A week earlier, the county’s education and recreation committee rejected the library’s request to use $62,500 from either unspent salary funds or the county’s undesignated fund account to prevent the weeklong shutdown, the Green Bay Press-Gazette reported June 3. If the county again refuses, “the doors will be locked and everyone will be laid off—from the director to the clerks who receive $8.05 an hour,” said Library Director Pat LaViolette.
“This is going to be a political issue,” said library board member Pat Collins, who promised to insist the county board take a roll-call vote on the issue at its June 16 meeting. “I want to put on record the names of those who vote to close the library.”
The weeklong shutdown was first proposed last fall, when the county asked the library board for cost-saving recommendations. The county rejected the library board’s top two choices: closing one branch or shutting down the bookmobile.
Posted June 4, 2004.