I would like to congratulate Ms. Janice Marschner for the excellent letter (Gazette, Nov. 5). This is some of the information taxpayers need in order to make an informed decision when it comes to spending tens of millions of dollars to build another library.
I would like to respond to some of the comments made in the letter.
First, while the library did get the highest number of votes from the telephone survey, all three projects were within a few votes of each other, and within the pollster’s margin of error. Less than 900 residents took part in the survey. It is interesting that the article written by the Gazette (Oct. 29) titled "Branch library highest priority" did not mention how close the vote was. The article implies the library was the clear winner. Residents need to know the results of the vote.
Second, when we compare the 2015 St Albert library stats to Sherwood Park, we find that we have a lot of work to do to increase our numbers.
Sherwood Park has a population of 68,800 and had 556,200 library visits. On average every resident went to the library eight times per year. Using your numbers, St Albert has a population of 65,000 with 330,000 library visits. On average residents visited the library five times per year. We would need to increase annual visits by 58% to match Sherwood Park.
While the information provided by you and library CEO Peter Bailey is very informative, it still does not justify spending $20 million to $30 million to build another library.
Norm Harley, St. Albert
