Oakland County Commissioners Bill Patterson and Eric Wilson have spearheaded the formation of a committee made up of citizens and elected officials from Addison, Orion, and Oxford Townships, to consider the possibility of combining the senior centers of those three communities.
The committee is called the ‘Older Persons? Task Force,? and has been meeting for several months. Their task has been to determine the feasibility of forming a tri-party agreement to build and maintain a combined senior center. To date they have completed the following tasks:
n Identified and understood the current status of senior services provided in each community.
n Analyzed the cost-effectiveness of sharing services, and understood potential public acceptance concerns.
n Based upon aging population projections, established the services, building size and location requirements of a combined senior center.
n Estimated the costs to build (land could be donated), staff, and support for the combined senior center.
n Created and tested a citizen survey to assess potential public support for a centralized senior center.
This short survey has now been completed and tested. In order to determine if there is potential support of a centralized senior center, the Older Persons? Task Force needs volunteers to distribute the surveys to ten residences in an assigned square mile of the three townships.
The respondents will be instructed to complete the survey and place it in a sealed envelope that will be provided. The volunteer will then arrange to retrieve the surveys.
The timetable starts with a kick-off luncheon for all survey volunteers on April 7 at 12 p.m. in the board room at Orion Township Hall. At that time, volunteers will receive the surveys, envelopes, and instructions.
They will be asked to deliver and retrieve the surveys by April 21, and the surveys will then be tabulated by students at Oakland University.
If you are willing to assist the task force, please contact one of the following: Joe Ferrari, 628-9787, ext. 105; Dan Alberty at 628-5409, or Alice Young at 391-0304, ext. 123.
The Older Persons? Task Force looks forward to serving the citizens of all three townships with a completed survey that will determine their next course of action.