Sounding Off:

The recent adverse legal decision with regards to the senior center in Huntington Beach prompts some comments (“Judge upholds senior center ruling,” Nov. 26). Building a new senior center is a matter of humanitarian necessity.

There are senior citizens in Huntington Beach who, on a monthly basis, have insufficient funds to cover food, rent, taxes, medical help and prescriptions. They must decide what to pay. There are senior citizens who have lost their driver’s license and must rely on public transportation. There are senior citizens who are in danger of losing their homes. There are senior citizens who face unremitting loneliness because of a loss of a spouse. There are senior citizens who wish to remain physically fit and who wish to gain knowledge of new technology. There are senior citizens who run the risk of going to bed hungry. There are senior citizens who want to remain in their homes yet cannot physically deal with the maintenance. There are senior citizens who want to engage in social activities.

The Michael E. Rodgers Seniors’ Center has programs that deal with these and other issues. Alas, some of these programs must be curtailed because the existing dilapidated building does not have the size or design to provide services to all seniors who need them today, let alone the growing senior citizen population.

Yet there are those who sit in their expensive homes, who have boarded horses at the city’s 25-acre equestrian center, and crow about open space. They have temporarily derailed the new senior center that the voters approved. They feel they have done the community a favor. What hypocrisy!

These so-called environmentalists support the 18-acre Shipley Nature Center and the adjacent parking lot. They say nary a word about the close-by 16-acre Frisbee golf course. Yet, they fight the 5-acre senior center.

All we ask is a fair allocation of money and land for the benefit of our growing population of senior citizens. Maintaining five acres of degraded open space offers little solace for senior citizens who are facing the vicissitudes of old age. As people grow old and face the prospect of death, they should be treated with kindness, respect and dignity by their younger fellow citizens, and not subjected to a life of hopelessness and despair. Should senior citizens not have convenient access to the beauties of nature, to a library filled with books, to a park with concerts, to a building designed for senior citizens in a central location convenient to public transportation?

The critics of the senior center would relocate the senior center to a school site that is not for sale, to an out-of-the-way site not served by public transportation, to a neighborhood which would likely oppose the conversion to a senior center, to a building not designed to provide the needed services, to a site that must be bought even though such money is not available. Yet these same critics say they favor seniors. Again, what hypocrisy!

As to the legal process, Judge David Velasquez showed no compassion for senior citizens of Huntington Beach. He ignored completely that the people of Huntington Beach voted for a senior center. He completely ignored that many buildings in this state have been built with park funds (Quimby Act funds).

Unfortunately, the defense mounted by the city in the court case was at best meek and passionless. Hopefully, the current City Council and future elected council members will vote to appeal the case to the Supreme Court if necessary and retain a team of highly competent litigators who will aggressively defend the city’s right to build a senior center by using all legal and emotional arguments available.

The issue remains clear: Should people in their expensive homes who board and ride their horses on city land and screech “Save it, don’t pave it” prevail so the needs of the senior citizens of Huntington Beach will not be met? Will hypocrisy or compassion carry the day?

As an addendum, please remember to vote for City Council candidates who support the senior center and vote against Velasquez, who made the onerous decision about the senior center. Velasquez is up for reelection in 2010.

RALPH BAUER, CHARLENE BAUER, JANE BURKE, DALE DUNN, CATHY MESCHUK, CHRISTIAN MONDOR, PAT MULLINS, TOM POINT, CAROL SETTIMO, DAVE SULLIVAN, KAY SULLIVAN, JIM TOWNSEND, BARBARA WHITE and DICK WHITE live in Huntington Beach.