Resident responds to Marlborough COA letter to Editor

To the Editor:

I’d like to respond to the recently published editorial written by the Marlborough Council on Aging. Please note, we all support a new Senior Center, it is the Ward Park location we are against. The editorial?listed three reasons why taking away public park land to build a Senior Center is a good idea:

1) Access to green /?recreation space.

It seems they are saying that we?have to take away green space in order to have access to green space? This seem?counterintuitive. And, if city council allows this to happen, it will set a precedence for future development of protected public park land. How long will it be until the next politician comes along and takes away Ward Park's remaining green space? Or the library gets built at Ghiloni Park?

2) Utilizing city-owned property

I don’t think residents against the Ward Park location, which one survey has reported to be at least 50 percent of the citywide population, care about the cost to purchase land. If that's what it takes not to further develop this historic park, then fine let's pay the cost. And saying the proposed Senior Center will not take up current space utilized for youth sports is simply untrue. It would be placed EXACTLY where the youth cheerleading program functions four days a week, summer through fall (and where the kids ice skated last winter). I also feel the end result would be no more youth sports at Ward Park. There simply would not be enough space for both a Senior Center, its related activities and the 200 kids utilizing the park four nights a week.

3) Restoring Ward Park

Another one I don’t understand. Why do we have to take away a large portion of the park in order to improve the rest? Memorial Beach is currently being improved without putting a 22,600 sq. ft. building on it. The 2011 master plan for improvements to Ward Park certainly did not include a large city- owned building, so it is possible to improve it without doing this project.

City Councilors should work at finding a suitable location for a new Senior Center. Placing it on historic public use park land should not be an option.

Michael Nickolas
Marlborough