Life without Libraries? - Election results in Troy

Budget shortfalls led to proposed tax hikes in Troy and Berkley - and voters in both cities rejected the potential increases after yesterdays special elections.

For Troy, this means that city officials will have to resort to more drastic measures, including laying off dozens of police officers and the library will be closed, to help ease the budgetary deficits brought on by dwindling property taxes.

Essentially, the deteriorating economy in Michigan led to many leaving the state to find work - which left communities in SE Michigan without the revenue they depended upon from property taxes. Much of Troy's tax increase was to ease the strain upon public safety funding - and would have cost the homeowner of a $200,000 home about $190 extra per year, according to the Detroit News.

I bring this up for a number of reasons - not the least of all being that I am passionate about the importance of public libraries' vital role in the community - secondly, being, that the most recent post (below) is related - as it promotes upcoming (community-involving) activities at Ferndale's Public Library - and thirdly, can you even imagine...stepping outside of our apathetic, cold, chilly, instant-everything-Wikipedia-clicking mind-sets...a communiy not having a library? This was an ominous domino that I never thought would fall... more info here.

Troy also looks to close another source of public education - it's Nature Center, as well as it's Community Center.

Troy Public Library site.

Since this is a blog and I can dip away from objective news - I have to plant seeds to ruminate on - can't help wondering if this is born from a larger, national trend - that of - rejecting tax hikes as a referendum on government spending - like the neo-liberal-monarchy-pinko-socialist-agenda-fighters of the Tea Party Movement.

Life without libraries sounds too much like a Twilight Zone episode.