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August 6, 2009

West Long Branch voters to decide fate of town library

Borough may join county system
By Graelyn Brashear • STAFF WRITER • August 5, 2009

WEST LONG BRANCH — The Borough Council voted Wednesday night to pass an ordinance adding a referendum to November's ballot that will let voters decide the fate of the town's library.

The referendum will ask voters whether the borough should dissolve the public library and make it a branch of the Monmouth County Library System.

West Long Branch's library is maintained by the borough at a cost of $477,056, but it is also a member of the county system, a partnership that costs taxpayers $194,134 per year. As a result, the borough is the only one in the state that taxes property owners twice for its library, said Councilman J. Thomas DeBruin.

Allowing the library to become a Monmouth County branch would make the county responsible for most library expenses. That could save at least $377,000, officials said.
Carol Hershkowitz, vice president of the local library board, said she and others were concerned that becoming a branch would mean the library would lose its individuality.
"We have a high level of personal service, because many of our staff live in town and know our patrons," she said.

Hershkowitz reiterated the board's alternative plan to cut costs, which would end the library's county system membership and forge a link with the Middlesex County library consortium, at a savings of nearly $200,000 per year.

Kenneth Sheinbaum, Monmouth County Library System director, said little would change if the West Long Branch Library chose to become a county branch. The main difference, he said, is that the county would shoulder all personnel costs.
It's a change county freeholders have said they support.

"Branch libraries in the county system have incredible resources and services available to them," said Freeholder Lillian G. Burry, liaison to the library system, in a press release late last month. "Becoming a branch library will centralize administrative services, ordering and processing materials, and provide West Long Branch residents with unlimited access to the largest circulating public library collection in the sate."

DeBruin called opposition to the plan to dissolve the library illogical.
"Why wouldn't they want to save $300,000?" he said.

But Madlyn Aaron, a West Long Branch resident and library member, said the savings weren't worth what she saw as the possibility of shorter library hours and a loss of staffing.
"It's not going into our pockets," she said. "I'd rather have my library. Why fix what isn't broken?"

Posted by tumulty at August 6, 2009 6:19 PM

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