Residents of Ashfield, Buckland and Shelburne are continuing to push for a new, renovated senior center, and the next step may see the creation of a West County Senior Service District.
Senior Center Expansion Committee Chair Sylvia Smith said forming a West County Senior Service District would allow the towns to have equal say in decisions pertaining to the shared Senior Center in Shelburne Falls and its future expansion. A draft plan for the regional district is currently under legal review.
The proposed district would need to be approved by the towns, and then by the state Legislature. If approved, Smith said members would be appointed to a board to represent the three towns equally.
“Right now there are no regional senior center districts in the commonwealth of Massachusetts,” Smith noted.
The Senior Center Expansion Committee hired Daniel Pallotta, president of P-Three Technologies Inc., as a project consultant in December 2019. In a statement shared on the Senior Center’s website, Pallotta said the expansion committee met with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) just prior to the start of the pandemic to seek assistance with the expansion. While FRCOG could provide assistance, it was decided it would take longer than moving forward with the towns’ own solution.
“That meeting it became clear that the best path to a modern senior center was to create a senior services district that all three towns endorse and can take ownership in,” Pallotta wrote.
“It had been the goal to bring something to the Annual Town Meetings,” Smith said.
However, delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic have caused Ashfield, Buckland and Shelburne to focus primarily on financial business for their Annual Town Meetings this year. Items not deemed necessary before the start of fiscal year 2021 on July 1 have been tabled until a Special Town Meeting can be held at a later date in the summer or fall.
Smith said members of the Senior Center Expansion Committee have continued to discuss options for expanding the Senior Center, currently located at the Masonic building on Main Street in Shelburne Falls. Once the regional district is formed, Smith said the expansion committee will go out to bid and select a future facility.
A survey sent to Senior Center members in the fall of 2019 revealed that people overwhelmingly wanted to renovate and expand at the current center.
During the first public forum on Nov. 6, 91 percent of 47 residents surveyed approved the Masonic building as their first or second choice. On Nov. 12, 94 percent of the 17 residents surveyed approved it as their first or second choice. Again, on Nov. 18, 78 percent of 27 people surveyed approved the building and 85 percent said it was their first or second choice. Lastly, out of 54 surveys mailed in, 80 percent approved it as their first or second choice.
While the community had been supportive of renovating the Masonic building in the past, Smith said it would be a public bidding process and no decision is final.
“We’ve looked at over 20 different sites,” she said.
The Buckland Police Station on Conway Street was the second most popular choice among the fall surveys. Other potential sites included the Mole Hollow Candle building on Deerfield Avenue; a Shelburne-owned lot near Arms Academy at the corner of Church, Maple and Severance streets; the Cowell Gym and Highland Village properties on Highland Avenue; and the Buckland-Shelburne Elementary School and the King/Bishop properties on Mechanic Street.
If the Masonic building is officially chosen for renovation, programming may need to be held in a different location temporarily. Smith said it would also require further discussion with both residents and the building owner.
Zack DeLuca can be reached at zdeluca@recorder.com or 413-930-4579.