Township Committee Actions Threaten Dismantling of Library Service

By Randell Gabrielan

The assault by the Middletown Township Committee on library funds threatens and will have the ultimate result of ending library service as township residents know, need, expect and love. The impending fiscal crisis is worsened by a reduction in equalized property valuations which will reduce the municipal appropriation, a not unreasonable practice, but one of the factors for which the library’s reserves, which were seized by the Committee, were intended to safeguard. After taking about $500,000 last year, the committee demanded and took additional funds this year, monies raised outside statutory municipal appropriations. The need to elect Linda Baum and place a voice for the people on the monolithic committee has become more urgent.

The Township is charging the library for ordinary municipal services in a manner and amounts that will end the library’s ability to maintain its hours, materials and branches. They provide no justification and regard the library as a profit center or piggy bank. The financial aspects of library operations are simple. The library pays for facilities, personnel and materials. The buildings need attention, even the totally rebuilt and now eight years old main library. Some are already saying that the branches are on the way out, a direct hit at the bayshore, Navesink and Lincroft. The new realities of the steep decline of planned revenue must have an impact on staffing and new materials. However, the township committee does not care and willingly makes war on its one facility that more residents need and use than any other. Linda Baum is a vocal advocate for an independent, property financed library.

After the township committee threatened to turn the library over to the county, but learned that it could not do so, it undertook a campaign to eviscerate the Middletown Library so residents might not care about the independence of our library and could conceivably vote in a referendum for a giveaway. But this is our library, built and paid for by Middletown to serve Middletown, operated by your staff to serve you, the people of Middletown. Your library needs at least one voice on the committee to defend it. Linda Baum is that voice.

Friends, users and advocates of our library may be expected to vote for Linda. Perhaps straight ticket Republicans may not, but they should reconsider. Regardless of a person’s broader political affiliation, local government is best run on a non-partisan basis, but if partisanship is the rule of the day, more than one voice is needed. All voters should realize that a strong, independent library is one of the assets that makes Middletown a desirable place and enhances and maintains your property values. The present dictatorial township committee, which runs a once-independent library board, would erode your property values as a convenience in their fiscal planning. They must have another voice and that voice should be Linda Baum. Voting to maintain the integrity of the library is also voting for quality of life in your town.