Our View: Library is a valuable community resource

We always thought it would be nice if the Havre-Hill County Library would be open all day on Saturday.

The library now opens at noon, and usually there is a pretty big group of people there using the many services the library provides.

That’s why it saddens us that the library will now be closed entirely on Saturday for the foreseeable future.

The city of Havre has cut back on its funding for the library to the tune of about $30,000.

For this year, the library’s foundation and Friends of the Havre-Hill County Library are going to provide the money needed to purchase new books, but Library Director Rachel Rawn says the groups don’t have the money to continue that into the future.

The Havre-Hill County Library is a jewel in the community. For a city our size, we are blessed to have such a fine institution.

Longtime director Bonnie Williamson built up one of the finest libraries in the state. It was the house that Bonnie built, and the present staff has continued on in her fine tradition. The library is the center of many fine cultural and artistic activities in town put on by the staff and other community organizations.

As taxpayers, do we have a responsibility to maintain present funding so the library can at least continue its present high level of service? We think so, as strapped as our local governments are.

It’s easy to blame the city for cutting back on funds. The city, and indeed Hill County, are strapped as well.

City officials have to decide whether to fund what would be nice to fund or what has to be funded.

Every city department can make a legitimate argument for more money for the essential and in some cases life-saving efforts they undertake daily. Many other community organizations can make a claim that they too are entitled to some public support.

So when we set priorities, public safety, public health and safe streets have to be at the top of the list.

But maintaining the high quality of life we enjoy here in Havre — the kinds of things that make us way so much more than a waystop along the highway.

That includes the some of the historical attractions that make Havre so special — the H. Earl Clack Memorial Museum and Fort Assinniboine, and community services such as the North Central Montana Transit System that provides such an essential service in our remote part of the state.

It’s easy to scoff off the requests for city and county aid by saying groups such as the library ought to be doing more of their own fundraising.

But we’d rather have the limited number of staff members at the library working to put on the many good programs they have and helping people find information available only at the library instead of spending their time going hat-in-hand to already-strapped community foundations.

It’s better if the overworked volunteers at the Clack Museum and Fort Assinniboine spent their time preserving the valuable history, that might otherwise be lost, than holding bake sales to keep their places afloat.

If the city and county governments can’t afford to contribute money to organizations such as the library and the historical and cultural attractions, then we the taxpayers will have to bite our lips and admit that we will have to pay more taxes.

The whole process may begin this year when the library may ask county taxpayers for a mill levy to fund the library.

We hope the library board takes this step. It will be a relatively tiny increase to the average taxpayer, but it will be well worth it to the community.