There’s been a lot of back and forth about the Prendergast Library’s funding initiative.

We need to support the Library! How can we ask the taxpayers to pay more? I don’t use it, why should I pay for it? What would it say about Jamestown if we didn’t have a library?

Well, simply said, we do need to support the Library. We need to vote yes on the Library’s Funding Initiative.

For 125 years the James L. Prendergast Library has been a mainstay of our community. From the time Jamestown became a regional economic engine known as the “Furniture Capital of the World,” the Library has played a vital role in educating our community. Through generations of laugher (thanks to Lucille Ball), athletic endeavor (yes, Roger Goodell came from here too) and music (we all treasure Natalie Merchant and her commitment to our city), the Library has helped to build our community.

Jamestown may no longer be known for furniture, it is known as a community that cares about each other and about our important institutions and assets. The Prendergast Library is both an important institution and an asset that serves all of us well.

There’s no two ways around it – the Library is asking the taxpayers for direct support. The Prendergast Board of Trustees thought long and hard about asking for community-based funding. This decision was not come to lightly. The library’s board is asking for $850,000 because it’s what the library needs.

We can not abandon a library that brings pride to our community. We need to make sure it has the resources it needs. Some folks don’t want to pay attention to the facts – $850,000 isn’t a number that was pulled out of a hat. Here’s the breakdown – the library will be replacing:

$365,000 of City funding which may well disappear (and will when the funding initiative passes);

$100,000 that local foundations will no longer provide in operating support;

$100,000 that we need to leave in our endowment so it can grow; and

$180,000 structural deficit which continues to weaken our long term financial stability.

The balance, $105,000, will be used to manage increases in the minimum-wage and retirement contributions as well as to bring back library programs and services. $105,000 amounts to only 12 percent of the Library’s overall ask. The Library won’t be doubling its hours or creating hundreds of new programs.

Let’s not forget that $850,000 is only 65 percent of the Library total budget. The Library will still be raising money – despite what others may say – and judiciously using its endowment income to balance the budget.

Yes, the Library’s ask is more than what the City provides. Because the Library is just one of the City’s many competing financial priorities, City funding has remained flat. Yet, the cost of doing business has increased. Since 2005, retirement costs have skyrocketed 90 percent and building maintenance has gone up 49 percent – just to name a few. The Library starts each year with a structural deficit – not a healthy financial position.

Some are saying that local taxpayers will be supporting the use of people who don’t live in the Jamestown City School District. That’s simply not true. 91 percent of the people who borrow and use Prendergast Library live within the school district which includes the City plus parts of Busti, Ellicott and Kiantone. Only 9 percent of Prendergast users are non-residents compared to 15 percent of our residents who use the other libraries in the Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Library System.

Going to the voters is the responsible thing to do. There are hundreds of libraries in New York state that ask the voters for direct funding each year. Throughout New York, hundreds of thousands of citizens pass these initiatives because they understand just how important their libraries are to their communities.

For a home assessed within the school district at $50,000, the cost of the community-based funding will be $57.50 a year. In total, the Library’s $850,000, will just be 2 percent of all the taxes you pay. In 2015, the Library provided over $6.5 million in programs and services to the community.

The Prendergast Library matters because story time matters, life-long learning matters, having a safe space for our teens matters – all of this matters. We can’t ignore the importance of the Prendergast Library. We have an opportunity to protect our community on June 7. Come to the Library and vote yes.

R. Thomas Rankin is a Jamestown resident and president of the James Prendergast Library board.