Bond analyst Steve Willson wonders whether Crystal Lake really need a bigger library.
“Consider the following,” he writes.
1. The library is not growing. Circulation is lower today than it was three years ago.
2. The meeting rooms are not overbooked. The Ames Meeting Room is booked just 32 percent of the time; the computer lab, 5 percent. With the growth of eBooks, do you think the library will need more space or less space in the future?
3. Almost a third of the library’s circulation is movies and video games – more than 325,000 items last year. While Redbox rents movies for $1.25 (and makes a profit), it costs the taxpayers more than $4 for the library to circulate the same movie, or $1 million more than if they used Redbox. For what it costs the library to circulate movies, it could literally pay for a Netflix subscription for every family in Crystal Lake, and that is not an exaggeration.
Personally, I think the library looks great and is just the right size. It may need a new furnace – I don’t know – but it certainly doesn’t need to be a lot bigger, especially if it would cost more than $700 a square foot to build an addition and would increase the property taxes for the library by 33 percent, which is what the Library Board proposed in 2012.
What a wonderful analysis.
This level of detail and format should serve as a template for all proposals, and/or objections to proposals, which involve the use of public money.
While I agree with the premise (and do not believe it is time to increase ANY library), I would like to see statistics on library visits.
Don’t forget that some people go there to read the periodicals, do research, use the computers, and never check anything out.
The takeaway for me is there seems to be no emphasis on frugality or well-founded fiscal choices by those empowered to manage expenditure of taxpayers’ money.
The word ‘need’ often comes up in conjunction with spending proposals.
Is the NEED of local citizens to pay reasonable real estate taxes ever considered a factor?
Higher cost of living relative to other towns in America where one might live, and the insecurity of knowing that home values here decline as our property taxes go up, and our property taxes are already extraordinarily high relative to most other towns and counties in America… these are real life factors to homeowners in our community.
Does the proposed spending supply a convenience for a few people, and present a hardship to the many?
Do other towns with libraries have real estate taxes rising and home value falling?
What stress on the budget and future fiscal planning of all local homeowners homeowners is engendered by home values dropping?
Could an analysis like the one posted above be created by those who would advocate taxing more money for the library?
They might examine our local tax rates and amounts in relation to median or mean incomes, and trends in home values, and compare these ratios to at least two other Midwestern towns with similar populations.
Just wasted another phone call to another bank trying to properly adjust the escrow.
All because of the County increasing the amount needed, to refill that trough everyone on the dole sticks their snouts in.
Even though the assessed valuation decreased again.
I know how much I spend on tax compliance every year, but now I’m wondering how much time I spend every year, making sure all the fudgeling snollygosters are properly slopped.
My stance is that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
Libraries are things of the past!
Don’t waste money building bigger libraries.
I dont want to see any money wasted on this.
why do we have to spend every dollar we have?
why cant we save some up for something really important/nessesary?
How much did they spend on all those yard signs to make us think every other house in CL uses the library?
When I hit the age of 62 I’ve taken a new approach for this type of project.
Do I ever get to stop paying full price for things I do not use?
I do not use the library so quit making me pay for it!
This is just another example of government without any restraint.
It makes me sick they put this ridiculous proposal out for consideration.