960's. The Rainbow track on Teranimar Dr. We lived there for many years. My parents could not afford to send me to college, so I had to work. My very first official job was doing the laundry at an elderly facility such as this one at $2 an hour. (This included many adult cloth diapers which now are replaced by lots of disposable ones to fill the trash dumpsters ... 127 adults times how many diapers/depends a day? M ) As I would deliver the laundry to the rooms, I developed a love and a heart for these precious people. So many were simply abandoned and unvisited by their families. While it may be a bit different now, it's still a sad and lonely crowd. Depression happens, and the "remedy fix" is medications. I have loved the elderly ever since, and will do what it takes to stand up and fight for them. Needless to say, the "sweep -the -elephant -in -the -room -under -the -carpet" people refuse to admit exactly how unsafe this facility would be if built here! There is a decided agenda. The terrain of this end of District 6, actually has some of the oldest trees and foliage. We've driven all around here, and have taken notes and photos regarding just how many very old dry eucalyptus, bark beetle eaten pines, palms with dead fronds, dead dry bougainvillea, grasses, etc exist -there's so much... and YET there seems to be no concern in placing the elderly here in this extreme wind tunnel of a spot. We all know just how fierce those Santa Ana winds blow often starting in the middle of the night, and how quickly the wildfires can spread! When we asked the deputy fire chief about the evacuation plan, he informed us they would be "sheltering in place!" I have to wonder how well this will sit with most customers entrusting their parents' lives to this place. The staff will be under qualified to deal with this situation. OR... we were told an alternative evacuation plan would be to "simply" load them up on buses and "transfer them to another one of their facilities either in Laguna Niguel or Glendale!" Hmmmm... again I wonder how easy it would be to simply load `em all up, wheel chairs, walkers, with memory confusion issues, medications, etc. (OR if their families would be ok with this!) THEN, I can't help but wonder how they plan on merging those loaded buses in with the rest of the community traffic trying to also leave! What a nightmare! I've seen the fire flames and smoke pictures along with the intense backed up traffic! I saw the fear on the faces of my community neighbors! It's terrorizing! Never would I have allowed my own parents to live there! No thank you (not that we could afford it anyway.) This facility doesn't even have the capability to have skilled nursing available if it's needed! Red flag for placing your parents there by the way. They can literally decide to give your loved ones back to you on a moment's notice at their discretion! And now they want to shelter them in place during a wildfire or load them all up and just drive them elsewhere! No thank you! Yes ... Call me a NIMBY! I am so concerned about human lives that are at stake, and if that makes me a NIMBY because I want them in a SAFE location, then so be it in the name calling department. Recently I drove around ALL of Anaheim to see what the city I grew up in is like now. (We raised our family in the Chino area so I hadn't seen my neighborhood in quite some time.) I drove past as many assisted living elderly care facilities as possible (the one I worked at is still there with a different name now. On Ball Rd just east of Knott Ave.) I saw how run down some of them are, and I was certain many had struggled this past year due to Covid. A random thought crossed my mind. Since we are one city (even though there are several districts), it sure would be a lot nicer to turn our time, energy and money towards updating and improving other parts of this city. Why not pitch in and help the other sides of Anaheim. When homes are so desperately needed, why build a fancy "for the elite only" expensive facility that only a select few elderly can afford? Why not sell this piece of land to a housing developer or another church that would keep this iconic Mormon church building from the 70's preserved? It makes no sense to allow a developer unfamiliar with our city to be allowed to buy up and build out what they deem a necessity... all for a profit. Forget the community's concerns! In closing, I'm sad that we citizens do not get to actually vote on this business project. If I'm considered a NIMBY, how do you explain the hundreds of other community members we've grown to love, with their signatures in opposition to this massive dangerous structure as well? Most do not even have a view at all, but are very worried about this project passing. They have lived through the frightening fires and the scary evacuation scenarios. There are many streets with only one way in and out. One lady was willing to abandon her car and run due to heavy fire evacuation traffic! What would something like that do to the escape route? We panic as Americans or we wouldn't have bought so much toilet paper last year! Please LISTEN to the local community members and PLEASE protect the elderly by voting NO to building this death trap here on this location. It's a form of elderly abuse. They will not have a choice. Those elderly people and their families will be forced to trust they will be ok! I can't help but wonder if the people in the city of Paradise were told they had "nothing to worry about" before their entire city burned to the ground? My husband and I do not need to live here. God always opens a door and we can easily move on. We do love our home and neighbors, and we feel grateful and blessed to live here. We were hoping to grow old in this home in our retirement years ... closer to our grandkids and back to the city we started our young lives in. Being accused of being a NIMBY is pretty hurtful, and some who are accusing us of that, are most likely trolls or ones who want to dump their elderly parents in this facility ASAP so they can carry on with their happy busy lifestyle. Well, we believe God's timing in placing us in this home has been "for such a time as this", and we are willing to be a voice for the elderly who deserve love and time from their families in their last days, and don't get to have a voice! They deserve to be in their own homes and cared for by their loved ones. They deserve to be tucked safely into their beds at night and for a family member to hold their hand with them until they fall asleep. Unless the accusers and name callers out there have zero motives in it for themselves, they have no right. We are simply trying to have THEIR parents protected and settled into a much safer location! Please vote NO! Please encourage the developers to find a safer location. Thank you for serving in your communities, for sacrificing family time, for having a listening ear, and for caring what goes on in ALL of Anaheim ... the beloved city I had the privilege of growing up in. May God bless you always, Sandy Pollgreen Anaheim Choose to be safer online. Opt -in to Cyber Safety with NortonLifeLock. Get Norton 360 with LifeLock starting at $9.95/month.* NetZero.com/NortonLifeLock