Cerritos Weighs Senior Center Plan : City hall: As numbers grow, senior citizens are putting pressure on City Council for a community center-type facility.

CERRITOS —  The City Council, which for years has geared its spending priorities to young families, is under increasing pressure to provide more services for a growing senior citizen population.

At its meeting tonight, the council is scheduled to discuss building a community center-type facility that would provide a permanent place for senior citizens to gather for social and recreational activities.

“We’ve taken care of our youth pretty much,” Councilman Paul W. Bowlen said. “Now we need to take care of our seniors. They see all these things built for youth, and they feel rightly they should have some sort of building for themselves.”

“I think it’s something that should be done,” said Councilman John Crawley, 48, “because people are getting older. I’m 12 years older than when I moved into Cerritos.”

So are a lot of other people, according to census data and population projections. In 1980, just 7.79% of the city’s population was 55 or older. Today, estimates from National Planning Data, one of several research firms that track population trends, put the city’s over-55 population at about 11.6%. Five years from now, the firm says, those over 55 will represent 15.6% of Cerritos’ population, about double what it was 15 years ago.

At the same time, the percentage of youngsters in the population is dropping. In 1980 the percentage of those 9 or younger was 18.3%. The estimated percentage is expected to drop to 17.5% this year, and to 16% by 1995.

There have been demands for a senior citizen center, but previous city councils ignored them, said Councilman Sherman Kappe, who was elected to the council this year.

Joseph Romash, one of the senior citizens actively lobbying the council to build a senior center, said he and other members of the city-sponsored senior club, the Gadabouts, have been lobbying for a center for 10 years.

Senior citizens have received nothing but “promises and promises and promises,” he said.

When the Gadabouts was started in 1979, “it was like an ice cream social, 30 members,” club president Robert Houska said. “Now there are 321 members.”

The city has been providing some support for the senior citizens. The Gadabouts meet once a month in a recreation building at Cerritos Park East on 166th Street. The city does not charge the organization for use of the facility, and it provides meals for annual Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, Romash said.

Romash said more than 100 people show up for the monthly event, which features lunch and such games as bingo.

There is only a small kitchen in the building, he said, so lunch must be potluck. By noon, when everybody sits down to eat, “the cold food is hot and the hot food is cold.”

Some space in the city’s $46-million Community Arts Center now being built could be converted to meeting rooms when there is no arts performance, and some have suggested that the senior citizens could use the rooms.

But seniors want a building largely their own, a facility that they can use daily for a game of checkers or pool, Romash said.

Most importantly, Romash said, they want a center with a first-rate kitchen that will allow senior citizens to serve meals at more events.

Houska said the council has been reluctant to approve a senior center because of concern that it might not be used fully.

“I’m sure it’s going to be utilized,” Houska said, because once the building exists and regular events are programmed, senior citizens will be drawn to the facility.

At least three of the five council members have indicated that they might favor proposals for a center that would be used primarily by seniors but could also double as a community center.

Mayor Ann Joynt said that if the council vote tonight is affirmative, the council will tell the city parks and recreation department to suggest a site, then develop plans and cost estimates.

Some senior citizens and council members are already eyeing Pat Nixon Park on South Street, which is centrally located and could accommodate a new building.

Except for a small play area designed for younger children, the park is mostly open grass.