Feedback: New library site must be a joke

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, May 26, 2004

A new library, in downtown Oak Harbor, has got to be “Joke Harbor” City Council’s (JHCC), most misguided crowning moment. A new library, in the middle of the business district? What will be next? An airport next to 4th Avenue?

I do think that normal people would want to keep a tax base in the downtown area. But no! JHCC has dreamed of finally getting something on the empty lot. The lot has been empty for over 40 years. And did someone on the JHCC stand to make some quick cash on the deal? Get on the board of JHCC and then sell anything to the taxpayers The rich (bottomless) pockets of the military connected taxpayers will go for anything. And just think, in two or three years they will all be rotated in and out and new taxpayers will arrive.

Remember if you give away tax bases, as the JHCC loves to do, then you will pay extra taxes forever and ever.

If the JHCC is serious as to a downtown library, why not donate the land to the library? The downtown library will cost $2 million more. Yards from the city sewage plant. Limited parking. No room for expanding. Just a dumb idea.

Donald Parker Brown

Oak Harbor