Ohio: Save Our Libraries
The following is the text of an e-mail I sent to Ohio governor Ted Strickland regarding this proposed budget cut.
Governor Strickland:
I am writing to voice my displeasure about the proposed budget cut for Ohio’s public libraries. I am not a native Ohioan—I moved here in 2008 to begin graduate school at Case Western Reserve University—but I live and work here now, pay my taxes, and would like to be heard on this issue.
I have been endlessly impressed by the quality of the public libraries I have seen here. I am a regular visitor of several branches of the Cuyahoga County Public Library system, as well as, more recently, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library system. You should know that, in a state and city so desperately in need of new blood, excellent libraries such as these vastly improve the quality of their communities. Fine libraries attract students, professionals, and young families—earners and spenders who can keep local businesses afloat. I will not live in a city that’s forced to board up an underfunded library; nor will I work in that city. I expect that I am not alone in that sentiment.
I implore you to reconsider the cuts which will devastate our public library systems, and, consequently, the communities in which we live.
Erin Wolverton
Graduate Student
Case Western Reserve University
Resident of Cleveland Heights
For more information: the official website of the Save Ohio library movement.
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