From The Seattle Times:
A seven-year Seattle Library Levy is the wrong way to pay for an essential day-to-day service.
Free public libraries are an essential service. They are about reading, which is about education, personal achievement, and democracy. Because libraries are such good things, they should not be offered up to voters in politically constructed take-it-or-leave-it choices.
That is what has happened with the public schools. Their levies, which were supposed to be for extras, are now needed to keep the doors open. Let’s not do this with libraries.
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This current levy proposal is mostly for libraries’ day-to-day expenses, and these are neither optional nor one-time. They are essential and ongoing. They should be paid from general taxes, the same as police and fire services.
Read the Complete Editorial