County creates task force to study senior center
The Anderson County Commission recently approved creating a task force of county and city officials to look into what the county’s options are for building a new, larger senior center in Clinton.
The current senior center at 195 Edgewood Avenue is too small, and on most days, overcrowded, according to the center’s director Cherie Phillips.
Commissioners unanimously passed a motion to have the chairman of the commission appoint a task force to address the overcrowding situation at the senior center.
This motion comes on the heels of a less than favorable motion commissioners made at last month’s commission meeting to defer — for 60 days — a motion to increase the “other contracted services” funding code for senior citizens and decrease the county’s unassigned fund balance reserves to do an independent commercial appraisal of land for a new senior center.
Seniors who attended last month’s commission meeting and heard the motion expressed to commissioners their disapproval of the commission’s decision to hold off on the land appraisal for a new center.
Some citizens went as far as to say commission was “neglecting” the seniors in the community and “turning a blind eye to their needs.”
“We need a larger building to accommodate the entire crowd. Let’s approve the creation of a three to five member task force and move forward with getting a new senior center for our seniors,” said Dist. 5 Commissioner Jerry White, who made the motion at this month’s Commission meeting to request a task force be created to address the overcrowding problem.
White told commissioners he had recently spoken with Scott Burton, the Mayor of Clinton, and learned the city’s Civic Center has available space the seniors could use, at least for the short-term, until plans are developed to build a new center.
White said this was just one of the options the county could do right now to address the problem, without having to “make a hasty decision on renting or buying a building or some land.”
White said he had also spoken with the Senior Center’s Director Cherie Phillips about possible short-term fixes. White suggested to Phillips she divide the senior center’s membership into two groups and have half of the members come to the center on one day out of the week and the other half come the next day on a temporary basis.
“I think a task force would really help in directly addressing this issue, and getting a plan underway sooner,” White said.
Dist. 8 Commissioner Myron Iwanski agreed, and said White’s recommendation to create a task force to address the problem had “a lot of merit.”
Said Iwanski, “I don’t think there’s anybody here on this commission who doesn’t want to do something for the seniors. I think we all see it as very important. All of these possible solutions—buying land, building a building—are going to take some time. There’s not going to be an immediate answer, but we need to collectively start getting a group together that can think of other alternatives of how we can get to where we all want to get with this.”
Iwanski said he would like to see commission expand their thinking to include having officials with the City of Clinton also serve on the task force because the plan, as it currently stands, is to locate the new center in Clinton.
“Maybe this could be a partnership [with the City of Clinton] on land, a building, or some other arrangement,” Iwanski stated.
He cautioned commissioners to first take some time to think through long-term solutions before making a hasty decision that could potentially end up costing the seniors, and the county, more money in the long run, and also limit any available opportunities for future development.
The vote by commission to form a senior center task force was unanimous.