As a senior citizen, I suppose I should be reassured by the knowledge that Article 18, inserted by citizens’ petition in the Annual Town Meeting Warrant, stipulates that Hildreth House will be “preserved, as is, for continued use by the Council on Aging.” That presumably means that the senior center will not be relocated to the old library, nor will Hildreth House be sold to help pay for the renovation of other municipal buildings, as at least one of Article 18’s main proponents has suggested in the past. But the article also says there will be no Hildreth House expansion or renovation at this time, which means that, once again, safe parking and access for seniors will be put on the back burner, to say nothing of adequate space for current programs and the community’s legal and moral obligation to see that people with physical disabilities can fully participate in activities there.
If they prevail at Town Meeting, I can only hope that the budget-hawk proponents of Article 18, including the Finance Committee and the Capital Planning and Investment Committee, will have the common decency to support spending for long-deferred maintenance at Hildreth House, abandoning once and for all the shameful argument that it makes no sense to spend money on a building when its future is in doubt. There is nothing doubtful about that building’s future—not unless someone relishes the idea of forcibly evicting a bunch of irate citizens in their 70s and 80s. So if a decent kitchen and safe parking is too much of a stretch, maybe the town could fix it so the hot water doesn’t smell like rotten eggs, as it has for some time now. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Connie Larrabee
Under Pin Hill Road
