Final Funding Now In Place For Damascus Library Project
Contributed photo
Artist rendering of proposed Damascus Branch Library, which will also double as an innovative tourism office.
Debra McCown
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By Debra McCown
Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 24, 2008
The final piece of funding for a new branch library in Damascus, Va., will be formally announced on Monday at the library site on Water Street.
A $582,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation – an amount confirmed by both the donor and recipient – will provide the final funding sum for the $1 million project.
“This grant [from VDOT] brings us to the point of having the funding that we need for the construction phase,” said Charlotte Parsons, Washington County Public Library director. “I’m anxious to get started.”
Already, Washington County has set aside $300,000 for the project; the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission is providing $100,000; and the town of Damascus, which donated the land, will provide $30,000.
Parsons said fundraising is already under way locally to pay for the furnishings and fixtures that will be needed, including a raffle in which the prize is $2,000 worth of gasoline.
The formal grant announcement will be at 11 a.m. on Monday. Specific project partnerships – agencies and organizations that will provide programs through the library – also will be announced.
Construction of the 6,500-square-foot building is expected to begin as early as this fall.
The library will double as an innovative tourism office for the town, which is on the Appalachian Trail and the Virginia Creeper Trail and serves as a gateway to surrounding natural areas.
“The big thing about this center is the tourism aspect because it’s a tourism facility that will draw people to the region,” said VDOT spokeswoman Michelle Earl, who added that department officials are happy to also help with the library.
The grant is being funded by federal dollars through the Transportation Enhancement Program, which is to “improve non-motorized transportation, enhance the public’s traveling experience, revitalize communities and improve the quality of life,” according to a program Web page.
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Posted by ( MBR ) on August 10, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Your property taxes will not be raised to pay for this. This money was already set aside for this grant.
Also, I know what an earmark and to clarify for you . . . earmarks are non-germane budgetary requests (usually in the millions of dollars) attached to pieces of legislation—not small grant awards such as this thing for the Damascus Library.
Re: the sports complex, no argument with you on that one. But trying to compare a state funded already pre-allocated sum of 590,000 for a library to a MULTIMILLION dollar sports complex or strip mall is comparing apples to . . . well, not even oranges—more like blueberries.
Really though, the comparison should not be made—period. Why? because bottom line is if you want people to get jobs, you’d be wise to recognize three things.
One, 43% of those with lowest literacy skills live in poverty. Where are some of the lowest literacy levels found? Yep, right here in our own backyard . . . you probably saw many of them at RAM. Guess what—people with the lowest literacy rates are also the most likely to not have health insurance.
What else is affecting employment? Answer=the digital divide. Where can residents go to learn computer skills and access the Internet for free—the public library.
And thirdly, as far as the tourism jobs in Damascus go, have you ever noticed that every business along the main drag caters to hikers/ tourists? Where do you think Damascus would be today without tourism? Unlike tobacco, timber and coal—the natural tourism industry doesn’t have a lit fused attached to it—if we play our cards right and don’t throw fits over relatively inexpensive projects like public libraries, this industry can actually be sustained.
You can vote in favor of throwing your money towards trying to entice industries to come to the area (only to have them pick up and leave as soon as some other poorer county offers them a sweeter deal) OR you could make an investment in the actual people of our region, their education, their access to technology . . . i.e. empower workers and higher paying employers will eventually have real reason to come to the area. Until then though, you better hope for the people of Damascus that people keep hiking the Appalachian Trail.
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Posted by ( Lewis ) on July 30, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I already know the highway funds were set aside for this, it’s still pork-barrel waste. A library has nothing to do with transportation, spare the tourism fraud.
Second, this was also a misuse of tobacco funds as well. It’s called earmarks, a misuse of our tax dollars and all legal.
As for the library in Abingdon, I spent my weekend at Remote Area Medical. Perhaps these under paid and uninsured people can come to the library to get dental and medical care because tax dollars that was supposed to be spend in real economic development, etc. end up as pork.
I’m a taxpayer too, but RAM has set the 9th consecutive poverty records after hundreds of millions were supposed have been spent to address this.
By the way, did those farmers get a job? Or perhaps they can work at the $10 million strip mall our county paid for? Perhaps they can play soft ball at our multimillion dollar new ball park?
Yup, I’ll feel good too when they raise my property taxes to pay for this crap.
By the way, can I have a list of those great tourism jobs in Damascus with wage scales?
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Posted by ( MBR ) on July 29, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Actually Lewis, I might suggest you do a little research, perhaps visit a library? For the record, the VDOT funds used for this were specified by law to be used for non-transportational projects, so VDOT was just doing its job. And, to be clear, it is not crazy to have such funding because as I think most people realize—the world is complex and things work as part of systems i.e. a bridge as an independent entity is meaningless unless it is connecting something to something else. Likewise, infastructure for the sole sake of infastructure is the true misuse of public funds.
To put this into context . . . I’d imagine that VDOT was probably thinking about all the hikers and tourists that are the lifeblood of the Damascus economy (and, increasingly, the regional economy for that matter). These “travelers” depend on having a place where they can come in and check their email. Not being able to have access to the “information highway” these days is as detrimental as not having a road to your own town. It seems to me whoever came up with this is actually being pretty smart—tie in tourist info at this portal and your spurring even more tourism dollars being spent.
As for tobacco funds, I will never forget walking into the main library in Abingdon and seeing three former tobacco farmers in overalls perched over computers in the library’s Bill Gate’s computer lab. What were they doing? As I came to find out—they were using special software the library had gotten to help evaluate their farmland to figure out alternative crop plantings so they could survive in a world where smoking tobacco (a now known carcinogen) is not exactly a high growth industry.
Personally, as a tax payer myself, I’m somewhat relieved to know that public funds are going towards something sensible.
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Posted by ( Lewis ) on July 25, 2008 at 1:03 am
This is a classic example of the misuse of public funds. This has nothing to do with transportation, and the Tobacco Grants are not supposed to go for a library.
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