I haven’t seen this reported anywhere else but when the Council selected our 5-year forecast the Council also directed the Mayor to appoint a committee to review the City’s involvement in the Prince William County Library system.  The members of that committee are Mr. Wolfe, Mrs. Bass and Mr. Way.

The motivation behind this is that every year at budget time we take a look at what we pay the County for use of their libraries and, inevitably, somone will observe that it seems like a lot of money (which it is).  Subsequently, someone else will observe that the City could never run a library for that amount of money.  Another will observe that none of the libraryies we pay for are in the City (an interesting point).  Some bickering will ensue and then we’ll move on.  I’ve seen that script play out for the past 5 years so I made a motion that the Council direct the Mayor to appoint a committee to examine the matter.  Could we really run a library for $1.3 million a year?  Could it be bundled up with something else for a more effective whole?  Who knows but they’ll find out.

For my part, I don’t want to live in a City without a library or access to a library.  Given my druthers I’d like a library inside the City limits but we’ve done without for awhile.  I also believe we should take a step back and see if we can’t creatively combine the library funds with some other function and create a greater whole.  Who knows what will come out of it but it’s worth a look.  No idea when they’ll meet yet.