It didn’t take long, and employees weren’t aware of it, but the newly opened Twiggs County library closed Tuesday evening after opening just two weeks earlier, according to media reports.
Doors to the library were locked at 7 p.m. Tuesday and employees aren't sure when they will reopen, the Macon Telegraph said. The library was closed due to lack of funds.
The county commission met shortly after the closing and decided not to fund the $14,000 needed to stay open for the remainder of the year.
The Telegraph reports that the acting chairman of the library’s board of trustees, Billy Humphries, said the Twiggs County government stopped paying the library’s bills in September.
The trustees submitted a $50,000 budget for the library for 2013, but were approved for $28,000 by the county government.
The library has three employees.
“It’s a shame to have a million-dollar building there with only $48,000 a year required to operate the whole thing, and we can’t even keep it open five days,” Humphries told The Telegraph.
Humphries also told The Telegraph that the commission increased the budget this year for local convenience centers, or places where people drop off garbage, to more than $108,000.
“It’s politics and a matter of allocating money,” Humphries said in the report, “and where priorities lie.”
Jeffersonville Mayor Shannon Hart said a $6,000 line item will be up for approval in the 2014 city budget in an attempt to lessen the burden of the county next year, according to The Telegraph.
The report also said Hart put a note outside the Jeffersonville City Hall with a quote from “Fahrenheit 451.”
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them,” the note said.
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