Mayor, lawmaker say no one took $1 million from senior center

CLAYTON — The letter writer accused the town and a state lawmaker of colluding to take $1 million away from the Clayton Center for Active Aging.

That never happened, town leaders and a state lawmaker said.

“The Johnston CSS never lost $1 million,” N.C. Sen. Benton Sawrey said, referring to Community & Senior Services, the agency that oversees that Clayton Center for Active Aging. “That’s factually untrue,” he said of the claim.

Instead, the town, not CSS, asked the state for the money, Mayor Jody McLeod said in an email. The town’s intent was to add roughly 7,000 square feet to its community center “to meet programming needs for youth, seniors and families,” he said, quoting from the town’s request to state lawmakers.

However, the original bill’s final language, which the General Assembly enacted, said only that the money was for “capital improvements and equipment” for the Clayton senior center. Neither the town nor Johnston’s legislative delegation was responsible for that language, Sawrey said.

“Central staff at the N.C. General Assembly wrote it that way when summarizing the request, and that’s likely where it got lost in translation,” he said.

In any event, the final language presented a problem for the town, which doesn’t own the building that houses the senior center, McLeod said. “The town has no authority or agreements with CSS … and cannot perform work on facility we do not own,” he said.

The solution was to make a so-called “technical correction” to the language of the bill, which the General Assembly passed in 2023, said Town Manager Rich Cappola. “There was a consensus to ask for a technical correction … to allow for a broader application of the funds, which would also allow for the potential to purchase a new property,” he said.

That’s how the bill’s language came to say the town could use the money “for property acquisition, construction, capital improvements, or equipment for a community senior center or a community civic center.”

But the mayor said the town was unlikely to use the money only for senior purposes. Clayton’s senior population is growing, but its younger demographic is growing even faster, he said.

“The town desires to meet the needs of all of our residents and provide space that can be used for multi-generational programming,” he said. “The intent would be to leverage the $1 million grant to allow for the maximum benefit to the town of Clayton residents which it was intended for.”

Cappola said much the same, underscoring the point with preliminary findings from a forthcoming update to Clayton’s parks and recreation master plan. “The trend is to invest in multipurpose facilities rather than group-specific ones,” he said.

“Our town is committed to serving all of our residents, including seniors,” Cappola added. “By leveraging funding for multipurpose facilities, we not only ensure broad service to our growing, diverse population but also maximize the impact of this investment supported by our state leaders.”

Sawrey said he understood why the town wanted a technical correction. “The new appropriation language allows the Town of Clayton more flexibility to buy property or spend that money on construction for a senior or civic center,” he said. “The prior language only permitted spending on equipment and capital.”

“I believe that this also permits the Town of Clayton to explore partnerships and multipurpose civic facilities with shared space for other organizations,” Sawrey added.

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