COA exercise room much too small

Dear Editor:

Why is our new exercise room too small? It’s a wall-to-wall challenge these days to observe and/or try to participate in senior exercise programs at the Council on Aging building on Pleasant Street!

The square-footage of the exercise room has proven to be functionally inadequate. As warned from its inception on blueprint plans, it is wholly undersized for Canton’s ever-expanding populace of seniors. The present small room is the result.

Too close for comfort? You bet. While we twist our limbs and touch our toes, we must strive not to hit our neighbor’s nose! Such short-sighted, deliberately inept planning by town engineers and further rubber stamped by officials imbues a sad, disappointing overview of misused talents and misspent tax monies.

Recently, while exercising amid several venues of yoga, aerobics, and stretches, I couldn’t help but acknowledge the warnings of the instructress to “watch out for your neighbor” or to “move up front,” both of which pose their own safety issues of possibly banging into walls and/or windows. Further exacerbating this sardine-tight squeeze is the fact that an optional room-dividing wall — a much-needed partition which should and could remain open during exercise classes — instead remains conspicuously closed, further cramping the small room.

Ingenuity and common sense when drafting room plans could have resulted in an efficient exercise room of realistic dimensions. Instead, seniors must now contend with an exercise room that is much too small.

Deceptive politics and untrustworthy tactics in planning have resulted in the present too small room.

For the record, let it be said that when encouraged and utilized, suggestion boxes, open-forum meetings, senior community involvement and reality checks — these can be wonderful things.

Mary Ann Kinnealey

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