More than 100 seniors citizens, many in walkers and wheelchairs,
protested Friday just beyond the doors of their beloved senior
center on West Edmundson Avenue
– $37,500 was on their minds and since the news that the city
may cut half of the senior center’s budget, its loyal customers
have become unsettled.
More than 100 seniors citizens, many in walkers and wheelchairs, protested Friday just beyond the doors of their beloved senior center on West Edmundson Avenue – $37,500 was on their minds and since the news that the city may cut half of the senior center’s budget, its loyal customers have become unsettled.
“It’s very frustrating. It makes me angry. This is a place for me to come and interact, do crafts, eat lunch,” said senior citizen Lucinda Korver. She said it was too bad the cuts will run so deep at the senior center, a place that city council members will have wished they could enjoy “for their own old age.”
Their choir of protest songs and rally cries – the seniors hoped – were heard miles away at Morgan Hill city hall. The proposed elimination of $37,500 will be discussed at a public hearing June 2 at 7 p.m. in city hall.
Residents John Tarvin and his wife Linda organized the protest and seniors were given yellow slips of paper to save the date for the hearing.
“It’s really going to hurt these guys,” Tarvin said.
The city hall chambers is expected to be overflowing with seniors, similar to the dining room at the center following the Friday protest. The chambers will be bustling, but not with the likes of a live keyboardist and dancing.
“I’m very disturbed. This is a way for the seniors to get out of the house, to get a good meal, to exercise their body and mind,” said Julia Starling, a volunteer and senior at the center. Starling is an active volunteer in the area and felt that seniors had paid their dues.
“We’re worth our weight in gold,” Starling said. “We’ve paid our taxes, we’ve paid into Social Security. We need you now. We were there (paying taxes) for so many years. We did our part, now do yours.”
A bulk of the senior center’s programs will disappear if half of their budget is eliminated in order to balance the city’s $2.3 million shortfall. Small conveniences such as a $5 haircut or movie matinees will go away if the proposed budget passes.
“Come on? A haircut?” Starling said, pointing to the long list of programs that will have to be cut in order to support daily operation costs.
Also on that list are watercolor classes, Wii bowling, golf lessons, line dancing, Bingo, several photography courses, needlework classes, sing-a-longs, the SJSU and Gavilan College internship program and dementia caregivers training. Also, the center’s hours will be reduced from seven hours daily to five.
One way to save the senior center programs and staff, Tarvin suggested, is to add $1 per month to memberships at the city’s CRC and Aquatics Center. There are currently 3,182 membership units, including family memberships, at the facilities, and Tarvin noted that an extra dollar added to each $80 monthly membership fee could easily subsidize the senior center.
The city council notes that the senior center falls into the category of a service that does not generate revenue or is a least-used service. In Morgan Hill, there are about 5,000 residents age 65 and older and the senior center reports about 40,000 visits by individual seniors last year – almost half of total CRC visits in 2009. At the CRC, the city would implement a $2-per-day fee to use the computer lab in the evenings and on weekends, and would no longer participate in South County Collaborative efforts to promote support groups, youth activities and workshops if the city council adopts the recommended budget.
For the hundreds who are regulars at the senior center, it’s become a second home and perhaps the only place they have to stay active – physically and mentally.
John Camisa and his wife Bonnie congregate at the senior center with friends who they have known for 40 years.
“For many people, this is the most social place they have,” Camisa said while enjoying lunch Friday, a daily ritual that provides sometimes the only balanced, nutritious lunch some seniors might eat each day, Camisa said.
The Camisas began visiting the senior center shortly after it opened at the West Edmundson location in October 2006. He said he most values the computer classes – “to lose that is horrible from a mental gymnastics perspective.”
Such a critical part of keeping seniors fit mentally is done through conversation, playing cards, singing and using the computers.
“It’s a great place. You don’t see many grumps in here. Most people are smiling,” Camisa said. “We’re very congenial. We enjoy a good joke now and then.”
Those jokes and their smiles may become fewer if the council adopts cutting the senior center’s budget.
What: Public hearing on the city’s proposed budget
When: 7 p.m., June 2
Where: City Hall council chambers, 17555 Peak Ave.
