Agenda - 01-23-2007-9d - Laserfiche WebLink

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ag PUBLIC COMMENT: Amy Efland served on the Library Services Task Force as a representative from the Board of Trustees. She supports the recommendations of the task force as presented. S he said that the central library has served the community well, but the task force agrees that the citizens served deserve more than a conference room with a maximum capacity of 20 people, one bathroom for the patrons, and half of the I ibrary's audio collections stored on the floor. They are recommending enhancement of library services to provide a solid foundation for long learning in the County that is continually growing. Lisa Stuckey served on the Carr boro Library Task Force as well as the Orange County Library Task Force. She was the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board liaison. She supports the report. She thinks that the middl a college program at Durham Tech would be a wonderful thing. She said that the committee as a whole w as concerned about m oving the library out of downtown H illsborough. They saw that a way to resolve this dil emma was to have a small library presence within downtown Hillsborough attached to the Orange County Heritage C enter. She said that she is a constant user of the library and she is grateful that the County is looking into this. Jeff Schmidt complimented Evelyn Daniel for a job wel I done. He said that it is all about the quality of life i n Orange County. He said that the Board of County Commissi oners and their predecessors have done a lot of wonderful things to bring Orange County to the forefront and to provide a quali ty of life. He thinks this is a fair and balanced re port. He thinks the services provided presently are not representative of what the County Commissioners would like to see the citizens have available to them. Rachel Royce is a mother of a three-year old that loves the library. Her son is also bi- lingual (Spanish and E nglish). She said that they were concerned that the county li brary may be moving because they can walk there. The toddler hour is very important to them to meet other people and to use the library. She said that her son is cone erned that the li brary stays strong. She read a letter on behalf of some concerned citizens as follows: 19 October 2004 To the Board of County Commissioners: The matter of relocating the Orange County Central Librar y out of the county seat in downtown Hillsborough, as has been recently proposed by t he Library Task Force, has rightly alarmed many county residents. However, we are not categorically opposed to all plans for county library expansion - or even relocation. Like many of. our downtown neighbors and county resident friends, we beli eve that Orange County's Central Library belongs in the administrative and geographic hub of Orange County- in downtown Hillsborough, the 250 year-old county seat. A library is "the soul of the community" and rightly belongs in the body of the town. The library in H illsborough has been a centerpiece of the town for decades; relocati ng it altogether or diminishing i t greatly would tarnish the traditional townscape and also erode community vitality. Let us learn from the sad examples of other historic town centers that have suffered the effects of sprawl sapping the Iife out of them. However, we recognize that the Central Library has expansion needs that may exceed the capacity of the Whiffed Center. We are also aware that, should the Whitted Center be upgraded and enlarged for this purpose, it w ould likely generate significant additional traffic in the historic