Calvert County (Md.) commissioners have abandoned their plan to move the main Prince Frederick library branch into a vacant grocery store, and agreed instead to renovate the current building at a cost of $3.5 million. According to the May 30 Washington Post, County Public Library Board President Thomas Rymer said he was aghast at the commission’s earlier decision to move the library into “a shopping center that also houses a liquor store and is a hangout for the homeless.” The move would have cost the county $1.6 million in renovations and $250,000 a year in rent.
Rymer told reporters, “We’re just pleased that it’s going to [stay where it is] and tickled to death because we think it’s the right place for it.”
After library patrons deluged them with letters of protest, the commissioners May 25 unanimously approved $350,000 for an architectural and engineering study in 2001, with renovation beginning the following year.
Posted June 7, 1999.