You're looking at the East Regional Library in East Fort Worth in the picture. Library hours have been cut back in Fort Worth. And elsewhere.The East Regional Library is closed Friday and Sunday. It is Monday today, with the library open from noon til 8. It is also open from noon til 8 on Wednesday. The other days, when it opens, the library is open from 10 til 6.
Today I was at the East Regional Library just a few minutes after it opened. Every computer terminal was already in use. I counted 6 people using their laptops. I'd guess there were at least 100 people using the library.
Of late I've noticed a lot of blank space on the library shelves. And a big increase in paperback books. I assume this has to do with the funding woes.
What surprised me today was the bright, new striping that had been painted on the parking lot. Plus the curbs had been painted bright red.
I'd not noticed the parking lot striping looking in need of being re-done.
I've no idea how much it cost to re-paint a parking lot. It would seem like this is a type of spending that could be postponed. Spending money on painting a parking lot seems like it should be lower on the priority list than buying new books or keeping libraries open.
It's perplexing to me.
I'm about to have a library open by my house. Yippee! Normally, because I don't have a library close to me, I'll go to the central library downtown FW, on a Sunday afternoon. Sunday before last, when I was there, the line was pretty much a constant twenty-five, or thirty yards long. I've read the city is thinking of cancelling the homestead tax breaks people are taking on their homes. I'm no lawyer but it seems to me there would be some problems if they did that, legally speaking. Growing pains, I suppose. We're busting at the seams. Sitting here now, it's easy me for me to think, I don't want to live in a city as big as Los Angeles. Green acres is the place for me.
ReplyDeleteTwister, when I went to the Fort Worth Library website to check to see if my library was open I saw the info about a new library opening, called the Northwest Branch.
ReplyDeleteThe long lines can be so annoying. Lately I've not encountered that problem. Grapevine's library has a self-checkout option. That seems like a good idea.
Almost every day I see, via my blog FeedJit stats that someone shows up from Green Acres. In Washington. I knew of no Green Acres in Washington. Used my map finder program to learn Green Acres is east of Spokane.
So, move to Green Acres, Washington, you'll have Spokane a few miles to your west and Idaho a couple miles to your east, with these things called mountains that you don't see here in Fort Worth.
Yes, what towns will pay for versus not pay for in this 'Great Recession' is rather perplexing. In my town south of Seattle, they have purchased and hung the yearly flowering baskets all through the town on the overexpensive ornate lightpoles (trying to not to be outdone by other towns of course). The baskets themselves proably cost $2500 altogether. But then they have to send a couple guys in a truck at least 3 times a week to water all of them. So by the end of the summer they have probably spent 10K+ on it all.
ReplyDeleteSarah R---
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about Tacoma? Or Puyallup? I've seen big hanging flower baskets in both towns. They don't try such a thing here in this HOT Texas zone.
Federal Way
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