INSIDE
Seniors ready to rock on Fridays

by Meg Olson

The parks board and the seniors association are presenting a united front in asking voters for an additional $5,000 to provide a second day of activities for seniors.

It has not been a smooth or a straight road. Members of the seniors association approached the parks board in August asking for $8,000 to fund the second senior center day, but apparently without official support from their own board. According to parks board chairman Irene Waters, they also lacked solid costs for the second day and a clear plan of who should pay what. What they didn’t lack was voices, and the crowded August meeting appears to have spurred all parties to action.

The month before the September parks board meeting was a web of telephone calls and hastily called meetings, at least one of which ran afoul of the state open meetings act. At what Waters described as a “working meeting” September 3 county parks senior services manager Rob Bunnett and Pam Relay, who runs the Council on Aging nutrition programs in Whatcom and San Juan counties, met with some members of the seniors association and the majority of parks board members.

At the regular parks board meeting September 4 commissioner David Niles said the earlier meeting had been a way to quickly move towards a positive solution that would get the levy increase on the ballot and the extra seniors day up and running. “Yesterday at our afternoon meeting we discussed the ways we could do it,” he told the audience.

The Point Roberts senior center is open Wednesdays offering lunch, social activities and classes such as the computer class now underway. The program is funded primarily through the Whatcom County parks department senior services program, which pays the salary for local coordinator Armene Belless. The Whatcom County Council on Aging’s nutrition program pays for the center’s cook and the noon meal, supplemented by the donations of seniors who come to eat. The Point Roberts parks department has a lease with the senior center allowing the program two days a week, only one of which is being used at this time, and provides copying, fax and telephone for the seniors. Anything else is paid for through the $5 annual senior center memberships and other donations to the senior center, such as an anonymous benefactor now sending the center $100 per month.

Belless read a statement at the September 4 meeting saying proponents of the second day for the senior center were now proposing a split levy. Voters would first be asked to approve the regular 12 and a half cents per thousand of assessed valuation needed to raise $30,000 for parks district operations, primarily maintenance of the community center and Baker community field. The second half of the ballot item would ask for additional approval of three cents per thousand dollars of assessed valuation to raise the $7,600 Belless said the extra day would cost.

Parks board members did not discuss the proposal at that meeting but chose to table the issue and adjourn the meeting until after the full senior center board had a chance to meet with Bunnett and Relay and approve an official proposal. However, the proposal offered to the seniors association board by Bunnett when he met with them September 10 was crafted by Waters. “It’s a proposal Pam and I think is very reasonable,” Bunnett said, citing an earlier telephone conversation with Waters. He said the parks board was asking for a single ballot issue that would include $5,000 for a second seniors day and the $30,000 needed for district operations, reflected in a levy rate increase from 12.5 cents to 14.5 cents per thousand dollars of assessed valuation, or $2 per year of additional tax for a $100,000 home.

Money collected through the levy would be funneled into the seniors program through county parks and the nutrition program. Bunnett said attendance and donations would have to increase to make the second day feasible, pointing out it would have to survive on less than half the funds used for the existing day of senior center activity. “I think we can make something work for $5,000,” Bunnett said, suggesting that hours for the cook and coordinator would be reduced on both days to lower overall costs. He added the parks board had offered to cover utilities for the second day. However, the biggest expense would continue to be the meal service.

“The ball’s in your court,” Bunnett told members of the seniors board. “You need to come. The more who come to lunch and the higher our donation level the more it covers the cost of the nutrition program.” Relay said the suggested donation of $2.50 for lunch only covered half the cost of the meal and those that didn’t make any donation could still get lunch. “We need to get donations up,” Bunnett said.

The senior center board unanimously approved the proposal, choosing a two-year probationary term for the second day, and pledged to work within the community to get the levy passed and also increase donations to the center. Bunnett said potential donors could make tax-deductible contributions to the senior center through the council on aging.

“I’m happy to see the parks board and the seniors finally working together instead of against each other,” said seniors board member Anna Uibomae as she headed in to lunch of barbecued beef sandwiches, potatoes, green beans and chocolate pudding cake. The beans were donated from a local garden.

Later that evening, parks board members continued their regular meeting and approved putting the levy on the ballot.

“We’re asking for a levy in the amount of $35,000 in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007,” Waters said. “How that is spent is not in here. It’s up to $5,000 for the second day and if that doesn’t succeed after one year the money will be used for other parks programs.” She said if the levy passed they would work out details of a contract with Whatcom County parks to transfer the money into their hands as part of the cost of the second day. “I think the seniors should commit an amount of money also,” Waters said. “This has to be their program.”

Waters added that the local parks department would pick up some of the facility cost of the second day, such as utilities and garbage.

Referring to the sometimes acrimonious discussions about the second day, Waters said she hoped rifts would heal in supporting the levy. “A lot of people were very unhappy with how this went,” she said. “The parks board has done and is doing a lot of good in this community and we are, I think, being very gracious about this $5,000.”

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