SUNDERLAND — After Deerfield voters shot down the proposal to move the South County Senior Center to an office building at 112 Amherst Road in Sunderland, the center’s Board of Oversight is left brainstorming next steps, including the possibility of becoming a consortium or district.
“I want to keep it as positive as we can,” Board of Oversight Chair and Whately Selectboard Chair Joyce Palmer-Fortune said to preface last week’s meeting. “We tried to do something that’s really hard to do.”
To pass, the relocation required approval from Sunderland, Deerfield and Whately. After Sunderland voters approved the move at their Annual Town Meeting and town election, Deerfield residents voted down a $103,253 override to fund the relocation at the Annual Town Meeting on May 11 and May 19 election, stopping the proposal in its tracks before Whately voters could weigh in.
“The more that seniors feel like they’re being moved around, it makes them feel like an itinerant population, and it makes them feel incredibly undervalued and disrespected,” commented Senior Center member Nikki Stoia of Deerfield. “It’s very frustrating to those of us when we go to the meetings and other people think you’re just giving us a gift as if we’re not paying taxes or we’re not willing to pay the extra only $50 a year.”
At Deerfield’s Annual Town Meeting, residents voiced financial concerns over the proposed move to the 12,000-square-foot building, which would have raised property tax bills by $50 annually, according to Senior Center Director Jennifer Ferrara.
Opponents to the proposed move also voiced a desire for the Senior Center to use the Deerfield Town Hall, 8 Conway St., after the 1888 Building renovations are complete and the municipal offices are relocated there.
“There was a huge deficit in support from Deerfield — not for the Senior Center, for the Senior Center in that building,” Board of Oversight and Deerfield Selectboard member Trevor McDaniel said. “People still don’t understand this is not a Deerfield Senior Center — it is South County, three towns. … They have a hard time thinking beyond just their town.”
“My sense in the room was, if it’s not in Deerfield, we’re not interested,” Palmer-Fortune said.
Deerfield Finance Committee Chair Julie Chalfant explained to voters at Annual Town Meeting the Finance Committee’s position to not support the override, clarifying that while members believe the center “provides a valuable service to the town” and would improve with more space, “what we don’t support is spending extra money when another viable option is available.”
She described Deerfield Town Hall as this “viable option,” which she claims would cost $150,000 less than renting the 112 Amherst Road building in Sunderland, despite an earlier feasibility study that found that the renovations necessary to make 8 Conway St. into a suitable Senior Center would come to $5 million.
“The last time we were in a municipal building in Deerfield, it fell down around our ankles, and I want to avoid that,” Palmer-Fortune added. “I think part of that is we need to not have one town’s Finance Committee be a veto on the Board of Oversight.”
She suggested the Board of Oversight members look into converting the South County Senior Center into a consortium or district, a change she described as a step in the direction of the center owning its property.
“I think ownership matters. We are not structured such that we can own,” Palmer-Fortune explained. “If we’re in a building that somebody else owns, then we’re going to be beholden to whoever makes the decisions about how money is spent on that building. … With ownership comes more control.”
Palmer-Fortune pointed out that the West County Senior Services District made a similar move last year, when it officially became its own fiscal agent. The district is independent from parent towns Ashfield, Buckland and Shelburne, and is run by a board of managers. Shelburne had previously functioned as the fiduciary of the Senior Center in Shelburne Falls, just as Deerfield is the fiduciary town for the South County Senior Center.
While McDaniel expressed an interest in Palmer-Fortune’s idea, he added, “I don’t see that flying.”
As the Board of Oversight looks into this option, Ferrara mentioned a few upcoming changes at the Senior Center that arose from discussion among staff members when they realized the fate of the proposed Sunderland relocation.
On July 1, the foot clinic will close down. Ferrara also expects the Senior Center to “scale down” its events and occasionally close for an hour in the middle of the day to provide downtime for the staff as they straddle several locations. The center is currently located at 22 Amherst Road in Sunderland, but programming is split between the First Congregational Church of Sunderland, Whately Town Hall, Cadence Yoga Center in Sunderland, the South Deerfield Polish American Citizens’ Club and Deerfield Town Hall.
“People may be upset with that, but we’re doing the best we can as a team, and we’re trying to maintain our continual support of the population that comes in on a regular basis,” Ferrara said. “We’ve been bouncing everywhere and it’s been hard.”
