Good editorial on Senior Center in Northwest Arkansas Times on May 31, 2008

http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/Editorial/65739
Times Editorial : Senior moments
Northwest Arkansas Times
Posted on Saturday, May 31, 2008
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Senior citizens often get a bad rap in America. Popular sitcoms like "Seinfeld "or "The Simpsons"portray old folks as feeble, and maybe even a little crazy. Sure, we titter - but the truth is that we're looking at ourselves a couple of decades down the line (if we're lucky enough to get there at all ). Laugh at your own expense.

Which is a way of saying that our elders deserve our respect. They are, after all, the folks who came before us. Everything today's 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-somethings believe to be so, so important, the older generation was taking care of years ago. The folks who today reside in nursing homes and retirement villages helped make the United States into the superpower it is today. Everywhere we turn, we owe them. So it behooves us to listen to them. Regardless of being polite, doing so is the right thing to do.

Having said all that, the strife apparent at the Fayetteville Senior Center has us scratching our heads. A May 6 get-together between clients at the center and officials charged with operating the facility nearly brought some key figures to blows. Next came reports that the Fayetteville Senior Center's "site council"was being reorganized, which only frustrated some elderly clients further still. And then we hear a couple weeks ago that a handful of regular visitors just might be banned unless they promise not to gossip and engage in other disruptive behavior.

Just take a look at this incomplete list of complaints to get an idea of what's being alleged these days: slamming doors, rattling windows, pettiness, rudeness, lying, being pushed around, being ignored, being spied on, staff treating seniors like kindergartners, seniors'objections to supplying tea and coffee, white boards instead of bulletin boards, questions over who gets to open the suggestion box...

Besides the war of words that's broken out between Kaye Curtis, director of senior services for the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District Inc., and a handful of elderly who resent her "meddling," one wonders what's going on at the Fayetteville Senior Center that's leading to so many hurt feelings and so much disruption.

Fayetteville's Stella Farrar - one of the individuals receiving letters regarding their supposed disruptive behavior - had this to say to the Northwest Arkansas Times: "It's a beautiful center, but we don't feel like it's a friendly home environment with all the harassment, abuse and stalking we have to encounter. "Strong language. Perhaps too strong. But indicative of some ongoing issues.

Listen, in a world of an Iraq war and debates over new high schools and peace in the Middle East, what happens at one senior center doesn't seem to amount to much. But for a lot of the people in the sunset of their lives, these senior centers become vitally important links to their community, to their continued physical and mental health, and to their need to socialize.

And the folks who run the senior centers should (and we believe do ) want the senior citizens to feel exactly that way about their senior center.

What has bothered us is the amount of blame paid staff members have appeared to lay at the feet of disgruntled senior citizens for the disruptions at the Fayetteville center. That, it seems, is to be an expected part of dealing with elderly folks, and it seems the folks contracted to operate senior centers would be better prepared to effectively engage their clients in productive discourse.

To be sure, some pettiness can be expected, but our senior citizens deserve to be treated with the utmost care and respect. That doesn't mean their complaints have to be accepted at face value - some are clearly personal conflicts - but it does mean the people hired to make the senior centers work must find ways to make them work for the senior citizens who come through the door.

The job of working together with the seniors to find solutions and smooth relations belongs to the center director, staff and the leadership of the organization hired to administer the programs. They must take responsibility for taking care of these concerns.

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Donor provides new exercise machines for senior center

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Senior Center visitors trying to solve problems


Senior Center strife between seniors, new management


Times investigates disbanding of senior site council

Senior Center, Meals on Wheels suffer weak economy woes

Senior Center visitors trying to solve problems

Northwest Arkansas Times reports management problems at Senior Center

Times investigates disbanding of senior site council

Five aldermen attend Town Branch Neighborhood Association meeting

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To read The Morning News story click on
Town Branch neighbors review student-housing project

Council members attending the Ward One Town Branch meeting with developers on May 15, 2008, were Adella Gray and Brenda Thiel of Ward One, Nancy Allen of Ward Four and Lioneld Jordan and Shirley Lucas of Ward Four. The proposed Hill Place student-apartment development on the failed Aspen Ridge townhouse project site south of Sixth Street, North of Eleventh Street and west of Hill Avenue in inside Ward one, but is separated from Ward Four to the north only by Sixth Street and from Ward Four only by the railroad.

Everyone will be welcomed!

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Meals on wheels fund-raiser on Government Channel Cox Cable Channel 16 several times this week

TUESDAY, May 13
1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Message Board
5:00 a.m. Fire Training Video
6:00 a.m. Washington/Madison County Drug Court
7:00 a.m. Westside Waste Water Treatment Plant Tour
8:23 a.m. Library: "A Good Night's Sleep"
9:00 a.m. Quorum Court: May 8
Recycling
SENIOR CENTER Benefit Concert & Silent Auction For Fayetteville Meals On Wheels
E Waste
Animals That Need Homes Now!
Compost Facility
Cars, Kids, and Sun: A Deadly Combination
Free Bulky Waste Pick Up
Library: Stories Under the Big Top with Cassandra Barnett
Recycling Drop Off
Fayetteville's Unique Televised Forums: How They Work & Who Can Use Them
Trash Cart Program
Partners For Environmental Sustainability
WSIP: Westside Wastewater Treatment Plant Update
Farmers Market
Green Building Roundtable Discussion
USGBC Low Impact Development In A LEED Neighborhood Development Project
6:30 p.m. Planning Commission: May 12
SENIOR CENTER Benefit Concert & Silent Auction For Fayetteville Meals OnWheels
Trash Cart Program
Animals That Need Homes Now!
Compost Facility
Advertising & Promotion Commission: May 12
Recycling Drop Off
Cars, Kids, and Sun: A Deadly Combination
Free Bulky Waste Pick Up
USGBC Energy Efficiency: The Starting Point For A Strong America
E Waste
WSIP: Westside Wastewater Treatment Plant Update
Recycling
Farmers Market
Partners For Environmental Sustainability

WEDNESDAY, May 14
1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Message Board
5:00 a.m. Fire Training Video
6:00 a.m. Washington/Madison County Drug Court
7:00 a.m. Harry & The Potters @ FPL
7:49 a.m. WSIP: Westside Wastewater Treatment Plant Update
8:30 a.m. Animals That Need Homes Now!
Farmers Market
9:00 a.m. Planning Commission: May 12
Compost Facility
Historic District Commission: May 8
Free Bulky Waste Pick Up
Advertising & Promotion Commission: May 12
Recycling Drop Off
Green Building Roundtable Discussion
Trash Cart Program
Children's Library This Week
Recycling
SENIOR CENTER: Benefit Concert & Silent Auction For Fayetteville Meals On Wheels
E Waste
Farmers Market
Green Or Too Green
Kessler Mountain: Conservation Elements
4:30 p.m. Fire Training Video
5:30 p.m. Trails & Greenways: The National Perspective
6:00 p.m. Animals That Need Homes Now!
Farmers Market
6:30 p.m. City Council Agenda: May 13
Recycling
Water & Sewer Committee: May 13
Compost Facility
PEG Center Equipment Committee: May 7
Benefit Concert & Silent Auction For Fayetteville Meals On Wheels
Partners For Environmental Sustainability
Cars, Kids, and Sun: A Deadly Combination
Free Bulky Waste Pick Up
USGBC Low Impact Development In A LEED Neighborhood Development Project
E Waste
FPL In Focus Series: Artist Tony Tiger
Recycling Drop Off
Farmers Market
Trash Cart Program

THURSDAY, May 15
1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Message Board
5:00 a.m. Fire Training Video
6:00 a.m. Washington/Madison County Drug Court
7:00 a.m. Fayetteville's Unique Televised Forums: How They Work & Who Can Use Them
8:26 a.m. Clabber Creek Trail Ribbon Cutting
8:40 a.m. FPL: Gathering Of The Groups
9:00 a.m. City Council Agenda: May 13
Trash Cart Program
Water & Sewer Committee: May 13
E Waste
PEG Center Equipment Committee: May 7
SENIOR CENTER Benefit Concert & Silent Auction For Fayetteville Meals On Wheels

FEMA floodplain map of Aspen Ridge/Hill Place and streets downstream

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Please attend meeting Thursday

Apologies to Pete Seeger: Where have all the fine coats gone? Long time paassing. Where have all the fine coats gone? Long time ago

To the Salvaaaation Arrramy
Senior residents of Fayetteville might have been able to listen to Pete Seeger's song online a few weeks ago
Listen live: Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago
but not likely again anytime soon.
No one knew who owned the coats left over from winter in the pool room; so the Senior Center staff allegedly donated them to the Salvation Army after putting up a warning note a few days earlier, according to some of the pool players. The guy who owned the only one hanging there on Friday saw people looking at his and said, "please don't take my coat."

Where have all the Internet phone cords gone? Into the director's office to be checked out and plugged in "at the director's discretion," according to a woman who asked the director about them.


Strife builds between seniors, center officials
Where has the only computer less than 10 years old gone? To be locked down to keep people from "looking at porn," according to a part-time staff member.
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The inability to get online was discovered by two women who were wanting to see this Web log online.
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One assumes that the staff members have time to check out and plug in computer cords whenever requested. They don't need to be out raising money or spinning their side of their recent bullying tactics that have resulted in the volunteer advisory council being told they meet only at the discretion of the director.
So far, the result of bringing their rudeness to the seniors to the attenton of higher officials and the media has resulted only in more intimidating tactics.
When will they ever learn? When will they every learn? Listen here:

Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing. Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago
Anybody been told who rented the center for a wedding or something of the sort this weekend?
The only reason for the director putting so much effort into moving furniture and tossing out things that had been kept and used in the center for years is the desire to make it desirable to young men who want the wonderful city-owned facility for a wedding.
The only excuse for the way things have gone lately is that the pressure on the director to raise money has created anxiety and stress that has made her main focus — the comfort and convenience of the senior users of the center — difficult to maintain.
She is caught in a difficult position. It appears to be the responsibility of the seniors — many of whom survived World War II and the Great Depression — to understand and forgive her impatience. She has had some recent tough times.
The people she has seemingly come to fear and distrust are some of the most loving and caring people she'll ever know.
Let's try to show her that.

Times reports on meeting at Senior Activity Center

Strife builds between seniors, center officials

Mike Norton and Jerry Mitchell address news media and people at senior center

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Seniors to meet with Jerry Mitchell of the Area Agency on Aging at 11 a.m. Wednesday May 7, 2008. Everyone welcome

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Computer missing two weeks from center. Fayetteville City Council visited Town Branch Neighborhood development sites at 4 p.m. April 5

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The mayor and members of the Fayetteville City Council are to gather at the failed Aspen Ridge town-house construction site near W. Sixth Street and S. Hill Avenue at 4:30 p.m. today (Monday, May 5, 2008 ) to view the 30-acre parcel from which nearly all the trees and topsoil have been removed. The rich, fertile, stormwater-absorbing, water-purifying soil has been either dredged out and hauled away or buried under tons of less-absorbent rocky soil.

Tuesday at 6 p.m., the council is to evaluate a plan that has been brought forward by Hank Broyles, who sold his share of the Aspen Ridge property to his partner in that venture, Hal Forsyth, soon after it was approved in 2005, but who bought the whole parcel after Forsyth's development ended with hundreds of low-income residents displaced but nothing built on the property.

Slimy, yellow silt-laden muddy water has overflowed from the failed Aspen Ridge site onto the north end of World Peace Wetland Prairie ever since that 30 acres' vegetation was removed and the soil replaced with non-absorbent soil. The Hill Place student apartment plan and the Summit Place plan must manage silt and stormwater properly or both WPWP and the Town Branch will be further damaged.

Broyles' new plan is to sell the property to
Place Properties, limited partnership, which develops and manages apartment complexes for college students in several states. The sale, apparently, is contingent on Broyles' getting the student-apartment plan approved by the council.

Please see
Summit Place, Hill Place maps and photos with first plans for Summit Place that were submitted to the Fayetteville planning department early this year.

Please see
Hill Place/Aspen Ridge plans, maps and photos with concept drawing from January 2008.

Town Branch neighbors are asking that the Summit Place plan be evaluated by the council before the council approves the Hill Place plan. Water from the eastern slope of Summit Place on Rochier Hill will increase erosion and further exacerbate the stormwater problems created by the Aspen Ridge land clearing and now the problem of the Hill Place project. Appian Design Center
Hill Place/Summit Place plan designers is planning both projects. Hank Broyles and John Nock reportedly own the Summit Place property.

The Summit Place project west of the Arkansas and Missouri Railroad is in Ward Four, while the Hill Place project is in Ward One.
As in the case of many adjacent projects, these are separate but the upstream work will have a bearing on the downstream project's success in protecting people further downstream on the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River from flooding as well as an effect on the quality of water entering Beaver Lake, the water supply for most of Northwest Arkansas.
For details, please call 479-444-6072.

Today's schedule for Government Channel with times close to exact! New effort. Check it out.

Today's government channel exact run times. Please test it against reality