Cape Henlopen Senior Center moves forward

What a difference a month makes.

When the Cape Henlopen Senior Center Executive Board met in February all 11, members of the board were replaced, the state was still withholding its quarterly installment of grant-in-aid and a thick cloud of disdain hung over the center as a whole.

A month later, the cloud has been lifted, and the money is coming in.

The center’s board met March 10 for the first time since being installed.

Randolph Smith, board president, said the feeling of camaraderie in the center’s meeting room was extraordinary.

“I want to make this the best senior center in the entire state,” he said.

Deborah Markow, board treasurer, said the state had mailed its grant-in-aid check for $52,778 and the county had also sent its human services grant worth $5,000.

Speaker of the House Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth Beach, attended the meeting, and he said he liked what he saw.

This is the first time in a while the center’s members have been able to laugh, he said. “This is their home away from home, and they should feel comfortable here,” he said.

Still, the meeting wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows.

Linda Bonville, center bookkeeper, said she believes in transparency and informed the members in attendance of a number of revelations that had come about since the board last met.

She said the center had spent $12,757 in legal fees in the months immediately before the previous board’s departure; the center had spent $1,300 in insurance on a bus it no longer owned because it was never taken off the insurance policy; and the liability insurance for the center’s board came in at $6,750 with a $36,000 deductible per claim. The board paid $900 for the previous year.

Bonville said she hoped the center could move forward with no more legal issues.

“That was a big chunk of money out of the budget,” she said.

She also said the insurance company is looking into whether a credit can be given to the center for the money paid on the bus and that the insurance company would also look at the board’s policy in September to see if it could be lowered.

Topping the revelations was news that two bus drivers had never been insured.

“Thank God nothing happened,” she said. “It’s been rough these last two years, but we’ve made it though.”

Smith said moving the center forward is going to be an arduous task, and the new board will probably make mistakes, but together with the members, the center would return to being a good place.