At the January 11 Rosendale town meeting, the town board — with new member Molly Muller replacing Chris Pryslopski — declined to give the Rosendale Library the letters of approval it had requested in its quest to purchase and move into the Belltower on Main Street.

On Thursday the library responded with a public message: “Last night the Library Board of Trustees decided not to move forward with this purchase. Lacking a letter of support from the town board, we are unable to obtain the USDA low-interest loan that we anticipated would help finance the project. We have applied for, and had planned to apply for grants that would have, we estimated, made the move a tax-neutral proposition. But without a low-interest loan, we simply cannot move forward.”

On Sunday, January 22, Supervisor Jeanne Walsh told the Shawangunk Journal, “In the meantime they have pulled out of the move and want to blame the town board. I have advised the library director on several occasions about the need for doing this properly. The town’s bond counsel made it very clear that the library was not applying for the USDA loan properly.”

She continued, “In addition to the public vote, they need additional actions and paperwork in place which they did not do. The code requires the town board to be the ones to place the bond. We will only give a letter of support if the public votes to go forward because that is what is required.”

“This project,” said the supervisor, “will not be cost neutral. If the public wants this and votes for it to take place, I will support the library and the purchase. But we must hear from the public and they must be properly informed.”

Board member Ernest Klepeis, who retires from the board at the end of January, advised the library to “take their time, be transparent and to over-communicate with the town residents regarding their hopeful plans. The town board is constantly critiqued for our thoughts and actions, but it’s because we make a serious and mighty effort to ensure their work is visible, transparent, and approachable. We’re a better board for it.”

What’s Next?

On Monday, January 23, Library Director Katie Scott-Childress in an email to the Shawangunk Journal said, “The Rosendale Library is one of the smallest library buildings in the Mid-Hudson region, and the library board of trustees has been exploring solutions for over 20 years. Unlike nearly all public libraries, the Rosendale Library does not have a children’s room — it is essentially a one-room library. In addition, the library has one toilet which often has a line as groups of people come for programs and stay for a couple of hours. The most challenging part of the current library location is the lack of parking. The parking lot of eight spaces, and one handicap space, fills up with every meeting or program, and people are forced to park on the shoulder of Central Avenue.”

She continued, “The library will be holding listening sessions in order to learn what patrons envision for the library facility. The library board wants to explore all possibilities before deciding on next steps.”

Listening sessions will be held Thursday, February 16, at 5:30 p.m., and Monday, February 20, at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. For more information, visit the library website.

Library Statement Criticism

Confirming the town board's position, ex-town board member Chris Pryslopski said over the weekend, “The statement released by the library Thursday was incomplete and misleading in the terms of the town’s response.”

Pryslopski, who is now both an ex-library trustee and, since the end of December, a retired ex-town board member, said that the board members (absent Carrie Wyckoff who recused herself) had each put in many hours of research through the December holidays to determine whether the board could provide the letters of support requested by the library.

“We spoke to our bond counsel, we researched each of the three funding sources named by the library, and I researched case law on some other concerns (such as renting property) that I had with the plan.”

According to Pryslopski and the board, the three grant and loan applications the library was requesting letters of support for were not as time-sensitive as was stated, and the December 31 deadline was just one of a series of rolling, quarterly deadlines for each of those programs.

The town’s final response to the library, said Pryslopski, “shared our research and findings, encouraged them to slow down and follow what we understand to be the required processes that would make their applications complete and competitive. The town offered to reconsider a letter of support once the public vote had occurred. Sadly, none of that was mentioned in the library’s statement.”

No New Problems

Pryslopski said that the library has been exploring expanding the current building — which, as a historic landmark, is limited in the ways that it can be altered — for more than 20 years.

“One discussion that I was part of,” he said, “was whether or not it would be possible/advantageous to turn Central Avenue into a one-way street from the library north to Josephine Avenue and have parking along one side.”

Another investigation was led by Highway Superintendent Bob Gallagher, who Pryslopski said had looked into “whether a certain type of floodable/permeable fill could be used to create a parking area for both the town and library in the flood control zone off Central Avenue.”

Pryslopski was careful to point out that while both of those discussions were open-ended, and may still be viable, they took place a few years ago. Neither action is currently being contemplated, and pursuing either would require its own process and public input.

The Last Vote

The last library-related town vote, in 2006, on the purchase of the library’s neighboring property for $300,000, was rejected by a town vote of 376 to 266. The then-library board president, William Stamm, said it “was a lost opportunity and one that we will not get again.”

All town residents get to vote on the annual library budget. In 2023, the Rosendale Library will be receiving $349,000 in taxes from the Town of Rosendale (an increase of 3.3% over the previous year). For Rosendale property owners, this is a 0.6% tax rate on assessed property values. The Fire Department received $270,400, at a 2.1% tax rate on the Rosendale Fire District. In a normal year about 100 town residents vote on the library budget.

Figures from the Rosendale Tax Collector's Office indicate that Town of Rosendale taxes fell by 9.5% last year. However, highway department tax levies have risen 8.7% (total levy: $1,272,309) over the last year, sewer costs by 760% ($52,624) and water by 80% ($52,483).