Henry Smorynski, Sartell
How did we get to the point where the least important part of the community center is a branch of the Great River Regional Library system? This has been the request of Sartell residents for more than 15 years. The Friends of the Library gave the city a roadmap to make it happen. But the city administration and a majority of the city council have ignored that roadmap. It has broken faith with the $1.6 million set aside for the library and community meeting spaces by making the library an afterthought in its planning processes and its personal-preference decisions favoring a southern site for the center. It has jeopardized library space in favor of sports teams, gyms and pickle courts. While these are some value for the sake of exercise and weight control in an overweight society, they are not all that makes up the promise of Sartell’s slogan: “Alive and Growing.” A truly “Alive” city is one that values ideas, conversations, socialization, reading and learning and works toward increasing human tolerance and acceptance. It is time for this city to step up to be truly “Alive” and not just a mockery of its slogan.
How did we get to this desperate position regarding having any branch library? It has been due to to poor planning and inadequate research by the city on what was needed for a branch library under GRRL standards and guidelines. It is not rocket science. Albany, Big Lake, Cold Spring, Elk River, Kimball, Waite Park, Monticello, Little Falls and Sauk Centre have made it happen. Sartell can too, if it has the will and intelligence to use taxpayer money and taxpayer commitments to a library branch in their renewal of the half-cent sale tax honestly. It can do so if it honors years of resident input and many previous councils’ commitments to a branch library.
Pass a council resolution requiring the city administration and this council to work effectively with the GRRL Board for a branch library in 2016.