Senior center decision postponed

It’s virtually inconceivable that the county will help pay for construction of a senior center in the Mill Creek area now that revenue forecasts show the state’s $6 billion deficit growing by $2 billion over the next two years, Snohomish County Councilman Brian Sullivan said on Feb. 20.

“Our capital budget is spent,” said Sullivan, who chairs the county’s finance committee. “I won’t say it’s impossible, but the chances of the county offering any financial support in the next three years towards a new senior center in Mill Creek are very slim.”

Despite that, the Mill Creek City Council again pushed back its deadline on Feb. 24 to come up with a long term solution for local senior facilities.

The council instructed City Manager Tim Burns to find out by April 7, whether or not the county is interested in partnering with the city to build a senior center at McCollum Park. If the answer is “No,” the city will pursue proposals to build a senior center on property owned by the Mill Creek Community Association.

Several council members were prepared to vote on Tuesday, but a letter from County Executive Aaron Reardon offering his support towards the city’s efforts to “develop a senior center,” prompted a two hour debate on the definition of “interested.”

“My office is open to assisting with (the city’s) idea of financing the project with a Metropolitan Parks District,” Reardon wrote. “This proposal is especially timely as the current economic downturn and reduction in consumer spending has limited opportunities to explore additional capital and operating expenditures within the budgets of Snohomish County or the City of Mill Creek.”

Reardon made no mention of McCollum Park in his letter to Mayor Terry Ryan, but several council members, including Ryan, Mark Harmsworth, Rosemary Bennetts and Mike Todd, viewed the letter as a positive development and pushed for more time to determine how serious the county is about helping Mill Creek-area seniors.

“Maybe McCollum Park isn’t a viable option; maybe we’re just pushing a wet noodle, trying to make it work,” Todd said. “But (County Parks and Recreation Director Tom Teigen) has come before us several times and talked to us passionately and eloquently about his dream to create a shared facility at the park that will cost us next to nothing. If there’s even a .5 percent chance that we can jump on that train, I want to keep our options open.”

But no other county leaders have committed even luke-warm support for such improvements at McCollum Park.

Councilman Mark Bond, who — until Tuesday — was an avid supporter of the McCollum proposal, admitted that he’s failed in backing his position.

“I could have asked County Council members or county staffers to come down here and tell the public why McCollum Park is the best option, but I didn’t,” he said. “We’ve been at this for a long time, and it’s time to give the good people in our community a decision.”

The senior center issue’s been boiling beneath the surface in Mill Creek for close to a decade, but it came to a head in September when the Mill Creek Senior Center Foundation asked the council for a pledge of $2 million to help support fundraising efforts to build a senior center on MCCA property.

“They made a mistake in asking us for too much money, when many people on the foundation have since told me that they didn’t need or expect that much to begin with,” Bond said.

The council has offered the local senior program 2,500 square-feet rent-free in the City Hall Annex to temporarily offset the increased cost of renting office and classroom space at local churches and government facilities like the Washington State University Extension Center.

“If it’s going to take us five years to work with the county and build a senior center at McCollum Park, I’d rather give seniors the money we would be spending giving space away in the Annex building and move forward with the MCCA site,” Bond said. “It’s time.”

Council members Mary Kay Voss and Donna Michelson were never convinced that county leaders supported the city’s efforts.

“They know what we’re doing here; they get phone calls from staff, the public and council members every day about this senior center stuff,” Voss said. “If they really wanted to help us they would have done so by now.”

Sullivan said the county can barely pay for services that are mandated by the state constitution.

“We’re strapped; everyone is,” he added. “It’s very dicey right now. We could even be looking at more lay offs. It’s just not realistic to expect the county will have any money to help build a senior center in Mill Creek.”