I would also be happy to be part of this conversation. I could let Jen know there is a group who would like to investigate the possibility of this inviting and comfortable community room. Laura Sent from my iPhone On Sep 15, 2023, at 7:10 PM, kathryn Corbin <corbindes...@brown-corbin.com> wrote:
I would very muck like to participate in such a conversation/project discussion as well, and have several ideas for it as well. I’m also happy to contribute my my interior design expertise to help create such a space. Kathryn Corbin Sent from my iPhone Please excuse any typos, (which I declare are exclusively the fault of auto spell-check!) On Sep 15, 2023, at 6:55 PM, Linda McMillan <mcmillanlin...@gmail.com> wrote:
I would love to see something like this in town and would be happy to be part of a conversation with Pierce House and COA. I would hope that others might join in who would anticipate using such a space. It may be a good short-term solution. I would still advocate for a more permanent space within the new Community Building ( if it goes forward). At the very least, I think it needs to be part of the programming so the architects could explore possible space options within their design. Thank you Sara for the Pierce House idea! On Sep 15, 2023, at 3:14 PM, Sarah Liepert <sarahliep...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi Sara/Linda McMillan. What a great suggestion, which could be implemented in the near term. Might COA and Pierce House staff connect to see about having a community drop-in room (or rooms) soon? Copying Abigail Butt.
Best,
Sarah Liepert
On Sep 15, 2023, at 2:43 PM, Sara Mattes <samat...@gmail.com> wrote:
Would the Pierce House meet such a need, if an accessible bathroom and entrance were better developed?
There are lovely rooms (recently redecorated) that could hold comfy chairs.
The kitchen meets catering standards so could also have coffee/tea & snacks available.
Perhaps there could be some afternoon structured conversations, in addition to regular drop-ins.
The separate rooms on the first floor lends themselves to different functions-quiet reading, conversation, card games…etc.
Let’s make better use of this lovely gift to the town.
Sara
On Sep 15, 2023, at 10:57 AM, Linda McMillan <mcmillanlin...@gmail.com> wrote:
While I fully support the COA and have been a volunteer for many years, the design of the new “Community Center” (at last I looked), does not support one of the biggest program needs of seniors, that is,
LONELINESS. There are many seniors who have lost a spouse, or who live alone for various reasons and are lacking connection to other people. Perhaps they don’t feel like signing up for an exercise class, or want to learn a new language,
or play the ukulele, or attend a lecture, but they DO WANT to go to a place where they can see other people, maybe even meet someone new, chat, and have a cup of coffee or tea, and hang out. They would like comfy chairs, maybe
some magazines donated by “the community”, and a space where you don’t have to talk in a whisper (like the library). A report released this year by the US Surgeon General reported that about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.
The report is titled “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.”
The Community Center building as currently designed (the last I looked) does not have a welcoming, comfortable space like this. They have utilitarian “activity rooms” and “lecture rooms”. I realize that building costs have risen significantly and that
the current cost of construction and renovation pose significant challenges, but if the new “Community Center” doesn’t have a space to tackle this incredibly important need of seniors, then we are not seeing the forest for the trees, and I will not support
it.
Linda McMillan
207 Sandy Pond Road
On Sep 14, 2023, at 12:38 PM, Peter Buchthal <pbucht...@gmail.com> wrote:
My late father lived till he was 97 and was a big user of his local Council on Aging. They were fantastic and helped us out is innumerable ways as my late mother suffered from dementia. My father enjoyed his weekly senior lunch followed by
a competitive game of scrabble with a local policeman.
I support all Council on Aging programs, period.
What I think the Community Center's committee hasn't yet made the case for is the following:
1) Without real average and mean numbers to COA's programs, I can not get behind the size of program rooms requested to provide all ongoing programs. The COA has only provided min and max numbers with huge variations that make over building very likely.
Lincoln has a tendency to over build, that is why our school is much, much larger than we really needed by any standard.
2) The town has yet to disclose other competing capital expenditures in the pipeline for the town's tax resources. I have heard rumors that we soon will need to replace the drinking water pipes along many parts of the town. I have heard other rumors
on lincoln talk, that our repaving and roadside path/bicycle safety wishes may also require additional town borrowings.
3) The arguments for the Hartwell Community Center being made to the town is a bit of a False Choice. We need to separate building or renovating a Senior Center of the correct size with "If you don't support this project, the town will never get a community
center/ senior center that meets its needs."
I want to build a new or renovated facility that is the correct size for our Senior Community. I have continuing doubts that it should be on the Hartwell campus. My late father was a terrible driver and I can't imagine purposefully placing our young children
near senior drivers navigating parking lots. I keep reading in the newspapers that seniors drivers often have unintended accidents driving into buildings that involve putting their foot down on the gas pedal instead of the brake. Why are we unnecessarily
setting ourselves up for a potential tragedy.
Let's stop this rush to build and build a newly renovated Council on Aging somewhere else in town like the Pierce House.
Peter Buchthal
71 Weston
Thank you John Gregg for your thoughtful ideas about the Community Center. We desperately need a Community Center that meets the needs of the
whole community. This Build is a long time coming! If the town votes on a 50% or even 75% reduction in size from the original proposed 100%
it will be a huge mistake. Programs won't be possible in the smaller spaces. Why build something that does not meet the needs of the town? And prices will only increase over time. If we continue to quibble
and bring up the same arguments and the same suggestions over and over, again we will never have a Community Center. Prices will never come down. We need to bite the bullet and build a useful space that works for the community.
Visit community centers in other towns like Arlington,Bedford, Belmont, and Wellesley,(And yes I know these are towns with bigger populations and more money.) But we can build something that meets our needs
if we just do it. There are folks in this town with big houses and expensive cars. Let's all dig deep and fund the build.
Thanks John , a lot to think about here. And yes, a good, well researched plan is being picked apart to such a degree that it may never happen. All of Lincoln could benefit greatly from a Community Center. And it will never cost less than
it will if we move forward now.
Sent from my iPhone
If you build it they will come.
You have services but no facility which makes it harder on the Parks and Rec staff or LEAP to provide quality services to everyone. You build a school with up to date facilities to help encourage people to move to Lincoln
with children, you provide elderly services to keep families in the town, or even as families grow older the parents need more assistance and move back with the kids to help provide the necessary help instead of living alone. It gives flexibility and leverage
to attract people to the town and then keep those people there instead of chasing people away because the overall view of Lincoln is they are concerned with themselves, not others, not a very diverse community of people live in the town.
Lincoln is a beautiful town, lots of history. close to Boston but from the outside people do not want to move to Lincoln unless you fit the criteria. School population is going down for several reasons, we moved to Lincoln
for the school and LSHS. My belief is that Lincoln needs to take a look in the mirror and ask if they just want to be a town where the priority is to continue to make Lincoln less welcoming to others or make it more welcoming. There is no need to run more
studies, or take more census, the need is to understand and provide the necessary services for children, parents, and the elderly of the Town a Community Center makes Lincoln on par with other surrounding towns to be more attractive to move into.
If this was a discussion to put in EV Charging stations at the Commuter Rail Parking lot for $10 Million dollars the project would already be under way, why is it that hard to commit to provide positive services to the
community in general and society as a whole? A Community Center to house programs for the elderly, LEAP facility for after school programs that help working parents, a central housing area for Parks and Rec Staff to provide other quality services makes a community
more centralized and welcoming. This entire discussion is eerily similar to the School discussion, at that did not end well.
“ The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but
expecting different results” – Albert Einstein
Thanks,
John
01776
On Wednesday, September 13, 2023 at 07:08:44 PM EDT, Peter Buchthal < pbucht...@gmail.com> wrote:
Lynne, Karla and David make excellent points. One of the challenges the town faces with the community center is the lack of trust in the building committee to size
a COA/ParksRec building to meet our needs and not our wishes. I believe the major hill the community is trying to climb is how many seniors actually use the facilities today.
Parks and Recreation has provided actual attendance figures for all of the activities. COA has provided only maximum and minimum numbers without means or averages. The maximum and minimums for a particular activity can vary greatly with the maximum
being sometimes triple the minimum headcount. For residents who are not awash in money, in may be hard to justify building a larger council on aging for the occasional activities that may need more space once every three months. Wayland, a town with twice
the senior population compared to Lincoln just built a new Senior Center for 11 Million dollars. Their building that meets the needs of a town with twice the senior population is 12,900 square feet. Our small, medium and large Community Center proposals
are 16K, 18K or 20+k.
I believe the Building Committee should ask Fincom or the Select board to fund a consultant to provide average and mean numbers from the COA computer system so that the community can see the actual consistent usage of today's COA. As someone who is familiar
with computers, I believe the town could easily also find several residents (representing different groups within the town) who might volunteer their time to provide the needed computer expertise to extract the needed average and mean numbers from COAs computer
system and generate more meaningful usage statistics for the community.
Let's not overbuild a public building again.
Peter Buchthal
Weston Rd.
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