It was interesting to read about the Essex County Board report and recommendations.
If you take the time to ready their report, you will find that it contains recommendations from three different agencies with some of the data as old as 2007.
I do not know exactly how they came up with these numbers, but the Essex County Board just adopted the 0.7 square feet and now want all the towns to follow these guidelines.
This would mean that the town has to build a new library going from the current 3,200 square feet to 16,000 square feet. I can just imagine the cost, $8 million for the building and another $2 million for the new books, furniture etc.?
What is interesting and disturbing that nobody from council asked the obvious question if we really need this extra space. Does anybody know how many people use the library? I called the library and asked the question how many active library cards they have and the answer was “we do not know.” Then I called the county board and left a message but no answer.
I personally know that every time I go to the library there is nobody else there. Let’s analyze first how many people use the library and the trend for the future since more and more younger people do everything online and don’t need the actual building. The last thing we need is for the council not doing their homework again and we end up with another Duffy’s, Belle Vue and Libro Centre, which cost the taxpayer millions.
—Holger Kretschmann
Amherstburg
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