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Town Meeting restores Library, Senior Center

Elisabeth Hatch

Staff Intern



HAMPDEN At the annual town meeting on April 24 voters passed the FY07 budget at $9,068,482. Seventy thousand dollars of that budget will go towards reopening the town's library, which was closed due to the failure of a Proposition 2 1/2 override which would have provided the needed funding within the town.

Hampden Free Public Library is set to reopen on July 1. The budget also includes money to restore many of the town services that were closed as a result of the failed override.

"The money goes towards restoring the highway and police departments, the partial restoration of the senior center, library, and the parks and recreation department," said Selectman John D. Flynn.

The library budget was originally proposed at $119,221, but only received $70,000 from the town.

The Friends of the Hampden Free Public Library conducted significant fund-raising in order to make up for the lack of money the library received.

"We've managed to raise $20,000, but we're still counting and more is still coming in," said co-president of the Friends of the Hampden Library, Patty Ehlers. "Basically we have 65 percent of our old budget."

Ehlers said that other libraries in the area raise anywhere from five percent to 15 percent of their annual budget due to lack of funding from the towns.

The Friends of the Library worked hard to give the residents of Hampden something in place of their library with events like the Hampden Book Swap.

"It [the book swap] did the best it could, given the resources," Ehlers said, "By doing things like the book swap, and keeping the library in focus, we graciously received some grants and donations."

Due to the lowered FY07 budget the library will fall short on a lot of programs it used to offer to the residents of Hampden.

"It won't be what we had before," explained former head librarian for the library, Ellen Bump. "There will be fewer people and the library will be open fewer hours."

The library will be open 25 hours per week, as opposed to the 32 hours it used to be open.

"I'm sure that [fewer hours and funding] will result in fewer programs," Bump said.

She opted to move to the Thornton W. Burgess Middle School's Library upon the closing of the town library

"I won't be going back to the public library when it reopens," Bump said. "But I've offered my time in order to get the library ready for the reopening."

She continued, "There is a lot to do to get the library in running order, like training any new staff, cleaning, and getting the computer system in working order."

The Friends of the Hampden Public Library are in the midst of planning the grand reopening day for July 1, and looking for a new library director, explained Ehlers.

Although the library is not back to its full potential, everyone involved still seems optimistic.

"This is not the end, this is the first step. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future to expand," Flynn said.