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The Westfield News Serving Westfield, Southwick, and the surrounding Hilltowns
www.thewestfieldnews.com
VOL. 83 NO.117
“How slowly I have made my way in life! How much is still to be done!” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
MONDAY, MAY 19, 2014
75 cents
Gorman lobbies council for new senior center By Dan Moriarty Staff Writer WESTFIELD – Council On Aging Executive Director Tina Gorman spoke to the City Council members Thursday night to explain what services the agencies provides to the city’s 8,000 senior citizens and how the delivery of those services will be enhanced when a new senior center is constructed. Mayor Daniel M. Knapik submitted a $7. 5 million bond request to the City Council to finance the construction of a new 20,000-square-foot facility on Noble Street, replacing the current 5,000-square-foot Main Street center. The city received 10 bids for the senior center construction project which included a base bid and “alternatives” included as add-ons to the base bid. The contract was structured with the lower cost options to ensure that the construction cost would fall below $7 million. The alternatives replace less expensive materials with better material, such as replacing concrete curbing with granite. The apparent low bid was submitted by Forish Construction of Mainline Drive with a base price of $6,184,541 and a combined price of $6,324,625 for the construction and six alternates. The Purchasing Department completed the vetting process of the contract submissions Friday. Purchasing Director Tammy Tefft said this morning that the Forish bid is the apparent low “responsible and eligible” bidder. “Forish will be notified, contingent upon approval of the bond, that they are the general contractor,” Tefft said. “But I can’t award the contract until the second reading (and final approval) of the bond order by the City Council.” Typically the actual construction is financed through bond anticipation notes (BANs) and the bond actually sold following competition of the project when the exact dollar amount is known.
Gorman said that the original push to construct a new senior center was initiated in 1996 by senior citizens themselves in letters to then Mayor Richard K. Sullivan Jr., City Council members and the Community Development Department. The bond financing for the center construction was estimated in a 2009 five-year capital planning package at between $6 and $7 million and given an assessment as a high priority project. The $7.5 million bond before the City Council contains an 8 percent contingency, about $500,000, See Senior Center, Page 3
Tina Gorman, executive director of the Westfield Council on Aging, center, and Westfield Mayor Daniel Knapik, right, presented “All Things New Senior Center” during a meeting at the Senior Center last fall. Architects and project management were on hand to answer questions. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
An overview drawing of the proposed Westfield Senior Center that will be located on Noble Street. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
Fundraiser to be held for abandoned cats By Peter Francis Staff Writer WESTFIELD – The Westfield Homeless Cat Project will be holding a tag sale later this month to pay for the healthcare of the felines currently in their care. Following the discovery of dozens of cats, malnourished and ill, in Southwick earlier this month, Project Director Denise Sinico said the event will be held from Thursday May 29 to Saturday May 31 at 1124 East Mountain Road from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. “We’re looking for donations of tagsalable items and volunteers,” said Sinico. “Normally our tag sales raise around two grand, but we’re hoping to raise a little bit more than that.” Sinico said that the project usually runs between two and four tag sales a year.
“If we have a specific cat or a big surgery we have to do, or a special situation, we’ll run a tag sale to raise money,” she said. “In the beginning, thats how we raised money. I cleaned up my house, got a bunch of friends to donate stuff, had a tag sale and raised $2,000.” Sinico said she put the money raised by that initial sale toward fixing up a shed in her backyard for the project. “It’s kind of our thing. Everybody loves our tag sales, because we have so many nice things that people donate,” she said. “People are always very kind and good to us, so we always have a lot of good items.” That shed which was restored by the first tag sale is now currently about halffull of items for this upcoming sale, but Sinico believes that, now that spring has arrived, people will be looking to clean out
their homes and donate. The need for an influx of funding is greater now than ever before, as as the recent discovery of a large litter of cats which had been dumped in Southwick has swelled the WHCP ranks to over 30 animals, and Sinico said they are proving difficult to care for. “We’re still struggling with the cats. We’re having to forcefeed some of them, give them appetite stimulants because some of them went way too long without food,” she said. “I have about 15 cats in foster homes, with a few more cats that have been seen out there that we’ve been trying to get. We have well over 30 cats (here).” “We haven’t even begun testing them for diseases,” Sinico said. “When a cat goes without eating, their liver starts to
fail, so I hope that isn’t happening to any of them.” “I’m actually boiling chicken legs and feeding them that,” she said. “I went out and got them goat’s milk. We’re trying everything to get them to eat.” Sinico said that the search for who dumped these cats is still ongoing but that they’re getting closer to uncovering the responsible parties. “I have a friend who is a photographer, and she’s going to take some pictures of the cats, which we’re going to post to our Facebook page,” she said. “Our hope is that someone will come forward and say ‘I know who owned these cats.’” Anyone looking to donate to or volunteer to help with the tag sale can contact Denise Sinico via email at denisesinico@ hotmail.com.
Purebred Mainecoon and Siamese cats were rescued by the Westfield Homeless Cat Project earlier this month. (Photo Submitted)