And Counter Point

Mary Harbaugh was nice enough to pen a thoughtful rebuttal that warrants posting.

For the record, I don't think I'm blithely giving up anything. I've give it serious consideration and thought every time I walk through the park, roughly seven to 10 times per week. I honestly don't see the little piece o' Americana the opponents see when they draw images of the park. It's a parking lot.

As for Mary's hope that someday we'll reclaim it. I'd like to think that' s possible but I don't see that happening. Will the neighbors be happy with losing their parking spaces to a park instead of a senior center?

Anyway, Mary raises many plausible options. (Editing note: I lost Mary's paragraphs during the cut-and-paste so I added some breaks on my own. I think they work.)

We don't need to cannibalize a neighborhood recreation space -- a well-loved if somewhat scruffy area used by upwards of 150 people during the winter and many more than that the rest of the year for recreation.

(Tom, would you so blithely give up Perkins Park or Woodman Park or any other neighborhood space? Go take a look at any of them at the same time of day you walk through Cushing. No neighborhood park is busy all the time. I was at Cushing Park just yesterday afternoon, where I encountered two other dog walkers I know, as well as several parents with young children. Some of the kids were learning to ride bicycles on the hardscape. Other kids were throwing balls around.)

We can and will, one day, fix up the park, but not if we've given away -- forever -- the place where we nurture neighborliness and protect the quality of life of a dense neighborhood. Don't fool yourself -- if we give up the site as a neighborhood recreation area, we give it up. Even the proponents admit the one remaining basketball court would have to give way to parking whenever the need arises, which it surely will. Don't forget that several nearby residences were given permission to add units based on the proximity of nearby parking. Those folks will be competing for the center's parking.

Are you also willing to ignore the adverse impact of other uses of the proposed building on the neighborhood? Some proponents look forward to renting out the building on weekends and evenings to help cover maintenance and other costs. That's likely to affect street parking year-round, add noise and traffic, and change the "you must be my neighbor" feeling of the area.The trend nationwide is to *add* neighborhood parks to promote the health and civic engagement of residents and to enhance a community's appeal for economic development purposes. Chicago, to name just one place I was reading about recently, is actually tearing down buildings to create neighborhood parks.

In fact, Newburyport is also actively working to increase public recreational space, to provide more places for kids to play.We don't need to give up a neighborhood park!So what about a senior center? For starters, we may want to rethink the criteria for site selection.If what we're talking about is a senior center intended to appeal to some large percentage of the city's 4000 seniors -- a center that can readily adapt to the changing needs of a diverse group of seniors in the coming decades -- a center that reflects best practices in land use and urban planning -- a center that can incorporate some self-financing component to assure its operation in tough fiscal times -- then we need a malleable space in a commercial/institutional area, and we need a programming and a transportation plan to go with it.In this scenario, we could partner with a developer to build above existing retail, or partner with a redeveloper of sites downtown, at Storey Ave, or at the traffic circle. With a transportation plan and handicapped upgades, we could use the Kelley School.

If, one the other hand, what we're talking about is the senior center that Ed Cameron describes -- a center designed to serve the perhaps 5-7 percent of seniors who are socially isolated and uncomfortable socializing in more community-oriented spaces (such as the library program room, a park, a coffee shop, or one of the existing large common rooms in our senior housing complexes), folks who have difficulty traveling to various locations -- then we're talking about a more specialized, social-services approach. (I'm told that an important component involves a volunteer sitting down with a group of seniors for a meal or cup of coffee, alert to any mention of hardship, so that services can be arranged to help that person.) In this scenario, we could also be talking about a shorter horizon of need for a specific building setup, as technology and transportation changes, as well as demographic changes, will shape how such services are delivered in the future.

We don't need as large a building as is now proposed, because a simple staggered schedule will accommodate the programming for this relatively small, relatively homogenous group. We could look for an agreement with a church for use of space on weekday mornings and early afternoons. With some bridge financing, we could buy a building such as the one mentioned by Kathleen O'Connor Ives at the last public meeting on this issue. We could revisit some hastily rejected options with a clearer idea of the immediate need.


Thanks Mary

I should point out that Ed Cameron addresses many of these issues in his comprehensive post. See the link in the below post.


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