Helen Miller's perfect memorial: A new Senior Center

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Helen Miller will be greatly missed by Plainfield's Seniors, and rightly so. But there is something that can be done that will ease the loss.

Helen was driven about seeing to it that the Seniors got their new center and she made no secret about it. She could be direct. She could be cagey. She was wily and she was relentless.

Resistance was futile. She was what the French call une dame formidable. Our English word 'formidable' is but a pale cousin of that French word-image, one that connotes at the same time an unstoppable force and an immovable object.

She didn't wan't to hear about the Tepper's building. She didn't want to hear about the Armory. She had her eye on a site. And don't you know, with her prodding, the City acquired that site -- on East Front Street.

Helen had known disappointment in getting a new Senior Center.

Rick Taylor had not been able to deliver the goods. Harold Mitchell had not been able to deliver the goods. Nor had Mark Fury. So why would Al McWilliams be any different? She didn't believe he would, and that is the key to understanding both her persistence and her victory.

Like the woman in Jesus' parable who wears down the judge with her incessant pleas, Helen wore down the McWilliams administration. Whether or not Jayson Williams was ever going to get a new Center built, having his interest in the project moved Helen's piece many squares down the board.

An architect was selected and plans drawn up. The only thing remaining was the money. After many negotiations and false starts, finally even that came through.

A bond ordinance, including money for the Senior Center, was proposed by McWilliams. The Council in its deliberations decided to split the ordinance into separate pieces so, as one Councilman remarked, the money for the Senior Center could be authorized and set aside for no other purpose than building a center.

That ordinance passed and in early November, the City sold the notes in an online auction to the highest bidder, Zions Bank, the investment banking arm of the Mormon church. (That auction was actually the genesis of this blog, as the story was not considered newsworthy by one of the daily papers. The announcement was posted here, and the results of the auction were posted here. Click on the screenshot to see a larger version.)

The $4.3 million received was put into the budget and banked under an account (# C-04-55-822-001-901) designated "Construction of Senior Building." And there it sits.

Helen Miller could have no better memorial than this: to build the Center, as she envisioned it, where she envisioned it -- and to name it after her.

-- Dan Damon

Keywords: Seniors, bonds
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