Why I won't be supporting the Upper Arlington Library levy

The signs are popping up in yards like daffodils. Can you imagine a worse time to ask people to raise their real estate taxes for a non-essential service? This town is getting grayer and grayer; retired people have lost bundles in collapsing retirement accounts. Our city can't figure out what to do with the little taxable property we do have (like Kingsdale) which only leaves our homes. And it approved a terrible housing experiment for Tremont Road which stands empty.

I'm not at all saying that public libraries are non-essential (although they become less so in an internet world). But this increase is definitely not needed. They just came to us. . . when? Three or four years ago so they could build a drive through book drop and then didn't get it the correct height. And although they want us to voluntarily increase our taxes, when we came to them with our concerns (pornographic and gay sex materials in the lobby) they let the gay activists who don't even live here tell us we have no right to decide what the children see because the library gets money from the county. No concerned parent told the library director that there should be no purchased and cataloged gay material in the library collection. No, the parents of UA said don't leave the free circ trashy newspapers and magazines in the lobby. Let the distributors put them in bars and clubs. This was solved by bringing the objectionable material inside, spending money on special height shelving, and leaving the lobby empty. Great use of resources and input, wasn't it?

No, this library board and director don/t listen to the people, don't buy what we want if we're conservatives, but love to pass the collection plate (oops, can't say that--they don't want church groups to meet in library space if they pray). Sorry. I'm saying NO to this one. I'd say YES to the zoo or the MRDD (or whatever the current acceptable term is) or the schools, but this librarian is saying NO to more money for the public library.

Update: I was wrong. I just checked my blog and the last levy was two years ago. All the reasons I listed then, still exist. That blog content went to the local paper but was never published.