Progress continues on adult day services center at Central Hall

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — For the last few years several groups have been working on a long-term plan to preserve Central Hall on East Main Street. During a selectmen’s meeting on Feb. 11, Chris Maas and Dr. Lesley Fernow presented town officials with an update on a project to convert the first floor of the late 19th century-era building into an adult day services center.

    “We have done a lot of things since we asked your permission to do this, including adding a lot of things to what we are about,” Maas said.

    “The Maine Highlands Senior Center, which is its current name, has been moving along,” Dr. Fernow said. “We recognize in our community we have a growing number of seniors. We have an underappreciated and an underutilized resource, and we are committed to helping seniors live longer and live better lives.

    “We have a lot available for seniors in the community,” Dr. Fernow said, mentioning that for many of these residents accessing available services can be difficult due to issues such as lack of transportation. “They are feeling quite isolated from each other and the social and community fabric,” she said.

    “The first phase of this is to really ramp up the Senior Network,” Dr. Fernow said about a current group that meets to share a meal and hear guest speakers discussing topics of importance to seniors. “We would like to see that grow and involve more people. There are a lot of different things that can be done,” she said, mentioning helping seniors get out of their homes to meet with their peers, helping them at home such as providing contacts for services such as plumbers and helping with transportation and food purchases.

    “We don’t really have a good organization for connecting, it is really hard to connect everything” Dr. Fernow said. “I think we can make this an appealing community for seniors to come to, not to supplant what is already here but to tie everything together.”

    “This is about the tremendous asset of older folks in the community,” Maas said. “We think of the community as the highlands and all these towns as the community,” as the Central Hall project would involve senior citizens from not just Dover-Foxcroft but those residing across the region.

    “We are not asking for money, what we are asking for is your support and help in identifying people who might be interested in volunteering,” Dr. Fernow told the selectmen, saying there are about 30 volunteers currently involved but a figure of about four times that amount would likely be needed as the project progresses. “We also need more listening sessions and we want to find venues for listening to seniors and the children of seniors.”

    Dr. Fernow said the second phase is an adult day services center at Central Hall. “It is still something we are working on and it is still something we are committed to, but it is a bit further down the road. We also need more people on our board,” she said, saying the board of directors for the center will have several sub-committees.

    Select member Jane Conroy said there is a need to both connect seniors in the community and for the center, and she said CNA students at the Tri County Technical Center in Dexter may be able to perform some of their training at the adult day services center.

    “We are trying to find ways to integrate different generations and have something that would engage youth as well,” Dr. Fernow said. She said her philosophy is, “When you enhance one segment of the community, the whole community gets better.”

    Maas explained that Central Hall would be the site of both Senior Network and an adult day services center “and a wonderful event center to be used by all” upstairs. “We need to finish the brownfields but the building is almost totally stripped,” he said. “The next phase is to make that first floor ready, and then we will do the upper floor.”

    “Right now if you were to go inside Central Hall it’s all gutted,” Dr. Fernow said, with lead paint and asbestos having been removed. “The sooner we can get people in town inside the building the better,” she said, which is why the Senior Network aspect of the project is being emphasized first.

    “This is an expensive project, but we are not in debt,” she said as much of the work has been conducted via grant funds. “You haven’t been using town money,” Selectman Paul Matulis said, wanting to be sure that residents know this information.

    Maas said the project consultant Peter Sherr has been great to work with. He also said that Select Chair Elwood Edgerly, through his work on the project, and crews from the town and the Charleston Correctional facility have combined to help save about $125,000 in project costs. Maas said that the Charlotte White Center has been involved with the project, and more fundraising will start in the future.

    “We want three things,” Maas told the selectmen. “To get in touch with every group that has contact with seniors, we want someone from every town on our committee and we want to brag that you are one of our supporters.”

    In other business, the board voted to declare the week of May 20-24 as Arbor Week in Dover-Foxcroft. “Last fall at the very end of the calendar year we recognized Arbor Day in October, only because we didn’t recognize it in May,” Town Manager Jack Clukey said, mentioning that a ceremonial tree planting took place with students behind SeDoMoCha Elementary.

    Select Vice Chair Cindy Freeman Cyr said that the town’s tree committee could possibly reconvene to help prepare for the Arbor Week, as a number of trees have been lost in recent years. “Our next phase in the tree program is ‘how do we plant on a more regular basis,?’” Clukey said.

    In his town manager’s report, Clukey said plantings for the reforestation of the Browns Mill River Walk have been reordered. “It’s totally a blank slate as to what we want to call the river walk,” Clukey said as the current name reflects the mill that was in operation on the site. “The next step is the final erosion control and we wanted to do as much reforestation as possible.”

    Clukey said to get the process going the orders have already been placed and the plantings will be done as early in the season as possible. He said the delivery is expected in late April with the plantings expected the first week of May.

    “We are doing an RFP for landscaping,” Clukey said, as the town would be doing some of the transporting to help keep costs down. He said an open house for the river walk may be scheduled for June.

    Clukey said the town has been given Host Community signs for the Bike Maine Inaugural Ride in September, and the signs will identify Dover-Foxcroft as a destination for cyclists to help promote the event. “We are the second stop,” Clukey said about the 400-mile, seven-day bicycling trip. “It kicks off in Orono and then it’s off from here to Belfast.”

    The planned route has the several hundred bicyclists traveling from eastern Piscataquis County into Dover-Foxcroft via Vaughn Street. The bikers will be camping overnight before departing the next morning. A welcome committee may be organized to greet the procession as it arrives in town.