Books and learning valued above sports and recreation

When assigning value in our community for local facilities such as the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center and the Wasilla Meta-Rose Public Library, we place greater value on books and learning than on sporting fields and recreation.

We’re voicing our support for libraries now in the hopes it will urge Wasilla City Council to polish an ordinance put forward to fund a new Wasilla library, rather than see the measure tabled indefinitely. In the thesaurus of political speak, you’ll find “tabled indefinitely” among synonyms for “dead.”

That the Friends of Wasilla Library has worked for 20 years to get to this point should be given weight in considering whether to revisit this proposal around the council table.

We remember when the sports center was built. We recall the local businessman who first approached the Mat-Su Borough and then the city of Wasilla about building an arena here. His idea was a private, for-profit sports complex. He’s made millions betting on the Mat-Su Valley and we’ll put our betting dollars on him that he wouldn’t have pitched the idea if he thought he couldn’t have made money.

But Wasilla voters narrowly approved building the sports center as a city facility instead, and bonds for the sports center were retired ahead of schedule last year.

What is highly unlikely is that any businessman will step forward and offer to build a new library as a for-profit venture. Why not? No profits to be made. Which is why this project must be built using our shared resources as taxpayers. And sales tax — the city presently levies no property tax — seems the most fair way to split the cost among all of the people who use the Wasilla library.

A measure to build a new library gained momentum in October 2011 after the Mat-Su Borough School Board voted unanimously to give four acres of land on the corner of Crusey Street and Swanson Avenue for a $14 million library expansion project. The assembly agreed to it in December.

The idea was to apply for a grant from the Legislature to cover half of that cost through a state library construction grant.

So, with the wind seemingly at their backs, Friends of Wasilla Public Library also approached other grantors, such as the Rasmuson Foundation.

Briefly, it looked like Wasilla city voters would have the chance to approve a sales tax to fund the remainder of the project’s cost. But arm wrestling around the council table now has tabled a 1 percent sales tax increase that would have provided a funding mechanism for a new library.

More than the library project, in the council’s crosshairs was the companion increase included in the ordinance that would have squirreled away half the money in the city’s general fund account, while earmarking the remainder for capital projects, with the first one being the proposed library.

We think we understand why council members voted 4-1 at their meeting last week to table the proposal — we’re not comfortable writing the city a multi-million dollar blank check either.

But we would welcome the opportunity to support — at the ballot box and with our tax dollars — a .5 percent sales tax increase to fund a library expansion. Here’s hoping.