A small Down East Public Library is threatened with closure.
The President of Friends of the Down East Library Susan DeWitt Wilder said the building in Smyrna is owned by a Carteret County Commissioner, who was first appointed in 2020 to fill out a term and then was reelected. Wilder said State Treasurer Dale Falwell granted an exception to the law that says a public official can’t receive a direct benefit from the public agency he serves – like county rent payments for the library building.
The exception was granted until the end of the five-year-lease, which is on June 30, and late last month the Carteret County Board of Commissioners sent a notice to commissioner Chris Chadwick, saying the county plans to vacate the building by that date.
Wilder said it took her by surprise.
“We discovered two days before the celebration event that we'd planned for the long down these libraries that there would be a closing -- that our library would close by June 30th," she said, "So, at the event, we had to make an announcement and we're now working on galvanizing people to look for an exception and make it possible for the library to stay where it is.”
She said there isn’t a space nearby that they could move the library into.
“There's been a run on available housing in the last two years. There are no empty houses that could be rented and refurbished,” she explained, “We don't have much commercial space down here at all and the access is so important … where the location of that library is critical to reaching the most people and serving the most people Down East.”
For some library patrons, the closest county library branch in Beaufort would be a 45-50 minute drive.
And Wilder is hoping to avoid the need to move.
“Our goal is to see if there's a work around and keep the library in the same space as it is now,” she said.
There is a community information and advocacy meeting on Wednesday, April 12 at the Gloucester Community Center at 6.30.
