Opinion

Support for the library

|Carla McAllister, Assistant Librarian|

For anyone wishing to support the New Gloucester Public Library with our budget issue, please take note. The Public Budget Committee Hearing scheduled for Monday, March 16th was cancelled, and rightly so. I am not sure what will happen going forward, whether or not the public will have the chance to gather in support of the library to speak before the Budget Committee before the warrant articles are written. I am not sure Town Meeting will happen on May 4th as scheduled. These are troubling and anxious times and I realize that the library budget and whether or not I keep my job are of less importance now than ever. At any rate, if you wish to show support for the library retaining our hours of operation and both staff, please know that you can email letters of support to townmanager@newgloucester.com or drop letters of support in the mail slot at the town office by 5 PM, March 23rd and he will get those letters to the Selectmen before their meeting that evening. He will also see that the Budget Committee members get them at the appropriate time. I am, however, concerned that the cost to print any and all of these letters might be a stickler to the letters all being given to the recipients.

I am more than willing to contribute paper or money to buy paper/ink and staff time to make sure everyone is ‘heard’ through the written word. Also, the ngxchange, our wonderful online newspaper that reaches nearly 1,000 people, is willing to print letters of support (within reason, they won’t publish zillions, I am sure) so you can email letters of support to editor@ngxchange.org for consideration. I do not wish to ‘leave’ my beloved patrons or my beloved library, but what will be, will be. I am sure I will survive any eventuality, but I am hopeful that this will get turned around so we can get back to ‘normal’ on all fronts as soon as possible. Please share this information if you know others who would like to know how to support us. Stay safe and healthy everyone.

Your Assistant Librarian, Carla Mcallister