I do not know how anything in government is ever accomplished. Ever.
Imagine that you are in a college lecture hall and the professor has begun their presentation right on time when, at about ten after the hour, another student comes in.
“What did I miss?”
Imagine that in this world the professor must go back to the beginning of the lecture and start again, every time another student enters the room, because they feel entitled to receive the information that everyone else has received in that very moment and in the same format. No matter whether they had a perfectly good reason to have been delayed or they simply overslept: this is no way to teach a lesson.
This is one of the aspects of the discussion around the the Downtown Library that drives me to distraction. Whether you are inspired by the concept or not, whether you think libraries are valuable investments in communities or not, the process to get to this point has been going on for years and is well documented. The decision to replace the Central Branch was made a long time ago as a part of the Downtown Plan.
It wasn’t sudden or secret or a part of a backroom deal. If you didn’t know that’s perfectly fine and there are ways you can bring yourself up to date and become better informed. Using the reasoning that because you didn’t know, we must all go back to the drawing board and start over again makes no sense to me. But that’s what a lot of people are doing.
And…another thing. There’s a line of thinking circulating out there that seems to be looking at the new library as an invitation to play Let’s Make A Deal.
They see the dollar amounts connected to the library project and say, “Gee, I’d like to spend that on something else. How about capital improvements to schools? A new hospital?”
Has anyone officially come out and announced:
“Hey, Howard County! We have this big pot of money that has no strings attached, how’d you like to spend it?”
No. The money for the library project is attached to the library project.
You’d think it was a free-for-all from the way some people are talking.
Frankly, I don’t know how to fix it.
These conversations remind me of dinnertime exchanges with my daughter years ago.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Well, we could have pizza, chicken tenders, or spaghetti. What do you choose?”
“Tacos.”
The Howard County Government has solicited feedback from the community and I’m sure the formulation of the Downtown Plan involved community input. But there is no way we are going to have a reasonable conversation if the available parameters fall within pizza, chicken, and spaghetti and we demand tacos.
Aw, heck. Maybe we should just go back to the beginning and talk about it some more, right?
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