The Issaquah City Council granted the Issaquah Senior Center an extra $25,000 to explore options for long-term operations at the Jan. 16 meeting.

Issaquah Parks and Recreation Director Jeff Watling said that the city is currently looking for an operating partner for the senior center. The money, he said, would be spent on “consultant services to assist us.”

“We would anticipate probably toward the latter part of 2018 probably having some sort of hand-off between us and a new partner,” Watling said.

The Issaquah Senior Center had previously been run by a nonprofit, Issaquah Valley Seniors. However, the city took over interim operations of the senior center at the beginning of 2017, after more than a year of drama and conflict with valley seniors.

The city’s Senior Center Advisory Group began meeting in March 2017 to discuss the future of the senior center. The group of 10 residents found benefits to both a city-operated center and contracting with an operating partner, but all group members agreed on several guiding principles: transparency and oversight, partnerships and collaboration, cultural focus on customer service, coordination with city facilities, variety and mix of programs and services and creativity/agility/innovation.

After working with the advisory group, city staff concluded that contracting with a nonprofit would be the best path forward.

“We felt it was imperative in this recommendation given the history, that this facility has been operated by a nonprofit partner, given the professional agencies that we see in this area that operate senior centers, that pursuit of this seemed to be a first priority,” Watling said.

“I support taking this step … which will have us making decisions based on what we find out,” Councilmember Stacy Goodman said. “I’m excited to be at this point and looking forward to the results of this process.”

“I particularly like the idea of bringing in some outside expertise to help frame this … I wanna make sure we do take advantage of this situation and that we are thorough … considering all of the things that are possible in a partner,” Councilmember Chris Reh said.

Councilmember Bill Ramos said that he was “totally supportive of this process and the money that [Parks and Recreation] need[s]” but noted that he found it “strange that 16 days into our budget we’re asking for an amendment.”

Mayor Mary Lou Pauly responded that the “formation of the 2018 work plan begins after the approval of the budget,” and explained that some items of the work plan are still being ironed out.

“It’s kind of a workload balancing thing,” she said.