Palmer Seniors seek to establish ownership of former senior center

PALMER — A tug-of-war between Palmer Senior Citizens Center Inc. and the city of Palmer over the now-empty senior center appears headed for resolution.

Palmer’s newly opened senior center is a $10 million building three times the size of the former location just down the road, an old church that became cramped and outdated over three decades.

The nonprofit that operates the senior center hopes to sell or lease the newly vacant building to fund the senior services becoming more necessary as the Mat-Su’s senior population booms.

But the city holds the title to the building and has since 1981, when the city government served as a pass-through agency for the state grant that gave the senior center its start.

Center officials spent the last five months trying to get the city to sign over the title or buy the property.

Some resolution emerged Thursday after a meeting between senior center officials and Palmer’s mayor, city manager and public safety director.

The city is prepared to transfer the building to the senior center as a gift, Palmer Mayor DeLena Johnson said. Municipal code allows the city to donate property when it’s “advantageous to the city,” Johnson said.

“The seniors have a good track record,” the mayor said after the meeting. “It’s in the neighborhood of their main center, there’s an expanding senior population so it’s definitely a need that’s there.”

Neither side has taken official action yet. The senior center’s board will discuss the city’s proposal at a meeting Sept. 12. The Palmer City Council isn’t expected to discuss the title until Sept. 27.

Officials with the senior center had been critical of the city’s pace, but said Thursday’s meeting appeared to have moved things along.

The nonprofit is counting on the title to help generate revenues from the old building to pay for the increasing level of services it provides, said deputy director Rachel Greenberg.

The Palmer senior center served 64,000 meals in the fiscal year ending in June 2010 and 74,000 in the year that ended in June of this year, according to Greenberg.

The senior center — now called Mat-Su Senior Services — first asked the city to take action on the title in March. The request came before Palmer City Council several times after that, including in a closed-door executive session Aug. 23 called to discuss pending litigation; no lawsuit was filed, but the senior center’s attorney had corresponded with the city.

That meeting drew a crowd of senior center supporters who pressed the city to deliver on the title.

The city was reluctant to hand over the building without making sure the action protected the city and also served the public, said city manager Doug Griffin. Palmer in May paid an $857,000 settlement to resolve a complaint over misspent federal grant money at the airport.

“The question was, can we give away a public asset that was acquired through grant money? How do you go about doing that legally?” Griffin said. “The city of Palmer is very conscious of grant conditions now … (given the) issues with regard to compliance to grants.”

Along with facilitating the grant funding, the city has paid $5,000 a year toward insurance on the building and gave the senior center $50,000 for its new building, he said.

The city holds title to the old senior center building because in 1981 it served as a pass-through agency for a $350,000 state grant championed by former Palmer legislator Jay Kerttula that allowed the center to buy the building from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The city served the same role for subsequent grants for renovations and expansion.

The senior center never entered into a lease for the building. That complicated the issue, according to city documents. Supporters say there was no lease because the center felt it owned the building in everything but title.

The building is assessed at about $700,000 and sits on nearly an acre of land. Senior center officials said they would expect a senior-oriented organization or business to occupy the space.