Senior Center is getting a raw deal from RDC

When I joined the board of the nonprofit Senior Citizens Council several years ago, I thought I would be involved in a sedentary place where senior citizens sat around and used the facility to play a little cards, etc. I had no idea of the incredible variety of activities they enjoyed, including health and exercise classes; line dancing; trips; pinochle and bridge; picnics; classes on computers, nutrition, investments, income tax, Spanish and art; holiday events; and more. I realized that for the hundreds of seniors, coming to the Senior Center each week, it was their everyday home where they met with their friends, black and white.

In addition, the kitchen cooked and served lunch to a full dining room. These meals are supervised by a dietician who designs them for health and specifically for senior citizens. The center also distributed some 1,300 meals a day to 14 counties, using volunteers who knocked on doors and, in many cases, were the only contact that "sit-ins" had. This contact is as important as the food. For the staff and volunteers to do all this, it took a lot of energy, effort and dedication.

WHO WOULD have guessed that despite these efforts, the CSRA Regional Development Center (RDC), led by a six-figure salaried administrator and a vindictive director of a state agency on aging, used every trick in the book to outsource contracts and close the Senior Center? For what? They claim they would save $5,000 a year for our county - untrue - and that the Senior Center was irresponsible fiscally and provided poor nutrition to the seniors. Isn't it strange and cruel that they chose to outsource the meals to a private for-profit company - the only other bidder than the Senior Center - costing the Senior Center funds that were used for all the other programs? Overnight they destroyed the volunteer efforts that made the Senior Center a happy land for its members and plunged the seniors and the Senior Center into Never-Never Land. The situation reeks of suspicious motives.

AS A BOARD member, I challenge the validity of the RDC claims because they are patently false. We have religious leaders, bankers, real estate leaders, academics and personnel with many years of experience in aging on the board who are given monthly detailed reports of the activities and financial aspects of the center, not only on paper but orally by staff who are questioned when necessary. The Senior Center is fiscally sound with no debts whatsoever. In fact, Medicaid owes the center some $400,000. All distribution centers of the meals are given weekly questionnaires to provide critiques of the meals. I myself have eaten the healthy meals at the center.

I applaud the Augusta commissioners - led by Andy Cheek, Bobby Hankerson and Willie Mays - who challenged the validity of the contract process of the CSRA Regional Development Center, and insisted that the city investigate the RDC because of potentially illegal and faulty bid procedures and contracts that will not serve Richmond County well and will, in fact, increase our costs.

In addition, the complete collapse of the food distribution system during the transition period where it is estimated that more than 100 seniors have gone without meals is directly the fault of the RDC, which failed miserably to plan the transition to a private company and the consequent loss of volunteers.

SOME COUNTIES have now put the new food service on notice that they have failed to deliver what was promised them. In addition, some of the food now delivered to the Senior Center had insects and hair imbedded in it, and frozen meals were substituted for hot meals. This is the difference between the Senior Center's preparation of healthy foods and outsourcing to a vendor that is over its head in trying to catch up with the number of seniors it knows nothing about.

The closing of the center, the loss of its well-respected director and the loss of personnel who loved working to help seniors are tragedies that will not soon be forgotten in the CSRA. The leadership of the RDC should resign immediately and make room for competent administrators who have compassion and a cooperative spirit and have the seniors and the Senior Citizens Center at heart, and not their ambition and paychecks. We must find an answer to revive the Senior Citizens Center and make it, once again, a viable home for our seniors.

(Editor's note: The writer, the chairman of the Richmond County Democratic Party, is a board member of the nonpartisan Senior Citizens Council.)