By Frank Mustac, Contributor
A request from neighboring Hopewell Township last month to keep the Pennington Senior Center open beyond 2017 left borough officials in a state of surprise during a public meeting on Monday., Earlier this year, Pennington officials sent a letter to Hopewell Township regarding the plan to close the senior center building on Reading Avenue by December 31. However, Hopewell Township Mayor Kevin Kuchinski suggested in March that a meeting be scheduled among officials from the township, Pennington and Hopewell Borough to discuss potentially keeping the facility open., Hopewell Township is also proposing to construct a new senior center in the township sometime in the near future, with a preferred location selected off of Scotch Road. Once open, the center would be open for senior citizens living in the area., During the meeting, Pennington Deputy Mayor Joseph Lawver said that local and county representatives attended a meeting in Trenton to discuss the senior center’s fate, which is currently in need of repairs., “Honestly, I thought that we had all reached an agreement that we would close the senior center at the end of this year, and that we would put our time and energy and effort into finding a temporary home for the senior lunch program – a couple of locations, some in the Valley and just outside the Valley are options.” Lawver said. “But much to my surprise, I go on vacation and I see … an article saying that Hopewell Township is calling for the three municipalities to meet to find as solution to keep the senior center open beyond 2017.”, After reading the article in the Hopewell Valley News, Lawver said he reached out to Mayor Kuchinski again and said that he would consider keeping the building open on the condition that repairs needed at the site would be addressed., “It’s not fair to the users and it’s not fair to the residents in the area, the neighborhood, if we try to do some pinch-penny [repairs] and a slapstick job in keeping it open,” he said., In order to take that course of action, Lawver said there were “only two ways” to do so: either the three municipalities gather their resources and come up with a “10-year commitment to that building” that would cost between $100,000 and $150,000 from the Mercer County food program, from Hopewell Borough and Hopewell Township., The other option, he said, would be to use available grant money to pay for the repairs. That choice, he said, was unpalatable to everyone involved at the Trenton meeting, since they “wanted to reserve that money for [a new] senior center.”, “I will not be in support any short-term solution and will not be in support of any solution that does not bring that building up to par,” Lawver said., Pennington Mayor Anthony Persichilli agreed, saying that the request by Hopewell Township for another meeting “does not seem reasonable.”, “I think we resolved it,” he said. “I don’t see the value in getting all three [municipalities] together and concerned citizens together to talk about this. This is a subject that we talked about for at least the time that I’ve been here, and that’s 13 or 14 years, with no resolution.”
