Board Approves $1.5M Bond Resolution for Expanded Senior Center

Garden City village trustees Thursday voted 6-2 in favor of making, at maximum, $1.5 million worth of improvements to the senior center on Golf Club Lane.

Trustees Nick Episcopia and Richard Silver both voted against the expenditure.

Silver said the $1.5 million the board is now looking to borrow is close to twice the estimated amount discussed "barely" six weeks ago. He said the statement the board released in August estimated that the annual cost renovation would average less than $100,000 per year over 10 years, based on a design developed earlier in the year that priced out at around $800,000.

"The $1.5 million we are now looking to borrow is well beyond what we previously committed, beyond what was previously asked for – as some of our seniors acknowledged, and beyond what we need to spend to deliver most if not all of the programs that our Recreation Department proposes to deliver from the expanded senior center," he said.

Silver criticized the process. "We have not done a good job of building community support for what we are now proposing to do," he said. "Indeed, until the agenda for this meeting went out, we hadn’t even told the public what we were proposing to spend. I think that is a shame and I think we owe our residents better."

John Delaney of Spruce Street agreed, stating that such a large expenditure in this economy just doesn't make any sense. "While I agree the senior center needs some work done on it, I find it incredible that this board is willing to float a bond for a million five with no studies on utilization, past or present," he said.

The building will serve as a "true drop-in senior center," according to recreation director Kevin Ocker, who says approximately 90 percent of its usage would likely be for senior services Monday through Friday. Weekends could be available to non-senior groups, and for rental to produce revenue for the village. "To call it a full-service rec center, partially, but it's really a senior center with capability because we have the room to do it," he said.

Mayor John Watras added, "It will be an all-inclusive center with an emphasis on seniors."

Resident Patricia Donnelly agrees that the village needs a "proper, bonafide senior center." She doesn't however, think it needs to be so big. "I am very cost-conscious. I had to be all my life raising my sons. I think it could be smaller," she said. "We don't have to go for $1.5 million ... The concept is wonderful but it doesn't have to be that big."

Many seniors in favor of the expansion have pressed the board for months to act on their promise to make improvements to the existing building. In early August, the board's Public Information Committee released a statement advising residents that trustees were proceeding in a "reasoned manner" to ensure the needs of a majority of seniors were being served at an appropriate cost to the village.

Nearly two weeks later, the committee released another statement advising residents that after several trustees met with Ocker and the architect to discuss preliminary plans, Gustavson Dundes Architect & Design was asked to increase the size of the proposed expansion by an additional 40 feet or so, modify front access to the building and consider an enhanced patio and outdoor barbecue setup. In early September, the board held a work session to further discuss the proposed expansion.

Trustee Robert Bolebruch is in favor of floating the bond. He said Garden City's seniors, which make up approximately 22 percent of the population, have supported the village's way of life for 30+ years, adding, "This facility will provide a place they can call home."

Richard Bankosky, chair of the senior advisory committee, said the first design was flawed. "There was little good flow through the building. It was hard to get from one section to another section and for seniors in some situations that could've been a very dangerous situation," he said. "This current design solves all those problems."

Bankosky said committee members contacted the 20+ groups who currently use the center to hear their views. "They want a multi-use, divided room senior center," he told trustees.

"It takes many different opinions to form a consensus," he added before thanking the board for their work in moving the project forward.