Monday’s open line


At popular request (it only takes one in the blogging world), we’ll throw out a particular item for discussion today: the library vs. The Daily Dispatch. Tem Blackburn, who happens to head the state Library Commission and serves as a trustee of the H. Leslie Perry Mermorial Library when he isn’t juggling legal matters for Variety Wholesalers, wrote a passionate letter in Sunday’s Dispatch to defend the library board, the library administration and the library expansion from what he perceives to be a campaign of criticism by the newspaper. The specific article that set him off was a column by Dispatch Editor Glenn Craven, in which he tried to explain that neither he nor the newspaper is anti-library. We like Tem and Glenn, and we know both of them want what’s best for Henderson. And we’re sure that Glenn agrees with Tem that the new library is a good thing for Henderson. The problem, as we see it, has nothing to do with the folks at the Perry Library and little to do with the folks at the Embassy Square Foundation. The problem is that despite embarking on a project — roughly tripling the size of the library — that would dramatically increase operational expenses, and despite having solid figures on those increases in hand more than two years ago — before ground was broken or title was transferred from city to foundation — the City Council and city manager failed to prepare for the coming increase in costs. The county likewise made no plans to pay for the bigger library, but we don’t blame the commissioners and county manager as much. Even though we are sympathetic to complaints that city taxpayers are double-taxed for the library and that the county ideally should pay a bigger chunk of the costs, we can’t get past a simple fact: The new library is a city building on what will be city property as part of a city project in which the city involved the library without consulting with the county. In other words, this is a bed the city made. But enough babbling on our part. This space is yours.