Dear Editor,

Thank you Greg, for your response.

Quoting you: “Build a library? Of course, but just don’t look for ways to do so entirely on the backs of businesses and residents of the Village of New Glarus.” It’s not “entirely on the backs...” as you well know. With the encouragement of the Boards of Library and Village, citizens have donated $1,100,000 and most of that has been there for a decade or more. Donors like to see their funds used for the purpose intended. There is an imperative to use the money the citizens have put in the till.

The USDA loan program allows the Village to borrow 60% more money at the same annual cost. With interest rates at this level and inflation the highest in 40 years, isn’t this a good investment of Village resources? How long does it take inflation to reduce the real cost of annual payments? Unless I miss my guess, there is a significant increase in both electric, water and tax revenue coming on stream. Drive over to Valle Tell if you have a chance.

There are differences in how you manage a business and how you manage a government. I ran a business in town for 22 years and served on a Not for Profit board for 30. In both cases I advocated prudent financial strategies to make the organizations bigger and stronger. And they are.

We have willing partners in the private sector to the tune of $1,100,000. There is plenty of bad feeling out there about the failure to support those commitments with action. Even with an expanded municipal budget for the library, a private to public ratio of 33%-66% is pretty conservative. A decent size library is doable and should be done.

Gof Thomson,

Village of New Glarus

P.S. NGU’s last rate hike was 12-2013, eight years ago. We have big utility bills in our Village but one of mine shows less than 20% of that was for electricity and the rest was for sewers and water.