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Show Library Board iiepaafs Intent To Zaycvillc By TOM BUSSELBERG FARMINGTON - The Davis County Library Board has drafted a letter to Kaysville Kays-ville officials reiterating intentions in-tentions of cooperating towards a possible unified library system while letting that city continue to have a library within its boundaries. "WE'D STILL like to encourage en-courage them to join the county system," said Library Board Chairman Evan Whitesides, in reiterating the exchange of letters that has transpired since last winter between the city and county boards. In the last communication between the boards, the county received a letter penned by Kaysville Mayor Gar Elison that said, in essence, es-sence, the city could provide the same services as the county if it raised its mill levy from 1.5 mills to 1.9, concurrent con-current with the county levy. "I THOUGHT their main concern was that we would go in and take out their library," Board Member Wayne Thor-nock Thor-nock said. "That is not our intention. We better mention that in the letter to strengthen our position." In the letter, not yet sent but reviewed by the board during its regular meeting, Tuesday, it said, in part, "We want you to know we are very interested in working with you since we believe it is in the interest of all the residents of our county and not just those in Kaysville." Echoing those sentiments was , County Commissioner Morris Swapp who said, "Certainly we don't want to do anything but strengthen the library there." IT CONTINUES, "Two concerns con-cerns are of paramount importance im-portance from our interpretation interpreta-tion of Mayor Elison's letter. The first of these centers around housing the library, the size and location. We are not in a position to help with this problem now because our funds for capital expenditures for the next few years are committed to paying out the Davis School District interest in the building in Farrnington and constructing a new regional headquarters facility in Layton (see related story, this issue). "For these reasons, in our initial proposal (in December) we asked that Kaysville provide the space and utilities to house the library until the county library could assume this responsibility. There is well established precedent for this. Bountiful, Farrnington, Layton, Syracuse and Clearfield Clear-field cities for many years furnished the space and utilities utili-ties for branch libraries of the county system until it was possible to build the large regional branches. The county library during this early period provided all of the services including books, personnel, and bookmobile." THE LETTER also said the county feels the city should continue negotiations for its own bookmobile service, provided by the State Library Commission under contract to individual library systems. But if the city library joined the county the letter said, "Kaysville would be immediately included in the planning of bookmobile stops and would probably be a high priority area because of the concentration of population in some of the outer areas of the city away from the present library. After the construction construc-tion of a new library in Lay-ton, Lay-ton, major revision of bookmobile book-mobile stops will be done allowing further time for more isolated areas." The letter added that the county board would like to meet with city board members and officials to further discuss possibilities for unification. |