We had a similar situation regarding a new library in my small rural town in Mass, pop 8k people. They proposed a 12+ million dollar library for the town the year after we built an 8 million dollar police station. The gross expense of these two buildings was too much for a lot of people in the town and the library proposal took a massive beating at the town meeting. People were so polarized in their view that they refused to try and compromise and the meeting almost digressed into a shouting match had it not been for the board taking control and calming people down.
I was one of many who saw no need to sink 12 million dollars into a library for a town of 8k people and a total school population of 400 kids! A more reasonable building or re-purposing of an existing building was never even brought up as an option because it wouldn't have qualified for the state grant of 2 million dollars towards the new building. Had there been any real discussion I may have considered voting for a more reasonable proposal.
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