Pros to Voting for Library Taxes in November

The Venango Republic doesn’t care one way or another. Honestly, it doesn’t kill people outside Oil City to pay thirty dollars for a library card any more than it kills a person to pay twenty to forty dollars in taxes each year to help fund the library. The only difference is that one will give the public library more money while the other keeps things the same.

The real question is what benefits there are to this proposed tax when weighed against the negatives. We have joked all week about this possible taxation putting families at risk of starvation and the possibility of no tax putting people at risk of bankruptcy for having to buy their own memberships. Unfortunately, facts matter — and we aren’t good at giving facts because… well… satire.

We have some facts to share with you about the assumptions we made regarding the public library. And no, it’s not that the southern townships are not seceding. We’re actually going to let that satire carry on until November after the vote.

The facts we want to share have to do with how your tax dollars will be spent on the library. You can then decide what you want to do with it. The Venango Republic doesn’t care how you vote, just as long as we get a Sky Zone within the next year.

The director of the Oil City Library was gracious enough to have a conversation after citing how we were hypocrites in returning to the library after calling it boring. We kind of owe him this because we did return after calling it boring.

The director — whose name is defined as “any of ten degrees of advanced proficiency in judo or karate” — states that the library spends ninety-five thousand dollars keeping the library functioning yearly. This exceeds our initial estimation, which we set to zero. We really are turds.

According to the karate judo master of library reading, fifteen percent of that yearly spending goes toward updating books, fifty percent goes toward paying staff, and the rest covers other expenses such as utilities. And here is what it breaks down to:

1. Books: $14,250

2. Staff (divided by the five I see in there every day): roughly $9,500 a piece, give or take

3. Other expenses: $33,250

So, in other words, a lot goes toward keeping this place going. Meanwhile, the people keeping it in place probably make less than a desirable wage.

What is your money paying for then? What if you are the type who doesn’t read and doesn’t ever go to the library? Here’s what I can say:

Your money is paying for a community space in a region that already doesn’t have many places for families to go when they are looking for somewhere to take the kids.

Yes, we do have parks in the region. The problem is, when wintertime comes, you can’t take your kids to the park because you’re going to risk them sticking their tongue to the metal pole — and there you will find yourself in a real-life version of a Christmas movie. Consequently, you have the choice between driving an hour and a half to Erie, an hour and a half to Pittsburgh, or less than ten minutes from your house to go to the library.

I initially asked the director of the library to offer me numbers depicting the amount of traffic they get — ranging from books being checked out, to library cards being applied for, to people who come through on a regular basis. I’m going to be honest, I struggle to believe the numbers, which is why I’m not sharing them. Firstly, because I think the library director is a very nice guy, and I don’t think he would be the type to lie. Part of me wonders if I misheard some information, and another part of me doesn’t want to doubt him publicly in an article where these details really don’t matter.

If I had some hard data to show you, I would reveal what numbers were shared. Here’s what I will tell you, though: regardless of whether or not people go to the library in high volumes or low volumes, the facility does make for a useful place when you need an area to accommodate your children.

Last year, I was living at my friend’s house in a confined space where I could not have my kids. I was limited to two hours for two days a week in visitation with them — just because I was too dumb to know how the court system worked. Two hours is not enough time to drive my kids to Erie and back while also doing something fun. It is, however, just enough time to go to the library, spend time with your kids for a couple of hours, and then return them home. For that reason, I can appreciate the library’s existence.

At the same time, when you are going to the library two days a week for multiple months, you do become sick of it when it’s the only place you have to visit. In my case, the minute I was able to get more time with my children, I started taking them to places outside of Venango County. Because frankly, going to a museum is much more fun than going to the library every week.

I have mixed feelings about this situation because, in a sense, if it wasn’t for the library in the wintertime, I wouldn’t have had a place to focus solely on my kids. Given the time I was limited to — and the lack of options that Venango County has to offer people in that sort of situation — I do appreciate the library’s existence. But at the same time, I grew very bored of going and only recently returned once, just to do something a little different than driving my kids several hours away to find something outside the county.

With that said, I don’t really have an opinion on how people should vote. I don’t care. Do I think the library needs extra money? After reviewing what kind of pay these employees are likely getting, I would say yeah — it would benefit the workers who are there. However, the library has already said that they have enough money to update books on a regular basis. I’m not sure if they actually need the money for that or not, because I’m not sure how much more funding would be required, if any at all.

What I do know is that it doesn’t kill people in Cranberry to spend thirty bucks a year for a library card. And it does seem kind of unfair to impose a tax on people who don’t visit the library at all. On the same token, if the vote does go through, it’s not going to kill those people who don’t visit the library to have to pay that extra tax. You’re able to afford that much every month on a Netflix subscription — so I don’t think it’s going to kill you. Vote whichever way you want.

As for the director, here’s one way he described the library that I can appreciate: “A library is what you make of it.” So true. I once tried to turn it into a deli. I was able to make three whole sandwiches before they kicked me out.