Regrettable hostilities

To the editor: It is most regrettable that the planned new library headquarters has engendered any hostility at all, given its obvious benefits to Harford Street, the economic life of downtown Milford, and every citizen of Pike County. Unfortunately, several recent Courier articles have exacerbated the situation by publishing factual inaccuracies. Any member of the Library Task Force could have told you that: Early in the library design competition, two members of the Library Task Force met informally with (1) the Chair of the Milford Architectural Review Board, and (2) the Chair of the Milford Borough Council, to tell them about each of the semifinalist building designs. Neither official suggested that there were any material problems with any of the designs. In March 2006, the Library Task Force announced Frederic Schwartz as the winner of the design competition, and he and the Task Force chair made a detailed public presentation about the new design to ARB. At its April 23 meeting, ARB “responded” to the Library’s March presentation with a letter from Peter Benton, a Philadelphia consultant hired (using our tax dollars) by the ARB’s reviewing authority, the Milford Borough Council. When he made his presentation, Mr. Benton, by his own admission had only a cursory conversation with Mr. Schwartz about the design, and had not made any study of Milford or its historic district, as Schwartz had done. Nonetheless, he states that he is “a voting member” of ARB, for purposes of the library project. As far as we know he has not indicated which of the seven ARB members the Borough Council has appointed him to replace, how his paid consultant status can be reconciled with voting member status. Following Mr. Benton’s presentation, ARB suggested that Mr. Benton meet with Mr. Schwartz, and that the parties also hold a workshop. The Library wrote to ARB confirming these steps, and arranged the meeting between Benton and Schwartz for May 14. However, ARB ignored the Library’s repeated overtures and requests to schedule the workshop until after its May 31 meeting, which ARB held without notifying anyone from the Library that the Library would be an agenda item. On May 31, ARB voted to “accept” Mr. Benton’s generally negative recommendations concerning the Library, without providing anyone from the Library an opportunity to respond to any of the many negative and inaccurate comments which this newspaper reported as having been made at that meeting. At present the Task Force is preparing an appropriate response to Mr. Benton’s letter to present to ARB. Given this history, it is wrong —and irresponsible— to suggest that the Library has not reached out to ARB repeatedly. It is also worth noting that the Milford Historic District ordinance and the ARB guidelines provide only for the submission of formal, detailed, final, plans for approval. Nothing in the ordinance suggests, let alone requires, that property owners pay architects to develop multiple designs for ARB to choose from—as Mr. Benton has recommended. The Library Task Force has reached, and continues to reach, out to the borough to try to make this project work for everyone’s good despite high costs and limited available funds, and in the past couple of weeks we believe that a constructive dialogue with ARB has commenced. Milford officials should be responsive to the efforts of the hundreds of people who are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars, and tens of thousands of volunteer hours, to benefit the community. Delays divert scarce dollars away from books and bricks. It would be a great loss if rules intended to make Milford better instead were used to discourage improvements which the borough and the county desperately need. Rebecca M. Lindsey, member Pike County Library Building Task Force