LOCKPORT – A Niagara County Legislature committee gave the go-ahead Monday to plans to close three senior citizen meal sites, but Office for the Aging Director Kenneth M. Genewick said the sites won’t close until the end of the year.
The Community Services Committee voted 5-1 against a resolution from Minority Leader Dennis F. Virtuoso that would have ordered Genewick to keep the sites open.
However, Genewick dropped his original plan to close the sites Aug. 31. In the meantime, Genewick will send his plan to Albany for approval.
The targeted sites are located at St. John’s African Methodist Episcopal Church in Niagara Falls; the Tuscarora Nation House on the reservation; and the Summit View Apartments in Wheatfield.
Genewick said they are the three least-attended sites of the 23 where the county serves federally funded lunches.
About 15 seniors came to the committee meeting to oppose the closures. “I think they should come up with a plan to keep them open,” said Homer Hicks, 87, of Niagara Falls.
Legislator Owen T. Steed, D-Niagara Falls, broke into tears as he argued against the closures, on which he had no vote because he wasn’t a member of the committee.
“These seniors have already said they don’t want to move. It’s about the companionship more than the lunch to them,” Steed said. “They’re set in their ways. They want to mingle with who they want to mingle with.”
“The higher the attendance, the greater the chance for people to congregate,” Genewick said.
The closures are projected to save the county $48,000 in 2013, including the layoff of three part-time county workers. Also, the county will no longer have to pay St. John’s $2,431 in rent.
“Is that the only way they could find $40,000, to tear down the souls of people?” demanded the Rev. Joseph Jones of Damascus Baptist Church in the Falls.
Genewick said the county has too many nutrition sites for the population it serves.
The average attendance at St. John’s was 11 seniors per day; at Summit View, 15 per day; and at Tuscarora, six per day.
Genewick said the county will offer free transportation to the other sites, such as Wrobel Towers, which is half a mile from St. John’s. Genewick noted that many of those who eat at St. John’s already are using county van service to get there.

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