Encampment donates to keep library open another hour a week

The Encampment Town Council met Thursday at town hall to deal with routine matters and voted to donate funds to keep the town’s library open for an additional hour per week.

The council was visited by Jacob Mickelsen, Director of the Carbon County Library System, who ensured the council that money donated to a particular library would only be used to fund operations at that library. The town also voted to support a resolution urging the state legislature to not raise taxes on wind power generated in the state.

Mickelsen visited the Encampment council, just as he did earlier in the evening at Riverside. Mickelsen was taking the time to address local towns to make it clear that any funds donated to the library system could be earmarked for a particular branch.

Earlier in the summer, when faced with massive budget cuts and a significant loss of staff at the library system, there were concerns that branch libraries in some outlying communities may be shut down altogether.

While some town councils resolved to donate funds to keep their local branches open, the library system said there was not any mechanism in place to funnel donated money to only one branch.

Now, the library system has accounts in place to facilitate such targeted donations, Michelsen said, meaning that towns or other groups that wish to donate funds for a particular library only can now do so.

It takes about $950 per year to keep a branch library open for an additional hour per week, Michelsen said. In Baggs, a friends of the library group had raised enough to extend the Baggs branch library hours.

After being assured funds donated by the town of Encampment would only be used to operate the Encampment/Riverside branch library, the town council voted to give $1,000 to the library system to keep the branch open for an extra hour per week.

After Michelsen’s presentation and the vote to donate $1,000 to the library system, the council used the balance of the short, 20-minute meeting to address routine town business before adjourning.

The next meeting of the Encampment Town Council will be 7 p.m., Oct. 13 at Encampment Town Hall.