Don’t read between the lines with libraries

Here’s something worth checking out.

With the New Year fast approaching, the city of Wasilla is ramping up more specific plans to build a new library. It’s a project that’s sorely needed and one we fully support. The library outgrew its small building on Main Street years ago and desperately needs a new home.

Over the past 18 months, Wasilla purchased the Meta Rose Square shopping center as a possible home for the new library. Well, that didn’t work out, but eyes are now on an 8.4-acre parcel of land near Iditarod Elementary School. The owner wants about $1.2 million for the land, which is assessed at nearly $408,000. It’s one of four sites the city’s Library Needs Committee is considering.

One important piece for the city in getting its new library off the drawing board will be Mat-Su Borough support. Wasilla wants the borough to help with the project because the facility is used by so many who live outside city limits. It’s a reasonable request, but we have a better idea.

As Wasilla looks to the future of its outdated and long overdue library upgrade, the time is now for the Mat-Su Borough to step up and consider a larger picture — a borough-wide library district.

Along with Wasilla and Palmer, which operate the borough’s largest independent libraries, the borough should establish its own library committee to gauge interest and public support — or lack thereof — for a library district to encompass library operations throughout the Valley.

With apologies to the respective egos in the cities, growth in the Mat-Su over the past two decades warrants a larger organization, one with its own taxing authority that can galvanize library services not only in Wasilla and Palmer, but throughout the borough.

By re-organizing library services as a more cohesive operation, the borough can attract top library professionals (above the already splendid librarians we have now) and be in a position to be more responsive to patrons’ needs than the smaller individual libraries we have now. More importantly, a library district would be financially independent from the borough and other municipalities, operating within the limits set by its board and voters.

That’s right, we would never advocate another taxing district unless it passes at the ballot box. By serving the entire borough, a library district could operate efficiently through its own fund-raising, grant writing and a minimal tax paid by property owners.

Of course, there will always be opposition to adding what some would call another layer of bureaucracy. And we would understand any reaction from the cities that a library district would take away something that was “theirs.”

It’s an idea that has merit, however, and an opportunity that should not be passed up. The borough is bombarded with requests for funding, including from local libraries. An exploratory committee would be a valuable use of borough resources to make sure those requests are filled in a way that serve our communities to the fullest potential.