For decades many have known me as an exceptionally enthusiastic user of our great library. After visiting other libraries I come back so proud of our home library, a sterling reason to live here.
Our library is outstanding for the best services and best staff in the county and these must be maintained. To cut staff and services is destructive to the lifeblood of a library which is the key to education and civilization and one of the last strongholds of democracy in action.
In a recent referendum, the community sent a clear mandate to the board in an unheard of overwhelmingly almost 3 to1 vote against extensive renovation of a young 42-year-old building. So why is the board continuing to evince intransigence and shortsightedness, allowing our beautiful building to deteriorate while they reiterate, “We’ll do it when we renovate.” If the Board had maintained its slush fund as the Park District and School Boards have to keep their facilities maintained and upgraded yearly, the library would not now face the quandary of extensive repairs all at once with the dire possibility of extensive loss of crucial library services in a community that deplores not having the use of its library for any extended period of time.
An example of an important item that must be attended to without delay is installing sensors on the front doors. When a button to open the heavy doors is pushed, the doors open automatically and then close again non stop. People behind the original button pusher are unaware of this and can be crushed by the continuously moving doors. My elderly friend could have been badly hurt as he tried to avoid the heavy doors closing in on his face. It’s a good thing I was there to yank him back in time. What if he’d had a walker or had been a young mother with a baby or a blind person? Does someone have to get severely hurt for there to be action?
Many library supporters I know have told me they have tried attending board meetings to speak with the board only to leave demoralized, feeling that they and their ideas were unwelcome.
I am writing to the board to appeal to them to open their minds and welcome us, the patrons, so we can work together to save our library, save our existing staff, save existing services and fix what needs to be fixed before it’s too late.
Naomi Penner
Great Neck
