Photo by Sanja Gjenero via morgueFile.com
Community Library Board President Ken Mangold asked the Twin Lakes Village Board to give his board another 18 months to continue to make progress in bringing more equitable services to the village before Twin Lakes gives separating further consideration.
What Mangold got was a Dec. 1 deadline to come up with an agreement between the five member municipalities that would guarantee that tax money from Twin Lakes and Randall would come back to the branch meant to serve those municipalities.
The Village Board was considering withdrawing from the Community Library at the urging of its representatives on the board, Michael Mahoney and Sharon Bower, who also is a village trustee. The village could then form its own library.
All trustees weighed in on the idea of withdrawing from the Community Library — which also includes Salem, Paddock Lake and Silver Lake. Some of those comments:
There’s been so much negativity over the years with this system … I”m really tired of that whole situation. I think we should withdraw …” — Trustee Michael Moran.
We, Twin Lakes, don’t get what we’re paying for. We’ve been voted down on almost anything we’ve wanted to do for Twin Lakes … I am very strong with leaving the library.” — Trustee Sharon Bower.
Mangold presented a list of reforms at the library that he said showed the entity is making progress in better serving Twin Lakes over the last 18 months. He asked for another 18 months to continue to make progress.
“I can’t believe I am here tonight to ask this board to not leave the Community Library,” Mangold said. “Twin Lakes and Randall have been shafted … but I believe that’s been changing. We’re trying to get the situations fixed. Randall has felt the same over the years … We were ready to walk.”
Trustee Kevin Fitzgerald brought up the idea of seeing if something could be worked out within the Community Library that would bring Twin Lakes and Randall tax dollars back to the branch in Twin Lakes. President Howard Skinner elaborated on it and set a Dec. 1 deadline for the member municipalities to agree to modifiying the intergovernmental agreement to reflect that Twin Lakes and Randall funds come back to the branch in Twin Lakes.
Skinner tabled the issue until December.
Mangold said after the meeting he was confident the municipal leaders could be brought together under Skinner’s timeline.
At the very end of the meeting, Bower said she wished to resign her Library Board position. Skinner asked her to put it in writing.
The previous Library Director visited the Twin Lakes and Randall boards at least once a year for many more than 10 years to tell them they were not receiving the full services for which they were paying. Only with a larger location could the Community Library bring to the citizens equitable services. They shot the messenger.
The past boards were happier with fewer services, fewer books and fewer computers than they were with the thought of building a library. A library, by the way, they promised their citizens and the Community Library when Twin Lakes and Randall did not participate in paying for the building in Salem. A ‘we won’t help pay for that one because we want our own’ tactic.
Common sense seems to be evading those currently in charge. The cost of creating a new library — building, books, computers, staff, management, accounting, etc — would be far more expensive than just planning a better facility for the existing system.
Expansion was not and is not under the purview of the Community Library Board, but is the sole responsibility of the Town of Randall and Twin Lakes Village Boards — if they have not found the answer in 15 years, how will the library board find it in a month and a half?