Letter: Library closure bodes ill for community

EDITOR,
I too will be sorry to see the Felton library branch close. It is a move which has been approaching with inexorable glacial speed and cultural intent.
I take exception to this paper’s justification for doing so based on lower numbers of users — a self-fulfilling reality of shorter hours, this assertion is hardly worth the ink to print (Editorial, “Library decision could be hard to swallow,” Feb. 11).
As a cultural event, this library closing is worthy of some reflection. A society defends what it believes is important. The health of libraries is tied to the communities they serve. The financial disconnect between our county’s wealth and what we’re willing to spend on ourselves, in this case, is disgraceful.
Notwithstanding Faye Bellardi’s family story and the historical significance of the building, time marches on, our sense of historical significance dimmed with our boredom of history.
This library’s closure has a sad history of Ann Turner’s shameless subterfuge ultimately succumbing to what has been a lack of vision, foresight and political honesty unavailable then and now in downward spiral to what can only be described as third-world status.
The closing of the Felton branch should be heralded as the ring around the tub, the high-water mark of Benjamin Franklin’s concept of what a free local library should bring to a community. Eating the seed stock and selling the public buildings are the activities of the desperate and those without the capability to lead. That is what we have become.
Larry Darnell, Felton