Revoke city’s library card
continued from page 3

It was all for about $32,000. This is the net amount saved, because most of the costs remained: 1) no employees were laid off – all were transfered to the Main Branch; 2) the city owns the West Branch building, so we could not save on rent, like we did on the Southeast Branch; 3) the building temperature will still need to be regulated, so neither the books nor the building will be damaged; and 4) the grass will still need to be mowed.

So now, we have neighborhood kids who lost their only Internet access, retirees who lost a meeting spot, elderly who lost a convenient location with personal service, and schoolkids who lost a safe place to wait for their parents while working on homework. This is what the West Branch provided to the area around it.

In my opinion, if the city council and the mayor cannot run the library properly, so that it is a treasure for its community, then maybe we have no business running it at all. Maybe we should spin the library off into its own entity and have an elected library board similar to the Springfield Park District.

I know that people miss their branch libraries. I do.

Kris Theilen is a lifelong Springfield resident. In additon to being the Ward 8 alderman, he is a full-time union state employee at the Illinois Department of Public Health in the information technology department. He can be reached at [email protected].