Ellington Residents Discuss Proposed Senior Center

On Wednesday evening, residents in Ellington gathered to talk about the proposed new senior center and about the idea of adding the funds for that project for those being asked for for the .

First Selectman Maurice Blanchette told the crowd that this was simply a public hearing on the petition brought forth by the residents and that no action would be taken on this night. He said that at the Board of Selectmen meeting on Monday, the board will set a date for a town meeting on this petition.

According to Blanchette, at that town meeting, it will either be yes or no on the petition.

“If it’s yes, then whatever the petition says must be honored, and if it’s no, then the petition becomes void at that point,” he said.

Sue Hannigan, Vice Chair of the Senior Center Steering Committee, told the people who were gathered that the reason they asked for a petition was that after the final conceptual design was received, Chairman Wayne Reynolds met with Blanchette about when a referendum could be expected.

Hannigan said that the answer was that it would have to take place after the referendum on the school renovation, so next summer at the earliest.

“It was really not acceptable to our committee that we should have to wait until after the financing for the addition to Crystal Lake School was approved – since it would decrease the likelihood that citizens would approve the funding of a senior center after approving more taxes to pay for the school addition,” she said.

She added that the committee then had no other choice but to gather enough signatures for the petition requesting that the referendum for financing of a new senior center be at the same time as that for the school renovation.

“It is the belief of our steering committee that approval of both important projects has the best chance of being accepted by the majority of voting citizens if they were combined – since senior citizens would vote for the combined funding, as well as most parents of students,” Hannigan said.

She continued, “As I have said before, it is a win-win proposition and is not divisive. Doing it any other way would risk that one or both of these important projects would be turned down by voters. We think both of these projects are important to be approved and we’ll ask attendees at the town meeting on this subject to vote for the combining of both capital improvement projects on the same referendum.”

Resident Maureen Webber said that she is a senior, worked in the Ellington school system, and that her children went through the schools in Ellington. She supports combining the two projects and doesn’t want to pit one group against another.

“I want us to work as a team, as a family,” she said. “We have to work together. If we don’t get the senior center going, we’re going to lose a lot of seniors from town – they’re going to go somewhere else to find their activities. Also, I don’t want the kids to lose out. That’s not our intention either. We need to be all together and I think the referendum now has to be together because otherwise you’re pitting seniors against students – and that’s not what we want to do.”

Miranda (Luneau) Krupa is an Ellington native who volunteered at the senior center when she was in high school, around the time it first opened. She feels that it’s time for the seniors to have a new place to call home.

“I feel like this is a project that has been swept under the rug for years and years,” she said. “I feel like the residents of this town have spoken - between the petition and the funds that were raised via the golf tournament. I just feel like now is the time.”