Reduced Center Hours Draw Fire

Citizens and councillors spoke up at Monday’s City Council meeting against a decision by Cambridge’s City Manager to reduce Friday hours and lunch service at the Cambridge Senior Center.

At one point, Kathy Podgers, a meeting regular, disrupted the testimony of Assistant City Manager for Human Services Ellen M. Semanoff, who was defending the decision, prompting Mayor Kenneth E. Reeves ’72 to threaten to call the police to expel Podgers.

“Miss Podgers, a call to the police station will expel you forever. Disrupting public meetings is not legal,” Reeves said.

Semanoff said the changes at the Senior Center were motivated by a desire to reach out to elders who work during the day and to maximize use of the facility.

To compensate for the reduced Friday hours, the Center serves dinner and remains open until 8 p.m. on Mondays. The decision followed two public meetings in March and April.

Recently, city offices have also begun to close earlier on Friday afternoons.

But despite his public reprimand of Podgers, Reeves echoed the concerns of residents, saying that he did not understand the abruptness of the decision.

“This was not intended to be a bad thing I guess, but the perception is that we’re taking away a meal from seniors,” Reeves said. “This is a problem with how this came about.”

Reeves pressed City Manager Robert W. Healy to give the council more notice when making such changes.

“I guess I don’t know of a way other than a notification,” Healy said.

“The rumors ran ahead of the opportunity to notify the city council,” Healy added. “There was no intention not to notify the city council.”

—Staff writer Natalie I. Sherman can be reached at nsherman@fas.harvard.edu.