Yes, today the "Tree Hugger's" are closing all the public libraries in Jackson County Oregon and there is no certainty when they will ever reopen. For many years the County governments of Oregon have been receiving money from the Federal Government based upon the number of trees that were harvested on federal lands in that county. What with the "tree huggers" and environmentalist limiting logging in Federal Forest this has closed most of the mills in Southern Oregon and cut off these federal funds used by county governments to fund such things as Library's and law enforcement. For the past few years the United States Congress has passed bills to aid county government to cover the loss of funds for tress harvested but now that the Democrats control Congress they are more interested in scoring points on the Iraq War than they are in helping the folks of Southern Oregon. As a result Jackson County, that funds all the public Libraries, has run out of money; and, today all the public libraries in the county are closing and all the employees are being laid off. The supporters of public libraries are finding out what loggers and millwrights learned, some time ago, their are consequences to strict environmental laws. I will miss the library.
In the days before the Internet I used to spend many hours at the old Carnegie Library here in Medford reading newspapers from all over the United States and reading the news and political magazines. I also loved to search the non fiction books for information on what ever I was interested in that week. Since they moved the library and I now have the Internet my trips to the library have been less frequent. I do believe libraries are a great resource for a community and it is a sad day to see them close.
