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Niagara Falls Libraries Receive New Funding, But Board May Close BranchThe Niagara Falls (N.Y.) City Council approved a proposal July 25 by Mayor Vince Anello to use some $500,000 in surplus funds from the 2004 budget to keep the city’s two libraries open. However, the library board has threatened to close one of those facilities if it cannot obtain a court order forcing the city to maintain the current level of funding, the Niagara Gazette reported July 28.Anello’s plan would only provide enough funding to keep the libraries open 44 hours weekly rather than the present 55. Library board President Dolores Marino pointed out that if the library isn’t open at least 54 hours per week, it will lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in state and county aid, according to a July 26 WIVB-TV news report. Anello voiced hope that the New York State Library would grant a one-time waiver to reduce its hours for just the remainder of 2005. The board voted July 27 to apply for a restraining order barring the city from reducing funding while their lawsuit over the issue remains in court. If they fail to get the court order, the trustees plan to immediately shut the LaSalle branch in order to keep the Main Library operating at state standards. After the board’s vote, Anello told the Gazette, “I can see that the level of ungratefulness is rising rapidly among the library board. The fact is the council transferred the money we had available. To me, this is going beyond issues of saving the library.” The Gazette said closing the LaSalle branch could violate a 1927 agreement with the Village of LaSalle that promised to maintain the library after the village was incorporated into Niagara Falls. “It’s my understanding that it would take a referendum to do anything different,” Anello said. In June, voters narrowly defeated a referendum that would have raised property taxes to fund the libraries, whose budget was slashed by $1 million last December. Posted July 29, 2005. |
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