[Occupymendocino] Update on Senior Center Board meeting

[Linda Jupiter]

Update on Senior Center Board meeting June 29, 2012
Briefly, Occupy Mendocino was told that our rental fee for meeting at  
the Senior Center was increasing from $20 monthly to $100 monthly ($50/ 
meeting), which we cannot afford. In order to get clarification, many  
of us attended their monthly board meeting last Friday.

The first agenda item was Audience Comments and several of us spoke.  
We said we came to give a face to Occupy Mendocino, that we're almost  
all seniors, and consider the Senior Center part of our community.  
We're a nonpartisan organization working to better the living  
conditions of all people, including seniors. We were there to clear  
the air and clarify the policy for renting spaces.

It became apparent that they don't have a consistent policy for  
renting spaces. Some groups are sponsored projects of the Senior  
Center (i.e., knitting group, exercise group), some pay according to  
the space they rent (i.e., by size), others like Soroptomists, Rotary,  
pay other fees. Occupy Mendocino doesn't fit into any of these  
categories and there's no consistency within Senior Center guidelines.  
Much of the renting of rooms is at the discretion of Charles Bush,  
director.

What came out were two issues: First, one lunch hour, someone asked  
people to sign a petition to make Fort Bragg a foreclosure prevention  
zone (a petition we generated at OM) and the Senior Center got  
negative feedback about "being political." The board also mentioned  
getting negative feedback in the past because someone wore a button  
with her name and had added something like "a proud member of the  
Presbyterian Church."

Although Bea Erickson, founder of the Senior Center, was an activist,  
the current Senior Center has changed the focus   within the center,  
not wanting to anyone to be "uncomfortable" in any way. I always  
thought being "uncomfortable" was a good thing. It's good to have our  
comfortable patterns jiggled a bit. It seems that only basic care,  
food, transportation, and entertainment are encouraged.

Secondly, the Senior Center is around $40,000 in the hole financially  
and has been told to increase their income.

The board seemed to be of two minds: several members are progressive  
and support OM and other members are conservative and don't support  
OM. One board member said that they need to work out consistency  
regarding renting rooms and perhaps can come up with a dollar amount  
that can be subsidized by OM folks volunteering at the Center as the  
Center needs both more income and help.

Attending the meeting appeared to be helpful to both Board and OM  
members.

At the end of the 30-minute Audience Comments time most OM members  
left the meeting. Claire and Linda stayed for another hour of the  
meeting. At the end of his financial report, Charles Bush reported  
that a non-OM member had approached him, said he heard of the problem  
between the Center and OMers, and offered to pay the Center the going  
rate, for OM, for the next three months, until the matter was settled.

Does anyone know where we will be meeting this coming Saturday?

Onward,
Linda





















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