{"id":22542,"date":"2013-07-15T18:05:22","date_gmt":"2013-07-15T22:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22542"},"modified":"2013-07-15T18:05:22","modified_gmt":"2013-07-15T22:05:22","slug":"east-tampa-seniors-want-ragan-park-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=22542","title":{"rendered":"East Tampa Seniors Want Ragan Park Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY LEON B. CREWS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sentinel Staff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the East Tampa Community Revitalization Partnership group held their monthly meeting at the Ragan Park Center on Lake Avenue.<\/p>\n

Attending the meeting were a group of senior citizens, led by Mrs. Betty Bell<\/strong>, President of the Highland Pines Neighborhood Association and Crime Watch. Representing the seniors, Ms. Queen Miller<\/strong> proposed Ragan Center be used as a senior center, available to East Tampa seniors three days a week for exercise and activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreg Bayor<\/strong>, the Director of Parks and Recreation, was at the meeting and said the center is underutilized, so Ms. Miller<\/strong> suggested we use it as a senior center, and I agreed,\u201d said Mrs. Bell<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had already talked to the seniors about it, and that\u2019s why about 20 of us decided to come to the meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Bell<\/strong> said a representative from the city was at the meeting, and tried to stop any discussion about seniors taking over the park and building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were told it wouldn\u2019t be feasible, but we weren\u2019t told why, or that our suggestion was baseless.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve either been turned away from other centers, or forced to leave to make way for the children. We want to be able to meet without giving way for the children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mrs. Bell<\/strong> said she thanked the seniors for coming out, and she\u2019s vowing to fight to get this done.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand why we can\u2019t use the park for exercise, and the building to play games and cool down.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur exercise group has no place to meet, and we have a little over 30 seniors in our group.\u201d<\/p>\n

ETCRP Chair, Essie Sims<\/strong>, said he can\u2019t comment on an issue that will be decided by the city\u2019s parks and recreation department, but he feels the seniors in East Tampa do have places to go.<\/p>\n

Sims<\/strong> said when they started the senior centers, they wanted one in every East Tampa park as a matter of convenience, and they exist at Oak Park, Williams Park, Cyrus Greene, and Woodland Terrace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought by establishing senior centers in all the parks, the seniors wouldn\u2019t be bound by transportation problems when they want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayor <\/strong>said it is feasible, but maybe not practical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of youth and adults using that facility, and I believe if the center isn\u2019t in an area with senior living facilities, it wouldn\u2019t be fully utilized. I think multi-generational centers work better.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce school starts, it would be practical, because the kids won\u2019t be around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bayor<\/strong> said they are working on increasing the number of senior programs available, and they are reorganizing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m putting all of the centers under one person. I consider that a return to a traditional model, and that will put responsibility on one person for what happens at the centers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY LEON B. CREWS Sentinel Staff Writer On Tuesday, the East Tampa Community Revitalization Partnership group held their monthly meeting at the Ragan Park Center on Lake Avenue. Attending the meeting were a group of senior citizens, led by Mrs. Betty Bell, President of the Highland Pines Neighborhood Association and Crime Watch. Representing the seniors, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}