Regarding the Courier-Herald’s Sept. 18 article about safety concerns of residents using our county library, not all of them might know that our city leases the Enumclaw library building to King County Library Services on a long term basis. The building and the properties surrounding it are owned by the city, which probably has primary responsibility for public safety, like on any city property.

We residents of Enumclaw voted to annex to KCLS when our city made it clear it no longer had sufficient funds to operate our library. Had the library closed and had we not voted to tax ourselves to obtain county library services, we would have also lost access to nearby county branches and to the Seattle library district.

My wife and I visit our library several times a month to pick-up or return books, CDs and DVDs, and are very happy to be part of a nationally-recognized library service. We are aware of the growing population of homeless and transient people which seems to be a situation also affecting other fast-growing towns nearby such as Bonney Lake, as recently reported by the Courier-Herald. We know that our city management and library management have always worked together to deal with this situation as best they can.

Dick Hughes

Enumclaw