DERBY — The executive director of the Derby Senior Center is leaving her job to become the director at the new Ansonia Senior Center.
The announcement that Christine Sonsini is leaving Derby for Ansonia happened Tuesday night at the Ansonia Board of Aldermen meeting.
“Sonsini brings with her a stellar record as director of the Derby Senior Center,” Mayor David Cassetti said during Tuesday’s Aldermen meeting.
The Ansonia Senior Center is currently under construction within 65 Main Street, in a former office building that also houses the Ansonia Police Department.
Cassetti said a formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new Ansonia Senior Center is scheduled for March 1.
Sonsini will be paid $59,000, according to the Cassetti administration. Derby was paying just under $53,000.
Sonsini, who lives in Derby, said the decision wasn’t easy.
“I will greatly miss “my seniors” here in Derby as they have grown to be like a second family to me. But the saving grace is that many of the seniors here belong to both centers, so I hope that I will still be able to see and work with them in the future,” Sonsini said in an email Wednesday morning.
Sonsini’s departure does not come as a complete surprise. Ansonia and Derby have been talking about merging senior centers. The merger was supported by Derby Mayor Richard Dziekan and the Cassetti administration in Ansonia.
The Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen rejected a written agreement to merge the centers by a 5 – 4 vote in June 2022.
That agreement stated that the executive director of the Derby center would become the director of the merged center.
In addition, Sonsini had publicly pressed the Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen to be more concise in their vision for the future of the Derby Senior Center. Derby Senior Center members have complained that elected officials have been riding the fence on whether to merge.
Alderman Brian Coppolo requested a senior center subcommittee be formed by the mayor to search for a suitable location for a new senior center within Derby borders. That subcommittee was supposed to have its work done by September: that has not happened.
The debate over whether to close the Derby Senior Center, an old building that the Dziekan administration and seniors say is well past its prime, and move to Ansonia has also been characterized by political infighting.
Some Democrats felt that Dziekan erred at the very start of discussions by not forming a subcommittee to help research the matter. Others didn’t trust the data presented. Others said if Derby seniors wanted to attend the Ansonia center, they could simply sign up and go. The Dziekan administration said there’s a group of Democrats who will thwart any Dziekan initiative.
In the months after the ‘no’ vote, it seemed like perhaps a deal could be worked out between Derby and Ansonia. But the merger was again declared dead at the Dec. 8, 2022 meeting of the Derby Board of Aldermen & Alderwomen.
In her email to The Valley Indy, Sonsini said a merged senior center would have resulted in more program options for Derby seniors, along with a much better space.
“It was a very difficult decision as I always held out hope that the Derby Alderman would do right by the seniors of Derby and listen to them and see that merging was in the best interest of all of the seniors,” Sonsini said. “My goal was always that we would all move together. As we know that did not happen and It is very frustrating. The Senior Center Director position in Ansonia opens up numerous opportunities to offer the seniors of the Valley more programming & the ability to offer more programs simultaneously.“
Mayor Dziekan said Sonsini did a great job in Derby. He pointed out she had tears in her eyes when she told him she had decided to leave. He said Derby’s local lawmakers should have approved the merger.
“She has a passion for our seniors’ which is clearly seen in how she carries out her duties, her advocacy on behalf of our seniors regarding the proposed joint center with Ansonia that would have provided Derby seniors a brand-new facility with more than doubled the square footage, and by the tears in her eyes when she informed me she was resigning to take the position of the new Senior Center in Ansonia,” Dziekan said.
