by Dennis Dalman
news@thenewsleaders.com
It was a night for new faces, an evening for celebration, a time for cupcakes.
On Jan. 14 at the Sartell City Council meeting room, four city-council members took their oaths of office – new mayor Ryan Fitzthum (formerly a council member) and new council members Brady Andel, Tim Elness and Jeff Kolb. Those four joined the only council member still serving from the previous council – Mike Chisum.
After they took their oaths, one by one, a surprise guest announced she’d brought a big tray of cupcakes to celebrate the occasion. Paulette Levasseur, who is chair and volunteer coordinator for the Sartell Senior Connection, said she brought the treats in honor of the newly-constituted city council and also to commemorate the first birthday of the Sartell Community Center, which opened about a year ago. The Sartell Senior Connection, a group of very active senior citizens, has a “home” in the community center, a long-delayed wish come true.
Levasseur congratulated the new council members and told the council the senior-center headquarters is a “fabulous” place.
She recalled that, as a member of the Jaycees Women’s group in the early 1990s, she and others raised money for a wading pool at Watab Park but that their larger goal was to push for a community center in Sartell. That goal finally became a reality nearly 30 years later.
”We’d been waiting for a long time,” she said.
In just one year, the senior center held two brunches for veterans, enlisted many speakers on a wide range of topics, sponsored special events for all Sartell residents and out-of-town visitors, and some senior members created 500 caps to donate to disabled veterans and people in need who seek help from Tri-Cap social programs.
“That was all in the first year (of the center), and there will be more to come,” Levasseur said to the council.
