During the Mayoral debate in the last election cycle when LaMear
was running for Mayor it seemed very convenient that the woman picked to ask
questions for it had 2 regarding a new library. It was an omen of things to
come, once elected the new library was going to take on a forward momentum of
its own.
Today here we are with the Council considering whether to
approve and pay for it despite the wisdom of such a decision. All this will do
is take much needed resources from infrastructure projects that the City
desperately needs, and put it into a new building that’s rarely used by most Astorian’s.
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| The Library meets the needs of patrons. |
The Council should turn its focus to other issues that
really matter to taxpayers. I’d bet my library card that most of taxpayers, if
actually consulted, would like to see better city streets, sidewalks, curbs,
gutters, housing projects and the parking situation improved.
Ask people going to and from Astoria
and Warrenton last summer what the biggest infrastructure problem is and they’d
say 101 and the Young’s Bay Bridge,
not a library expansion.
The Council should address this issue head on and begin a
planning process to widen the bridge to four lanes or make another along side
with a four lane highway from the bridge to Seaside.
Obviously this would require the City to get State and Federal funding to
proceed.
It’s a multi-million dollar project but the longer this is
ignored by City, County and State officials the more expensive it will be when
it MUST be done. Sooner or later it will have to; Clatsop
County is not going to stop
growing. The argument to move on this now is 10, 15, 20 years down the road this
size of a construction project won’t get any cheaper, it’ll come at an astronomical
expense.
Better streets, sidewalks, parking, roads, bridges, housing
projects or moving forward on a Convention Center on Port Property would be
time well spent by the Council. A modest Library remodel is fine, let a
developer buy the Merwyn, tear it down and build a small housing or parking
structure instead. Then maybe the Council can focus their time and attention to
projects that will really improve Astoria.
1 comment:
I couldn't agree with you more. A new library is just not needed. The library that is there is just fine for those who use it - most people get their information online, anyway, and even their reading matter, like books magazines, etc.
The library is useful for its microfiche, and research in non-digitized books and documents of historical significance, but I can't really see what else. Keep the microfiche, etc., and make the rest a digital library, as several in Texas are now. There's no reason whatsoever we couldn't keep the same building for such an enterprise.
You're also right that the money that would be spent on a library would be far better used creating infrastructure for this growing town. It's not going to stop growing, and our roads are pitifully incapable of handling even the current amount of tourist influx. I dread thinking about trying to get to Warrenton this summer. Last summer I couldn't take any of my guests to Cannon Beach - it was too hard to get to.
Back to the library issue. The mayor and her antiquated ideas seem to be in charge, and I fear she will push the library project through. What a waste.
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