The Lucerne Alpine Senior Center recently held elections for a new board. While generally this sort of thing is routine and hardly newsworthy, in this case, unfortunately that is not true.

Everyone knows that senior centers are a valuable asset to their communities, and to that end they receive both federal and state funds. Likewise they rely on the goodwill and support of these communities for additional, much-needed financial support and for volunteers. In exchange they function as a location offering many services to seniors and a place where they may gather for social, educational and other purposes.

These factors impose a serious responsibility on those whose task it is to guide and manage the centers. It is important to remember that these institutions are public ones and that they must operate by clear and transparent means.

In conducting elections for a board of directors, these centers are no different than any government or national body. Elections must be open, fair and public. In this regard the current elections held at the Lucerne center fall woefully short of these standards.

The issue here turns on who is qualified to vote. Is the voting open and inclusive to as much of the community as possible or is it narrow and exclusive? This is a critical question in any election, and over time certain standards have evolved and have moved into the area of general agreement. The criteria for voting must be published widely and generally known, they must be fair, consistent and equally applied, and they must be reasonable.

None of these are to be found in this recent election. Standards for voting were never officially created by the board. They were never published or made generally known to potential voters.

Standards were changed during the period leading up to the elections, and they were entirely arbitrary, inconsistent and unequally applied. One woman, a former member of the board whose service to the center spans 10 years and who has frequently made generous financial contributions to the center, was deemed not qualified to vote.

On the day of the voting, she made a personal appeal in open meeting to those conducting the elections to be allowed to vote. She was denied. Many others were disenfranchised as well because their service to the center was deemed inadequate or because they did not eat lunch twice a week at the center.

Clearly there is a problem here that may require an external legal solution. But outside of these irregularities concerning qualification and voting, there lies a deeper and more important question: Is the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center to be available only to a small, self-selected group who use their position to continue what is for them a comfortable status quo, or is it to be a greater community resource available to any and all who wish to participate? I vote for the latter.

Gregory Cavness lives in Lucerne.

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Written by: Gregory Cavness

Published: 21 June 2009