"... You have seen much in the news over the last week or so about the Central Library. For well over 100 years, the city and the trustees of the Library and Museums Association have been partners in providing a first class library system and museums in our city. This has been a joint effort with both entities combining to achieve these laudable goals. I am profoundly disappointed that the association's leadership is now proposing to turn our Central Library into a museum in three years.
I would venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that there is no one on the current Board of Directors of the SMA who has a greater understanding of the Springfield Central Library than I and the thousands of people like me who have claimed this library as our own for our entire lifetimes. Where do they expect us to go? We have no money but we do have an enormous need for that library. We just cannot stand out on State Street with 100,000 books in our arms. That library was built with the money of Andrew Carnegie to be a library for all time and for all of our people. It has been maintained as a library by the taxpayers of Springfield. Just within the last two years $5 or $6 million in public funds were spent in renovating that library building for its continued use as a library. There is a trust here for the people of Springfield - to close that library would be an unforgivable breach of that trust.
I ask these men to reconsider. If they persist, there will be a fight - it is a fight that they cannot and will not win. Yet, it will divide this community in a way that no other issue could possibly divide it. We want a strong library system and to achieve it, we ask for and need the association's help. They in turn want a strong museum system and to achieve it they need us, the city, to help. United we can achieve these goals. Divided, everyone suffers. None of us can allow that to happen. ..."
Read Mayor Charles V. Ryan's Inaugural Address of January 5, 2003