NEIGHBOR HELPED LOUISVILLE (COLO.) RESIDENTS ENJOY LIBRARY SERVICE
IN EARLY DAYS, IS IT TIME NOW TO RECIPROCATE AND SHARE WITH SUPERIOR?

Typical of small mining towns, Louisville had to struggle for its economic sustenance during its heyday and even more so, after the coal mines closed down in the 1950s. There were not many amenities, such as a well-stocked public library, that these settlements could afford.

Having lived there while publishing the Louisville Times for 33 years (1965-98), I watched the Louisville Public Library evolve from a meager collection of mostly resident-contributed books in a backroom at City Hall, into a wing of Leon Wurl’s renovated on-site structure in the mid-1970s, then into the spacious two-story Fischer Building a half-block down the street in 1989, purchased for $660,000 through the same $5.3 million bond issue that built the Louisville Recreation Center. Thanks to a recent bond issue, the library has expanded into custom-built quarters just across the street -- a splendid achievement.

A long time before the Conarroes came to town, the Saturday Study Club, a plucky group of local women, helped fund the Louisville Public Library to keep it operating. Vera Taylor was a mainstay of this group. Townspeople I recall who served as librarians at a very modest salary included Marian Thirlaway, Larella Stout, Emmajane Enrietto, Pam Ferris, Eileen Schmidt, and my wife Carolyn.

The point here is that, for decades, had it not been for dedicated volunteers, plus access to the Colorado State Library system and the gracious cooperation of the Boulder Public Library in lending its books without charge to the Louisville Library for circulation to its patrons, the local library service would have been severely handicapped indeed.

Remembering the unfettered sharing by Boulder’s main library for the benefit of Louisville residents, I was ashamed to see the brouhaha develop between the town of Superior and city of Louisville over the use of the new Louisville Public Library, dissension that unfortunately ended in mutual disgust and mistrust.

The Louisville City Council is in command, no doubt about that. And yes, it costs a lot of money to build, stock, maintain and operate a modern library, but isn’t it the purpose of a public library to distribute information and incidentals to everyone at the lowest fee possible? I wonder, what kind of a society is it that would deliberately deny books to children?

Superior’s offer of $100,000 a year seemed fair; any figure beyond that looked like blackmail to me. In lieu of a direct subsidy, it is perfectly fair to charge outsiders a user’s fee; but unless that fee is uniform and applied equally to all outsiders, it is clearly discriminatory. Where is the ACLU on this issue?

Yet another factor figures into this equation: Because of a favor that the developer of the new Superior, Larry Mizel, once did for Louisville, I’m surprised that anyone in Louisville could now claim “they (Superior) have never done anything for us, so why should we (Louisville) accommodate them?”

Well, it was Mizel who had the capital and the clout to tap into the Northern Colorado-Big Thompson (Colorado River) Project for water that he critically needed to supply his ambitious Superior development.

Boulder had Big T water, and Broomfield was hooked to Denver water, but for the first time Western Slope water was made available to local municipalities that had been dependent almost solely on over-appropriated Eastern Slope water from South Boulder Creek and Coal Creek – a major breakthrough.

Mizel’s bold project involved construction of a large pipeline from Carter Lake near Berthoud to Superior. This made it possible for first Louisville and later Erie to hook into Big T and buy shares, solving to a great extent not only Mizel’s water-supply problem, but also Louisville’s and Erie’s growth needs as well.

Library alternatives for the town of Superior? Forming a library district would be nice, but it’s highly improbable, as is the possibility of Louisville establishing a Superior branch. Superior might try building its own library, but with such elaborate libraries established in Louisville, Lafayette, Broomfield and Boulder, so close by, that does not seem likely and appears superfluous. And, fend-for-yourself is not a good answer.

All things considered, history tells me that Louisville’s current City Council should rethink its attitude and policy, go back to the negotiating table, and unselfishly share Louisville’s fine new library with the neighbors in Superior -- as another neighboring city once did, for the sake of Louisville.
P.