Worth Township Supervisor Patricia Murphy talks to seniors Thursday at the Oak Lawn Senior Center about the start of new senior transportation using Pace vans. (Kimberly Fornek / Daily Southtown)

New transportation service for seniors in Oak Lawn, Chicago Ridge, Evergreen Park and other towns will start in about three months, Worth Township Supervisor Patricia Murphy told residents this week.

Murphy said a pilot program with two seven-seat Pace vans will pick up and take seniors to any location in the township, which stretches from 135th to 87th streets and from Harlem to Western avenues, and includes 12 towns.

It may take about three months for the service to start, Murphy said. The biggest problem will be finding drivers for the vans, she said.

Senior transportation has been the top issue she has heard about since being elected last year, Murphy told seniors gathered Thursday for lunch and bingo at the Oak Lawn Senior Center.

Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer has been calling her every week, she said, to discuss how the village and the township could work together to provide such bus service.

Vorderer said eliminating Oak Lawn’s own senior bus had been a necessary cost-cutting move when the pandemic reduced village revenues.

The senior transportation to be offered by the township will be a better service, Vorderer said, because trips will not be limited to within Oak Lawn boundaries.

There may be a nominal fee for passengers, Murphy said.

Seniors questioned whether two seven-seat vans could meet the demand for rides for older residents in such a large area.

“This was the fastest way to get this done,” Murphy said. “We are starting with two, but can add more.”

The Township Board approved the service Thursday, Murphy said.

Vorderer also assured residents that closing Oak Lawn’s Senior Center in the former McGugan Junior High School, at 105th Street and 52nd Avenue, and moving senior activities to the Oak Lawn Public Library is a good plan because the library is centrally located.

The north end of the Oak Lawn Public Library will be remodeled to accommodate senior activities, as the village plans to close the senior center in the former McGugan Junior High School. (Kimberly Fornek / Daily Southtown)

“I believe next year at this time, we will agree this is good,” Vorderer said. “We can provide all the services you are used to in this building (and) more opportunities for recreational activities.”

The library director, however, said the library will not become a new senior center.

The Library Board voted May 17 to partner with the village to remodel a portion of the library’s first floor.

“The details of the agreement have not been written yet,” library director Carol Williams said in an email.

Vorderer said the north end of the library, at 95th and Cook Avenue, will be remodeled into a soundproof area for seniors with a glass wall on the east side, a privacy curtain and a reading nook.

He also told the seniors that contrary to what they have heard, the McGugan school will remain open as the senior center until the library space is ready.

Employees of Genesis Therapy, which manages the senior activities at McGugan, said they would leave at the end of June. But Vorderer said the village would pay Genesis on a month-by-month basis until the library renovation is complete.

Many people do not like change, Vorderer said, but, “we are not abandoning anybody.”

Once senior activities are shifted, library employees will manage the programs, Vorderer said. The village hired someone to be a liaison to the seniors during the transition.

“When the new space is complete, in most cases, the room would be for senior programming during the daytime hours and for library programming in the evening and on weekends,” Williams said. “It has always been the library’s stance that we are not becoming the new senior center, rather we are offering to take on some of the programming (seniors) will be losing when their facility is shut down.”

Residents at the senior center repeated concerns Thursday that the library space, to be called the Encore Center, will not be large enough for their monthly boxed lunch and bingo games, when 70 or more people come.

“I can assure you the library can accommodate 100 people,” Vorderer said. The renovation will include a small kitchen for serving food, but not cooking meals.

Seniors warned there are not enough washrooms, accessible parking spaces and enough parking overall at the library for large group events.

The mayor said the library parking lots have as many spaces as the existing senior center and more accessible spaces can be added. The village also owns the office building to the east of the library, which could provide space for more parking.

Vorderer did not address the number of washrooms.

Oak Lawn resident Dale Kaczmarek tells Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer (not pictured) that senior residents should have had more input before the village decided to close the senior center housed in the former McGugan Junior High School on 105th Street. (Kimberly Fornek / Daily Southtown)

Some seniors were open-minded after hearing the Vorderer’s comments.

“As long as we know where we’re going to be in July,” Oak Lawn resident Donna Rydel said. The library renovation sounds good, she said, ‘if they are going to do soundproofing. Apparently, he says there is enough parking.”

“Until we move in there, we are not going to know,” said Noreen Lyons of Oak Lawn.

Other seniors were skeptical the library can provide all the services they have come to expect.

In addition to bingo, showing movies and card playing groups, the senior center scheduled entertainers and exercise classes before the pandemic, Marilyn Huttel said.

“Seniors need exercise,” Huttel said, not a place to read. “For seniors to get out and laugh and exercise is very important.”

Alice Betz said Vorderer is comparing services that will be offered at the library to what is now available at the former McGugan School. What they want is what they had about nine years ago, when the senior center was in a village-owned building at 95th and Raymond Avenue.

“It was a model senior center,” Betz said. “We got kicked out in 2013,” when the village sold the building and began leasing space in the closed junior high school.

Library officials, too, apparently, have doubts the library can or should meet all the senior’s interests.

When the Library Board learned the village was closing the senior center, the library trustees agreed to the renovation so the seniors would have a place to go for some programs, “even if it is wasn’t what they once had,” Williams said.

“Since we have limitations as far as elevator size and capacity down to our lower level and not enough handicapped or close easy-access parking, there are some larger programs we feel would not be optimal to hold at the library for the safety of the seniors and the good of the library overall,” Williams wrote. “We hope to talk with other Oak Lawn entities to consider arrangements for the larger programs to be held at more optimal facilities.

She said the library board hopes the village will receive promised state funding and be able to fulfill a promise of providing the Oak Lawn seniors with their own dedicated facility.

Kimberly Fornek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.