Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Good to know we're not in this alone

A big thanks to Tom Salemi for pointing out this piece, from the Boston Globe, about Wellesley senior citizens fighting for a senior center (although I have to confess, when I first saw the title of the post yesterday, I thought it referred to high school seniors and didn't read it).

I believe that this center is of paramount importance not because it's "giving in" to one segment of the population but because it will demonstrate a caring and respectful spirit.

I see all the arguments for making the center multi-generational, but I really think we need a senior citizens center and we need it not 5 or 10 years down the road - we need to get cracking now.

Far from being critical of the Senior Center Building Committee for investigating an option to Cushing Park, I think it's commendable that they set a deadline for looking into the Towle property (although I don't know what they've been doing for the last 3 or 4 weeks) - and if it doesn't work, we'll go back to ye olde contentious site on Kent St.

1 comment:

Gillian Swart said...

No, I mean the Building Committee has 5 yrs. to try and raise the money for Cushing Park bldg., then there's the time to construct the building ... Brian Derrivan said he thinks the city could have something up and running at the Towle site within 2 yrs.

If the building(s) will not be used as a senior center 10 yrs. from now - something I can't envision, by the way, since I don't think the Council on Aging is going away as a city dept. - then it can be used for something else. There's no shortage of city departments that are crammed into City Hall. I think the Veteran's Office, which I believe would also go into such a building, will still be around as well and will be serving many, many more veterans.

The only real obstacle I see from a logistic standpoint is that the parking is down the hill from the existing buildings. But maybe they could knock down one of the buildings that's on the flat and make a small parking lot there and only staff would park down the hill.