Health & Fitness
OPINION: What Dedham Seniors Need
As seniors ramp up what an ideal senior center would offer, a town building is becoming vacant.
Results from say they want more room to exercise and access to computers.
Of course the survey does not mention the Avery School.
It doesn’t matter whether they exactly meant to throw its bid in on the Avery School: seniors have done so.
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Other groups are studying just what to do with the , and they will unveil their choices later. But seniors have clearly let their needs known.
This was necessary.
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They have been trying to establish a senior center for more than 40 years. Latest failure was a beautiful building that was to stand away from neighbors on town-owned land on Bridge Street. Seemed ideal.
All the town had to do was approve an override. It would be $5 million; but wait, no, it would be $8.65 million. OK, $8.65 million. Pricey but it would finally give the seniors’ a truly grand place.
Voters squelched the $8.65 million bid.
Seniors had no center and all their plans died.
Earlier, some seniors had threatened to vote against school spending if they got no satisfaction in a senior center. (This was not a Council on Aging effort.) So there was a deal. They helped the school get its money. Then when it came to get seniors theirs, the voters said no.
Years have passed, but no center has appeared.
Instead of trying to build a swank center this time, seniors are looking at something different. Instead of making a massive effort, they are now just talking about what a new center might have.
Two specific programs – exercises and computers – have been named. No location was mentioned. This no demand, it is just a statement that seniors would like these programs.
Avery School is not named either.
But it is more than coincidence that the two named items – exercise facilities and computer materials – would fit nicely at the current Avery School.
And the request for senior center facilities just happens to come along when the as a hunt for Avery School uses heats up.
Seniors ought to come up with a full-blown plan and lay it before the people if they need money to make it happened.
Having toppled senior visions of a new building four years ago, Dedham ought to listen with extra attention.
Whether or not Avery School is formally up for discussion as a senior center, it is now open for talk around town.
A senior center may eventually be somewhere else, but to ignore Avery School as an option is to reject fact.
