That’s because library resources are freely shared in the state. But if resources can be so freely shared, why not the responsibilities?

That was the question that representatives from Dover, Smyrna and Harrington put to the Kent County Levy Court commissioners during Tuesday night’s business meeting.

"The managers and library directors from Smyrna, Dover and Harrington come to you in the spirit of cooperation," said Smyrna Town Manager David S. Hugg III. "We desire to work together to find solutions to the rapidly increasing need for expanded and sustained library services throughout the county. … We are asking that you join us in planning for and developing financing options to avoid duplication and better help meet the needs of library patrons countywide."

Mr. Hugg was joined by town manager John Schatzschneider of Harrington and city manager Tony DePrima of Dover in asking the county commissioners to pitch in about $5 million for the planned library expansions, which represents about 25 percent of the total cost in Smyrna and Harrington, and about 10 percent of the total cost in Dover.

"We believe there’s a true cost avoidance that Levy Court should consider in the long run," Mr. DePrima said.

When Commissioner George "Jody" Sweeney asked where the savings would come from, Mr. DePrima replied that "the savings come from not having to build another Kent County library."

Mr. Schatzschneider said that the coalition came to Kent County Levy Court with the best interests of Kent County residents in mind.

Commissioner Bradley S. Eaby told the delegation that he supported trying to find a way to make the partnership work.

"I think the best way to do it is to partner," he said.

Commissioner Eric Buckson said: "I don’t think we can afford this in the foreseeable future."

Speaking strictly for Smyrna, Mr. Hugg said the town library serves a population that goes far beyond town limits.

"We service an area that runs from Cheswold to Townsend, not just the town in Smyrna," he said.

Mr. Buckson challenged the group’s statistics on library users who come from outside town limits.

"We’d like to know who any people truly come from unincorporated areas of Kent County," he said. "Is there a way to tell how many are coming from Buffalo, N.Y., and how many are from Kent County?"

"From my perspective we’re extending an olive branch," Mr. Hugg said before the meeting. "We’re asking for a cooperative approach to library services countywide."

Check It Out

Year dominated by Dover, county library disagreements

Delaware State News

DOVER — Libraries are renowned as quiet places, but they were the subject of plenty of hollering in 2009 in Kent County. And it may take more than a librarian’s stern "Shh!" to prevent the volume from rising again this year.

The noise began late last winter with a suggestion that the county and the city of Dover consolidate their library services, perhaps by closing the county library in Camden and the city library on South State Street and replacing those facilities with a single large, state-of-the-art "anchor library" next to Dover City Hall.

Other options were discussed, such as maintaining separate county and city libraries while establishing one board to manage both. But the single-library proposal quickly overshadowed the rest.

The idea, according to its proponents, would save money for both the county and the city while providing other benefits. The city would donate the project site, making land acquisition unnecessary. Downtown Dover would gain a handsome addition. And Kent County residents would enjoy a library more modern and comfortable than any other in Delaware, one suitable not just for viewing and borrowing materials, but also for community meetings and events.

Most funding would come from grants and donations. City Council and Kent County Levy Court were to kick in $3.7 million apiece in addition to the city’s donation of land.

City Council liked the proposal. Levy Court never warmed up to it.

Fans of the Camden library objected to driving to Dover. Other county residents said Dover was an acceptable location, but only if the library were on a main route such as U.S. 13 or U.S. 113. Some said Dover’s plan was a nice dream, but unrealistically ambitious — especially in a year when city police were furloughed, county taxes went up and the unemployment rate soared.

By October, not only was there no compromise and no cost-saving consolidation, but City Council and Levy Court had headed in different directions. Each had decided to create a new library of its own, and Levy Court had formally rejected the possibility of joining the city in managing libraries.

Dover was firm in its intention to build a $22 million facility next to City Hall. Levy Court paid $1.4 million for a property in the Longacre Village shopping center, north of Woodside, where it plans a modern successor to its library — albeit a replacement considerably more modest than that envisioned by the city.

Along the way, Levy Court briefly entertained an opportunity to purchase a potential library site next to Brecknock Park in north Camden –- in Dover’s back yard, critics fumed. Such a location, they said, would create needless competition for the Dover library while putting many rural residents even farther from a public library.

The county abandoned that idea in November, but not before annoyed Dover residents — fed up with county library decisions they labeled irresponsible — resurrected a question that may generate plenty more debate: Why should they pay county taxes to support a county library and other county services they do not need? Dover has its own library, they noted, and provides its own parks, recreation programs, building inspections, planning and zoning. Dover residents pay for both the city services they use and the county services they do not use.

They want a break from so-called double taxation. City Council has called for the state legislature to provide one, not only for Dover but for every municipality in Kent whose services are duplicated by the county.

According to a handful of informal estimates, annual savings for typical homeowners in incorporated communities might be anywhere from a few bucks to nearly $100, depending on how many services a town provides and how the tax adjustment were implemented. The savings on commercial and industrial properties could be substantially greater.

New Castle County’s property tax system provides such relief to municipal property owners. For decades, Dover has called for a similar system in Kent.

But Levy Court traditionally has opposed the change, and state legislators with large rural constituencies in Kent County have blocked bills that would raise the taxes of out-of-town residents to compensate for the tax breaks that would go to residents of Dover and other municipalities.

Nonetheless, City Council voted 7-2 Dec. 14 to try again.

If the hollering about libraries has subsided, with Levy Court and City Council grudgingly agreeing to disagree, hollering about taxes may be barely under way.

Why didn’t the county and the city reach an accord on libraries, or at least get closer to reaching one?

Levy Court Commissioner Allan F. Angel, whose district includes part of Dover, said discussion soured amid talk of operating a single library, with that library next to City Hall.

"It turned territorial," he recalled last week.

"I don’t think we’re working together because some people’s minds are closed," Mr. Angel said. "Some city people, when you start talking, say, ‘It’s a done deal.’"

He served on a committee that helped draw up plans for a new Dover library, but said his advice went unheeded. If the library were to be downtown, he said, it would be better farther west on Loockerman Street where vacant lots and the unoccupied former Bayard Hotel are obvious holes in the commercial district.

He also advocated consideration of commercial complexes in Dover, including the Blue Hen Corporate Center, where buildings are available for conversion and off-street parking is plentiful.

But others contend the chosen location for a new Dover library is superb: It offers free land and the opportunity to create from scratch an energy-efficient building ideally suited for its intended use. An existing store or office space, they say, has far fewer possibilities and likely would be within easy walking distance of many fewer homes.

Dover mayoral candidate Nancy H. Wagner said the city-county disharmony over libraries might have been avoided if the two governments had discussed the subject longer.

"I would like to have seen the two groups working together several years ago, before things moved very far along," said the former state representative, who will oppose incumbent Mayor Carleton E. Carey Sr. on city ballots in April. "I think we have a missed opportunity."

Mayor Carey was unavailable for comment last week.

There was work behind the scenes by the two governments’ chief administrators, City Manager Anthony J. DePrima and County Administrator Michael Petit de Mange. In March, they presented several options at a public meeting, but the session was dominated by concern over the possible closing of the county library.

"My expectation," Mr. DePrima said, "was Mike (Petit de Mange) and I would get the OK to take it to the next step" — more serious consideration of some sort of consolidated effort.

But that chance faded in June when Levy Court voted 5-2 to keep its library service independent. Levy Court also rejected the proposed financial contribution to a new Dover library.

Soon after, Dover resident N.C. Vasuki, formerly the top executive of Delaware Solid Waste Authority, launched the campaign to re-examine the county tax structure.

"In effect you’re telling the city of Dover, which gives you 26 percent of your revenue, that you don’t really care about them," he told Levy Court commissioners at their fateful June meeting. "I get nothing in return for the taxes I pay. Nothing."

County officials strongly dispute that, of course, pointing first to the county-paid paramedics who respond virtually every day to emergencies in the city.

Looking back, Mr. DePrima notes that the proposal for consolidation came at the same time as the proposal for the county to chip in $3.7 million, and both came at one of the more trying times for Levy Court.

The county officials, long proud of maintaining one of the region’s lowest property-tax rates, were on the verge of increasing that tax — along with cutting employee benefits — in response to a severe decline in revenue.

Maybe, Mr. DePrima said, consolidation and the $3.5 million request should have been addressed separately.

In addition, the needs of the other Kent County community libraries — in Smyrna, Harrington and Milford — could have received more attention at that time, he said. Both Smyrna and Harrington, like Dover, say their libraries no longer are adequate.

"In 20-20 hindsight, perhaps we shouldn’t have made this about the Dover library," Mr. DePrima said.

In fact, discussion of all town libraries in Kent may be on a Levy Court agenda soon. Mr. DePrima said municipal leaders expect to make a united presentation to the county in February.

Despite the ill will over libraries and the taxation issue, the county and the city help each other daily.

They cooperate in the regional sewage-treatment system overseen by the county. County paramedics serve the city. Dover provides county residents with an indoor sports facility, the John W. Pitts Center. Levy Court and City Council each contributed to the establishment of the new Vietnam veterans memorial on South Little Creek Road.

"I think the city and county have very good cooperation on a number of issues," said Levy Court Commissioner Bradley S. Eaby, whose district includes those parts of Dover not represented by Mr. Angel.

But the idea of joining forces on libraries, he said, was "a new, unknown entity. This was a big leap for people."

He and Eric L. Buckson were the only commissioners to support it.

Still, Mr. Eaby said, that failed attempt could lead to similar efforts where success might be more likely. He cited parks and recreation as an area in which money might be saved by having the county, the city or an independent body take over the service.

City Council President Beverly C. Williams said she is confident the library controversy won’t be a lingering sore point.

"I am very optimistic," she said. "I have been in contact with (Levy Court President P.) Brooks Banta almost every week. We are both optimistic we can get past this."

Said Mr. Banta, who has been among the more vigorous detractors of the city’s effort to revamp the county property tax, "The current Levy Court, I can tell you, is always ready to work with City Council."

The city, he said, could eliminate one duplicated service by giving up the economic development office it opened in 2008.

"For the city of Dover to have its own economic development czar — and I’m not criticizing the individual (William G. Neaton) — is a duplication and a waste of money," Mr. Banta said. "That’s one example where we could work as a team."

Ms. Williams said she, too, believes a single economic development effort would suffice.

Mr. Neaton sees it differently: "The more people doing economic development in current economic conditions, the better off we are."

City Councilman Eugene B. Ruane questioned whether county officials would be of much help to Kent towns trying to revitalize their downtowns. "It’s very difficult to get them to focus on municipal business districts," he said. "They seem focused on industrial parks and aeroparks."

But he, too, has called for greater cooperation, naming animal control as a service where a unified effort might prove efficient.

Mr. Ruane has led City Council’s current push for tax relief. He and Mr. Vasuki plan to meet this week with officials of Wilmington, whose residents pay far less in property taxes than do residents of unincorporated areas of New Castle County. If Dover homeowners’ taxes were reduced by the same percentage as Wilmington owners’, they would save an average of more than $90 a year, Mr. Ruane has estimated.

Mr. Angel’s "rough guesstimate" put the average savings at $69.

But city residents, Mr. Angel said, should recognize that more than 60 percent of the county’s paramedic calls are in Dover. "The $69 difference is well worth the cost of saving somebody’s life."

Ms. Wagner has heard it all before.

As a state representative, she took the city’s side on the tax issue, introducing several bills to reform the system. None of those proposals succeeded. She predicts a 2010 version of the proposal will fare no differently.

"I’m a realist. I don’t think it will pass the Senate," she said. "Instead of being mad (about matters on which the county and city disagree), let’s move forward in a different way by seeing how we can work together."

I would like all of the public officials involved in the ongoing library debate to ask themselves a very simple question: "What is the purpose of building two new public libraries?" If the purpose is to make as much information and resources available to as many people as possible in the most cost-effective way, then we need to abandon the current library proposals and bring in some fresh, forward-thinking ideas.

For those of us who graduated high school or college before the age of the Internet, the old system of card catalogs and library books was the only way for us to obtain information. The proposed libraries will cost upwards of $30 to $40 million and will build upon an outdated model that made sense in the 1940s-1980s. Future generations of taxpayers will be burdened with the cost of heating, cooling, and maintaining these structures. It is completely unnecessary to build a big, comfortable space for people to peruse racks of books.

The Internet has given today’s children virtually unlimited access to information from all over the world. Our tax dollars should be directed more towards developing the technology of the future (computers, Internet) and less on housing the technology of the past (paper). There is a more cost-effective way to put more information in the hands of Kent County residents, which I will attempt to describe.

(1) Consolidate all of the books and print resources of our current City and County libraries into a "Central Warehouse Facility," where they can be bar-coded and entered into a Web-based inventory system. The facility would need to be climate-controlled, but would not require the cost of a public access building. There is plenty of empty warehouse space currently available in Kent County.

(2) Establish six to twelve Community Information and Technology Centers ("CITCs") throughout Kent County. The CITCs could be located in existing retail shopping centers or office complexes where there is ample parking (unlike downtown Dover). Each of these facilities would feature a number of computer workstations. The existing Dover Public Library, once cleared of most of its books, would have more space for more computers — its most in-demand resource.

(3) People who need the print resources would enter an order on the Web-based inventory system through a computer at home, school, senior center, or one of the CITCs.

(4) Each day a small number of modern-day "Bookmobiles" would make the rounds from the Warehouse to the CITCs, schools, and senior centers to deliver the requested materials within 24 hours.

The concept I am describing is not silly, farfetched, or even original. It’s "Just-In-Time" (JIT) inventory management, a concept being used by thousands of successful businesses, large and small.

Kent panel rescinds offer on location at Brecknock Park

Delaware State News

DOVER — The Kent County Levy Court changed direction in its search for a new county library site late Tuesday night, voting to rescind its Oct. 13 offer on a site at Brecknock Park in north Camden.

Commissioner George "Jody" Sweeney made a motion to accept an offer from Longacre Village Shopping Center near Felton. The motion passed by a vote of 5-1 with one abstention.

Commissioner Sweeney lamented what he considered uncivil dialogue on the subject.

"The result of five months of hard work has been a considerable amount of harsh words directed at myself," he said.

President P. Brooks Banta said the site-selection process has been muddled by interference from people who don’t wish to work together but rather wish to "divide and conquer."

City managers Anthony De Prima of Dover, David S. Hugg III of Smyrna and John Schatzschneider of Harrington sent Levy Court a letter earlier this week voicing their opposition to the Brecknock Park site because it is too close to the existing Dover library.

The town managers said in their letter they would like to present a plan for county-wide library services in November.

In other business, the commissioners unanimously voted to award a $7,570 contract to Nanticoke Fence to erect 5-foot-tall enclosure of the Tidbury Creek Dog Park, and also approved the expenditure of more than $10,000 in county funds left over from Big Oak Park.

Commissioner Bradley S. Eaby noted that the Tidbury Dog Park Association has raised some $4,000 for the project.

"The partnership between the county and the private sector speaks volumes about the importance of this project," he said.

Commissioner Eric L. Buckson was equally effusive about the initiative.

"I see this as opening up a new avenue for parks," he said, citing skate parks and BMX parks as examples.

The commissioners also voted to approve a conditional-use petition for a dog-grooming business in the neighborhood of Highland Acres. Conditions included weekday hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. with no business on weekends.

The Regional Planning Commission sent the application to Levy Court without recommendation after the planners deadlocked 3-3-1 at their Oct. 8 meeting.

At Tuesday’s meeting, applicants Michael and Angela Goodhand, made a detailed case for Levy Court approval, and many of their neighbors vouched for them.

"We don’t do kenneling. We’re not running a doggie day care," Mr. Goodhand said. "We won’t do overnight boarding. We’re not going to have dogs outside. They’re not going to be in the back yard, they’re not going to be barking."

He said there would be no "gaudy" business sign but that he and his wife would probably simply replace the pink flamingo on their mailbox with a picture of a dog and cat.

However, a succession of neighbors also voiced their opposition to the Goodhands’ application. Their concerns included traffic, safety of neighborhood children, property values and the odor of dog manure.

"I don’t know of any dogs that are potty-trained," said Earl Webb, who lives next to the Goodhands.

After hearing the comments, commissioners sided with the Goodhands, voting 6-0 to approve the application, with Commissioner Buckson abstaining.

In a motion that generated copious contention among the commissioners and spectators alike, Commissioner Buckson made a motion to modify a controversial application by Stafford Properties to build a hot-mix production facility on 22 acres near Farmington, but with 36 stipulations.

Levy Court had debated the application until past midnight during its Sept. 22 business meeting before voting to table the issue for further study. The issue was lifted from the table Tuesday night, but with 36 stipulations.

Some of the stipulations were placed on the application by the Regional Planning Commission and others were Commissioner Buckson’s, such as requiring the applicant to establish a $100,000 escrow account for site reclamation, plus $10,000 each year.

The motion passed by a 5-2 vote. Representatives for the applicant declined comment as they left the chambers.

By Bruce Pringle

Delaware State News

DOVER — The managers of Dover, Smyrna and Harrington have called on Kent County Levy Court to move the county library to Longacre Village in south Camden, rather than to its proposed location several hundred yards outside Dover.

City Manager Anthony J. DePrima informed City Council of the recommendation Monday night. Levy Court may vote tonight on whether to purchase land next to Brecknock Park in north Camden as a library site. That proposed deal has drawn criticism from those who say it would waste money by putting a county library too close to the older, much larger Dover Public Library.

"We are opposed to locations that further overlap existing library service areas, causing a duplication of library services and unnecessary competition for desperately needed resources," states a letter to Levy Court from Mr. DePrima, Smyrna Town Manager David Hugg and Harrington City Manager John Schatzschneider. Mr. DePrima said the letter went out Monday.

Dover, Smyrna and Harrington are the only communities in Kent County to operate municipal libraries. A statewide master plan calls for those communities to serve their vicinities and for Kent County to serve readers south of Dover who live farther than 6 miles from a municipal library.

Mr. DePrima, Mr. Hugg and Mr. Schatzschneider previously expressed their opposition to the Brecknock Park location, but until now had not endorsed a possible alternative. Levy Court commissioners have said they choose the land next to the park because they found no better deal.

But the managers, in their letter, said Longacre Village, located closer to Felton, "will bring library services closer to the people of Kent who are farthest from current library services, and it reduces the current overlap with the Dover library’s service area. In addition, the site has better visibility from (U.S. 13), more parking and better highway access."

The managers went on to say that they would like to present a plan for countywide library services to Levy Court in November.

The county has operated a library in Camden since 1995, but the lease on its library building expires in May. Also at Monday’s council meeting, Margery Cyr, director of Dover Public Library, said detailed plans for a new Dover library should be ready for presentation to council in December. She said the estimated project cost has been reduced from $23.5 million to $22 million.

In other business, council approved without debate proposals to restore a second ambulance crew during the hours from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. and to eliminate two of the 11 unpaid furlough days city workers were to serve as part of an effort to reduce spending. Both proposals had been unanimously recommended by the Legislative, Finance and Administration Committee. They will cost an estimated $136,000.

As a resident of Longacre Village, an active adult community located just south of Camden on Route 13, I have been following the Kent County library relocation plan very closely since our shopping center is being considered as one of the proposed locations. On Sunday, October 25th, there was a very interesting article regarding the planned location for the library. Midway through the article there was mention of Longacre Village shopping center as an alternate location for the library because it was further south than the planned location at Brecknock Park and would encompass our neighbors in Felton, Magnolia, etc. Located on Route 13, the Longacre Village shopping center is an ideal location having ample parking with easy access from and to Route 13. But, I take offense to the remark by Commissioner Allen F. Angel which said, "locating in that shopping center not only would be more expensive but would put library users at risk of injury if drinking drivers patronized the center’s liquor store." My interpretation of this comment is the proprietor of Longacre Liquors is irresponsible and would sell liquor to an obviously intoxicated customer who would drive away drunk. It also implies the other businesses in the center do not care about the safety of their customers and that our community is not a safe place to live or walk. I want everyone who read the article to know that this IS NOT TRUE. Longacre Village residents and business owners would not tolerate open drunkenness. We would immediately contact the proper authorities so our community would remain the safe and serene place that we have chosen to call home. I believe Commissioner Angel owes both the business proprietors and homeowners an apology and his comments [should] be stricken from the meeting records.

Carol Dabrowski

Longacre Village homeowner

Dover

Choice of Brecknock Park location has some calling for project’s delay

Delaware State News

DOVER — Kent County officials’ tentative agreement to build a library just outside Dover, within a few minutes' drive of where another new library is planned, has sparked complaints that services will continue to be duplicated in the center of the county while the needs of readers farther south remain inadequately met.

But two of the four Levy Court members who voted to develop a county library next to Camden’s Brecknock Park say the controversial decision might have been avoided if Dover’s proposed new public library were planned for a more popular location. Levy Court President P. Brooks Banta and Commissioner George "Jody" Sweeney indicated the creation of a new county library might never have come to a vote Oct. 13 — it passed 4-2 with one abstention — if Dover leaders were not insistent on keeping their library downtown.

Had a location more to their constituents’ liking been chosen, commissioners Banta and Sweeney said, they would have been more inclined to support a merger of the city and county libraries, as proposed in the spring. That merger would have given control of both libraries to an independent commission, which could have operated a single, major facility. Supporters of that concept said it would have been more economical and efficient than continuing to finance two libraries — one city, one county — in the Dover-Camden area.

"People just don’t want to be downtown," said Commissioner Sweeney, who lives in Wyoming. "People I talk to — not just in my district, but throughout the county — don’t want to go downtown for entertainment."

Commissioner Banta, a Smyrna resident, said Dover could have eliminated "some of the complexities that exist" by choosing a location along a major route where the setting would be similar to that of a shopping center.

"It has been expressed to me on numerous occasions that, especially in the months from November to April, people would have concerns about participating at the library" in the proposed location, on East Loockerman Street between City Hall and the Dover post office, Commissioner Banta said. Asked whether he meant people were wary of being downtown after dark, he declined to elaborate.

Dover and state officials say that traffic to the current Dover library, located downtown, proves people are indeed willing to visit. "When they say people don’t want to drive to Dover, well, a lot of them are," said State Librarian Anne E.C. Norman.

Her office credits Dover Public Library with attracting well over 1,000 visits on an average day — roughly half of them by people from outside the city, according to the library.

City police say safety is not a major issue downtown, with relatively little crime occurring there. A greater concern, many downtown business owners insist, is an erroneous perception that downtown is a place where danger lurks. They recently convinced officials to fund security cameras as an assurance to shoppers.

City Manager Anthony J. DePrima said the choice of the city library location followed months of "very open, very participatory" meetings in which area residents from outside Dover may have outnumbered those who live inside. The Loockerman Street site was praised as centrally located and a bargain; it is on city land, sparing Dover from buying or leasing property elsewhere.

Its selection, Mr. DePrima said, "is being used as a red herring."

The major issue in Levy Court’s choice of its own library site, he and others say, is that the county library will be barely outside Dover while greater library needs exist elsewhere. Harrington’s city library is among the smallest in Delaware and neither Felton nor Frederica has a public library.

Levy Court operates a bookmobile and transports books and other materials among the libraries in Dover, Harrington, Smyrna and Milford. It budgeted $640,000 as contributions to those libraries this year, with the distribution of those funds based on circulation. After a similar amount was set aside last year, about $510,000 of that total went to Dover, County Administrator Michael Petit de Mange said.

Levy Court offers a single library of its own, on U.S. 13 north of Del. 10, less than a mile south of where it plans to build a new one. The lease at the current location expires in May. State library officials have urged that any new county library be farther from Dover, perhaps developed in cooperation with Harrington.

"We’ve been saying to Kent County for years, ‘We know you’re going to build. Go south. Work with Harrington," Ms. Norman said. "That’s why everybody’s so up in arms. They didn’t go south. They went north."

Levy Court voted Oct. 13 to make a purchase offer of $1.5 million on a 12,000-square-foot building on Old Camden Road. The acquisition would enable the county to avoid leasing library space. And because only 9,000 square feet would be used as a library, room for county parks-and-recreation personnel would be available if Levy Court decided to move them. No better deal was found south of Dover, Commissioner Sweeney said.

Levy Court could give final approval to the purchase Tuesday.

Among the alternative locations is Longacre Village, which is closer to Felton. But Commissioner Allan F. Angel said locating in that shopping center not only would be more expensive but would put library users at risk of injury if drinking drivers patronized the center’s liquor store.

Meanwhile, City Council is planning to replace 17,000-square-foot Dover Public Library following long-running complaints that the South State Street building is too small and offers too few off-street parking spaces. The council is proceeding with the design of a 46,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility, costing an estimated $23.5 million. But the project’s financing during a recession was problematic even before Levy Court declined in June to commit $3.7 million to it.

Levy Court’s decision in June squelched a proposal to combine the city and county library operations into a single "anchor library" at the downtown site. The "anchor" would have been managed by an independent commission.

That arrangement, as outlined by Mr. DePrima and Mr. Petit de Mange, would have reduced library expenses for both governments. But it also would have resulted in the closing of the county library, a possibility that elicited vigorous opposition from Camden residents.

Levy Court commissioners at the time questioned whether the proposed library commission would continue bookmobile service and whether Dover officials are right when they say the city’s Loockerman Street parking lot will be adequate for library users, city workers and City Hall visitors. In addition, commissioners had just spent months drafting a balanced budget and expressed reluctance to take on another major financial obligation.

Some commissioners now say they feel they never had a real voice in how their money would have been spent.

Commissioner Angel, who joined commissioners Sweeney, Banta and Harold K. Brode in voting to make an offer on the land next to Brecknock Park, said he served on Dover’s site selection committee but his suggestions were not heeded.

Commissioner Angel, a Dover resident, said he recommended consideration of properties on U.S. 13 and U.S. 113, including the Blue Hen Corporate Center, as well as the former Bayard Hotel on Loockerman Street.

"I felt like the caboose on the train," he said.

Commissioner Sweeney said a joint city-county library operation would have been feasible if the "anchor" site were close to where the county now plans to build. He said enough land for such a project was available near Brecknock Park between Dover and Wyoming.

But Mr. DePrima said he didn’t recall that suggestion being made during the selection process. And if it had been seriously considered, he said, Dover residents would have demanded to know why their library might be moved so far away.

Mr. DePrima, Harrington City Manager John Schatzschneider and Smyrna Town Manager David Hugg have urged Levy Court to delay purchase the land near Brecknock Park until they and their local library directors develop "a municipal-based strategy for library services in Kent County."

"We are completing our work and believe that we can present our findings to you in November," they said in a letter to Commissioner Banta.

But what some Levy Court members may remember most about the letter is the statement, "We believe it is not necessary to have a county library system that competes with our libraries ..."

Commissioner Angel said he believed the managers want the county’s library program dismantled.

Mr. DePrima, Mr. Schatzschneider and Mr. Hugg, in separate interviews, emphasized that is not the case. "None of us," Mr. Hugg said, "is saying ‘Don’t build a county library’ or ‘Don’t have a county library.’ We’d just like the decision on a location made in a broader context."

Said Mr. DePrima, "Plenty of people between Dover and Harrington and between Dover and Milford have to travel more than 6 miles to a library" while both Dover’s and the county’s proposed new libraries would be within 1.5 miles of his south Dover home. "I can walk to either one. That’s not fair to someone in Felton or Frederica."

But the county will have the final say in the issue.

"They’re their own government," said Delaware Secretary of State Jeffrey W. Bullock, who oversees the state Division of Libraries. "They can make their own decisions."

Delaware has a strategic plan for library development that calls for Dover’s proposed library to be the primary service provider in the area where Levy Court intends to build, Secretary Bullock said. That could make Dover more likely to receive state funding for operations there, but he said that he does not want to use that as a threat.

"We’re trying to open communication and have a rational discussion on how to provide the best library service to as many people as possible," Secretary Bullock said. "What we do not like to see is duplicated service."

Library profiles

•Kent County Library, 2319 S. DuPont Highway, Dover. Size: 6,200 square feet. (9,000-square-foot replacement planned.) Annual visits: 50,241. Annual circulation: total 77,035; adult 28,749; children’s 48,286. Public computer terminals: 14.

•Dover Public Library, 45 S. State St., Dover. Size: 17,090 square feet. (46,000-square-foot replacement planned.) Annual visits: 396,837. Annual circulation: total 406,439; adult 223,222; children’s 183,217. Public computer terminals: 21.

•Harrington Public Library, 110 Center St., Harrington. Size: 2,000 square feet. Annual visits: 37,504. Annual circulation: total 33,788; adult 15,512; children’s 18,276. Public computer terminals: 9.

•Milford District Free Library, 11 S.E. Front St., Milford. (Located in Sussex County, but partly funded by Kent County.) Size: 8,600 square feet. Annual visits: 134,443. Annual circulation: total 140,604; adult 78,716; children’s 61,888. Public computer terminals: 14.

•Smyrna Public Library, 107 S. Main St., Smyrna. Size: 4,918 square feet. Annual visits: 69,731. Annual circulation: total 38,468; adult 15,266; children’s 23,202. Public computer terminals: 6.