At a time when many are questioning the future and the value of community newspapers, a local answer to those questions unfolded last week in Lower Pottsgrove Township.
The township commissioners reversed themselves and amended a decision to cut funding in half to the Pottstown Public Library. Commissioners announced they would restore the $60,000 annual contribution to the library in response to concerns of township residents that the allocation was being cut.
The commissioners were able to maintain their budget plans of no tax hike in 2009 but give the library the second half of its allocation in January to keep the township share at $60,000.
Commissioner Jonathan Spadt said the board received unprecedented feedback from residents once word got out that the library contribution was being cut.
“We’ve never had the type of feedback and the volume of feedback,” he said during last week’s meeting.
Board members had put together a preliminary budget for next year that cut in half several annual contributions to a handful of non-profit organizations, such as the Visiting Nurses Association and Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society.
Board members said that until people voiced their concerns, they had little understanding about just how popular the library is with residents.
“The kids who I saw at the high school level, who said they use the library ... I knew I was changing my mind,” Commissioner Stephen Klotz said.
“Restoring this is one of the best things we’ve done all year,” Commissioner Tony Doyle said.
The feedback received by commissioners and their decision to restore funding came about because people let them know what was important -- but how would the people of the township have known what was being cut without the reporting of the local newspaper?
The proposed cut was included in a meeting report on the front page of The Mercury, followed by editorial opinion and then by letters to the editor,including a published statement from the Pottsgrove School Board about the value of a public library.
The importance to communities of the information and perspective offered by newspapers was illustrated by the Lower Pottsgrove reaction.
Townships and school districts will point to newsletters and Web sites as a means of communicating with residents, but it's not the same. A township Web site is there when you care to check it out; a newspaper is in front of you on the newsstand or your doorstep alerting you to the news of your town. You don't have to know something is important enough to seek out information; a newspaper gives the information and then tells why it's important.
Without newspapers, the news of a community will not be told quickly, openly or completely. A cut in library funding would occur unnoticed. And, the reversal happily accomplished last week by the Lower Pottsgrove commissioners would not have occurred.
Libraries and Lower Pottsgrove are an example of why newspapers matter.