I am a member of the Friends of Lake Elmo Library and we are fighting what may be a losing fight to keep our little library. Conflict at City Hall, struggling with the massive Washington County System….
Here is a letter I wrote to the city council -- also had a letter to the editor published. Another cause to fight for!! Dear Lake Elmo City Council, I attended the May 3 Council meeting regarding the library options for Lake Elmo and my husband and I will be there on May 17. I would urge you not to count on the Washington County Library System to look after our interests in Lake Elmo. Obviously, it is not in their interest to tell us before June 30 they are closing our library. If I understand this correctly, it would mean they lose a year’s worth of revenue, as we would opt out. They are obligated to give us library service for that revenue, but they decide what, where and when. I, for one, resent the “boutique” label given to our library by the Washington County System. It seems condescending. The people in charge of the Washington County System see Woodbury and that beautiful, huge library as the ideal, and expect us all to be happy to go there. However, we are a very different community from Woodbury. I think we should decide what kind of a community we want to be, and that should be reflected in the library we support. I do not think of Lake Elmo as a “boutique” community. We have ties to an older history and have a solid sense of community pride. We need to have our own library and not just a kiosk system where books are ordered online and delivered to a “locker.” We need a library that is a meeting place and a resource for all community members, not just those who already know what they want and have internet access to order online. There are many possibilities for the future of the Rosalie E. Wahl Library in Lake Elmo such as a place for preserving historical archives; a comfortable place for residents to sit and read such as an elderly man who comes to the library every day to read the newspaper; a place that encourages children to read, literacy programs and public access to theinternet. However, none of this will happen if the status of the library is always up in the air.