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Need
For Senior Center Clearer Than Site
By
Thomas Goldsmith, News & Observer
September
26, 2007
In less than two weeks, Raleigh voters will decide whether to approve a bond issue that includes $7.7 million for a new 25,000-square-foot senior center.
But the location of that center remains up in the air, with Mayor Charles Meeker preferring one site and a city-funded report suggesting another.
Meeker said Tuesday that he likes a location next to the current, crowded Whitaker Mill Senior Center in the Five Points neighborhood of central Raleigh -- if there's enough acreage and if it's OK with Wake County, which owns the property.
"I think that's the traditional site of the senior center," Meeker said. "That would be my preference, if it works out."
Earlier this year, a consulting firm working with the Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department found that a different site best met a long list of specifications: Laurel Hills Park, on Edwards Mill Road near Rex Hospital and Crabtree Valley Mall.
City Council members first got information on alternatives in March but will not select a site until after the Oct. 9 vote.
The indecision has left some people frustrated.
"I do not like it one bit," said Mary Odom, 86, a former state legislator who lives at Whitaker Glen retirement community, near the present senior center. "I would prefer they say what they are going to do with the money ahead of time."
It is not uncommon to hold a bond referendum without first announcing a location for what the bonds finance, said Wake County Manager David Cooke. Picking a spot first could attract voters who like the location but turn off those who don't, he said.
"I could argue that both ways," he said.
Meeker said he has not asked the county about putting the center on land that it owns next to the existing center, but Cooke said the county is open to the idea.
Wake County leases part of its former home for the aged there to the nonprofit Resources for Seniors, which runs it with a mix of public and private money. If a new center is built, the county would use the space occupied by the existing center.
"The county has always offered to make that site available if it is acceptable to all the other partners," Cooke said. "I don't know that all the seniors are together on where they want a senior center."
Raleigh's growth to far corners of its city limits has complicated the issue. About 2,500 seniors across Raleigh are members of clubs set up through the city's Parks and Recreation Department. They meet at community centers, churches and other places across town, some so far from the city center that neither proposed site is convenient.
"If it were my druthers, Durant Road has got some property there that should be looked at," said Margaret King, a volunteer leader for the Wakefield Villagers Club, which meets at the Villages of Wakefield clubhouse in far North Raleigh.
King said she supports the money for a new center, no matter where it is.
"The people over on Whitaker Mill Road have been making a lot of noise to influence the location, and I can understand that -- they have a need," she said. "So many places have needs. Southeast Raleigh has needs."
At Whitaker Mill on Tuesday morning, older people doing exercises crowded into what regulars call "the big room," which holds about 65 people before the fire marshal steps in.
"You get a chance to exercise, you get a chance see your friends," said Catherine Jones, 77, who was taking the pump and tone class. "It's an outing, more or less."
Back in March, City Council members heard the case for the site from the Whitaker Mill Senior Adult Action Group. President Jean Pope said the group preferred a standalone center not in an existing park and would like the city to partner with Wake County.
But in a recent interview, Pope said the important thing is that the city not let the chance pass by to build a new center.
"What we want to see is for everybody to come out to vote 'yes' to get that bond passed," she said. "We are not really concerned about the location at this point because we feel like the city is going to work with us."
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