Lisa Rollins: Time for the Ashland Library to move to a permanent home

To The Daily Sun,

Ashland will have much to gain with the purchase of the historic Grammar School property as a permanent home for the Ashland Town Library.

The Scribner Trust Fund pays for the building and grounds where the current Ashland Town Library has been housed since 1939. The fund is nearly depleted. The Scribner trustees will now assess a user fee on the library at a cost to the taxpayers of $10,000/year. The Scribner trustees spend roughly that amount yearly for maintenance, heat, investment expenses, building insurance, and Scribner Trustee stipends.

After investigating other properties, the Library trustees have determined there are no other spaces suitable without needing major renovations. The mills, former liquor store and Catholic Church have all been looked at and would all require extensive and costly upgrades to comply with current codes. There is nowhere in Ashland the library could acquire a space of this magnitude for the incredibly low price of $525,000.

The residents of Ashland would gain a building which meets current life safety codes, an ADA compliant building with an elevator, sufficient space for all library resources and programs, a place with quiet areas for work and study. There would be separate areas for children, teens and adults, space to properly house the entire library collection making it available to all patrons, space on the first and second floors for small group meetings. The third floor would be used for larger programs and meeting space for town government committees and community non-profit groups. The third floor can be made accessible for use when the library is closed.

The estimated tax cost on this purchase is 23 cents per $1,000. The average taxpayer cost would be less than $50 year.

The time has come for the residents of Ashland to look into the future. The future generations of our children, the disadvantaged, and all people who choose to regularly use the services provided by the Ashland Town Library are at stake. In a not so distant future the Ashland Town Library will cease to exist in its current location at the Scribner Building. It is time for the Ashland Town Library to have a permanent home, a home that will meet the needs of the community for many generations to come. A home in a space every resident can be proud is theirs. Take a look around to our surrounding towns and see how much money those communities have spent in past years on their library moves, upgrades, and expansions. These numbers run into the millions of dollars. How much will a space cost us for a new library in three, five or 10 years? The longer we keep putting this off the more it is going to cost!

Let’s be proactive! Make your vote a "yes" vote. A "yes" vote is a vote for the future of Ashland.

Lisa Rollins

Ashland