I have some serious questions for the Board of Trustees at the Albert Wisner Public library.
Is it responsible to continue to remain open to the public as the resurgent COVID-19 pandemic rages across the country?
Does it make sense to be the only library in the Ramapo Catskill Library System that continues to allow patrons inside the building?
Remaining open when other libraries make the prudent decision to close, in effect, attracts patrons from further afield to our local library, since their own libraries – some in yellow and red zones - have closed to the public.
This puts Warwick’s library workers and patrons alike in needless and potentially deadly jeopardy.
For what?
Is it not true that the Board itself has postponed its regularly scheduled monthly meeting (typically held inside the Wisner Library building) out of an abundance of caution for the health and safety of the members of the board?
Continuing to insist on keeping the doors open to the public, even as all other libraries in the system make the difficult choice to suspend regular operations seems like a needless risk to the health of the staff and their extended families, to say nothing of the broader public health.
Unlike for-profit entities struggling for survival, the library, a non-profit, tax-subsidized organization can sustain periods of closure without the threat of being closed permanently.
Please understand, our family has long supported the Wisner Library. My wife is a long-standing member of the staff. My son has a tile in the lobby, placed there around the time of his birth sixteen years ago. I have performed multiple special events for patrons at the facility.
It is a treasured part of the fabric of our lives in the Warwick community.
This is why it is especially painful and bewildering that the Board would continue to support keeping the library open during a rapidly accelerating global pandemic. At the very least, the facility should return to curbside service only.
To do otherwise is simply equivalent to gambling with the lives of the dedicated people who serve the library as well the lives and livelihoods of their spouses and children.
Join me in calling on the Board to do the right thing until the virus has been sufficiently mitigated.
Sincerely,
Anthony Vitiello
Warwick