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Health & Fitness

How to Help the Hudson Area Joint Library

A good place to start would be by dismantling the "Area Joint" part of the library, and returning to a city library.

The , which operated as a city library for 104 years, has for the past decade been a partner with the and the , and more recently with the Town of St. Joseph, in the Hudson Area Joint Library (HAJL).  

By March or April of next year, the HAJL will partially shut down. By then the library will have used up all the reserve funds it has, and — since it's been operating at a loss of over $70,000 a year — will have to trim its operating budget accordingly.

Originally begun as a way for the library to try to operate more efficiently by combining jurisdictions, the HAJL actually acted as an anchor on library progress. With four municipal members, there was always someone to say "no" to improvements. Consequently, as use of the library grew at about 12 percent per year for the last decade, actions that could have been taken to accommodate that increase in usage were stymied.

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Where will these 2013 budget cuts land? With certain fixed costs (building rent and maintenance, etc.), the cuts will have most likely have to come in shortened hours of operation and employee cutbacks. This means that the library, already operating the fewest hours per week of all the 28 libraries in our area, will have to be closed one more day a week. So job seekers who need to use the free computers and the Internet to search for employment will be a little more out of luck. In 2011, the library's free computers were logged on almost 21,000 times. Reduce that by one-sixth; not one-seventh, as the library is already closed on Sundays.

What about the children and parents who rely on the library's story time lady? Mary Davis has for years been introducing Hudson children to the wonders to be found in books. She is a major feature of the library, as evidenced by the 11,200 attendance figures for her programs last year. If you have a youngster in any of our area schools, they’ve been on a school trip to hear Mary.

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What steps can taken to keep the Library open, at least at the current level?  A good place to start would be by dismantling the "Area Joint" part of the library, and returning to a city library.

The library has its back figuratively up against the wall, and elected leaders of the four municipalities will very soon be given some choices. Hudson Mayor Alan Burchill should choose to ask the city council to vote to leave the joint partnership and return the library to the city. The immediate effect of this will be to put our library's future back into the our own hands, to create a future library that meets our needs.

The remaining three partners will still use the library, but it will cost them more. This is an unfortunate consequence, but one that the Hudson Common Council should not weigh heavily in considering a move back to city ownership. 

Getting our mayor, Alan Burchill, to take steps to help the library may be a slim chance. As a member of the Hudson Common Council, he voted against the library every opportunity he got, including once even voting down then-mayor Dean Knudson’s recommendation of a small budget increase, so he’s no friend of this cause.

You can help. If having a good library for you and your children has any importance to you, or if recognizing that having a good library will play a part in people moving to Hudson (and buying, perhaps, some our inventory of foreclosed homes and thus helping to restore the value of your home), contact the mayor at mayor@ci.hudson.wi.us and tell him what you think. You might remind him that there are more library cardholders in Hudson than there are voters. Now that might get his attention.

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Editor's note: Scot O'Malley is running for mayor in the City of Hudson against Alan Burchill. The election is April 3, 2012. 

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