The Secret City is great at selective discrimination, while its citizens are not vocally supportive of its senior citizens. It lives by divide and conquer.
This actually makes the old adage, “Divided We Fail, United We Stand” a truism for future growth.
Oak Ridge is great at doing conceptual studies in order to hide and delay building its senior citizens a new center.
After reading the article about a SAB (board) proposing to waste, or is that give, some design firm another $50,000, I still remember all the parlaying over the Wildcat Den.
Then the city’s political manipulators tried to get seniors to endorse a bond issue to ensure other monies could be lumped together for a senior center. This failed.
Next came the parade of looking at other buildings, such as Paragon Recreation Center, now torn down, the church in Woodland—this was squelched when someone spread the rumor that there were “sinkholes behind the building,” even though it was next to the Woodland School.
Next came the dream of building a new building on the Daniel Arthur property, and a design firm was hired and a figure of $3 million was arrived. There was $20,000 wasted on this boondoggle.
The Oak Ridge city has been trying to dump the seniors into the poorly designed Civic Center. Even the property is not people-friendly.
Seniors just don’t trust the city to have seniors in their interest.
When time after time, ineptness rises to the surface when you hear the whizz of air being deflated from people who are not acting in the seniors’ best interest.
Usually, people want to use seniors as a mechanism to usurp and waste taxpayer’s tax money.
The Oak Ridge City Council on Monday will consider applying for a state grant worth up to $500,000 to install synthetic turf at Blankenship Field. It’s the first phase of a multi-million-dollar proposal to renovate Blankenship Field and Jack Armstrong Stadium. The big question: Why not a new senior center?
Lee Roy Gilliam
Oak Ridge
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