Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,
My name is Matt Morrical, and I know it’s a new name, and that makes sense, since I’m the new Library Director at the Lake Mills Public Library. Last week, the City Council held a Townhall Meeting asking what everyone thought should be done with the gutted building that was the Truman Helgeson Civic Center. I made this proposal then, and I’d like to make it again. Please allow the library to trade places with the Civic Center. I’d also like to make it abundantly clear that I am writing this letter with the Library Board’s approval and full backing.
My main reason for moving the library is simple; the library has been looking for more space for at the very least the past 10-15 years. We’re very cramped and we’ve even been storing some of our programming materials on top of shelves. Each floor of that building is about the same size as the library right now, so we don’t have a whole lot of space.
 I’d be absolutely floored if we got all three floors to work with. With all three, we’d be able to have several meeting rooms, and almost act like the old civic center ourselves, hosting larger events, like the Legion’s breakfast. Plus, with the building we’d be vacating being empty, the Food Bank could move in, or if we still wanted a pure civic center, that could be an option, too.
Even if the library could only get two floors, I’d still be thrilled. We’d still nearly double our current space. While we might not be able to host large events, like the Legion’s breakfasts, we’d still have a few meeting rooms, and still be much better suited to serve the community, while allowing the Food Bank to have the bottom floor, plus that’d gives folks another excuse to check out the library.
One of my smaller reasons, is improving the quality of the space. The library doesn’t have a kitchen, or meeting rooms, that I can fully close to the public, and moving the library into that building will give us the ability to have both. There’s a big push right now for libraries to offer things that aren’t just books, but skills, and I can’t exactly offer too much of that right now, because of how little space and the fact that I don’t have a kitchen. Once I have a kitchen, I’d love to offer cooking classes and other skill-building workshops in private meeting rooms, that I just can’t do in the current library building, because I can’t close the meeting room.
The last of my smaller reasons isn’t too small to me, or hopefully any of the business owners uptown. By putting the library uptown, I’d hope to increase the amount of people there. Now folks that come to the library might stop by Swallow for coffee and to read the book they’d just checked out, or maybe one of the restaurants for a meal, and the reverse order could be true as well. Folks could be uptown and then remember to pop by the library to get new books.
I know there were and are some concerns with accessibility, but once I know the building will be a library, there a few grants that I’m aware of, that could add up to a bit more than $100,000, in addition to the grant for public buildings that got mentioned in the meeting for around a half a million dollars. With that amount of money, I’m confident that we’d be more than able to make the space easily accessible.
As for what the city could do with the library’s current building, they could do a whole bunch of things with it. They could allow the food bank to use it. They could make it the new civic center, it’s actually a little bit bigger than the current civic center. If they really wanted to, they could even sell the building.
Now just to wrap everything I’ve said up, please let the library grow and continue to help teach the community.
Matt Morrical
Lake Mills Library Director