Members of the Jamesburg Borough Council are claiming they don’t want to close the public library. But they are willing to kill its funding, which — despite their protestations to the contrary — is likely to result in its demise.
The library plan, unveiled last month, calls for two referendum questions to be placed on the November ballot, one ending the library’s municipal affiliation and the other, a nonbinding vote, asking if it should be closed.
The council, as I said, has repeatedly said they don’t want the library to close but that state laws are creating a budget crunch that can only be relieved by changing the way the library is funded.
All six council members and the mayor said they wanted to keep the library functioning at its current level, but they want to be able to negotiate appropriations each year with the library board. They encouraged those in attendance to send letters to Gov. Jon Corzine and local legislators asking to have library funding excluded from the cap.
And while we’re at it, we can exclude garbage and pension costs, etc. I don’t like the cap law, either, but carving out exclusions is not the correct way to address the problem.
At the same time, the council is being extremely protective of other services that should be a part of this discussion, namely police, trash collection and public works. Councilman Otto Kostbar offers his reasons for leaving these three off the table:
He said the Police Department should not be cut because the crime rate is down and officers help children safely reach school on foot. He said there are only four workers there and losing any of them would “cause significant problems.” He also said doing away with municipal garbage pickup could be a health risk if homeowners fail to pay bills and private companies stop collecting trash.
The implication being that cutting these other areas would endanger kids walking to school and lead to trash piling by the side of the road — both of which are patently absurd (is he saying that borough residents would be less likely to pay their bills than their neighbors in Monroe and Cranbury, neither of whom get municipal pickup?). But there is nothing like using fear to win an argument. Just ask George Bush and Dick Cheney.
It also ignores some basic points , which I’ll outline here:
- The Jamesburg library receives less money per resident of the borough — $22 — than any other library in county and less than half the county average of $48. The library already is running on a shoestring budget, but it is a stable entity that offers a moderate menu of programs — primarily because the borough has to provide a set amount of money each year. Eliminating that requirement introduces a level of uncertainty that can only lead to a bleeding of funding.
- Jamesburg residents are not likely to save much cash if the library closes, because they will have to pay between $50 and $100 a year to use a neighboring library.
- Borough officials are quick to defend Jamesburg’s identity, especially in discussions about municipal consolidation. But what good is identity if the services that help cement that identity are eliminated? The library, as many residents pointed out Wednesday, is part of what makes Jamesburg a nice place to live. Without it, what exactly are taxpayers getting aside from police protection and garbage collection?
- Jamesburg’s reading scores on state tests hve been rising some, but they remain lower than they should be. Given this, shouldn’t we be encouraging reading and library use and not complaining about its funding?
In the end, regardless of what they say, council members will be to blame if the library closes. They are the ones making the tough decisions.
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Hank Kalet 