Lyons Regional Library District Ballot Issue 4C
Tax for new library district
Vote Yes
Created Sept. 3, the brand-new Lyons Regional Library District is
asking voters to approve a new tax to get started. Before September’s
flooding, we would have supported the measure because money for
libraries is probably one of the best uses of tax dollars there is.
Following
the floods, we checked in with Mark Browning, chair of the library
project steering committee, to make sure the library district was still
interested in getting and spending the tax (while it may have been too
late to remove the issue from the ballot, the library district could
have pulled its support from the measure).
Browning
said the library district still seeks the tax, and after getting his
answers we support it more than ever. First, Browning said that
residents whose homes had been destroyed or severely damaged would be
receiving tax relief, meaning the new tax wouldn’t be a burden on them.
He also noted the tax rate would be “cut in half ” for 2014, the first
year the measure would be in place.
Lyons’
current library, the Depot Library, is operated by the Town of Lyons,
but the town informed the Heart of Lyons group that it doesn’t have the
money going forward to operate the library, Browning says. He says “the
only way we see to save the Depot Library operations” is to transfer
its operation to the new library district. We think enough has been done
to lighten the impact of a new tax on Lyons residents, and we
recommend they keep their library district moving forward.
View all of Boulder Weekly’s endorsements here.
