Letter to the Editor: June 17, 2016

 

Library renovation takes a village

If you see Burney Ramming, please tell him thank you. It was his idea to renovate our sad-looking library. As president of the Friends of the Avalon Library at the time, he said that if you had a good idea and the right people, things would get done.

Library renovation takes a village

If you see Burney Ramming, please tell him thank you. It was his idea to renovate our sad-looking library. As president of the Friends of the Avalon Library at the time, he said that if you had a good idea and the right people, things would get done.

Three years later, the Friends met with representatives from Supervisor Don Knabe’s office, Jordan Monroe from the city, and officials from the Island Company to go over revised plans which incorporated ideas from the Friends, the LA County Library, and Alison Rusack.

The supervisor’s office asked for a Dec. 5 deadline, which the Island Company representatives said sounded reasonable. The plans call for a complete remake of the exterior land outside the courthouse and library, using all the space and opening things up for more community events.

One goal of the Friends of the Library is to create more of a community center with the library. As such, we have held a series of winter “learn at the library” events, have increased the WiFi, provided the current temporary seating, and are planning the 2016 children’s summer activities. We also fund prizes for the summer reading program and try to promote interesting and entertaining events, we welcome suggestions and hope you will join us when the new “Avalon Library Plaza” is complete.

The Board of the Avalon Friends of the Library want to say thank you to Burney for the inspiration, to Alison Rusack and Don Knabe for making this a priority, and to Anni Marshall and Jordan Monroe for following through with the years of plans and ideas.

We hope to see everyone at a ribbon cutting on Dec. 5.

Judy Grear and The Board of the Friends of the Avalon Library