I went over to the Senior Center yesterday with our Parks & Recreation Director Jay Lotthammer to visit the folks that use the Senior Center. The purpose of my visit was not merely social. I was there to get an ear-full, and I went away with two ear-fulls.
I was there to tell the seniors about a recommendation from our Budget Advisory Commission to study the idea of closing the current senior center and moving the activities and programs currently provided there to the new Community Center. The recommendation was recently presented to the City Council. The Council hasn’t said anything about the recommendation yet, but City staff said that we’d study it.
So I was the messenger yesterday to tell the group of 150+ people about the Budget Advisory Commission, the budget process, the proposal to study the idea, the City Council’s position, etc. The purpose of the meeting was for me to share information with them and for them to share their feelings with me. The purpose of the meeting was accomplished, I can assure you of that.
It is an under-statement to say that the seniors at this meeting did not think much of the idea of moving their operations into the Community Center, even if meant getting all new facilities. They like where they are now. The parking lot it small and close to the building. There are gardens close to the building. They are concerned about the potential loss of the community wood shop. They don’t like the idea of being “lumped” into a much larger facility that is dedicated to athletics. They’ve done their time with loud sweaty kids. They’d prefer not to have to deal with that on a daily basis.
I heard that they’ve paid their taxes for years. They believe they’ve more than paid for their facility and they don’t want to sacrifice in order to save the City’s taxpayers a few more bucks. I hear many comments about the fact that there is more to the senior center than just “square footage”. It’s their home and they like it.
Closing the current senior center facility and moving them and their programs into the Community Center may, or may not, be a good idea. I don’t know right now. We haven’t started the study. All I know right now is that there is not enough information currently available to us to make this decision. We’ve now heard from the seniors. We know what they think. Next step is to talk to the architect and construction contractor at the community center to see if it’s effectively too late to be starting this conversation now. We definitely don’t want to slow down the big Community Center project by adding a complicated new element into the it at this late date. It may well be that we’ll need to wait to talk about this proposal until sometime in the future.
The meeting had a little hostility in it, but all in all, I thought it went pretty well. We even shared a laugh or two near the end. I heard what they had to say. I think that’s what they’d like to hear today.
