The Mayor Makes His Case

I'm told Mayor Moak sent the following to city councillors (but not to this blogger.)


City Councillors,

I would be remiss in not making a few statements about Cushing Park and the Senior Center.

1. The criteria used to determine a site has been very objective and thorough. For nine years part of my profession involved consulting on library building projects, part of that service was site selection. I believe the process for this site selection was effective. Interestingly, 6 projects called for work with senior centers, successful in 4 sites in Connecticut where municipal complexes were built with separate buildings, in Mass. 2 projects that were built were not as successful because of the scheduling of shared common building spaces and parking capacity issues during the daytime.

2. I believe that Cushing Park is our second best location for a senior center, my first choice has always been the area that is now a soccer field at Cashman Park, but we could not have erected a soccer field at Cushing Park, and what would that have done for the neighbors parking concerns.

3. The request to the council is to change use of parking lot not the Ayer Play ground. We have consulted our City Solicitor, Office of Environmental Affairs and Attorney General's Office, the only concern is the vote in 1954 by the City Council to designate this area as a parking lot, it was an affirmative vote, but was it 2/3's… we cannot determine that. The documents you have received from me address that issue. The decision was made to designate this space for parking; a legal challenge would be very difficult.

4. The talk of the Kelley School comes up; we are working diligently to set standards to preserve the historic significance of this building while we try to determine final use. Today I strongly support the use of this building for youth services and community services. The building cannot house these services and senior services. We can make this building a true youth and educational enrichment center if we can find funds to adapt to ADA. Today we have commitment letters form the following agencies who would like to share space and pay rent. YMCA, Jeannie Geiger Crisis Center, Girls, Inc., Learning Enrichment Center, Adult & Community Education, Hugh Doyle Resource Center, after school drop in center, and of course our youth services.

5. I have recently heard of some very generous gifts that are viable funding sources to assist a senior center once a plan is developed, I do believe that these gifts can be a reality as long as the donors are still able to give.

Thank you for considering this essential service for our citizens.

John Moak

How strong is his case? My answer is in the next post.


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