One Hundred Ways to Improve the Mansfield Community Center (MCC) [11 - 20]

11 Keep track of MCC usage metrics - time, who, and so on

12 Automatically shut off all lights and appliances not being used

13 Change the name and mission of the MCC to the Region 19 Community and Lifelong Health Center

14 Same membership fee regardless of Region 19 town residence - practice "Equity" instead of the hypocritical virtue signaling in the "Master Plan"

15 Sponsor a weekly 4 hour, Homeschooling Takeover of the MCC facility. All participants must be members, event sponsored and supervised by the Homeschooling Community. Scheduled during slowest MCC attendance periods - can extend normal operating hours.

16 When you have lemons, make lemonade. The MCC needs to prioritize buying and classifying its equipment to match restorative and therapeutic health benefits so that a health deductible fee of $5/mo can be added to senior citizen insurance paid benefits - its not just a Community Center its a Health Center resource as well.

17 Equipment purchase should be prioritized to emphasize senior citizen needs

18 The MCC has a kitchen. Start a weekly program to teach young adults how to cook, set a table, and clean up. Senior citizens who attend to their health most often win a seat at the table. Local grocery stores and food vendors donate the goods for the meal showing off their prices and product. Young adult membership required, $100/yr

19 Sponsor a biweekly, "How did the grandparents do that?" cooking and demo event in which Grandmas or grandpas give up their favorite recipe secrets by making a favorite dish for sampling

20 Teen sleepover events.

One Hundred Ways to Improve the Mansfield Community Center (MCC) [1 - 10]

1. The members only check-in should happen at the entrance doors

2. New member registration and delusional questions having nothing to do with the MCC should be performed at the Town Offices by any town employee with too much time on their hands

3. Eliminate all employee chairs and stationary desks

4. All employees must exercise Gemba 

5. Eliminate the Front desk area

6. Eliminate the lounge area

7. Eliminate all office spaces except for the one on the second floor. That becomes the only administrative space in the building.

8. Solicit a rotating schedule of food truck offerings that will pay a vendor's fee to the MCC. Nothing attracts potential customers like food trucks.

9. Rent the lounge area to commercial vendors - jewelry, pottery and clay, restaurant and food, etc.

10, Repurpose the lounge furniture to the now empty Front desk space round robin fashion so that people have to speak to each other.

Mansfield Doubling Down on Bad Ideas

 This afternoon the Mansfield Parks & Recreation Department (MP&R) held a public meeting to explain, re-explain, or rationalize their decision to discontinue the use of senior citizen insurance coverage to pay for Mansfield Community Center (MCC) memberships.

The meeting was held in their town hall which always reminds me of this scene from Terry Gilli

am's movie, Brazil. It's a strange little political wonderland squeezed into a former elementary school. I felt like I needed a hall pass on my way to the meeting.

I got there a few minutes late and informally counted 125ish likely medicated senior citizen attendees and a handful of others. The meeting had started at 1 p.m. and the first 40 minutes were a walkthrough of dubious bar charts, wishful thinking, and gas-lighting about *why*, why oh why, the MCC needed to do the dastardly deed.

The first audience person to speak was the previous meeting's insufferable town mayor. In Lewis Carroll fashion she was Late!, Late! for a very important date - elsewhere but, OH BOY, how gratifying to see so many people show up - hiya, hiya, hiya... gotta go.

Of the important points presented these stand out;

One audience member (Ashford) brought attention to the discounted membership fee given to individuals who were teen to 26 years old (40%) while seniors got none whatsoever.

Another member said she simply attended for a specific group class and being forced to pay a monthly fee on top of that was fiscally unacceptable. Another said she would go, shower, use the pool for 15 minutes, shower and leave - costly if a full membership was required.

Another great point was that existing members miss some of the older equipment that was just enough to satisfy their needs now replaced by newer but less user friendly replacements. A feedback loop in purchasing is desired.

The insurance company is in negotiations with the Town of Mansfield discussing rates - so, if only, if only.

As I made my way out of the building, the town was kind enough to offer PTSD lapel ribbons for those who attend town meetings like these and leave with a hurting head. It's not much but its the virtue that counts.

Mansfield, CT's Parks and Recreation and Saving the World Spending Tsunami

 I'm diving into the deep end of Mansfield, CTs hydra of town committees, special interests, and origins of the Mansfield Parks & Rec (MP&R) master plan. I'm currently examining the February agenda document that has many fine details about the fiscal trajectory of the Mansfield Community Center (MCC).

None of the innumerable town committees (many dedicated to the elderly) seem to have any interest or input into the master plan. All of which implies to me that the assertion that the town politicians responsible for vetting the plan and ensuring that there was a rich and vested feedback loop are exaggerated [to be blunt, lying]. From page 49:

One of my favorite (because it works) management techniques is called Kanban. It is implemented using Kanban boards with some level of ToDo, InProcess, and Done columns of publicly visible tasks.
A legitimate ToDo prioritized list would never look like this. The MP&R so-called priorities are a magical thinking set of platitudes.

The acronym CIP stands for continuous improvement process. This is the mythological W.E. Deming methodology that reconstructed Japan's auto, electronics, and high tech industry after WWII. In the 21st century CIPs are a cautionary tale. The introduction of Apple's revolutionary Smart Phone was not the by-product of a CIP applied to a flip phone. It was a radical rethinking of what a phone might be.

So we already have a clue as to why the MCC is digging a fiscal hole.

Another indicator is shown on page 33:

61 new employees and contractors is a lot of wetware and from my experience at the MCC, they aren't dedicated to senior citizen participation. Just another clue as to Why the MCC may be in fiscal dire straits.

On page 34:

At face value it looks like spending is outpacing attendance increases. *That* certainly looks unsustainable.

Potential Novel Legal Responses to Mansfield CT's Elder Abuse Problem

 I previously about Mansfield, CT's chronic hypocrisy with neighboring towns. This doesn't apply to everyone but there's a cohort of snobs who think they are just a cut above the rest. The authors of the Mansfield Parks and Recreation 10 Year Plan that recommends eliminating insurance paid memberships for seniors claim that surveys of opinion and a solicitation of ideas to avoid this conclusion were repeatedly made. And the only members who were solicited were from Mansfield.

Normally I would ask myself, "WTF is wrong with these people?" but I don't bother - Mansfield's historical love for the Other.

Mansfield serves as a stalking horse for Region 19's statewide interests. Former CT Secretary of State, Denise Merrill, recently resigned in the wake of state election issues (hmmm). She proved to be a cash cow as local residents held their noses when she discussed politics but were always welcoming the fiscal showers. My suspicion is that the spigot has been reduced - Mansfield still rolling on a sugar-mommy high.

Well I've been discussing the difference between the actual Mansfield Community Center (owned and operated by the town as a public asset) and the public services made available there through memberships.
The elimination of senior citizen insurance options affects ALL members from wherever they reside. And the fact of the matter is that members from the entire region are being taxed (call it what you want) without representation. Aside from insulting, it's discriminatory in mean and potentially illegal ways.

Should this proposed policy ever be implemented a few legal recourses may be applied to protect the senior citizens.

OSHA

Government workers (such as MMC employees) are not subject to OSHA. But given that the town of Mansfield, CT has turned membership into a local profit making enterprise to pay off government debt then conceptually, the senior citizen community targeted to pay the increased fees may qualify as a labor cohort that *is* covered.

Under that novel definition, the violence of invalidating their insurance benefit may qualify as illegal. The all too frequent failure of the air conditioning systems at the MCC is a specific hazard to senior citizens. Finally the impact of local government stress on senior citizen's well-being is a  potential issue.

Here I'm just spit-balling superficially but I think a class action suit might be worth exploring.

CHRO

The Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is another resource worth exploring.

Government (e.g. Town of Mansfield) cannot use taxpayer money to run a for profit enterprise. Unlike commercial fitness centers who are losing money, the government can't pursue strategies pursuing ever increasing cost for public services. The MCC represents a regional, default public good resource.

Current scandals at USAID illustrate the scam.  If taxes don't work then obfuscate the spending problems by offsetting increased taxes to a third party - in this case senior citizens.

In this case, government politicians who universally milk the argument that citizens should have access to low-cost health insurance are caught red-handed stripping seniors of using one that they do have based on the premise that their spending habits are more important than the health of their citizens.

Google AI: ""Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" is a well-known phrase from the Declaration of Independence, articulating fundamental human rights. It signifies the freedoms individuals possess to live, make choices, and seek personal fulfillment without undue government interference. "

The 'Stool' in Mansfield, Watch Where You Sit

 The Mansfield, CT Parks and Recreation Ten Year Plan is a piece of work. Silicon Valley futurists speculate a few years from now, maybe to the border of 2030 and then ambiguously, with lots of hand-waving.  I just realized that its something that was adopted about a year ago, is tucked away on a different website than than the town's page, and nobody seems to have know it existed until July2, 2025 when Mansfield mailed "news" about membership fees.

The phrase that sticks in the mind is "We also recognize the personal financial adjustment that may be required...". I'll bet you do.

You see. nowhere in any of the online discussions or literature is the idea that the first order of business would be to have institutionally financially adjusted the town's multi-million dollar budget to ensure that temporal spikes in spending needed to be tempered over time. But its too late for that now and, knowing Mansfield, this isn't a temporary spike in spending - this is a harbinger of debt to come.

On page 43 of the document, a conceptually moronic illustration of a stool is drawn as if it somehow meaningfully depicted an assurance that the town had a stable fiscal vision. I leave it to the reader to make sense of it.

I keep digging for clean data to make sense of Mansfield's accounting practice that should clearly define a dollar amount that can be mapped to a business expense that can be uniquely mapped to a functional responsibility.

For example, is the Public Works Department responsible for the custodial maintenance of all Mansfield public properties including the Mansfield Community Center (MCC)?

And isn't the MCC receptionists who handles A LOT of Mansfield Park & Recreation (P&R) communications P&R employees assigned to the MCC or MCC employees providing pro bono work for the town?

These are not small details when it has been suggested that membership rates should be increased just because accounting tricks are being used to shift Mansfield's self-inflicted fiscal obligations out to an unwitting and unsuspecting public. And we're not even talking about subverting the public's ability to apply low cost insurance toward the service. 

On social media, Mansfield tax payers insist they OWN the MCC, the parks, the playgrounds, and so on. If that's the case then the daily operation and maintenance of all of it is a (proud) fiscal obligation of the Mansfield tax base to navigate and manage. Period. If *that* stuff is the reason that there's a cost deficit then that's not on the membership holder to bear.

Mansfield taxpayers who insist they don't use the MCC want to disown their obligation to pay for community assets. Some even absurdly insist that a non-taxpayer stepping into a public park is a freeloader. American values are being turned on their head by governmental malfeasance.

So far the puddle of incompetence that stool is sitting on includes:

• poorly or undefined MCC costs
  
  
• subversion of the legitimate exercise of applying insurance benefits (Is it a benefit if the government can cancel it?)
  
  
• negligence in educating and informing the public as to the purpose and scope of civic obligations
  
  
• promoting bigotry  (age, class, ???)

The legs of that stool are equally nefarious. There is no accountability for the growth of the cost of services. None. 

Mansfield taxpayers are imprinted to believe that the solution to fiscal problems is to find somebody/anybody to pay for them. There is no impulse to examine the cost and manage it. And the politicians are skilled at instrumenting actual costs into a whack-a-mole fool's errand.

There are no beneficiaries of service - there are only consumers who are willing to pay an honest price for an honest product.  They aren't joining to pay off systemic mismanagement.

And when it comes to service categories, Silver Sneakers, et al are one of those categories. 

Mansfield CT Welcomes "The Other"

 Mansfield, Ct has about much use for "The Other" (you know, illegal immigrant references, "boink! - ouch!") as Martha's Vineyard has. You wouldn't know it though. You can get a deep summer tan from the shine of signal virtue, lawn signs on Mansfield country roads.

An actual illegal immigrant - the kind you meet in Willimantic's Walmart isles - might mistakenly think Mansfield is a soft touch. The reality is that Mansfield Parks and Recreation Department (no doubt with a cross reference from the Martha's Vineyard playbook) is more likely to hand them a useful map as to where to find gardening, poultry processing, or otherwise job opportunities - and this is key - somewhere else. Don't rape anyone on the way there.  <- *THIS IS SATIRE* (Mansfield can be cruelly humorless at times.

That brings us to a far more nefarious "other" lurking far closer than the Texas/Mexico border - Ashford and Willington. The whole Region 19 thing is sooo awkward. I mean everybody knows sports are healthy things but then there's the issue of two teams, Mansfield and anybody else. This is a problem for Mansfield Parks and Recreation - the other team is using outdoor parks that Mansfield taxpayers have now designated as a cost center.

Something is going to have to give. F'n senior citizens don't play soccer, baseball, or any of the other stuff without an arm or leg falling off. The money has got to come from somewhere.

Mansfield Parks and Recreation is baking in class warfare in their ten year plan. Mansfield's idea of "community" means that tightly coupled Region 19 communities are treated like "the Other" and welcomed with a Welcome tax on top of the cost of participation in their ever-so-virtuous public services.

It's penny ante stuff but... still - for real?

The Mansfield CT Map is Different From the Un-Charted Territory

 The Mansfield Parks and Recreation Department has managed to assemble a ten year master plan.

It's a piece of work that reads like an Aryan Race Handbook for cost of oven operations during WWII.

There's a chart that has been particularly perplexing to me that appears on page 53.

For a long time I just couldn't figure out where these percentages could possibly come from - so strange.

Then it occurred to me that the chart has nothing to do with accuracy but instead a manufactured justification for the narrative of the plan which is, in and of itself, a tautology.

Here's the paradox. Believe it or not, insurance companies can do morally and ethically good things. I know. That's an unexpected twist. So what can I possibly be referring to? Well, it's the Silver Sneakers/Renew Active insurance policies for seniors.

The intent (a successful one) is to encourage seniors to maintain healthier lifestyles and so on. It keeps insurance rates down, yada yada. I mean this is truly a great program for all the right reasons AND it establishes a realistic baseline of the reimbursement for their use of services from a participating "community center" - as of this writing, $3/visit to a max of $30/mo.

Seniors aren't wearing out the equipment either, they require no supervision, and leave the place like they found it - low cost/high return - win/win/win. Seriously. Seniors are a temporal value-add in every sense of the concept.

The chart certainly lists these programs as line items but every column has no relationship to the goals of the insurance and senior participants.

No. the Cost Recovery column distorts everything. We have no idea what cost means or why seniors are responsible for recovering that cost percentage or why cost recovery is a criteria for evaluating a noble insurance policy. And the other columns are simply collateral fictions intended to mislead.

The insurance policy is assuming the community center already has everything required for seniors as a subset of normal operating procedure. There's no added cost for a senior walking in the door. This a deceit - yet another take-advantage-of-seniors ploy to manipulate their emotions and age compromised judgement into thinking they need to pay more to get out of a jam.

Why is the Mansfield CT Community Center using these tactics? Is it incapable of welcoming seniors in whatever numbers to stay healthy first?

Charts and draconian accounting tricks are an ad hominem character assassination technique repeatedly found in the Facebook discussion of this topic. For sensitive older people this kind of deceitful rhetoric is more than insulting, it's yet another psychic papercut.

This chart is really a subliminal message about greed. The message is that if the insurance coverage would just pay a max monthly membership fee, Parks and Recreation could keep spending money like drunken sailors on leave. Nobody cares if you come or go or drop dead - to hell with the insurance companies incentivizing regular attendance - the Little Shop of Fiscal Horrors needs to be fed a bigger, more certain portion.

Swarmy Expectations: Mansfield CT Public Works

 The general public's understanding of of creating a public works project is pure ignorance. Parks, Statues, monuments, buildings, and civic projects are politically sacred obligations intended for posterity. 

When Mansfield, CT decided to build a Community Center 20 odd years ago someone should have explained this to them. Something along the lines of, "Oh, by the way, you build it - it's yours to have, hold and maintain, kit and kaboodle,  FOR POSTERITY". But that's not what was sold to them. Uh uh.

The citizens of Mansfield were sold an ever-Wokey nirvana-esque pit stop for peace, love, and understanding that involved all of Region 19 with Mansfield residents being very, very special and everybody else paying the overhead. Well, I'm getting ahead of the story.

 Most of the Mansfield public not imprinted with the woke mind virus understood it would never break even in terms of expenses and were more or less resigned to that reality. Putting up with listening to health nuts sing Kumbaya once in a while was tolerable and NO BIG DEAL.

But there was another disconnect. The building and the services offered in that building are two separate cost centers both of which were being taxed locally in Mansfield! Local taxes HAD TO pay for the public works thing built next to Mansfield's pos government offices. I mean you can't just hide it. Not that they didn't try by having an ugly, perfunctory MLK mural slapped on the side of the building to ward off anyone who might make noise. "Look, we got a therapy mural!"

But as the shiny new object got more expensive to operate, the local posse of political hacks began devising strategies to turn that Nirvanistic rat's nest of health seeking locals into an engine of health for profit. Now we've caught up.

Why are Mansfield tax-payers paying for the services side of the equation? Dagnabit, these angry citizoids were told to believe that they would have FREE (as in "free beer") access to the now legendary town under-utilized facility thing. Not that they actually ever want to go in there - its just the principle of not being asked to pay twice - this a theme that we will return to.

This cohort of social media participants could care less about senior citizens. It's a show-me-the-money crowd. Not that there's anything wrong with senior citizens.

The Facebook Mansfield Connection Censored Entry

 I've been doing some free (as in free beer) analysis and troubleshooting work locally because the Community Center I attend in Mansfield, CT is trying to pull a fast one (as in fraudulent scam) involving Senior Citizen insurance benefits.

The Mansfield Community Center has created a political narrative that removes Tivity Health based reimbursement incentives (Silver Sneakers, et al) from being used to access the facility offerings.

The politicians claim the facility is being short-changed. I attended the public meeting. Mansfield's Facebook page is where the issue is being discussed and my remark was censored. This is the exchange of interest.

"I attended the Mansfield Silver sneakers public hearing and will provide some information that should open some eyes.

The first speaker noted that the Board claimed that the Silver Sneakers reimbursement claim was incorrect. I looked up his assertion in Google AI.

Mansfield Parks and Rec claims that "For every dollar received for a traditional MCC membership the insurance providers reimburse an average just 42 cents. Unfortunately, the revenues received from insurance carriers to provide these services are not adequately offsetting the costs." This is not only a fraudulent claim but it is equally disingenuous in its attempt to gaslight the public.

An individual MCC membership fee is $39.00/mo. $39 x .42 = $16.38/mo reimbursement. The problem is that that's not how reimbursement works.

Google AI: "The reimbursement that a community center or gym receives from Tivity Health, the parent company of Silver Sneakers, is typically on a per-visit basis.[1] This means the facility is paid each time a Silver Sneakers member checks in.

All reactions:

14

14

Like

Comment

Send

Most relevant



Steven Knauf

What I find interesting is that a for profit business seems to think it is profitable enough to continue but that a government department does not think this is so. This is rather unique in my experience. Perhaps we should compare how each is applying this to see if any modifications should be made to make the program more profitable.

Also, will there be a review of policies if the projected income does not materialize and/or if there is a drop in membership from people 65 and older.

Last thing....is every program at the center run at a profit?

• 1h

• Like

• Reply

Frank Krasicki

Steven Knauf Google AI: "Understanding the project involves grasping its purpose, scope, and the processes involved in its execution and completion. This includes defining clear goals, understanding the project's lifecycle, and identifying key components like scope, time, cost, and quality. A project is a temporary endeavor with a defined beginning and end, aiming to create a unique product, service, or result."

IMO (and I don't think I'm wrong) when government dedicates itself to a long term public works project, say a Community Center, it is performing a civic entanglement, much like marriage, "for better or for worse". In other words, this isn't about initial cost but about long term civic upside - not always fiscal.

This Mansfield government doesn't understand the project. The MCC is a maintenance challenge. It requires a thoughtful maintenance schedule that softens that cost. Mansfield's P&R budget spending resurfaced the gym floor, bought lots of new equipment, added an outdoor pickleball court, added a new massive playground, on and on and on. It exploded the public works budget and played accounting tricks with lots of loosey-goosey cost centers. And, as an inevitable consequence, has saddled future generations of tax-payers with the continuing maintenance and upkeep cost.

So it comes as no surprise, that they're phishing for money and the seniors are an easy (but pyrrhic) cash cow to cover their spending addiction.

When I queried Google Ai about Mansfield's budget, it suggested that Mansfield has added a lot of new employees lately. It's that sucking sound you hear around town.

• 41m

• Like

• Reply

Steven Knauf

I don't believe the seniors are an easy cash cow. I agree with you it is pyrrhic at best. I think it sends a bad message but time will tell."

AI in Education

Time to Sunset the Federal Department of Education

The weaponization of public schools as indoctrination camps for the teacher's unions is unacceptable. It is one thing to advocate for the teaching profession itself and quite another to engage in political hate rhetoric against half the voting population of America.

It is also high time to apply the demand for gender equality and equity to the teaching profession at all educational levels. Children deserve and need strong, smart male role models teaching side by side with women. Time to walk the walk.

Can the NEA's disconnect with America's parents and children become any more obvious than this?

Hartford Public Schools and Money

 I found this site to be fascinating.

"It’s a “loan.”  No, it’s a “reallocation.”  No, it’s a “reimbursement.” 

The first two are illegal so the third was concocted (and needs an audit) to justify the city of Hartford allowing Hartford Schools Superintendent Torres-Rodrigeuz to pillage the Other Post-Employment Benefits trust fund (OPEB), a trust fund set up to provide benefits beyond pensions to employees of Hartford Public Schools, not a trust fund to bailout the financial malfeasance of a not-ready-for-prime-time superintendent."

Deleted, Just Like That

WTSmith

Resolving Age Discrimination and Elder Abuse at the Hands of UCONN

 Last week I dropped my complaint against UConn for age discrimination practices in exchange for a promise by their counsel to address the issues involved.

I received the following email from Nicole Fournier Gelston, General Counsel at UCONN.

Dear Mr. Krasicki- 

We appreciate your agreeing to engage in the pre-answer conciliation process with respect to your complaint. As we shared with Mr. Cobb, we regret that the information you received regarding UConn's policy with respect to the Senior Tuition Waiver was not accurate. The Senior Tuition Waiver applies to both undergraduate and graduate program tuition. 

We are committed to taking steps to ensure individuals responsible for or otherwise involved in the admissions processes are fully informed that the waiver applies to undergraduate and graduate level programs. We are also committed to ensuring "Seniors" have clear and complete information. 

Toward those ends, an email communication will be sent to remind individuals involved in the admissions processes of the applicability of the waiver. In addition, the policy on the University Bursar website will be revised to include a statement that the Senior Tuition Waiver applies to both undergraduate and graduate program tuition. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this misinformation caused you. 

Sincerely, 

Nicole Fournier Gelston 

cc: Dr. Kent Holsinger, Graduate School Dean 

The letter has virtually nothing to do with the complaint itself but okay UConn has no interest in correcting the glaring and blatant discriminatory practices I outlined in detail in the complaint. In fact this letter and the pre-answer process was a futile exercise, IMO but, again, okay - UConn is incapable of intelligently responding to the issues at hand.

To that end I drafted and sent a letter that outlined my expectations of what needs to be resolved for individuals applying to any State Higher Education institution using the tuition waiver.

Here was my response.

RE: CHRO Case: 2440052

Dear Ms. Gelston,

This is a letter of acknowledgment of our pre-answer conciliation agreement.

Please attach this as my understanding of your responsibilities in understanding and accepting responsibility for resolving the issues I raised.

All State faculty need to be aware of the law.  I filed the complaint against UConn because it is the state’s flagship institution and claims to be a research institution.  As such, it needs not only to model its educational architecture to honor this law, it also needs to to advocate its adoption to all institutions that are affected by it.

My complaint further documented the fact that any State law that ensures the rights of any minority group can be systemically neutered through adversarial bureaucratic complexity.  More specifically, older students are not necessarily contiguously engaged with educational institutions. When asked for academic references, most of my closest and most complementary mentors are dead.  When you require that elders attempting to take advantage of free tuition contact faculty, you are asking older people to somehow contact, busy and difficult to contact individuals, for an exception to attending their (unwelcoming?) class.

This faculty contact request and response dynamic needs to be made uniform and transparent to all involved and it needs to be that way statewide. This, yet another opportunity for UConn to lead. 

This is nothing less than a discriminatory request and obstacle to equitable participation. This process needs re-imagination and reform. Our reconciliation cannot force you to change any of this but your existing model of class registration is a textbook model of how systemic discrimination is practiced in a multitude of social practices.  In your capacity as legal counsel I hope you make it loud and clear that this is a research topic that needs to be studied and corrected statewide.

The fact that Connecticut offers free tuition to older workers is a lost opportunity under existing practice.

There is already a nationwide debate about the cost of education that needs no further explanation. And in a gig economy where older workers often find themselves unemployed and whose skills are antiquated, Connecticut is offering free up-skilling opportunities is a business magnet assuming the State’s Higher Education institutions bothered not only advocating its availability but recognizing its potential to complement business needs or celebrating its authentic, no-social-engineering-required, diversity.

Finally, though my complaint is being dismissed, the facts I presented were true and actionable.  In other words, you can responsibly examine the material provided or not.  But if CHRO is alerted to the same charges anytime in the near future then this case should remain a part of the institutional memory that UConn was made aware of the issues, promised to remediate them, and didn’t take it seriously.

Regards,

Frank W. Krasicki

cc: Dr. Kent Gelston, Zachary Cobb, Uconn Board of Trustees

In a correspondence before this meeting I alerted them to the following additional context for the complaint.

Frank Krasicki <krasicki@gmail.com>	Thu, Sep 7, 12:41 PM
to Zachary, generalcounsel@uconn.edu

I may be out of town late in September.  Oct 5 works for me. 

To provide some context for this meeting, allow me to offer the following;

Two points of interest from: https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/2015/title-46a/chapter-814c/section-46a-83

"(i) After finding that there is reasonable cause to believe that a discriminatory practice has been or is being committed as alleged in the complaint, an investigator shall attempt to eliminate the practice complained of by conference, conciliation and persuasion not later than fifty days after the date of the finding. The refusal to accept a settlement shall not be grounds for dismissal of any complaint."

"(m) The executive director or the executive director’s designee may enter an order of dismissal against a complainant who (1) after notice and without good cause, fails to attend a fact-finding conference; (2) after notice and without good cause, fails to attend a mandatory mediation conference; or (3) refuses to accept an offer of settlement where the respondent has eliminated the discriminatory practice complained of, taken steps to prevent a like occurrence in the future and offered full relief to the complainant."

My interpretation of this legal contradiction is that the elimination of the discriminatory practice is optional based on the discretion of the respondent.  My complaint rests on the fact that the practices employed by UConn are wholly illegal, unethical, and unacceptable.  The practice must be remediated to comply with the spirit, intent, and goodwill interpretation of anti-discrimination law.

Some demographic context based on a lightweight google search:

"http://aging.ctdata.org/

Search for: What percentage of the population is over 50 in the US?
How many senior citizens are in Connecticut?

The state, the seventh oldest in the country, has nearly 590,000 people over age 65 and the most diverse (17.5%) older population in New England. More than 28% of people over 65 live alone and more than 66% of those over 85 are women."

Definition of Elder Abuse

What age is considered elderly in the state of Connecticut?
(ages 60+)
ELDER ABUSE UNDER CONNECTICUT LAW

Elder abuse also includes neglect, exploitation, and/or abandonment of an elderly (ages 60+) person.

Finally, another recent example of potential UConn discriminatory practice that make violate NCAA rules, money laundering or kickback law, or other less than scrupulous DEI practice:

"How many scholarship players can a NCAA basketball team have?

13 scholarships
In NCAA Division 1 basketball, coaches can offer a maximum of 13 scholarships per team. These are called headcount scholarships, also known as full-ride scholarships. The average NCAA Division 1 team rosters 16 athletes, so there might be three players on the team who walked on and don't qualify for athletic aid."

"DEI: https://www.foundation.uconn.edu/uconn-nation-donates-23-million-in-support-of-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/

"The Star Kids Kathy and Geno Auriemma Scholarship supports undergraduate student-athletes who are members of the women’s basketball team, with preference given to students demonstrating financial need"" 

regards,

Frank Krasicki

There is no excuse for UConn being unaware of these glaring issues nor for negligently and, for all intents and purposes, maliciously ignoring the aging population of Connecticut while employing an army of DEI officers statewide dedicated to everyone else but the elderly as individuals who need their attention.

I encourage anyone who, going forward, experiences similar experiences in any State Higher Education institution to contact the Connecticut Human Rights and Opportunities Commission - they'll evaluate your problem fairly and armed with complaints such as mine will be armed to ask the right questions.

A Draft Affidavit of Educational Illegal Discrimination Based on Age

The following is a draft version of the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities AFFIDAVIT OF ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION I plan to submit.

I am crowd sourcing the proof-reading and accuracy testing of what I'm presenting that affects individuals aside from myself. I can be confidentially contacted at krasicki@protonmail.com if you have concerns or corrective criticism. 

 I provide the following particulars:

1. The Respondent employs more than 15 persons.
   
   

2. I am a 71-year-old male with an undergraduate degree (1974) in Studio Art and Education from Doane University (then Doane College), a Liberal Arts institution.  I wanted to continue and further my Studio Art education by applying for an opportunity to be selected into  UConn’s Master of Fine Arts ( MFA ) program at the Storrs Campus at the University of Connecticut.
   On March 24, 2023, I received written notification that I was not selected by Judith Thorpe – the Chairperson of the MFA. And the reason for the denial was there were only five opportunities for admittance and I wasn’t one of the individuals still under consideration.
   My complaint has absolutely NOTHING to do with that selection process. This item simply provides a context and baseline for the following situation that not only affects myself but anyone who is older and not already an insider to the system.
   
   Footnote 1 - The number of accepted applicants to UConn’s MFA program is tightly coupled to the MFA program’s boast that all MFA candidates are “fully-funded” therefore the very acknowledgement that someone attended an MFA program by means other than those already in place will somehow diminish its prestige or competitiveness.
   
   

3. I had collected a number of fallback positions in the event that I was not selected.  One alternative approach was to attend a UConn Studio Art course to introduce myself to faculty and demonstrate both my talent and seriousness in being reconsidered for the program going forward. Concurrently, I learned that senior citizens can attend State institutions tuition free.
   On March 25, I emailed Judith Thorpe to confirm this was true.
   And I inquired about the possibility of attending a UConn studio Art course or the potential to design a DIY MFA that wouldn’t interfere with their current prestige track.
   She replied on March 26 by saying that “Tuition free courses are allowed only at the undergraduate level. You should consider auditing an undergraduate course in drawing, painting, or printmaking to develop your work…”
   
   Footnote 2 - This is a legitimate [tho misinformed] response from the Chair of the Art Department that provides an insight to faculty understanding of how things work.
   
   

4. On March 27, I contacted the UConn registrar’s information office to ask what policy governed the“undergraduate courses only” constraint.  The website merely alluded to the policy but there was no cross-reference as to where it came from or who was accountable for it. The information desk person didn’t know  but said that an email to the registrar was required to get that answer. On March 27, I sent an email to the registrar asking for the information required to appeal the policy because I found it unfair and potentially illegal.
   
   Footnote 3 - This was the basis of my original CHRO complaint. By April 14, I had called CHRO and was corresponding with Robert Aldi to say that I never did hear from the registrar. In order to file this complaint I set about investigating it myself which has far broadened the scope of the discriminatory nature of UConn and the State’s ageism problem.
   
   

5. I spent a lot of time attempting to navigate UConn and other State educational facility website attempting to understand how any senior citizen could know about, navigate, or take advantage of higher education based on the law, DEI protections, or even as a matter of interest.  I will detail some of this below.
   
   

6. On May 3, Uconn’s registrar - thanks to an audit of their email activity or lack thereof - finally responded to the question asked in section 4.
   
   “To clarify, the Over 62 Waiver does cover tuition only for both degree-seeking and non-degree seeking courses in the fall and spring. The webpage on the Bursar's Office is here: https://bursar.uconn.edu/tuition-waivers-graduate-students/ “
   
   …The policy authors are the CT State Legislature, and the statute is cited at the top of the page.
   
   That link defines the Over 62 Tuition waiver thus,
   
   “This waiver pertains to any person 62 years of age or older who has been accepted for admission, provided this person is (1) enrolled in a degree-granting program or, (2) for a person not enrolled in a degree program, provided, at the end of the regular registration period (on or after the first day of classes), there is space available in the course in which the person intends to enroll. Students must be a Connecticut resident and 62 years old prior to the beginning of the term they wish to enroll in. The waiver is only available for fall and spring semesters, and is valid for TUITION ONLY. Residual fees are the responsibility of the student. For any person who receives a tuition waiver and also receives educational reimbursement from an employer, the waiver is reduced by the amount of the educational reimbursement. Some fee based programs may not qualify for this waiver. The senior tuition waiver does not apply to students in graduate certificate programs. Please contact bursar@uconn.edu for any questions. For registration inquiries please contact the Registrar's Office.”
   
   Footnote 4 - There is nothing here that indicates Undergraduate Only courses for seniors.  Nor is there a means test to qualify for such a waiver.
   Not only is the website wrong (and subversively discriminatory) but so is the faculty understanding of such a waiver (see item 3 previously).
   The discrimination against senior citizens is systemic and this is just one aspect of what soon develops into a Kafka-trap of ignorant and disingenuous, plausible deniability on the part of these State institutions. Details to follow.
   You might also ask yourself why this information is so deeply buried in their website. I’m a lifelong Software Engineer/Software Architect and I never stumbled across this.  Imagine any senior ever having the chance to know this exists. IMO, this qualifies as Elder Abuse just as withholding health information or necessary drugs from someone does.
   
   Footnote 5 - Notice that the law isn’t discriminatory. UConn’s interpretation, disingenuous dissemination, and implementation is.
   
   

7. Armed with this new information, I contacted Judith Thorpe once again.
   
   “Given this clarification of tuition waiver;

• my application for admission to the MFA program is no longer contingent upon either a grant, scholarship, or other arrangement - the tuition is covered and I can cover any other expenses required

• the prestige of UConn's fully-funded MFA program remains intact

• UConn's misleading website references that institutionally and functionally promote age discrimination based on disingenuous interpretations of the law that create a classic example of passive systemic age discrimination will be addressed through a CHRO complaint that I am currently compiling

For the sake of clarity, I don't necessarily require studio space. I live just a few miles up the road.  While I am open to both the critical nature and informational aspects of the program, I don't believe I add undo or unnecessary overhead to anyone's teaching or guidance role.

So.  What do I need to do to be accepted into the graduate program?  Such acceptance no longer is dependent on the five students already accepted which, presumably was the critical decision in eliminating my portfolio from further consideration. “


Judith never replied back.

8. On May 9, Kent Holsinger - Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor,  Vice Provost for Graduate Education, and Dean of The Graduate School sent me an unsolicited opinion email to reassure me that the system is self-insulating and to go away.
   
   “I understand your disappointment at being declined admission to the MFA program in Art. As Professor Thorpe described in her original email to you, admission to the program is highly competitive. Only a small fraction of the many talented applicants are finally recommended for admission. I have not spoken with Professor Thorpe or with anyone else associated with the decision in your case, but nothing in the correspondence below leads me to believe that the decision to decline your admission was related to your ability to pay tuition, whether through the Over 62 Waiver or not.
   
   If you believe that references on any University website are misleading and promote age discrimination, you may refer your complaint to…” [all of the gatekeepers who enforce these policies in the first place].
   
   Footnote 6 - This is a guy who used to teach science.  Brutal.
   
   He never asked me what the issue was so he can’t know the question. But he has the systemic response in his back pocket. He doesn’t care about discrimination at all.  He personalizes the problem, it’s me (any person), who is unworthy - go test our website out for us - and don;’t go away mad, just go away and don’t forget what a big shot just corresponded with you - just a warning!
   Needless to say I responded in kind.
   
   

9. RE: Footnote 3 -  My research into the details because nobody else - not UConn, not DEI, not their Board of Trustees, nor anyone else incentivized to raise an eyebrow for American Connecticut senior citizens - fuck ‘em, they can’t prove it!
   
   a.) 2019 State Programs for Older Adults (https://www.cga.ct.gov/2022/rpt/pdf/2022-R-0131.pdf)
   
   “Tuition Waivers for Older Adults By law, state residents age 62 or older may qualify for a tuition waiver at any of the state’s public higher educational institutions, if at the end of the regular registration period enough students are enrolled in the course for it to be offered and enough space is left to accommodate the senior citizen (CGS §§ 10a-77(d), -99(d), and -105(e)). “
   
   b.) Revisit Item 3 - “consider auditing an undergraduate course in drawing, painting, or printmaking to develop your work…”
   
   See: https://nondegree.uconn.edu/senior-citizen-audit/
   
   “Senior citizens who do not seek degree credit may audit undergraduate courses only. Consent of the instructor is required. …[snip]... The senior audit does not apply to laboratory or studio classes.”
   
   In other words, not only are senior citizens denied an opportunity to take or audit a graduate level course, they cannot take a necessary [laboratory or studio] undergraduate course either.  In Footnote 4, I described the discriminatory practice as systemic.  This is another example of the Catch-22 nature of attempting to take advantage of a State-sponsored tuition waiver and the intentional roadblocks that the University invents to prevent in succeeding - you can’t get there from here. This likely affects other such waivers - say for veterans as well.
   
   Note the systemic nature of the discrimination is the reminder of the brain-dead “undergraduate only” UConn policy that no one seems to be accountable for except to deflect blame somewhere else.  For individuals who already hold undergraduate degrees this makes zero sense while for those without either an undergraduate degree or relevant life-experience, the policy works.  In other words, it is written to constrain the academically immature or unprepared from advancing beyond their preparedness.  Applying this to individuals who have earned degrees, succeeded in a life’s journey, and want to proceed is something that makes this unnecessarily punitive and petty.
   
   But even these arguments fail to fully describe the broader scope of discriminatory practice at UConn that involves not only ageism but a failure to provide uniform, consistent diversity practice throughout the State.
   
   To compare and contrast the difference between the treatment of senior citizens and younger students one need look no further than E.O. Smith high school -  the only high school that UConn allows qualifying junior and senior high school students the opportunity to attend tuition-free, undergraduate courses.
   
   The comparison is stark. A high school student can “step up into” undergraduate courses that have empty seats (the priority of these students with veterans and other qualifying candidates is unclear).  What is clear is that these students do not even possess a high school diploma yet and can move ahead.
   Seniors with either life experience aplenty, an undergraduate degree or more are not able to move up into appropriate courses.
   
   But as obvious as this difference is, there are even more complicated nuances involved. The E.O. Smith students who enjoy these benefits are more often than not related to UConn employed local citizens can mean that ensuring that “consent of the instructor” qualifications are wholly impartial is a questionable requirement for seniors or older vets to contend with.  I served on the E.O. Smith Board of Education for 12 years so I’m confident of what I’m saying.
   
   But the rabbithole of cascading discriminatory practice digs even deeper. E.O. Smith students who succeed in these courses enter UConn not only with a pocketful of tuition free courses that give them a head start.  UConn’s process of course selection includes a Byzantine hierarchy of who gets first preference in selecting courses. These high school/UConn courses are applied to that course selection priority ranking. All things being equal, these students can and do enjoy an entitlement that even better or equally qualified undergraduates cannot match.
   
   And deep as this rabbithole is, it has even more consequences that UConn’s virtue signaling marketing hides.  The Storrs campus is surrounded by lily-white suburban communities. If high school kids from the area can take tuition-free courses based on geography alone then logically - I, as a senior citizen of the area - should also enjoy that preference.
   
   But it’s not about geography, it's about the comfort of nepotism. UConn and other State institutions have urban extensions throughout the State.  The E.O. Smith high school entitlement is not extended anywhere else - not Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, or a dozen other locations - despite the University’s virtue signaling rhetoric about the importance of student opportunity and diversity. This is an institution that needs fresh governance and a serious and honest audit of their current educational practice.  While my complaint is constrained to age it should be obvious that the cancer of structural and systemic discrimination is chronic and widespread.
   
   

10.  The Roots of Discrimination
    
    Age discrimination is explicitly expressed in https://www.cga.ct.gov/current/pub/chap_185b.htm#sec_10a-100
    
    “PART III
    THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT
    Sec. 10a-102. (Formerly Sec. 10-117). Object of The University. Enrollment. Degrees. The University of Connecticut shall remain an institution for the education of youths whose parents are citizens of this state. The leading object of said university shall be… [snip]... The board shall establish policies which protect academic freedom and the content of course and degree programs.”
    
    Bolded mphasis mine.
    
    Compare and contrast this to (https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/free-college-tuition-senior-citizens/)
    “ Colorado State University — Fort Collins, CO
    
    CSU's senior citizen class visitation policy allows resident instruction classes on a space-available basis to students age 55 and over. Lifelong learners can register for classes in subjects like theater, Italian, and women's studies without paying tuition. “
    
    Nationwide the use of terms like “lifelong learners” is wholly non-discriminatory and wholesomely accurate.  Uconn’s indifference to 18% of Connecticut’s population who are potentially lifelong learners is criminal. It is the responsibility of the State’s flagship higher education institution to correct this.
    
    
    

11. To synthesize my complaint I offer this draft summary.
    
    There are unnecessary UConn policies that violate the spirit and intent of the anti-discrimination State and Federal laws. These policies not only compound the inability of senior citizens to take advantage of a benefit from institutions that many of us have spent decades supporting with our taxes but these benefits are subverted by obfuscating their existence not only to senior citizens but UConn faculty, communications, and administrative services.
    
    I think I’ve sufficiently documented how self-serving and self-insulating the system is.  What UCONN is doing is a form of discrimination under Title VII, the ADAA, ADEA, and a host of State and regional legal protections.
    
    
    

12. Upon belief & knowledge, I and many more are being discriminated against by the university because of age. 

I request the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities investigate my complaint, secure for me my rights as guaranteed to me under the above cited laws and secure for me any remedy to which I may be entitled.