Community
Hellertown Area Library Recipient of $50,000 Grant
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Est. Read Time: 3 minsCommunity funding issues the Hellertown Area Library has faced since the start of this year are being addressed with help from a state official.
Saucon Source (https://sauconsource.com/tag/funding/)
Community funding issues the Hellertown Area Library has faced since the start of this year are being addressed with help from a state official.
With public safety a concern for many Hellertown residents, it is no doubt welcome news that the borough’s police department will soon receive more than $117,000 for the purchase of new vehicles and equipment.
Jayne Shinko says the Hellertown Area Library should “plan a future without Lower Saucon,” and that Borough Council should also demand an audit and reimbursement of borough funds that have been used to subsidize library services for township residents in recent months.
Letter writers Mary and Bruce Dawson of Lower Saucon Township write: “It is inexplicable that the (Hellertown Area) library was not even on this month’s council meeting agenda when so many Lower Saucon Township residents are deeply concerned about continuing library services.”
Letter-writer Laura Ray of Lower Saucon Township says a modest endowment the Hellertown Area Library has been able to build over the past five years doesn’t mean that the library should be expected to “operate in the red and be penniless before they receive funding.” She asks Lower Saucon Township to fund the library at the level requested in a five-year agreement council rejected earlier this year.
Former Hellertown Area Library board member Lara Goudsouzian, Ph.D., writes that she is “deeply disappointed in my local government” and that she supports “the actions of the Hellertown Area Library Board in removing Lower Saucon Township residents, myself included, from the board.”
Hellertown Area Library Board of Trustees president Ken Solt says in his letter that in spite of a lack of funding from the township, the library will “continue free library services to LST residents for the time being.” Solt also provides insight into conversations with state library officials in which he says it has been learned that the current situation “has no known precedent in the Commonwealth.”
After remaining silent for weeks, the members of the Southern Lehigh Public Library Board of Directors issued a statement Tuesday regarding the ongoing kerfuffle involving Lower Saucon Township and the Hellertown Area Library into which they’ve been drawn.
Lower Saucon resident Laura Ray writes that the relationship between Hellertown borough and the township has been “fractured” by the recent actions of the majority on township council with regard to the Hellertown Area Library. “This pack of council members has caused serious damage and they should resign,” Ray says in her letter to the editor.
Residents of both Hellertown borough and Lower Saucon Township who are concerned about the future of the Hellertown Area Library may want to attend a special Hellertown borough council meeting that will be held Wednesday, Jan. 26 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall.