As we enter the New Year, NewCAL remains high on the Mayor’s agenda, with the next community meeting Thursday, January 16, 2020, 7:00PM, at the Newton Ed Center, 100 Walnut Street, Room 111. The meeting’s online announcement states: “We look forward to listening and collaborating with members of the community as we move toward finding the best location for NewCAL.”
Hopefully, it was an unintentional oversight for the announcement to mention “finding location” without also mentioning “determining scope”. Whether NewCAL is to encompass an athletic and community center, featuring a gymnasium and possibly swimming pool, with facilities open to the general public unless reserved for seniors, or solely a Senior Center, would seem to be a necessary preliminary determination before proceeding to “finding the best location,” at least insofar as the size of the required site. To say nothing of the increased price tag for an expanded NewCAL as opposed to traditional Senior Center. And perhaps the moniker “NewCAL” (Newton Center for Active Living) should go back to “Newton Senior Center” (also recognizing that seniors with infirmities or who prefer less activity, are also welcome).
If you feel that the scope of what “NewCAL” should be, needs to be addressed first, or otherwise, Village 14 can continue to be a forum for that discussion into the New Year.
Good points, @Jim. The mayor continues to frame the project as a “community center focused on older residents.” So I don’t think the wording in the meeting notice was an oversight.
It’s important to get the program right before investing more money in siting decisions.
I fear that all of the community interest that accompanied the fight over use of parklands will dissipate now that, according to the Mayor, “all parks/green space be taken off the list of locations being considered for NewCAL.”
Now is the right time to figure out what an exceptional senior center could be. It’s more important than ever to encourage people to be engaged in achieving that goal.
And it would be very helpful if our City Councilors stressed these points with the Mayor before this thing goes off the rails again.
Unfortunately, I feel the Mayor is dug in on the multi-generational aspect. I think she needs to better articulate why that seems to be a non-negotiable constraint because it just makes no sense.
I was heartened to see an open call at this Community meeting for people to share their thoughts. The City & the Mayor want to listen. Kudos to them, now it’s on us to show up!
If I’ve learned anything the last few months in my plunge into Newton politics, it’s showing up at meetings, asking questions, doing some homework, expressing concerns and sharing personal stories is what moves the needle. I hope some of the brainpower in this forum and Newton will do so at this meeting to help shape an ideal outcome.
PS after we do a victory dance on the parks being spared!!!! :)))
PSS Thanks to Cedar Pruit and all her efforts and midnight oil work for Friends of Albemarle and kudos to Preserve Newton Parks & Allan Nogee for kicking off the effort to save the parks!!!
When I saw Mayor Fuller at the grocery store a few weeks ago, I stopped her to give her my opinions on NewCAL. At that time, she said that she’d gotten the message and Albemarle was off the table, and that therefore there wouldn’t be a pool. I’ll give her this – she was very open and friendly in discussing all my concerns, didn’t make me feel rushed despite the hour, and thanked me for sharing my thoughts and doing it graciously.
Kim,
I hope you’re right that the Mayor wants to listen. So far she’s only listened with respect to NewCAL’s location, not its scope.
UPDATE:
This morning I received what must have been a widely distributed email announcing the subject meeting from one of the Mayor’s NewCAL planning contractors’ representative, Melissa Gagnon, captioning: “Next Step in Siting NewCAL.”
Unfortunately, the email merely reinforces that location from a remaining list of possibilities is being further reviewed — having taken “Albemarle and all parks/green space…off the list of locations being considered for NewCAL” — BUT NO MENTION OF SCOPE OF NewCAL.
This omission is a FATAL FLAW in the NewCAL process. And I’ll reiterate what Paul Levy said above, “It’s important to get the program right before investing more money in siting decisions.”
Assuming this thread is read or will be reported to Mayor Fuller, PLEASE TAKE NOTE!
Re @Meredith’s response from the Mayor: “Albemarle was off the table, and that therefore there wouldn’t be a pool.” What a cynical remark, suggesting that there was a quid pro quo for the neighborhood’s accepting NewCAL at Albermarle. Reconstructing Gath Pool should rise or fall on its own merits (which are substantial), with no regard to whether it was to be part of a NewCAL complex. Indeed, no city official ever suggested that reconstructing the pool while constructing newCAL would reduce the costs of either facility. The numbers presented were totally separable.
While the Albemarle community and others should be grateful that their park is off limits for NewCAL, they should be deeply offended that the broader interest in rebuilding the pool was used by the administration to try and push through the NewCAL siting decision. And, now, that the pool has now fallen to its original low priority position in the Mayor’s CIP notwithstanding its use by thousands of residents.
It would be great to have a swimming pool somewhere around Newton Center. Existing pools are very far and not easily accessible.
There are many good points on here, certainly starting with the point that scope of NewCAL should be discussed, but I hope each of us can pause just to celebrate the fact that all parkland in Newton has been spared from consideration as a building site. I am so happy about this. It takes courage to change course and to listen to a community, so I applaud the mayor for this decision. The Preserve Newton Parks citizen action team is really happy to see parkland remain as outdoor recreation open to all.
Numerous crucial conversations arose from the dialogue about building on Albemarle, from traffic, parking and flood management to the fact that our beloved asset Gath pool, the city’s only outdoor swim facility, is badly in need of replacement – something daily users like me never knew before. Now we know and we’re ready to see it happen, and to help facilitate that process as needed. Join us by joining Friends of Albemarle today:
https://tinyurl.com/FriendsofAlbemarle
The discussion should be on a new Senior Center and not a NewCAL.
@Paul – I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer. Mayor Fuller said they wouldn’t build a new pool at NewCAL and that the Gath Pool would be handled separately. She never said nor implied any quid pro quo and in fact made it quite clear that Gath Pool was still considered important.
Peter,
…and I feel that the name should be Senior Center and not NewCAL. That will be a giant step putting things in the right direction.
Thanks, @Meredith. That’s good to hear and is different from what was strongly implied during the public meetings, which was that absent construction of NewCAL at Albemarle, Gath would remain very low in the CIP priority listing. BTW, I think it still is several years off in the CIP.
Yes, I heard the same thing Paul heard at the Parks & Rec meeting, was that Albemarle was to get the Gath Pool completely redone via NewCAl, as it is low in the CIP despite leaking thousands of gallons a day.
@Jim, yes the scope subject is confusing. They told me they wanted it to be an inter-generational facility like the JCC where I have gone for decades, which is awesome. But the surveys on the city website say seniors want their own facility. Also I have never seen seniors playing basketball at the same time as kids in over 20 years. I think the 10K SF gym needs to be downsized and realistically programmed or re-envisioned.
Picking up on Kim’s last point about seniors wanting their own center, it would be helpful if some of us who 100% support a new Senior Center, but not NEWCal, could attend the two upcoming scheduled meeting at the Senior Center (separate from the upcoming one at the Education Center) I can’t attend the meetings at the Senior Center as they are scheduled during the week. It would be great to hear directly for Seniors as to their preferences.
@Claire, excellent point, but many of us can’t attend these meetings. What would be nice is if the city would actually survey the 50+ year old population to ask what programs and services would be useful to us, and what location(s) would be most suitable. Please read Marian Knapp’s Aging in Places column in today’s Tab for her insights on these matters.
@ Paul, I did read Marian Knapp’s column earlier today. She is an important voice
I’m not sure who reads this other than the small number of people who take the time to comment, but just in case, I write to support the priority of determining scope before selecting location. Having participated in some of the early discussions about the new center, I have a sense that the first step of creating a laundry list of possibilities has been thorough. What seems less clear is that the second step of deciding needs vs. wants has been taken.
It’s also not clear that sites other than a “senior center” have been assessed for their capacity to be upgraded for use in a distributed approach to meeting the needs of older residents. We know the current building is insufficient but the goal of centralizing all services and activities at a single site may not be the best solution for a city as large and decentralized as Newton. Schools, government offices, parks and recreations facilities, etc. are distributed throughout the city. The central library may be the closest parallel to the current NewCAL plan and I’m not sure even now, 30 years later, many would agree that closing the branch libraries was the city’s finest hour. Upgrading other sites would benefit a broader range of residents, assuming they included programming as most now do for more than one age group, and it would move services closer to where people live.
My next-to-final comment is about age segregation and the desire by some to have a center isolated from other age groups. As a policy matter, the city should reject that idea, and apparently has. As an age-friendly community, Newton has said that it will remove age – old, young or otherwise – as an factor so that all feel welcome, included, respected, valued and supported. That stance is inconsistent with an age segregated center. If people choose to congregate by age, they should be allowed to do so, but not as a matter of policy in a setting that is sponsored and supported by the city.
Communities across the state and the nation are recognizing that age segregated facilities, a relatively recent invention, have largely failed in their mission, except in the narrow role of delivering government-funded services, for which people qualify only partly because of age. Loneliness, alienation, depression, premature declines in health and cognition, and social isolation are epidemic among older adults and are the result in part of segregation by age in our society. Research and experience show that age integration, including but not limited to multigenerational connection, is an important antidote to this trend.
Finally, I am old enough to have qualified for participation in current Senior Center programs for a number of years now, but I haven’t. And neither have people I know who are my age. Unfortunately, the programming offered today is not relevant to most older adults in our community or it can be found in any number of other places. This is the real challenge we face in this process and why we get things like pools thrown into the mix. This is not a case of build it and they will come, as some communities have already found out the hard way. Let’s not make that mistake. There are places across the country that have developed innovative models that work. Let’s find those and learn from them.
Doug D,
I am told that there are many readers of this site, especially local civic and elected leaders. I am told that it is the “go to” source for information and public opinion (especially since essentially there is no longer a TAB).
Very productive NEWCal meeting tonight. I expected that attendance would be off from the last meeting from Oct 24th since Albemarle was definitively taken off the table, but not so. Very well attended and lots of interaction.
Many city councilors there including Albright, Norton, Noel, Kelley, Malakie, Sharma, Wright, Humphrey…I think I am missing someone.
Breaking News: NEWCal is not the name of the new Senior Center. It is just a working name for the project. Potential names were requested.
Anyone else go tonight?