COA Votes To Delay Transitioning Rec Dept Staff To Beech Street Center; Town, Select Board Has Other Ideas

Photo: The Council on Aging voted 9-1 to delay the transition of three Recreation Department staffers and the Veterans Agent into the Beech Street Center

At first glance, the proposal from town officials to transistion the Recreation Department to the Beech Street Senior Center this fall appears straightforward enough. Due to space needs at Town Hall with the Retirement Board heading to the Homer Building, construction work – including adding a new entry specifically for Recreation Department use – will be performed so three Recreation Department administrative staffers and the town’s Veterans Agent can relocate into a corner of the Beech Street Center as town librarians – in the location temporarily as the new library is being built – are prepared to transfer out. 

While the request didn’t appear to be contentious, don’t tell that to seniors who contend the transition is part of a “power play” by the town to reduce or remove the Council on Aging’s control of the Beech Street Center. Many senior advocates point to last year’s placement of the once-independent Senior Center into the newly-created Community Services Department – which occurred only after a protracted debate – as another example of the town interjecting its will onto its seniors.

“A lot of us see this building as just being prime real estate, and the town is licking its chops and figuring out every scheme it can use to move inside,” said Bob McGaw. The chair of the By-Law Review Committee has spearheaded a successful Citizens Petition with more than 300 signatures to bring an article to the Special Town Meeting inside the annual Town Meeting on May 21 to ask the town’s legislative to approve the Center’s “change of use essentially.” 

COA member Maryann Scali

After a month of meetings in April, the COA on Wednesday, April 30, voted 9-1 to delay the proposed transition of the Rec Department employees in the Center until the completion of the ongoing University of Massachusetts Boston community needs assessment survey of town’s seniors, and the formation of a working advisory group made up of COA members, residents, and others would then meet to hammer out a new plan. 

“We don’t have enough detail [about the transition plan],” said COA member Andrea Paschal just before Wednesday’s vote. “The thought of having the Rec Department, library, and senior services here all the way through ’til November seems almost impossible to me. So I think if I had to decide today … let’s wait at least until the fall when the library has moved out and when we have more information about the details and then come to a decision about the best way to combine rec, veterans, and senior services.” 

Yet, according to two COA members, the vote—and the hopes of senior activists—was insubstantial at Wednesday’s meeting, as the final determination on the transition lies in the hands of the town’s administrative body.

“We do have our hands tied, because ultimately, we advise the Select Board, [but] the Select Board is the body which ultimately makes these decisions,” said COA Chair Karen Donelan.

At the COA public meetings, opinions sharpened as the assembled voiced its approval of speakers who blasted the proposed transfer and vowed to halt the move. Supporters contend that inserting the Rec. Department employees violates the long-standing agreement between the town and financial donors who brought in approximately $1 million that the primary use of the building would be senior-oriented. 

For COA member Maryann Scali, the sole purpose of the Center—approved in 2005 by a Town Meeting vote—is as a “senior center, and this is why it’s here and why millions of dollars was donated.” “Now the recreation department has moved in without our consent, without discussion,” she said at an earlier meeting.

Others believe the COA has only a single course to take.

“A resounding NO!”

“There’s nothing in your charge that allows you to have the Recreation Commission come in and do anything else. Your main function is to serve the elderly people in this town. So the answer to the town: ‘Can we bring the Recreation Department?’ should be a resounding NO!” said Mark D’Andrea.

Yet the town and the Select Board stand firm in their belief that there is reasonable cause to move forward with the transisition. While wanting to be very respectful of the COA, Select Board Chair Elizabeth Dionne said at its Monday, April 28 meeting that the board has long committed to continuing to have the Beech Street Center dedicated to seniors “from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.” For that reason, Dionne opposes the suggestion of bringing in a small number of town employees, which constitutes a full-fledged abandonment of the Center’s main role. 

“I really object to this claim that it’s a change of use. I don’t want that claim to go out there unanswered. To say there’s a change of use, in my mind, is to perpetuate a falsehood,” said Dionne. Town Administrator Patrice Garvin noted a recent reading of the 2011 Memorandum of Understanding by the town’s legal counsel refutes the change of use claims and renders the advocate’s challenge moot.

The board has pointed to practical reasons for the transistion. Select Board Vice Chair Matt Taylor said the move is coming at an opportune time as “there is a renewed energy and enthusiasm around our Senior Center” and the extra pair of hands and ability to extend the building’s hours that “there are real opportunities to serve our residents.”

“Bringing staff to the administrative offices would allow both staffs to share responsibilities while freeing up staff from the desk to help programming and services throughout the building, especially at later hours that seniors have been requesting,” said Taylor.

Community Services Director Brendan Fitts said the move would enhance efficiency while supporting cross-departmental collaboration. The COA and Rec. Department use the same software and share the same administrative backbone within the Community Service.

“[It] aligns with town goals,” said Fitts, as it is doing more with less with long-term savings, all the while maintaining the senior Center’s focus on serving the town’s elder community.

However, the chief cudgel the town holds over the COA vote are two past acts: stripping the independence of the Center and the COA, and Town Meeting passing changes to the Town Administrator’s position. After several seniors at the last public meeting suggested a much stronger response than a slowdown of the process – one going so far as suggesting the council resign en masse for failing its mission to promote elder services – COA member Joel Semuels told those attending that the COA is restrained by past presence from halting the move.

Samuels explained that the COA vote was only on whether to proceed with the construction project—including creating the new entrance and interior modifications—and on getting the Veterans and Recreation Department staff into this building. “That’s what this meeting is about,” he said. 

“The Recreation Department and the Veterans [Agent] and the COA are part of a Community Services Department. That is a reality right now. That horse has left the bar. The fact that the COA is not a free-standing Senior Center has already been decided. Last year, we fought that and lost, so we’re not returning.”

COA Chair Karen Donelan

“Town meeting by its vote a number of years ago, gave the town administrator the authority to oversee the staff of the Council on Aging,” added Our board can advocate. Our board can plead. Our board can suggest our board does not hire and fire staff. That is in the town administrator’s authority by vote of Town Meeting,” said Donelan.

“What we are saying [with the vote] is we want to delay until we can answer many of the questions that have been raised,” said said. “We don’t want to move ahead with what a legitimate policy process is. We’re doing our best to hear your questions and say, ‘Let’s answer them before we take a vote’.”

Town’s Fix Of ‘Dysfunctional’ Senior Services Meets With COA Pushback As Sides Set To Meet Monday

Photo: Patrice Garvin at Thursday’s groundbreaking for the new skating rink/recreation facility

Belmont Town Administrator Patrice Garvin spoke during Thursday morning’s groundbreaking ceremony for the new skating rink and recreation facility on Concord Avenue. While her remarks were directed to nearly fifty town officials and builders who came to celebrate the event, it soon became apparent that Garvin was also directing her comments to an audience that wasn’t there.

As she praised past and present select board members for their role in helping to build the facility, Garvin pointed out that “one of the questions that they often asked themselves is, ‘what is in the best interest of the town?”

“Leadership,” she noted, “is considering and impacting the many, not the vocal few,” while making “very difficult decisions to serve the many residents of this community.”

Garvin’s statement was a direct response to the “vocal few” attempting to put a stop to transforming the structure that delivers services to seniors. [When asked after the ceremony if she was directing her remarks to members of the Council on Aging, Garvin said, “Oh, you think?”]

Her comments followed a “memorandum” issued the day before, on Sept. 4, by the Council on Aging, which was delivered to the three-member Belmont Select Board demanding the elected officials put a halt to Garvin’s restructuring of the senior services model from a stand-alone department with a direct line to the Town Administrator into just one of four departments making up the town’s newly-created Human Services Department.

The action by the 11-member COA, which advocates on behalf of older adults in Belmont, came after three months of growing frustration from the senior advocates, who expressed their dissatisfaction with the speed of the plan’s implementation and Garvin’s seeming reluctance to seek the COA’s advice and consent to the move and the elimination of the senior center’s director and assistant director positions.

In the run-up to its vote on Sept. 4, COA members have continued a pressure campaign – online and via social media – to reverse the restructuring. A large number of supporters and residents are expected to attend the Select Board’s joint meeting with the COA on Monday, Sept. 9, as they attempt to influence the board using its “moral” position as senior advocates to press its argument, which, according to council member Judith Morrison, is for Garvin “to stop and consult.”

But to Garvin, the opposition to her plans has less to do with advocating for a strong COA and provide needed services than a quest to continue to hold reign over the Senior Center and those hired to run its programming, which has resulted in a “dysfunctional” department that lacks professionalism in its staffing and operations.

“I understand they have concerns. It’s change. I get that. But there’s a certain segment of seniors that like to use the Senior Center in the way that they have it since it was created,” she said.

Despite the concerns of senior advocates, in the view of the Town Administrator, the restructuring plan is a fait accompli.

“The last position [the important program director post] has been posted and once that person is hired, the restructure will be done,” said Garvin in an interview with the Belmontonian on Thursday.

“They’re looking at me not to do it, and that’s not going to happen,” said Garvin.

The confrontation between the town and a committee has grown contentious, with older advocates going onto social media and via email to question Garvin’s motive. They suggest the Town Administrator—now in her seventh year at the helm—is attempting a “power grab” to effectively sideline the COA from town governance.

This bitter skirmish between the town’s chief administrative official and a group of volunteers who are dedicated advocates for Belmont seniors was hardly foreseen just two years ago when the Senior Center was run by Nava Niv-Vogel. The well-liked, director managed services for 22 years with aplomb that the COA and Select Board were happy to leave in her hands the running of the department, its programs and later the Beech Street Center.

When Niv-Vogel departed in June 2022, the COA asked Garvin if “it wanted to have a very active role” in hiring the new director. Despite having forgiving’s on the council’s choice of Dana Bickelman, whom she believed could struggle with the actively involved council members, “I thought, ‘you know what?’ I’m going to defer to the COA,” said Garvin.

While she thought Bickelman did “a great job,” especially running great programs, Garvin said she appeared she had a hard time managing the multitude of responsibilities. When Bickelman resigned in late 2023, Brandan Fitts, the town’s recreation department director, was named interim director “to keep an eye on things and keep the ship going,” said Garvin.

Soon afterward in early 2024, Garvin began receiving for the first time troubling communications from Fitts that COA members were “trying to insert themselves into the day-to-day operations of the department” while “a toxic work environment” created by the COA and an entrenched senior center staff resulted where “Dana was not able to do her job, and [Fitts] is having trouble doing his job even today.”

While unwilling to provide examples of COA or staff actions that produced the fractious conditions for various personnel or privacy concerns, Garvin said examples could see the light of day at subsequent public meetings.

It soon became clear the senior center “didn’t work,” said Garvin. “It wasn’t being managed right. It was an insight that I didn’t see until Dana [Bickelman] left in the new year. This problem could not be solved simply by bringing in a different person. This was structural,” said Garvin.

“It was a dysfunctional department due to the ongoing interference of the COA,” she said.

Her experience allowing the COA to highjack the hiring process of Bickelman—which Garvin admits was a mistake on her part—and the subsequent examples of inefficiencies and divisiveness within the staff forced Garvin’s hand. It became clear the Senior Center needed to be restructured and professionalized into an efficient service delivery system by consolidating administrative roles, simplifying budget management, and refocusing on programming and services.

In the spring, job openings at the senior center and the recreation department provided Garvin with the opportunity to create new staff positions to support the establishment of a Human Service Department with the COA as a division within the new department.

Garvin presented the Select Board with the first mention of a reorganization at its May 13 meeting, unveiling a new Human Services Department that will consist of the Recreation Department, the Veteran Services Officer, the Social Worker, and senior services. In the new HSD, senior services would be represented by a full-time Senior Center Program Director and a transportation coordinator both who will report to the assistant Human Services Director.

It became clear early on that the town wanted to have this new entity up and running quickly. By June, job notices were posted, there were continued discussions with the Select Board and the representative union leadership took place on the new positions, with Fitts appearing ready to take on the role of the new department’s first director.

But for many seniors, the suddenness and speed of the restructuring were a shock, as the COA felt they were being marginalized as none had been consulted on the new format. Garvin’s plan quickly became a point of contention, leading to an August meeting between Garvin and the COA that only hardened the adversarial positions.

The culmination of the last three months for the Senior Center campaigners is the memorandum sent to the Select Board last week. The memo by COA member Joel Semuels contends the reorganization violates “the spirit” of the town’s Council on Aging statute in which “the board may appoint such clerks and other employees as it may require.” And while the town’s human resources department hires Senior Center staff, Semuels believes a “reasonable statutory interpretation” is that the COA board “must be consulted on all hires.”

“We feel that the actions of the Town Administrator show remarkable and determined insensitivity to the needs of seniors and the same lack of expertise in aging services we see being eliminated,” said Semuels, who is also a Town Meeting member from Precinct 6. The memo also contends the COA “will have little control over the Human Services Department under the new organizational chart.”

In addition, a separate letter from the COA’s newest member, Andrea Hassol, accompanying the memorandum requests the town supply three sets of documents that had been asked for previously. Hassol said the financial and organizational information is needed quickly as it appears that Garvin is attempting an “end run” of the COA in the management of the senior center.

“We want [the Select Board] to roll up their sleeves a little bit and get a little more involved” in reviewing the new organizational chart of the Human Services Department and the new job descriptions, said Hassol at the Sept. 4 meeting.

“We want to be able to have some input,” said Hassol. “We want [the Select Board] to have the time to consider them and offer suggestions when [Garvin] narrowed the field … and we’d like to see their resumes, maybe involved in the interviewing process.”

“So we would like the Select Board to essentially force her to consult with us,” said Hassol.

However, for the COA to pin its hopes on the Select Board overriding the Town Administrator at the joint meeting on Monday, Sept. 9, it appears to be a very long shot as each board member had previously voiced support for Garvin’s actions.

And Garvin says her authority to take this action can be found in black and white.

Garvin, the Select Board and the town council point to a decade-old state legislation known as Acts of 2014 Chapter 17, which established the position of Town Administrator in Belmont and was adopted by the Town Meeting that formalized the “appointment of a town administrator to serve at the pleasure of the board of selectmen.” Under section c of the law, the town administrator is given near complete control, “based upon merit and fitness,” in appointing non-elected department heads of the town with a few exceptions, such as fire and police chiefs and their employees.

“It’s about control. They think they have the right to manage staff, but under the Acts of 2014, chapter 17, that’s my [role].”

Garvin said the restructuring will not impact the town’s continued commitment to seniors. The new program director “is actually charged with working with the COA to come up with programming and services.”

“We didn’t change the headcount [at the Beech Street Center] and I didn’t change the budget.” In fact, under the new structure, “I’m giving [the COA] the ability to do exactly what they’re charged with, and that is be advisors.”

“And I’m here to do my job, which is providing services to the residents,” she said.

Belmont’s First Town-Wide Yard Sale Set For Sept. 23

Photo: Belmlont Town-wide Yard Sale ready for the first weekend of the fall

The Belmont Public Library, the Council on Aging, and the Recreation Department are hosting what they hope is an annual Town-wide Yard Sale.

The event is scheduled for the first Saturday of fall, Sept. 23, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (the rain date will be Sept. 30). Households will register online at BelmontRec.com; the cost is $15 per house address. A map will then be produced with every location of a participating household.

What is a Town-wide Yard Sale? Think of it as Porchfest, but instead of musicians at locations across town, you’ll clean out your garage and basements and sell the contents on a specific day with everyone else in the community. Belmont will join municipalities across Massachusetts and the country hosting these tag sales, including Watertown, Burlington, Wellesley, North Reading, and Wilmington.

“This will be an event focused on the recycling of goods, community fellowship, and highlighting of the local business community,” Peter Struzziero, Belmont Public Library director, told the board. He also said, coincidently, the library will be holding its annual book sale that weekend.