Faced with a recent change in management, users of the Haines Senior Center are coming together to make sure the Haines Borough knows how important the facility is to them.
Center manager Valery McCandless and several Haines Senior Citizens Center Inc. board members briefed about 30 people at a Monday meeting on the borough’s recent takeover of management.
Last week, the board handed the keys back to the borough, which owns the building. The board had been managing the center since at least 1992, when the last management agreement was signed.
Between paying utility bills – including bulk pellet purchases for the pellet boiler and a new pellet-burning stove – and wages for the facility’s new manager, the board was running into the red and unable to raise enough revenue through facility rentals.
When the board asked for money to help pay for the utilities and management, borough manager David Sosa declined. “They did not want to negotiate at that point. They did not want to negotiate giving us some money to pay for the pellets and to pay for the management,” said board member Mardell Gunn.
The board asked for about $30,000 a year for utilities and other management expenses. “The borough said, ‘No, we can’t do that,'” Gunn said.
Sosa said in an interview Tuesday the negotiations on that point broke down because the board couldn’t provide financial details on their revenues and expenses at the time.
“They did not have the financial details for the last several years,” he said. “We felt since they did not have the numbers on hand and they weren’t able to provide good accounting, it would be best if we just took over the facility.”
What remains to be seen – and what some center users are concerned about – is how borough management will change facility operations.
Sosa said the borough is not booking rentals right now, though it will honor rentals already made for November and December, which include a SEARHC holiday party, the annual “Cookies by the Pound” sale, a Haines Woman’s Club meeting and other events.
Regular, long-term renter Southeast Senior Services, which currently provides the meal and transportation program, will also be allowed to continue renting the facility during that time, Sosa said.
What happens after that remains to be seen. Sosa said the borough is looking at other options, including retaining management but only renting out to one tenant, like Southeast Senior Services.
Another possibility that arose during meeting discussions was the Chilkat Valley Preschool using the center. Preschool representatives haven’t contacted the borough about using the facility, but Sosa said he would be open to having the conversation.
Assembly member George Campbell said he would like the borough to get rid of the building, and instead have the facility’s current users move their activities to another building, like the Chilkat Center.
“We don’t have enough money to give everyone in the world everything that they want,” Campbell said. “Let’s get rid of these buildings and start looking at our assets.”
When board members broke the news about the change in management Monday, many people attending the meeting asked how they could help and who they should write to about their concerns.
Manager McCandless urged seniors who want the center to remain open with its current level of activity to contact members of the assembly and explain why the center is important to them.
“The borough is an engine that is very expensive to operate, so when they look at taking over things, they look at just dollars and cents: ‘What’s it going to cost me to get somebody to do this, or can we just cut it out so we don’t have to spend that money?’ That’s not factoring in the value of what’s happening. You’re going to have to be the voice of what that value is,” McCandless told the audience.
Much like Haines Animal Rescue Kennel supporters have spoken up in recent months in the face of cuts to the nonprofit’s contract, senior center users are going to have to step up and make their voices heard, board member Gunn said.
“I do think that the senior community, which is a large part of Haines, is going to have to make their voices known, maybe just like the people who were involved with animals. HARK just had to do that. The preschool has had to do that. I think it is our turn to do that,” she said.
Center user Doris Ward said she intends to send a letter to the assembly detailing her own relationship with the center, which she has been using since it was built in the 1980s. “I will write my own letter in my own words about my experiences here and what the center means to me, and I’ll be glad to talk to anybody who needs more information,” Ward said.
Ward said she doesn’t care who manages the building, as long as it continues to be managed well.