October 02, 2022
Sunday

The vocal supporters of Proposition 2 would very much like us to believe that the ballot proposition which legally defunds the library, which was explicitly written by its authors to defund the library, and which is supposedly necessitated by a moral imperative to defund the library…will not actually defund the library.

Mr. Harrington for example writes in his KDN letter of September 22nd:

The City and Borough will probably find an avenue to fund the library should this measure pass.

The facts do not line up with this claim. Since the Borough does not have a bunch of money just laying around, and since using cruise ship taxes would be illegal, the only options for keeping the library funded would be some combination of additional local taxes and cuts to other Borough programs. There is very good reason to believe that, when the Borough Assembly is confronted with the inevitable sacrifices required elsewhere in order to fill in the revenue removed by Proposition 2, the public library will still receive an extremely substantial cut in funding. This large funding cut will in turn require job losses, program eliminations, and significant service reductions. Mr. Harrington is well aware of this reality, which is why he did not offer any alternative avenues for paying for the library at the KRBD debate when pressed despite claiming he could think of “two or three ways” for doing so.

But such obfuscations and deceptions as to the effects of Proposition 2 suffer from an even deeper illogic. Simply put, if Proposition 2 does not negatively impact the library’s funding then there is absolutely no point whatsoever in passing it! Hence the sheer bizarreness of advocates for Proposition 2 claiming it is extremely important to pass in order to punish the library while also claiming it won’t do anything to punish the library so don’t worry. The motive here is clear: Proposition 2’s advocates cannot defend their proposed 40% cut to the library’s funding and the extremely negative impact it will have, so they simply pretend (poorly) that it won’t happen.

This is the equivalent of a burglar knocking on your door and asking you if he could please come in and burgle your house, claiming that you won’t miss anything he takes because you will “probably” have ways of replacing it. Only a fool could think about this sophistry for one second and still fall for it. If you want to protect your house from a burglary then the smart play is to not let a burglar in. And if you don’t want the library to be defunded, then vote no on Proposition 2.

Ghert Abbott
Ketchikan, North Point Higgins
Ketchikan, Alaska

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Received October 02, 2022 - Published October 02, 2022

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