Twin Lakes reluctant to help pay Silver Lake’s library loan

By Gail Peckler-Dziki

Correspondent

The response to a request from Silver Lake Attorney Linda Gray for either municipal attorneys or board representatives to meet to discuss ways that Twin Lakes might help offset the $250,000 loan Silver Lake took out for a new Community Library site in 2013 is no.

The letter Gray sent to the attorneys of Salem, Randall, Paddock Lake and Twin Lake’s attorney Timothy Pruitt was dated Nov. 13 and discussed at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting.

Village Administrator Jennifer Frederick was instructed to compose a negative response to Gray and also to request that correspondence be sent to her rather than the village attorney.

Last August, Gray sent several different options to allocate the cost of the building and improvements. Those were put on hold until after the Nov. 4 election.

Had the referendum passed and Silver Lake had dissolved back into the town, that building would have become part of Salem assets.

A majority of Silver Lake residents voted to dissolve Nov. 4. However, the 53 percent was less than the needed two-thirds of voters on that day to make it happen and Silver Lake remains.

So does the loan the village took out. The Nov. 13 letter from Gray requested a meeting between municipal attorneys or board representatives to discuss the options suggested last August.

No action was taken on the request, but the consensus of the Twin Lakes Board was unanimous – no one wanted to discuss allocation options.

Trustee Sharon Bower said, “we have no money for this.”

Trustee Tom Connolly said he disagreed with the way that Silver Lake handled the purchase.

“They bought this building without anyone’s consent and now they want us to pay,” Connolly pointed out.

Trustee Kevin Fitzgerald said, “The library board went into closed session to talk about this and then we were supposed to bring this to our respective boards. Before we could do that, they bought the building.”

Village president Howard Skinner said he recommended that Silver Lake fund the building the same way that Twin Lakes and Randall fund the branch located in those communities.

“Fund it out of the system. When the footage here was increased, our rent went up to pay for that,” Skinner said.

Fitzgerald, who is one of the Twin Lakes representatives on the Community Library Board, explained, “The Community Library doesn’t have a pot of money. Speaking for myself, the library would have $800 a month for rent, if the board decided to go that way.”

The Community Library Board just approved a new lease for the same space in Silver Lake with the new owners of the building.


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