Library expansion and community

By William Ashworth

Ashland

The rattle of chainsaws disturbs the early morning silence.

A beloved tree comes down. Other trees follow it to the asphalt of the parking lot. The mixed scent of exhaust and sawdust hangs in the air.

The city awakens. And the second-guessing begins.

As a community activist, library staff member and long-time Ashland resident, I'd like to offer some perspective on that second-guessing.

When I arrived in Ashland in 1970 there was a house on the lot next to the library, and a plan, dating from at least as early as 1964, to expand the library onto that lot. The lot was purchased by the city with this expansion in mind. The park and the parking lot built there were always meant to be temporary. There has never been any secret about this.

Nevertheless, when expansion became a possibility rather than a dream in the mid-1990s, an exhaustive planning process was undertaken. Literally dozens of opportunities were provided for public input on the design and location of the new library. During this process, it became clear that the great majority of Ashlanders wanted their believed Carnegie library to remain in use. The city's vision in 1964 had been accurate. The library praised the city's foresight in obtaining the land and proceeded with the planning, continuing to involve the public. Numerous meetings were held. There was a week-long design open house. The plans were on display in the library, with comments requested for many weeks.

The first plan prepared would have saved most of the trees in the park, including the gingko. The voters deemed it too expensive. The library listened and went back to the drawing board.

The second plan cut both more trees and the size of the expansion, but that was the one Ashland voters approved. A group of neighbors and tree lovers complained. The issue went before the voters a second time. It was approved again, by a higher margin than before.

Now construction is finally proceeding.

It is specious to claim, as expansion opponents have, that information has been withheld from the public. No city project in memory has been planned more openly. It is equally specious to claim that the citizens have not been consulted. The fact that the project is going ahead doesn't mean that its opponents were not heard. "Getting heard" means "getting my way" only in the language of two-year-olds and tyrants.

Expansion opponents will also tell you that Ashland's sense of community has been deeply damaged by proceeding with library construction while opposition remains. I disagree. I don't think a community is what they think it is.

A community is not a specific set of buildings and trees and people. A community is a living organism. It requires continuity and care to remain healthy. But, like all living things, it also requires continual change. Static communities are like moribund organisms. To stop living processes - the exchange of air, the pulsing of the blood, the evolution of new forms from old - is to bring about death.

Parks and trees and libraries are all necessary parts of a community. But it is unhealthy - it is profoundly anti-community - to state that they must remain the same, identical parks and trees and libraries today as they were 30 years ago. A community that insists on keeping everything the way it was in the past is no longer a community, but a museum.

Across the street from the library stands the Blue Mountain Cafe, closed for fire station expansion, mourned - like the library - as a loss of community. The Blue Mountain was built, many years ago, as a Taco Time restaurant. Should the process of change have stopped there?

Change always occurs. Some of it is constructive, some of it is destructive. It is imperative for community health that we remain able to discern which is which.

The trees are down, now, and the parking lot is fenced off. Chainsaws have been replaced by construction equipment. It is ugly but temporary. Living is messy. Taxidermy would have been cleaner. But after the taxidermist and the dioramist and the curator leave, nothing ever moves again.

William Ashworth is reference librarian at the Ashland Public Library.