Thank you so much for the West Central Tribune editorial supporting the library. I, too, am writing to add my support. I get books for my book club from the library and attended meetings in the community room. The library has access to the Internet and e-mail for those who can't afford these services, so I direct my students to use the library. I just started the Rosetta Stone Spanish course offered free through the library. How can we even consider reducing hours or shutting down the library for even one week? Libraries have been part of our country's values since Benjamin Franklin.
Also part of our value system was civic responsibility -- using tax dollars to support schools and libraries. When the West was settled, one township was sold for schools. Now for some reason, tax is such a bad word that schools and libraries are suffering in every community.
I just ordered a book to donate to the library, and I plan to join the Friends of the Library organization. However, the city officials need to take responsibility and adequately fund the library. Playing the blame game will not solve the problem of library accessibility.
Schools are also suffering, but I am starting to see improvement. I want to compliment the school board for the repairs I recently noticed at the junior high. I have participated in lap swimming for 10 years there. That entire time, the girls' locker room had a broken soap dispenser for washing hands; the faucet for washing hands has been broken for almost that long. We now have a repaired faucet, a working soap dispenser and even paper towel dispensers--just in time for flu season. We should not have had to wait 10 years for such repairs.
Both city officials and school board members need to make the hard decisions necessary to adequately fund such basic items plus the other necessities required for our current technology needs -- even if taxes need to be raised. Let us get back to the values we used to have before the "me generation" insisted on tax rebates to buy votes.
