Residents Urge Council to Approve Senior Center Bond Ordinance

The approval of a bond ordinance for renovations to Eckersley Hall, which the city is planning to use as a senior center and for Municipal Offices, was enthusiastically discussed Tuesday night in a public hearing at Town Hall.

The hearing featured a strong attendance, as 13 community residents came and shared their approval of the bond ordinance.

Eckersley Hall, originally built as a public school, was purchased this spring by the City of Middletown from St. Sebastian’s Church. The city plans to use the building to expand the number of community programs and resources offered for its senior citizens.

The bond, which is for $750,000, would go towards paying a significant portion of the estimated $1.7 million cost of renovations.

Members of the public who got up to speak discussed the possibility of a new senior center providing a place for seniors to connect with the larger community and to experience continued growth.

Jean Newman set the tone of the hearing by reading a letter from Middletown community leader and her father Ed Dypa. Dypa relayed the message that converting Eckersley Hall into a senior center would provide Middletown’s seniors with resources, whether entertainment or heath-related, that the current senior center is incapable of giving.

The letter read, “Older adults are capable of continued growth and development and this senior center will give them the opportunities for needed relationships and achievements,” and ended with Dypa’s urge for the council to approve the bond ordinance.

One by one following Ed Dypa’s message, Middletown residents made it clear that they believed the renovation of Eckersley Hall was an action the city needed to take. Bob White, a former professor at Wesleyan and a resident for nearly five decades, read from a poem about childhood to demonstrate that he was speaking as an advocate for the “children” of Middletown, and stated that a new senior center would, “fill the need for seniors to have a place to reconnect with the community and for people to share their life experiences with others.”

Pat Jackowiski, a member of the city’s Senior Commission, discussed how the number of attendees at events such as bingo has increased a huge amount recently and how Eckersley Hall could serve as a larger more effective space for events pertained to seniors. As hearing attendee and attendee came up and discussed their feelings on the bond ordinance, on repeated message came in loud and clear: “I urge the council to approve the bond.”

Following the public’s remarks the Common Council, whose members have indicated they are in favor of the bond ordinance, announced that they would vote on the measure at the June 20 meeting.