LtE: ReCAL - Exactly What Reading Needs
Dear Editor,
Reading is a fabulous community to live in. One of the key things that we pride ourselves on is building and leveraging every asset for maximum value. This has been described as the ability to squeeze $1.25 out of every $1.00 we spend. Through caring and qualified volunteers serving on committees, responsible forward-thinking planning, and talented staff, we have done a tremendous job taking care of our residents responsibly.
As a former 2-term Select Board Member and 9-year Finance Committee member I believe we as a community have 2 priorities and opportunities in front of us today. The Reading Center for Active Living (RECAL) AND the Killam School Project. The AND in all caps is for emphasis as this is exactly the opportunity in front of us. I support both projects as they are what we need, and they represent Reading’s approach for responsible projects and services for our residents.
The READING CENTER FOR ACTIVE LIVING, RECAL is a NEED that will focus primarily on the age 60+ element of our community which now stands at almost 30% of our residents. Today, we can’t meet the needs of our age 60+ residents, of which I am one. The facilities at the Pleasant Street Center are inadequate in space, accessibility, programming (due to lack of space) and we face issues of water and odor. There is no bathroom on the main floor among other structural limitations.
The opportunity with RECAL is to provide a welcoming, social space to serve primarily the age 60+ members of our community with both dedicated and shared spaces, while also providing community social space, a gym and an indoor walking track which can be programmed for age 60+ AND the entire community. RECAL will house Elder Services, Veterans Service and Recreation under one roof. Their ability to serve the age 60+ segment of the community and the entire community will be vastly improved. And there will be opportunities to rent out space when not being programmed for the community for special events, leagues and other organized uses.
Why not just a senior center? Folks who no longer have kids in the schools but choose to stay in Reading are the fastest growing element of our 60+ population. Boomers who will be considering retirement no longer have the social network of their kids and schools. But they/we have social as well as physical needs. The Select Board formed a volunteer committee, the Reading Center for Active Living Committee (RECALC, with a C added to the end for committee) which benchmarked many other communities around us to understand best practices. What we learned is that having active physical programming space as well as social space is what is needed. Centers for Active Living are built for today and for the future and they meet both social and physical needs. Many communities have approved and built these CAL’s and they have found that participation levels at these centers have gone up 80-170% in many cases. CAL’S PROVIDE WHAT IS NEEDED TO SERVE THE 60+ COMMUNITY AND THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY. Another example of squeezing $1.25 out of every $1.00 and providing the Reading community with badly needed additional recreational and social resources.
Our greatest strength as a community is serving our residents with what they/we need. RECAL and the Killam Project deliver on this. No one likes to pay more in taxes. We face regular Prop 2 ½ overrides, economic uncertainty, and the fact that we need to maintain ($) our facilities. But RECAL and Killam are the 2 key priorities for our community. The Select Board and the Town Manager have reiterated this as well. It is now up to Town Meeting and then the voters to make this happen.
I encourage you take 10-minutes to learn more about RECAL by going to www.readingma.gov/recal to learn more about the opportunity.
Respectfully
Mark Dockser
Beaver Road
Town Meeting Member, Precinct 1
This LtE was edited from the original to include a link to the ReCAL project on the Town website.