Sentinel Colorado file photo by Gabriel Christus/Aurora Sentinel
AURORA | An Aurora program for older adults with memory disorders and other disabilities has reportedly been disbanded, catching families and even some city officials by surprise.
Services at the center have been suspended for months because of the pandemic.
Jeannie Davis, chairperson of the Aurora Commission for Older Adults, demanded answers from Aurora’s City Council on Monday after she said a city staff member told the commission that the Morning Star Adult Day Program won’t be returning from its COVID hiatus.
“We are disappointed and frustrated at having been kept in the dark and not knowing the status of this program,” Davis said, adding that commissioners had been asking about the program’s status since September.
“No one would answer our questions,” Davis said. “We believe this was done deliberately so that we could not approach city council members to voice our concerns and discuss ways to ensure the program’s continuation, until it was too late.”
When asked how the city arrived at its decision to close Morning Star and why more people weren’t notified of the discussion, city spokesman Michael Brannen only said the questions would be answered at the study session requested by Mayor Mike Coffman, which had not been scheduled as of Tuesday.
Officially established by a community task force in 1989, the Morning Star Adult Day Program offered entertainment and some health care services to local adults over the age of 55 suffering from memory disorders and other health problems, according to previous reporting by The Sentinel.
In spring 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated, the program shut its doors in what Davis said was understood to be a temporary safety measure.
But Davis and Councilmember Angela Lawson said in phone interviews that city staff talked about the program having been terminated permanently during a Monday meeting of the commission.
The two slammed the city’s handling of the closure Monday night, asking why there had apparently been no effort to seek input from the commission or the council ahead of time.
“There are a lot of transparency issues,” Lawson said.
After Lawson asked whether staff could explain the decision to the council, Coffman, who said he had also “researched this particular issue,” directed that the topic be added to a future study session agenda.
For caregivers and families, the program was a respite, helping to keep loved ones out of long-term care facilities. It was also unique among Aurora programs for its ability to serve seniors with dementia, according to Davis and others.
Frankiemae Perry first brought her brother, Peter, to the program around 2017. A Vietnam War veteran, Peter suffers from dementia, which Perry said causes him to wander away from facilities that aren’t secure.
“He wants to go and be busy,” Perry said. “He’ll try to follow people out and try to get on the bus.”
Perry recalled being told that the program would be shutting down on a temporary basis in the early days of the pandemic.
“And then that ‘temporary’ got longer, and longer, and longer,” she said
Perry said the program continued helping her with food for Peter until she tried enrolling him in another program, after which they were cut off.
Juggling caring for her brother with her job as a substitute teacher became especially difficult when schools reconvened before many programs for seniors.
“Seniors were some of the first ones to get vaccinated, but the places for them were some of the last to open up. It was kind of backwards,” she said.
Today, Peter attends a different day program in Wheat Ridge, some 45 minutes away from their home in Aurora. He gets a ride to and from the west Denver suburb via the Regional Transportation District’s Access-a-Ride paratransit service, but Perry says she still wishes he could be cared for closer to home.
“The facility seems to be doing everything they can to accommodate Peter, but they’re so far away,” she said, adding that it’s tough to find facilities in the area that accommodate clients with Peter’s memory problems and which are authorized through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
“They could have let us know ahead of time that the program was financially having problems or something,” Perry said. “We do what we can. It’s not easy.”
Davis said city staff told the commission that the recent history of the program had been analyzed prior to the decision to shut it down, and that information was included in documents shared with council members.
Lawson said the city council had not been informed about the decision ahead of time.
“I’m very disturbed by the way they just shut down the program,” she said Tuesday, noting that a webpage for the program appears to have been scrubbed from the city website. “That’s not transparent at all.”
She and Davis both said they hoped the day program could be reestablished at some point in the future.
“There are a lot of people looking for a place like that,” Perry said. “I think they’d really be able to fill it up if they tried.”
Welcome to the new GQP led administration in Aurora. They couldn’t wait to cut services for citizens while advocating for out-of-state dark money for elections.
The elderly, disabled, youth, and the homeless is just the start. Wait and watch as government teat sucking Coffman and his council minions get rid of programs for the vulnerable.
Oh. And they want to
add a new sales tax. I took a “survey” about Aurora priorities. At the end it devolved into questions about how much tax would I tolerate and what messaging they should use.
Have fun with the new corrupt city council majority.
I couldn’t agree more. Horrible to see the quality of the new cult members who were voted in.
Does the city run programs for disabled adults younger than 55? If no, then it is very difficult to justify a program that is limited to only seniors.
Yes. Yes, the city does run numerous programs for disabled adults under the age of 55. Here’s the link https://www.auroragov.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=16242704&pageId=16603696
So why did they opt to cut this one and what else has the city chosen to cut without input from citizens?
It is the JOB of the government to protect the most vulnerable among us. The greater fallacy here is that ANY vulnerable demographic should be ignored. One demographic being ignored does NOT justify another being ignored. We should consider, too, where our tax dollars ARE committed, if not to these vulnerable populations (i.e. corporate profits). We have the resources to serve people well when our priorities are people over corporations.
Anybody that watched the council meeting Monday night noticed this Morning Star issue was briefly mentioned. The council specifically, the mayor and CM Lawson had no idea what the closing is about they were surprised. The mayor stated he would have “staff” dig into what’s going on. That leads one to think the council members new as of December or ones on council for a couple years have nothing to do with its closure.
Reading into the recent minutes of the Commission for older adults meetings last year the only Council members that were involved in the meetings minutes are CM Combs, CM Marcano, and CM Murillo. These three curiously never bothered to say a peep with any pertinent information of perceived politics side-lining the program. And we know if these three sensed any political muscle to close the program they would surely squawk. Good for CM Lawson and mayor Coffman for serving the public interest. Further, you can expect when they discover the facts, they will share what they learn which will result in a clean up a lot of political speculation.
I’m really excited by the “new” City Council. It’s bringing new responses and new fake names to this web site. Alas, they are using new and negative terms that either I don’t know of or don’t agree with as shown in other comments.
What is GQP? I asked Google and he/she/it didn’t know.
“Teat sucking Coffman and his council minions”. What does this mean? Sounds like something a middle school student might come up with.
“Cult members who were voted in” Does this have any real meaning? What cult?
Is it really government’s job to protect the most vulnerable within our society? Or are we a society of self reliant citizens who then take it upon themselves, if they wish to protect those that can’t seem to protect themselves. But governments job?
Not the way I see it.
Anyway what about the Aurora Senior Citizens Center. Isn’t that for the elderly? That’s how the City supports the elderly.
Years ago Morning Star was not funded by the City but by a non profit the Spirit of Aurora. I’m not sure if the City ever had a budget for Morning Star. I think there is more to this than this article makes out.