North Seal Beach Community Center is now open

COUNCIL COMMENTS

Editor’s Note: The newly renovated North Seal Beach Community Center reopened Dec. 16 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Meal service for Senior Meals has resumed and is regularly scheduled Monday through Friday. See the Health and Fitness section for menus.

by Nathan Steele

Seal Beach Mayor Pro Tem

As mayor pro tem for the City of Seal Beach representing District 5, which consists of about half of Leisure World, I had the privilege of celebrating the completion of a muchneeded renovation to the North Seal Beach Community Center Dec. 16.

I’d like to recognize my fellow council members who supported this project: Mayor Lisa Landau, council member Joe Kalmick and our new council members Ben Wong and Patty Senecal.

I would like to thank our staff team that got this project done: Interim City Manager Patrick Gallegos for his leadership, and Public Works Director Iris Lee and Community Development Director Alexa Smittle for getting the project started and supporting their teams throughout.

Thanks also to the project team, who worked every day to get see the project to completion: Deputy Director of Public Works Katheryn Cho, Assistant Engineer William Luna, Recreation Manager Tim Kelsey, Recreation Specialist Nathan Caukin, Management Analyst Megan Coats and Public Works Supervisor Joseph Talarico.

Each of these individuals played a vital role to ensure a quality site for the community, which includes many groups that use this space for meetings, classes, and, of course, an enhanced location for seniors to meet at daily for meals.

The project is an example of partnership.

The team’s long-standing relationship with the County of Orange and the Community Development Block Grant program helped the city obtain a federal grant of $350,000, without which the renovation would not have been possible.

My fellow council members supported the necessary 20% funding match, a portion of which I was very happy to cover with my council discretionary funds.

Quality of life for our senior community in Seal Beach is near and dear to my heart, and I’m so glad we could make this center better to serve them.

With this project, we were able to improve accessibility by replacing cumbersome sliding glass doors with ADA accessible French doors that provide all users better access to the exterior of the building.

We performed considerable wood repairs and painted the building inside and out. The kitchen area and women’s restroom were updated.

Energy efficiency was improved by installing new LED lighting throughout the inside and outside of the building.

I know this project will enhance the experience that all users have at this center.

Finally, thank you to all the seniors here and the Meals on Wheels program for their patience and flexibility while the work was ongoing.

We hope the space better fits your needs.