Join us Thursday, Oct. 7, 8:30–10:30 a.m. CDT, for a free, virtual webinar about starting, supporting and implementing a government/community partnership model to advance livability for older residents. This webinar will focus on how land use decisions impact livability and how local governments and advocates can work together to improve housing, transportation and public spaces in their communities.

Five communities from the greater Kansas City region and northern New Jersey will join together to exchange ideas and share experiences. Tanya Rohrbach, community planning manager at New Jersey Future and principal author of “Creating Great Places to Age in New Jersey: A Community Guide to Implementing Aging-Friendly Land Use Decisions,” will describe age-friendly land use and highlight best practices from the guide, followed by discussions with community leaders who have successfully implemented age-friendly programs in their communities.

Webinar attendees will learn about:

• The relationship between the built environment and livability.
• Municipal plans and policies that affect the age-friendliness of a community.
• A process for creating an age-friendly community based on partnership between local government and community partners.
• Examples of age-friendly community-building implementation.

The event draws on collective experiences from communities affiliated with the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) program and the North Jersey Alliance of Age-Friendly Communities. MARC, the metropolitan planning organization for the bistate Kansas City region, developed a Communities for All Ages Recognition Program as an incentive for participating jurisdictions to take meaningful actions to make their communities better for residents of all ages. In the northern New Jersey counties of Bergen and Passaic, The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation’s Aging in Place program supports community initiatives that enable residents to age successfully and has sparked an alliance network from which New Jersey’s statewide age-friendly movement can learn and grow. Representatives from communities participating in these two programs will describe partnerships and projects that have made their age-friendly community-building initiatives successful.

The event is offered in partnership with MARC and New Jersey Future. New Jersey Future is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes sensible growth, redevelopment, and infrastructure investments to foster vibrant cities and towns, protect natural lands and waterways, enhance transportation choices, provide access to safe, affordable and aging-friendly neighborhoods and fuel a strong economy.

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Presenters:

Cathy Boyer-Shesol, MPA, is the project coordinator for KC Communities for All Ages, an initiative of the Mid-America Regional Council. She oversees the Communities for All Ages Recognition Program, where 18 local jurisdictions have received at least one level of recognition. She earned her Master’s in public administration from University of Missouri-Kansas City. 

James Cadoret has worked in local government for 40 years. He has served as the development services director for Raymore for 18 years, including the last four years as assistant to the city manager. Cadoret previously worked for communities in Indiana, Florida and Kansas.

Chris Chiodini, EIT, AICP, has been the director of Community Development for the city of Grandview, Missouri, since 2007. Chiodini and the city of Grandview have been actively involved in MARC’s Communities for All Ages Program since 2013. Currently, Grandview is deeply involved in numerous initiatives to implement strategies from its recently adopted Comprehensive Plan and Housing Study. Chiodini has a B.S. degree in civil engineering from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, is a certified planner (AICP) with APA and has also graduated from the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma.

Erik DeLine is the deputy administrator and director of planning and development for the Borough of Glen Ridge, New Jersey. He is also council president for the Borough of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, serving as a Councilman since 2016. In his role with Glen Ridge, Erik oversees planning and community development and is responsible for the completion of capital projects in the municipality. DeLine’s focus in Pompton Lakes is on issues related to walking and biking in town, improving recreational facilities, livability and sustainability actions. In 2019 he was recognized by TransOptions, the regional Transportation Management Association, as their Outstanding Elected Official and joined their Board of Directors in 2020.

Shannon Doherty Lyons is a research scientist with the New York University Langone Health Department of Environmental Medicine. She holds a master’s degree in environmental medicine and an NIEHS Center Grant Community Engagement Core (CEC) Associate. As a CEC Associate, she has focused on outreach and engagement regarding age-friendly environmental health issues in New Jersey partner communities.  

Dean Katerndahl was director of the Government Innovations Forum at MARC until retiring in 2015. He worked with city managers, planning directors and other city and county officials on a wide variety of joint projects. Since retiring, he continues to do consultant work and is chair of the Parkville, Missouri, planning commission. Katerndahl has degrees in physics and nuclear engineering and his Ph.D. in urban sociology.  

Darleen Reveille is a graduate of The Ann May School of Nursing, Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Monmouth University. She has extensive clinical and leadership experience in the fields of acute critical care, corporate employee health, and public health. In 2003 she was appointed public health nurse for the city of Garfield, New Jersey, where she continues to serve with a number of multi-sector partnerships. In 2016 she became the founding project coordinator for Generations for Garfield – an Age-Friendly Community Initiative.

Tanya Rohrbach manages New Jersey Future’s land use planning work. Her main focus areas include climate change adaptation, place-based economic redevelopment, and aging-friendly neighborhoods. She holds an M.S. in geography and a B.A. in biology, both from Rutgers University. Prior to joining New Jersey Future, she was a senior planner in the Somerset County Planning Division, where she managed the division’s GIS initiatives and staff, conducting data analyses to perform regional wastewater planning, flood risk research and transportation assessments. She also has extensive experience working at New Jersey land trusts, where she identified and prioritized lands for preservation at local and regional scales.

Brian Scott currently serves as the assistant city administrator for Mission, Kansas, providing oversight and direction for the finance and community development services of the city. Scott has worked on a number of projects that will position Mission for a positive future, including two multi-family housing developments, updating the city’s comprehensive land use plan, and re-engineering city internal policies and processes for community development. Prior to his position in Mission, Scott served as the assistant city administrator of Grandview, Missouri. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in political science with a minor in business administration from Bradley University, and a Master of public policy administration from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He recently obtained a Certification in Public Management from the University of Kansas.

Sgt. Jeff Stewart, a 20-year veteran of the Garfield New Jersey Policy Department and current commanding officer of the Community Affairs Division, has a career-long passion to bridge the gap between cops and the community. He is currently the vice president of the New Jersey State Community Affairs Officers Association, which has given him the opportunity to teach both in-service and criminal justice students the importance of positive community engagement and diversity within law enforcement as a whole. 

Julia Stoumbos directs strategic program development in the field of Aging in Place for The Henry and Marilyn Taub Foundation located in Bergen County, New Jersey. She advises the Foundation on its philanthropic investment decisions, works closely with grantees, nurtures new links between organizations and facilitates opportunities for collaboration. Stoumbos has a B.S. degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and an M.S. degree in psychology with a focus on developmental psychobiology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Creating Great Places
for All Ages

Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021
8:30–10:30 a.m. CDT
(9:30-11:30 a.m. EDT)
via Zoom

Register now

Registration deadline
Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2021
While this event is FREE, registration is required to obtain the workshop link.

AICP CM credits pending approval.

Event questions: Cathy
Boyer-Shesol at 816-701-8246 or cboyer@marc.org.

Registration questions:
Carmellya Anderson, canderson@marc.org,
816-701-8282.

KC Communities for All Ages is supported through grants from WJ Brace Charitable Trust, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; MARC’s Department of Aging and Adult Services; and Roger A. and Corrine R. Durkee Fund, Greater Kansas City Community Foundation.