Senior citizens who receive regular meal service through the Knoxville Senior Center and elsewhere are upset at proposed changes as to how Marion County will provide this service, partly because of the sudden nature of the proposal and partly because so many details are not yet known.
A meeting at the center in the basement of Knoxville City Hall on Friday afternoon drew dozens of seniors who want to know why the county is proposing the elimination of the congregate meal service as they’ve known it.
The plan was submitted to the Board of Supervisors at its meeting on Tuesday; officials say it’s been in the works for nearly four years, and needs to be implemented because the current system is no longer effective.
But the regular clients of the Senior Center want to know more about the county’s plans, and whether it will mean the end of the service they’ve been receiving.
Many are vowing to fill the next Board of Supervisors meeting on January 22nd to get more information, and Senior Center Board Member Roy Richardson tells KNIA/KRLS News they hope to at least slow down the county’s plans to implement all this by April.
“The best thing we can hope to come from it is those folks to present facts and figures, to justify what they’re doing. As of today, we have no facts,” Richardson says.
Richardson says he and others with the Senior Center would like to meet with supervisors to get a better idea of what they’re planning, and the impact it could have on them.