Money dispute divides Newberry CSD, seniors

NEWBERRY SPRINGS • Senior citizens in Newberry Springs don’t have a lot of options when it comes to social activities in their area, which is why the Newberry Springs Senior Service Association is so important to some residents.

Its senior center, located at 33383 Newberry Road, offers a lending library, a cafe, monthly Sunday dinners and rummage sales, and even a Nintendo Wii, for anyone regardless of age. But a dispute between the association and Newberry Springs Community Services District (CSD) over $20,000 the seniors requested has many members seeing red.

Bills for recent repairs at the senior center are overdue and more are needed. The CSD, bound by state law to adhere to certain standards when it comes to contracting money to other organizations, only offered half of what the seniors asked for and included a contract with a list of requirements many of them find bogus.

“I almost fell over,” said Bob Vasseur, who maintains the association’s Web site.

The Senior Service Association requested the $20,000 from the CSD in April 2008. The money was to come out of a $350,000 fund donated in 2004 from the Kiewit Pacific Company, which operated a sand and gravel plant in the area. According to a contract from the Kiewit Pacific Company, $20,000 of the donation was to be used for emergency services; the rest was to be used “at the discretion of the (Community Services District) for the benefit of the community.” 

According to the contract, some of the requirements the senior center must meet include maintaining automobile liability insurance and holding one community event each month. The CSD also offered to pay for repairs and up to 15 percent of the senior center’s electricity as long as the total doesn’t exceed the $10,000.

Steve Miller, assistant fire chief for the Newberry Springs Fire Department and member of the CSD, said once the district received the Kiewit donation, it was required to handle it as they would handle public funds. The CSD couldn’t just spend the money as it pleased, he said.

“We have one set of rules to go by and that’s the government code,” he said.

Miller and JoAnne Cousino, Newberry Springs General Manager, act as mediators between the CSD and the Senior Service Association.

“We worked hard and diligently on behalf of the CSD to find a way to assist the seniors,” Cousino said. A special joint meeting of the CSD and the Senior Service Association will take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday to finalize the issue. “(The senior center) is extremely important. For many seniors it gives them an opportunity to meet, and a lot of people use the restaurant.”

According to Miller, public funds can’t be contracted to an organization to be used to pay off past debts. When it requested the initial $20,000, the Senior Service Association included a list of how the money would be spent, on that list were several bills that are past due such as $589.13 to the Morgan Meat Company.

“We can’t pay for the meat bill for the cafe,” he said.

Dolores Olson, the grant writer and secretary for the Association, said most of the stipulations in the contract, especially the automobile insurance requirement, was unnecessary and was just a way for the CSD to control the Senior Services Association. The association already has financial problems and for the CSD to offer pay for repairs, the cost of which will be included in the $10,000, could leave the association with no money left over.

“Two paragraphs on automobile insurance? We don’t have an automobile and we don’t plan to get one,” she said, adding that the association’s Board of Directors will meet with the CSD again about this issue. “They’re setting us up for failure. It’s so stringent.”

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4123 or jcejnar@desertdispatch.com