Leah Prestayko presents a survey conducted with community stakeholders regarding services at Seniors Centre during Monday's public services committee meeting at the Esplanade. (CHAT News photo)

By Alex McCuaig

Winter survey

Future of Seniors Centre operations remains open question

Aug 25, 2020 | 9:01 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – The city’s public services committee met Monday to discuss options as to how to best run the Seniors Centre in the future with the dual goal of increasing membership and decreasing financial costs to taxpayers.

The committee heard a request for proposals will be issued later this week to at least see some of the Seniors Centre services move to an outside operator while at the same time, city staff will be creating a proposal to see the municipality to retain operating the facility.

Both will be considered by council prior to a final decision is made.

The meeting comes in the wake of a survey conducted by the city last winter of community members and stakeholders about what they’d like to see at the Seniors Centre.

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Suggestions ran the gambit from language, dance, or art lessons to self-defence and cooking classes while including a strong suggestion that programming be directed by seniors.

Membership at the Seniors Centre – which costs $1.4 million annually to operate – has halved since the facility was flooded in 2013, currently sitting at around 1,000.

But while chair of the public services committee Coun. Julie Friesen spoke in favour of a seniors facility now and into the future in the city. Such a commitment was far less certain from fellow committee members councillors Jim Turner and Kris Samraj along with Coun. Phil Turnbull who was sitting in on the meeting.

Turner told the committee that even being a senior himself, he was unlikely to ever join the Seniors Centre and telling CHAT News the issue with the membership at the facility may be systemic.

“I have lots of things going on in my life. I think many other seniors are in the same situation. We have other ways to socialize and met with people so we don’t necessarily have to have a single place to go to,” said Turner.

He added that if the centre can’t increase its membership, other options will need to be examined.

“If we don’t get more members, more usage, we may have to look at other options for using that facility in our community – absolutely,” said Turner.

Samraj’s issues stem from the process the city is undertaking, highlighting there is no definition as to what a successful Seniors Centre is, let alone a solid outline as to how to get to that point.

“That should have been the first question we asked,” said Samraj. “When we criticize the current usage rates, we needed to have an answer to what the goal – what success looked like there. I think we didn’t answer that basic question before we started on this process and it’s going to cause us problems now.”

LaVerne Noble, chair of the city’s senior citizen advisory committee, says the centre is a necessity for the city – especially for seniors dealing with the fallout from the pandemic and the social isolation issues it’s caused due to public health restrictions and health risks.

“There is such a need in the end for our Seniors Centre to exist again to kind of bring something back to us again after the pandemic is over,” said Noble.

City officials will make a final decision regarding who and how the Seniors Centre will be operated near the end of the year.