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Mar 4, 2007 - 12:26 AM |
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Public Library = rich people's coffee house |
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This War of the Words II has whetted my appetite for writing. So, I finally visited the new public library. There is a reason they now call my town "Bozeangeles." There is no greater monument to the opulence of the out-of-stater population that has moved in and taken over this once-nice Montana town and twisted it into their own perverted la-la land of opulence than the “public library.” (This will soon change once the most expensive home in the world, at $150 million is built outside Bozeangeles: http://www.forbes.com/realestate/200...llionhome.html , but that is fodder for a whole ‘nother journal entry in itself, so moving on…)
Here are some thoughts I had on our public library *cough*Monument to Opulence*cough*:
1. Homeless people live in the drainage in the park next door to the library, under the shadow of the opulence monument. Instead of using available money to build a homeless shelter or feed the homeless (among other things), our tax dollars were used to put in what I suppose could be called a "lawn" in front of the library. A shelter big enough to house those poor souls and all the homeless from three counties over could have been built on a "lawn" that size. Insult to injury as I cannot hope to imagine when they view this monstrosity of a library from their shelters in the drainage under the road. This level of irony hardens my arteries...
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Quote:
Senator Max Baucus was successful in securing $1,125,000 in the federal highway transportation bill for the plaza, trails and landscaping, and presented a symbolic check on August 12 to Library officials.
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http://www.bozemanlibrary.org/libinfo.html
The damn lawn cost... $1,250,000.  And where did that money come from?
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Quote:
Senator Conrad Burns secured a total of $526,765 VA/HUD Economic Development Initiative money for the new Library,
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http://www.bozemanlibrary.org/libinfo.html
Instead of war veterans getting the mental health services they need, we have a new library. Instead of the poor being able to afford housing through HUD, they can sleep in the entryway to the library and stare at the posh art hanging on the walls there when it’s 40 degrees below outside in the winter…
2. You know what? I heard folks say that they should renovate the large vacant Gibson's department store building, which its huge parking lot and convenient location, to use as the new library since all that was needed was "more space." The books would have liked it there just fine; I'm sure they would have been very happy there, nestled on their shelves in the spacious, well-lit building. I can tell you proudly that this is the type of common-sense solution real Montanans propose, not some freakishly-upscale mark on the landscape that we can brag to our rich friends from out of town about…
3. We supposedly need a new middle school, AND a new high school, and can hardly afford them. Education is a basic necessity of a town, whereas an "upscale" library is not. Yet, the city built the library first, which costs tens of millions of dollars, then they turn around and claim they are "poor" and need to raise ~$15 million in tax levies to be able to afford a new middle school and high school.
4. The old library "worked" just fine; much of the main floor of the new library is taken up by a coffee shop. One-third of the top floor is empty. Overall, there is so much empty space that if you drop a book there is an echo. It is good to plan for future expansion, but with the need to build both a new middle school and a new high school, the library will likely not have the funds to buy more books until the year 2020, at which point even more out-of-staters will have moved in from even more posh lands of plenty and will demand a yet upscaler joint in which to sip their coffee and pose as members of an even more elite "intelligencia."
5. I have saved the best for last, as a reward to anyone actually reading this rant. The only place in the state of Montana that has special “reserved” parking for “hybrid vehicles” is the public library of Bozeangeles. Now, they are also required to have handicapped parking. So, where would you guess they put the reserved parking for hybrid vehicles? They put the reserved parking for “hybrid” vehicles severely closer to the library entrance than the handicapped parking. So much so, that there have been rumors of a lawsuit. Why is this? Because rich out-of-staters driving their hybrids think that they are ENTITLED to park closer to the entrance than people without legs. 
With luck, Yellowstone will destroy this entire area. Then, our town would stop earning "10 Best Places to Live in America" awards. This might just help stem the tide of crazies from parts known flowing into this once-nice town and wrecking it. If you want to live here, then move here for the right reasons and don’t try to turn my home into the dump you just left. As Jack Nicholson put it best in As Good As It Gets, “Go sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.”
| Currently Playing: Wild Montana Skies - John Denver |
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flow onto the page... It has begun!
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