June 16, 2016 · 0 Comments
IT LOOKS AS IF the Town of Mono and the Orangeville Library Board are going to reach an agreement that should please everyone, while encouraging Mono residents to do more reading.
Under a proposal advanced by library board chairman Scott Wilson, residents of Mono and the townships of Amaranth and East Garafraxa would no longer have to pay $145 up front for a library card. Instead, the suburban municipalities would be billed by the library.
We suspect that the existing arrangement has succeeded in sharply limiting non-residents’ use of Orangeville’s two libraries, and that any survey would show a much higher use of Shelburne’s public library by residents of Melancthon, Mulmur, Mono and Amaranth, where they face no such fees, thanks to there being an area-wide library system.
For some reason, Orangeville Council has always rejected the idea of regional services, be they police, fire, recreation or library, preferring to have full local control and an accompanying ability to charge whatever it pleases to the “foreigners.”
The proposed library arrangement falls well short of what Shelburne has accomplished, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.