Vermilion Parish voters to decide to close or keep libraries open

Vermilion Parish voters have a choice to make on Saturday - to keep the parish libraries open for another 10 years or to close them.
There is a parish-wide election to renew a 10-year library property tax millage that has been around since 1942.
If you vote “No” for the property millage, then within a year the libraries in Abbeville, Delcambre, Erath, Gueydan, Kaplan and Maurice, along with the book-mobile will close.
If you vote “Yes” then the libraries will continue to stay open for another 10 years.
There is no other taxed based funding source other than the property millage voters will be voting on Saturday. Polls throughout the parish open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
“Our Vermilion Parish Library System is dependent upon this long standing millage for the operation of all seven libraries as well as for equipment, supplies, maintenance and construction, such as building repairs, necessary to the operation of such an excellent system, said
Thomas Thompson.
Thompson is the president of the newly revised Vermilion Library Foundation He has been making speeches at organizations promoting the public libraries. He recently spoke at the Abbeville Rotary Club.
“The libraries of our Vermilion Parish Library System continue to serve as community centers,” Thompson said. “Our parish libraries provide a safe harbor where our young people may study and pursue their individual intellectual interests; provide a point of contact for our elderly to reach out to others in our communities; and, a means through which a life-long pursuit of literacy and learning can be fostered. The libraries of our Vermilion Parish Library System are our great consulting rooms which contain the diaries of our lives in our communities.”
Thompson said Vermilion Parish Library System has kept pace with national trends.
During the 10-year period from 2005 through 2014, the parish library system added approximately 19,042 patrons, cataloged the library collection by 209,134 items and circulated 1,510,312 items.
The Vermilion Parish Library System offers a wide variety of books for adults, teens and children; magazines; newspapers; tax forms; genealogy research; computer availability; weekly story times and craft programs for children as well as teens and adults; and, microfilm research access.
The library system also provides photocopying, faxing, scanning, homework help, approximately thirty computers, including a computer for the vision impaired, web pages for seniors, and many other services. The multitude of library programs include an annual professional summer reading program, an annual health fair, book sales, computer training classes, AR books and the RELIC: Readings in Literature and Culture Program. Conference facilities are available at the various libraries to community organizations at no cost.
“This is just a small sample of all that our parish libraries offer each of us,” he added.
“For if we fail in this, we will strip from our young those safe harbors in which they may explore and learn, deprive our elderly of important means to maintain their community contacts and allow to perish an excellent library system dedicated to the pursuit and acquisition of knowledge by the people of Vermilion Parish.”