Rockport's Community House may not be the perfect place for a senior center.
But the newly revised plan to renovate the historic building calls to mind the classic political cliche, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" — and the proverb that tells us: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." It is, in other words, a practical solution that the town's Council on Aging and Rockport's senior should now accept and welcome.
In recent months, several seniors plus the Council on Aging had lobbied strenuously for the purchase of the former Granite Savings Bank building for a new center, pointing to a number of advantages — 12 parking spaces instead of zero at the Community House; more space, and the fact that the seniors would not have to share space.
But some of those issues were addressed before the Board of Selectmen's 3-2 vote this week to make the Community House the Senior Center's new home. The most important is that most of the space will be on the first floor, a key safety feature. There will be a modest increase in the space dedicated to seniors — 2,200 square feet for their exclusive use and another 1,230 square feet of shared space.
While Council on Aging Chairman Roger Lesch declined to comment on the vote until the group's next meeting on Oct. 20, seniors at the current, obviously inadequate center, said they thought the Community House would work well — as long as it is designed properly. The revised plans suggest it will be.
The Community Center may not have been seniors and some officials' first choice, but it is a sure thing. The bank building — clearly now pegged to house town offices — may yet become town property. But that's contingent on voters' special referendum approval of an $894,400 debt-exclusion override to buy it. That's a proposition that may face long odds.
The Community House will have less space than the bank building, and it will not be dedicated exclusively to seniors. But in both life and politics, progress requires compromise. The vote this week appears to be a workable compromise that will give seniors what they need, if not everything they want.
It is, in the end, a safe choice, and a good deal.
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