Red Bank and a dozen other Monmouth County towns that don’t participate in the county library system and whose residents don’t have borrowing priveleges in it won’t get stuck paying some of its costs, today’s Asbury Park Press reports.
From the story:
It turns out that residents of the 13 Monmouth County municipalities not part of the county library system will get a pass on having to chip in for utilities and maintenance costs at the system’s Manalapan and Shrewsbury libraries where the nonmember residents don’t have free borrowing privileges.
Lillian G. Burry, director of the Monmouth County freeholder board, said talk that those in nonmember towns would have to pay part of that $600,000 annual bill was just that talk.
The freeholders on Jan. 17 had discussed having all county taxpayers share the utilities and maintenance costs at the two buildings. Last week, a group of librarians from nonsystem towns attended a freeholder meeting to lodge a protest, saying the residents of those towns already have to pay a $100 annual fee to borrow items from the county system.
“The recent Asbury Park Press article (on the libraries) has a caused a furor among nonmember libraries,” Burry said. “The Monmouth County Library Commission has no intention of taxing or assessing nonmember libraries.”
