Speaking for "scores of veterans" Monday, Commander Lamar Mackson of American Legion Post 219 said they want "unfettered access" to a meeting place at 400 East Front Street. The dilemma is that a Veterans' Center promised as part of the building will not become available until all 63 condos on three upper floors are sold.City Administrator Bibi Taylor said the space is being used as a sales office for the residential units. Taylor said veterans are allowed to use a conference room in the senior center that is also on the ground floor of the building, but Mackson said when veterans convene for a meeting, they sometimes have to wait to be let in. They want their own key, he said.
Officials demurred, citing security concerns over such access to a city-owned property.
Council members expressed sympathy for the situation, which Mackson called "insulting and offensive to veterans."
Councilman Cory Storch noted the promise of a Veterans' Center was something Mayor Sharon Robinson-Briggs ran on in her last campaign.
"Don't remind me," said Councilman Adrian Mapp, who lost the 2009 Democratic primary to Robinson-Briggs.
A Veterans' Day celebration in November 2009 was billed as being at the center, but took place outdoors and in the senior center.
With only a fraction of the residential units sold so far (Corporation Counsel Dan Williamson put the number at perhaps 16 to 20 out of 63), the veterans may have a long wait for their own place. The contract obviously trumps the promise.
Also on Monday, Senior Center board member George Smith said there is a parking problem at the building. The Monarch, as the complex is known, has a deck over a portion of the parking lot and seniors are not being allowed to park there. Recently a warning was posted that cars will be towed, he said. Smith raised the issue of seniors having to park in the open and walk in snow.Williamson said he had been made aware of the issue and had a discussion with the developer that day. He requested the developer to return to the Planning Board to resolve parking issues.
At the risk of ticking off my fellow seniors, may I say they parked in the open over a 10-year lease period beginning in 1989 for space at 305 East Front Street, then spent another 10 years using the same lot while officials tossed around options for a new center. When the application was at the Planning Board, seniors did not want to hear a lot of dickering over parking at the site and each two-bedroom condo was allotted one and a half parking spaces. That included one dedicated space per unit and a rather optimistic notion that residents, visitors and seniors would somehow share the balance.
So now the preferred, covered spaces are posing a problem.
In retrospect, both of these issues were embedded in the original plan. The formula for acquisition of the Veterans' Center now seems too open-ended. The vague, cross-your-fingers hope for parking to just magically work itself out is running afoul of reality. Seniors dealt with an open lot when there was no option, but now they want dibs on the new, more desirable choice.
Add to this the unfinished business the city itself has with the developer, the $278,000 bill for condo fees and fit-out of the senior center that was promised "at no cost to the city," and you have the whole can of worms.
Oh wait, I forgot about the "rooftop garden" that seniors and residents are supposed to share. Last time I looked in the summer, there was a rooftop but no garden. Ooops.
--Bernice
So...the Seniors are complaining still about what their "savior" Mayor Sharon hasn't done, yet you well still see them out in force rooting her on in the Red Shirt Brigade. The Veterans were also used as pawns, yet I doubt you will see them actively going against here.
ReplyDeleteMmmmmmmmm....2 groups of people who are having someone pee on their leg and tell them it's raining, yet will walk the same path as they have before more than likely. An empty basement in the Tepper's Building on top of it.
What say we simply do whats normal, say "Screw the taxpayers" of the city..work out another "free" ( wink - nod , wink - nod ) center..call it the Veterans Center and slip us another bill for 1/4 of a million bucks on the citizens of Plainfield??
OR !! - How about this??? Simply sit the seniors down...tell them to work out a sharing agreement with the Veterans NOW...or GET OUT. Christ, you think they'd have learned to share on the playground 60 years ago. The "free" Senior Center is costing money..OUR MONEY. Unless the Seniors want to pony up all the cash, they DON'T call the shots. Put it up to a vote to the citizens in Plainfield and I bet you the concensus will be SHARE or LEAVE. Bernice, thanks for showing that people can be a senior and still be an immature brat.
Rob, it is the city that has concerns about giving "unfettered access" to the senior center to the veterans for meetings and such. This same kind of concern is why Inspections can't work on weekends when lots of illegal home repairs take place - City Hall is not open.
ReplyDeleteI doubt the senior center would even be open to seniors in off hours without some staffer on hand to open and lock up.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for any of the seniors who voted for Sharon. You got what you voted for. You did no self research or examination of the real issues - you just ate the free lunch (or Kool Aid as I put it) and voted. What did you expect?
ReplyDeleteNot to mention that I think Sharon treats the Seniors like a bunch of idiots. She calls them "My Seniors". What are they, doddering imbeciles? They are grown people who should use the good mind God gave them.
The seniors and vetrans both are entitled to nothing. Where is it written that they must have a center?? And where is the money coming from to pay for it? The money is not there and the center should not be there. Covered parking? Let them pay for the privilege like all the landlords in town do. The apt complexes were build with parking for the residents. Now, years later, they are being charged for it. Rather than pay for it, they clog the city streets with their cars while the parking lots sit empty. The city needs to step in and do something about it. The building codes require it. And how many homes around the senior center will have to be torn down to make room for the necessary amount of parking for both the residents and the seniors to use at the same time? The condos will eventually sell, and then what? And more importantly, who will pay for it?
ReplyDeleteI have to laugh at what the Mayor is saying about the proposed amenities for the Senior Center and the Veterans area. Go check the records and plans in the Planning Office. There was never assigned senior parking or a roof top garden. This was all smoke and mirrors. Seniors and Veterans are getting exactly what was proposed from the onset.
ReplyDeleteGosh,
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to be out of that place. The administration and it cronies are a bunch of fools. Residents are like lambs being led to slaughter.