A survey of Acton seniors about the need for a new senior center brought a tepid response.

The Council on Aging (COA) and the Senior Center Building Committee (SCBC) released the results of a January survey of Acton seniors. The COA sent the survey out in its newsletter to 2,000 homes, and also conducted an online survey and distributed hard copies at the center.

While the 2011 census puts Acton's senior population at 3,900, just 194 people responded to the survey.

“If you assume that all of the town seniors actually got it, which I don’t think you can assume, it represents a response rate of about 5 percent,” said Peter Ashton, SCBC chair. “The initial reaction is that the results are really low but actually when you do surveys, if you get a response rate of anything 5 percent or higher, that is actually not a bad response rate.”

Survey Results (see attachment for full survey):

• 70 seniors said they use the senior center weekly, 46 seniors said they only attend for certain programs, and 32 said they never attend.

• 36 seniors said they utilize the Council on Aging's information/referrals services, 29 seniors said they utilize the borrowing of medical equipment services, and 27 seniors said they utilize the health insurance counseling service.

• The vast majority of seniors said they use the senior center mostly during the morning and early afternoon hours.

• The most popular programs seniors said they would take part in are: 

91 said history presentation

81 said strength training

73 said music appreciation

66 said movies

61 said balance training

• 149 seniors said they would be willing to pay $1-to-$5 to attend classes at the senior center, 13 said they would but it would be financially tough, and 28 said they would not pay.

• 48 seniors said they would support Acton building a new senior/community center, 37 seniors said they would support a building that was only a senior center, and 46 seniors said they did not have enough information to respond.

According to COA Senior Center Executive Director Sharon Mercurio, the current center is quite small to be able to conduct the activities the COA would like to undergo.

“Right now we really don’t have a place for folks to just drop in—we have a dining room but it's being used in so many different ways that if you just want to meet a friend and have a cup of coffee there is not a consistent place to do that,” said Mercurio. “We have wellness clinics and podiatry clinics but that all has to happen in the dining room when there are art classes going on and lunches being made. So if someone has a sensitive issue that they want to talk to the nurse about in private they are kind of in the middle of chaos.”

The 2010 Census had the Acton senior population at 3,700 and the 2011 Census had the Acton senior population up to 3,900 – a 5 percent increase in one year. The SCBC estimated that by the year 2030 the Acton senior population would be 6,000.

According to Allen Nitschelm, publisher of the Acton Forum, Acton does not need a new senior/community center because there is not enough evidence to show that the current center is not big enough. Nitschelm conducted his own study of how many cars were parked at the senior center by visiting the center 30 times at different times of the day during the months of June/July 2011. He said that the average number of cars in the parking lot at any one time: 12.

Nitschelm is also concerned about the cost of the project. According to his latest blog entry on the Acton Forum, “The fact is that Acton has a very large unfunded healthcare liability called OPEB which it is not planning to fund at an adequate level next year. We should not be taking on further debt and expenses when we aren't meeting our current obligations.”

The total estimated cost would be somewhere between $.7.7 million, with an estimated annual debt service of $500,000 a year (estimated $70 a year on the average tax bill) - with an additional operating cost for personnel and supplies of $270,000.

The SCBC plans to request $140,000 at Town Meeting on April 2 for a design budget, with a final construction amount by April 2014.

The SCBC will hold an informational public meeting at 7 p.m. Monday
in the Faulkner room of Acton Town Hall. The community needs to help define what a senior/community center is. The SCBC has been kicking around ideas of what part the community center aspect would play at a senior center. They came up with uses such as:

• Swimming pool

• Youth center

• Gym

• Meeting space (outside rental usage)

• Afternoon/Evening usage

• Day care