Looking Outside County Government May be Next Step for Dakota County Aging Initiative

Editor's Note: Dakota County Commissioner Tom Egan represents Mendota Heights, Lilydale, Mendota and a portion of Eagan. He was elected to office in 2004 and is now serving his second four-year term. Egan will write regularly to Patch readers about county government. In this report, Egan recaps a recent workshop that dealt with the findings of the Living Longer and Stronger in Dakota County volunteer initiative. Faced with the complexity of the issue made apparent by the study's results, Egan said it's time to regroup and move forward with a more collaborative effort.

The County Board views the dynamic of aging as an asset, rather than a liability to our community. In late 2010, following its initial Aging Initiative workshop dealing with Living Longer and Stronger in Dakota County (LLS), the County Board made a commitment to hold a follow-up workshop on aging.

That workshop was held earlier this month. The main topic was: "Where do we go from where we've been?" Following this workshop, the consensus was that the county's role likely will be to facilitate the creation of a county-wide Aging Initiative involving as many stakeholders as possible.

County board members expressed incredibly frank and candid views with each other and with county staff during the workshop on the complex issues of aging and the results of the LSS initiative thus far.  

The board was extremely grateful for the dedication of those volunteers who worked within the LLS effort on the six "Theme Teams" for seniors. Those Theme Teams dealt with subjects such as finances, housing, transportation, health and others.  However, the volunteer nature of the teams and the complex nature of these issues resulted in only a basic starting point from which to proceed, and the board has not yet reached a consensus on what the County's strategic objectives should be for this aging initiative.

The board agreed that the impact of the aging population affects all of Dakota County; but demographically, there are many differences between the senior population in Dakota County cities such as Mendota Heights, Eagan and South St. Paul and perhaps certain Dakota County townships. For that reason, it became very apparent that city/township/local initiatives must be built into the process for a meaningful outcome. However, during these difficult financial times, there is a lack of consensus by municipalities on their level of financial participation.

Besides municipalities, the County Board discussed other potential public and private partners. Dakota County school districts have strong adult and community education programs, which may potentially have an interest in the issues covered by this initiative. The Dakota County Community Development Authority (CDA) has a clear interest in senior housing and perhaps transportation. DARTS (Dakota Area Resources and Transportation for Seniors), which partnered with Dakota County on the Living Longer and Stronger (LLS) program, may wish to maintain an interest in this subject as well.

These are only some of the potential stakeholders that will need to be engaged as the county moves forward to better serve an aging population.