In reply to the letter of Dick and Pat Hughes, “Joining county library system is a great bargain” (Courier-Herald, March 2), I agree with their comment, “a strong, well-funded library is absolutely necessary to attract new residents…and serve our students and all ages.” Our Library has done just that for the last 90 years but is having problems now due to city budget cutbacks. It is a dangerously false assumption that the only solution is to give our library away; to assume that annexing to the King County Library System will give us a better library at the same or less cost than what city residents are currently paying. Annexing the library to KCLS will increase property taxes $125 for a $250,000 home and there is no guarantee the quality of the library will improve or even be sustained at its current level.
If you don’t believe the quality of our library is at risk, consider the city of Renton. They recently annexed their library to KCLS with a ballot that passed by only 50 votes and they had to deed their city-owned library building to KCLS (the same building issue came to light with Enumclaw’s potential agreement with KCLS – a million dollar building built with an Enumclaw city bond). After annexation of the Renton library, KCLS then determined Renton’s library building was inadequate and required the city of Renton and city taxpayers pay for two new library buildings. All this in addition to the newly added 50 cents per $1,000 KCLS tax levy on residents. Visit the Renton library and you will see its bookshelves are half empty and the library staff has been decimated. Let’s not be another Renton.
There is no doubt the city has a budget shortfall. But there is “community core value” to keeping our library a city library and annexing the library to KCLS is not in the best financial interest of the citizens of Enumclaw. There are options besides saddling residents with a KCLS 50 cents per $1,000 levy that would cost less and keep our library operated by the city of Enumclaw.
Dick and Pat Hughes are correct, “a strong well funded library is absolutely necessary to attract new residents…and serve our students and all ages.” Our city-run library can be well funded and still remain a city-run library with less cost than what KCLS will tax us.
On March 7, council voted to cancel the city’s April ballot on library annexation to allow time to better review the KCLS “contract of annexation” and discuss options not previously considered for funding the city library that could cost taxpayers less than the proposed KCLS annexation. I applaud council for their decision to put on hold plans for library annexation so the process may include a cooperative effort amongst interested parties to fully investigate in partnership with City Council alternative measures for funding the library.
Charles Sansone
Enumclaw
