New library not required
Why does City of Powell River council maintain support for the public library’s process? [“Council maintains support for library process,” December 21]. It seems like only yesterday that all members of the existing council including the mayor were vowing to look for ways to reduce property taxes in our lovely town. I should have known that these promises were only made to get votes.
Now the election is over it’s back to unbridled spending of everyone else’s money. There is a recession going on and it has been happening for four years. The tax base is dwindling with lost jobs, people leaving town to find work and our main local employers on very shaky ground.
I don’t think we “need” a new library at all. Sure it would be nice to have a larger building filled with more books, more computers, more furnishings and obviously more employees but we don’t “need” any of this nor can the town of Powell River afford it.
The world economic situation is not going to get better anytime soon in spite of what political spin doctors want us to believe. Sometimes cutting your losses is not only the best policy but the only policy.
I like libraries. I find our little library tucked under city hall to be clean, centrally located, and staffed by competent, helpful people. I can usually find what I am looking for there, it is never crowded when I visit and best of all it is paid for. So why spend/borrow a lot of money to build a new one?
When financial times are tough our leaders are required to make tough decisions. Now that co-treatment funding has fallen through the city will have to rethink the whole sewage treatment situation again and obviously spend tax dollars on something that we actually do need: efficient, safe and environmentally sound sewage treatment.
I also feel the old arena site is a truly spectacular parcel of land which, incidentally, is not owned by our current city council or our chief librarian. It belongs to the citizens of Powell River and any development on that site should go to a referendum.
Steve Grover
Algerine Place
