Council on Aging hears plan to merge senior health, recreation and veterans services

SUDBURY — April 13, 2026 — Sudbury COA hears pitch for consolidated health, recreation and veterans department. Director of Health and Community Services Vivian Zeng told the Council on Aging at its April 13 meeting that the three-month-old consolidation — modeled on Acton, Westwood and Bedford — is already enabling cross-department programs, including free public health nurse follow-ups for new mothers in a recreation postpartum program. Zeng said a May 18 emergency-preparedness training at the Senior Center will pair her nurse with Fire Chief Cho; a Flash Vote survey found residents named power outages, not flooding, as their top emergency concern. Resident Kay Bell, former chair of the Commission on Disability, urged members to attend an April 30 landscape master plan workshop, warning that an unfinished circuit path at Haskell Field leaves the field inaccessible in violation of ADA requirements. Chair Paul Marotta announced a new registration-only dining program capped at 30, launching weekly in May, and said Carmine Gentile will take over as secretary July 1 piloting AI-generated minutes — though outgoing secretary Mary McLaughlin warned current AI transcripts often include "things that never happened."