The board of the Jones Library must step down and take the director and the inept over-compensated fundraisers with them. The newest decision to use endowment funds money to make the proposed expansion work is irresponsible and inappropriate in the extreme. The cost of consultants on a proposed capital project is not a proper use of endowment funds. The cabal that is this board needs to go rather than continue to attempt to build a monument to themselves. This is about fiscal responsibility and serving the town rather than ego. They are undeterred by any shortfalls of funding, reasoned opposition, or common sense.

And how about keeping the focus on, dare I say, a library and its components of information and knowledge? If it is important for the town to provide a youth center and ESL classes, perhaps building a flexible, multi-use facility that could serve those purposes as well as a senior center would make sense rather than trying to make an historically significant part of the town into a grand exercise in doing everything. That building would not have to be forced to locate adjacent to the library with all of the accompanying problems that we have seen. The effort to keep the current expansion proposal on life support is long overdue to end. It seems that the only way to end it is for the board and the administration to leave.

David Sloviter

Amherst