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December 9, 2005
Center's property owner wants to helpRIDDING PERENNIALLY TROUBLED FACILITY OF INFIGHTING A GOAL
PHILLIP GOMEZ
In the practical matter of righting the sinking ship, Commissioner Patricia Cox proposed a slight change in the proposed recovery plan. She wants to lift the entangling reversionary clause in the present county lease, in order to get around objections by Scheppmann. Cox wants to substitute instead a non-revocable lease arrangement with Scheppmann, the owner of the Sunset Senior Mobile Home Park surrounding the center, which he says he will improve with upgrades in its facilities. Scheppmann is a long-time member of the senior center. However, Cox was duly concerned about Scheppmann's plans to turn the senior center into a "gated community." Although the trailer park technically is already a gated community, it doesn't have a closing gate to keep people out. Scheppmann's plans call for a new landscaped entrance with sidewalks and lighting, an office building, additional parking and a building for a thrift store on a five-acre parcel he owns nearby. "It is my intent to make the mobile home park a gated community giving a safer environment for the seniors within the park," wrote Scheppmann to interim senior center vice president Walt Kuver. Scheppmann called for making "the center a gated facility after hours to avoid people milling around ... when (it) is closed." Cox said she was concerned about seniors being locked out of the gated park and it being turned into an enclave for a wealthier class of seniors. The senior center has for many years been a mare's nest of factional infighting - a battleground for senior cliques vying for control of its now appointed board of directors. When the board was elected, according to the organization's old bylaws, since revised, more affluent seniors were often impelled to run for office, more through a desire for prestige and popularity than for any contributions they could possibly make by having better business skills. Those more genuinely interested in operating the center for the less fortunate seniors have often floundered, too, due to the distractions of those coveting their positions. Votes were openly bought in the parking lot. Sheriff's deputies had to be called in on at least one occasion for the unruliness of disgruntled senior members. The tuna-fish casserole mini-faction often fought with the beet-salad group in petty quarrels, and still does. Under those kinds of working conditions, it's no wonder the center's financial books have been awry. |
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