New York State Budget Cuts May Eviscerate Senior Citizen Services - Roosevelt Island Elected Officials Jessica Lappin & Micah Kellner Respond

Daily News Image of Speaker Quinn And Aging Committe Chair Lappin Protesting Senior Citizen Budget Cuts

According to the NY Daily News:

Gov. Paterson came under fire yesterday from both officials and senior citizens for proposing to divert $25.2 million in federal funding from the city's 328 senior centers.

The move, they said, would mean closing up to 110 of the centers...

The NY Times adds:

The Bloomberg administration is scrambling to come up with contingency plans to close as many as one-fifth of the city’s 321 senior centers after being caught off guard by an obscure state budget proposal that would slash the centers’ financing by nearly 30 percent.

Describing what the loss of state money would mean for the centers, Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, the city’s commissioner at the Department for the Aging, was blunt. “Catastrophic,” she said. ...

Jessica Lappin, whose New York City Council District includes Roosevelt Island was quoted in the article:

...It was a sneaky cut,” said Jessica Lappin, a City Council member and the chairwoman of the aging committee, who described the proposal as an “evisceration of services to seniors....

I asked Ms. Lappin to elaborate on how these cuts might impact Roosevelt lsland Senior Citizens. She replied yesterday:

Right now, we don’t know which senior centers would be closed if these cuts go through. Each and every senior at each and every center is in danger.

This unconscionable cut would eviscerate senior services as we know them. It would hit the poorest of the poor and it must be stopped. That’s why I organized a rally today to announce our citywide campaign to fight the Governor’s proposal. We have nearly 500 seniors in attendance. Those who live on Roosevelt Island need to join us in this fight and contact Assembly Member Kellner and State Senator Serrano to ask them to make this restoration their top priority.

Roosevelt Island's Assembly Member Micah Kellner had this to say yesterday as well:

The governor attempted to sneak this cut through the state budget, hoping that no one would notice its potentially devastating effect on New York's seniors. While the full implications of the proposed cut are still unclear, I will do everything in my power to oppose it, and to ensure that there is adequate state funding, even in a tough budget year, for our senior centers

Roosevelt Island Seniors, it's time to get organized.