What is new in my appeal to maintain the Oakley branch library is that closing it down would show the political leadership of Asheville to be less thoughtful and foresighted than the PR Asheville likes to tout about itself suggests.
To deny local citizens and their kids easy access to a walkable and attractively placed full-service library, featuring not only the convenience of an outdoor pavilion but a large playground — not to mention all the intellectual, literary, informational and community resources of a library in itself — is to undermine the values of genuine democracy. It is to tell persons they are not worthy of ready access to the wealth of knowledge and practical information, not to say art, humanities, scientific, religious and philosophical thinking, social and cultural study, etc., that only a ready-access public library can offer its citizens for making good decisions.
Denying citizens a local library would make Asheville seem yet more crass, mercenary and indifferent to the population, especially those not blessed with lots of free time, ready transportation, internet benefits and the like.
It becomes disheartening to live in a place advertised for its art and beauty and find that its leadership might effectively discourage the cultivation of personal and interpersonal resources of those and many other kinds among neighborhood citizens and their children. It does not go unnoticed that Asheville is willing to sell itself to the highest bidder.
— Guy Burneko
Oakley
I hear you, my brother. You’re saying what We The People have been saying endlessly about tourism, noise, runaway development, poorly maintained roads, primary schools, the importance of protecting established neighborhoods, the cluster-fk coming next to Richmond Hill Park and the French Broad River–all enabled by tone-deaf performance activists.
But hey, they yanked down the obelisk, alienated the police, and turned Pack Library into an internet cafe for transients…
‘ The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see ‘ … Ayn Rand