SWAMPSCOTT, MA — At Wednesday night’s Select Board meeting, the creation of a task force was approved to determine the need and potential use for a proposed Community Life Center in Swampscott using funds approved at the Town Meeting.
After a lengthy discussion, the Select Board approved the creation of a working group to solicit ideas from various sectors of the community, including senior services, veterans, schools and other groups, on what a community center could do and whether a new center is needed as a hub for those services.
The proposed 11-member committee would include three community members; volunteers would be sought for these positions.
“I think this task force will benefit from some newer thinking and lessons learned,” said Select Board member Katie Phelan. “We don’t want to be backwards. We don’t want to say what we want before we understand the needs of the community. That’s really the important part – that we create a cross-section of the community that feels like they can come forward and get good discussions and good information from consultants when they need it and put something together that really makes sense. Then when the report comes back to the table, it will have the weight that it does for all of us, and people won’t feel like, ‘So what do we do with this now?’
“Because we’ve already done a little bit of research in the community. We’ve already developed a little bit of understanding of what assets we have. How the assets work and how they don’t. Once we have that information on what we think the next step is, we can really push it forward.”
School Committee Chair MaryEllen Fletcher expressed some concerns about spending consultant funds before the need was identified, but Select Committee member David Grishman pointed out that the consultant funds had already been approved by a Town Meeting vote.
Danielle Leonard, a member of the select committee, said she liked the idea of a new committee with a cross-section of the city’s interests, rather than an existing committee whose members may already be inclined to push for an entirely new construction.
“Maybe they have more time for a particular issue, or they may also speak out against that particular issue,” Phelan said. “They raise their hand and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to be part of this conversation,’ whereas they may not want to be part of a broader conversation.”
“Are we reinventing the wheel? Not necessarily. But are you taking more people along on the journey? Definitely.”
(Scott Souza is Patch’s field editor for Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem, and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)
