From Steve Willson:
Does Crystal Lake Need a Bigger Library
The City’s presentation on the Healthbridge site argues that a bigger library should be built there.
The presentation has lots of pictures, but absolutely no explicit facts about need or cost versus benefit.
Does the City need a bigger library?
No. Since 2013, visits to the library have fallen by more than half.
The number of adult books borrowed is down by a third.
Even story time is down by more than half.
Only 12% of the library’s budget is spent on materials while over 70% is spent on personnel.
And they’re sitting on $8.4 million in cash raised by overtaxing, $569 per family.
Will a new building save money?
No.
We’re told the old library is too expensive to maintain.
But a new library is likely to cost over $38 million to build, with an annual cost of $2.5 million just to amortize the debt.
This is several times what the library spends now to maintain the existing building.
Finally, what will happen to the existing library and how much will that cost the taxpayers?
We don’t know because the City’s presentation makes no mention of that.
These are major questions that need answering before a decision is made.
Public projects must demonstrate explicitly, with facts, not just pretty pictures, that the benefits exceed the cost or the public’s money is wasted.
