Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2005 11:36 pm
Posts: 19377
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312player wrote: Legalization is not going to solve all the gang problems or violence but it will help to decrease it dramatically.Where will gangs get the money they are not getting any more? who knows...but the current arrangement is clearly not working and really never has..time for a new strategy. Stealing Air-conditioners could be a new frontier. Theft of A/C unit ‘devastating’ to impoverished Robbins library
ROBBINS - The public library in has faced dire times in the past few years, so the theft of a $10,000 air conditioning unit last week was more than just a financial blow.
Not long ago, the library’s very future was in doubt, since so many in the town of about 6,600 are out of work and were unable to pay property taxes, a major source of library funding.
Federal and state grants, and gifts from the community, including a $25,000 check from NBA star and Robbins native Dwyane Wade, have kept the doors open, but the staff, paid minimum wage, has not gotten raises in six years, library administrator Priscilla Coatney said.
Now the William Leonard Public Library District has to contend with another challenge. Late last week, someone climbed onto the roof at 13820 Central Park Ave. and carefully dismantled and stole the HVAC unit.
That left the library, which conducts summer kids’ programs, adult literacy and computer programs, and serves as an area cooling center, without air conditioning, and a replacement bill likely to exceed $10,000.
“We opened late on Friday, at 3 p.m.,” she said Wednesday. Staff noticed it was warm inside “and we thought it was because (the air conditioner) was broken.”
They called repair people, who couldn’t make it out until this week. In the meantime, she and her husband were outside of the building, looking up to the roof, when her husband said, “They’re not going to be able to fix the air conditioner.” He pointed out that the unit had been taken apart — the housing was laid out on the roof, all working parts gone.
“Our repairman said he imagined they were up there a couple hours,” Coatney said. “They took everything except for the outside part. The heating element, the cooling, the condenser ... the wires were cut. What kind of mind would do that?”
The stolen air conditioner “is a commercial unit that cools over 5,000 square feet,” she said. The dismantling “was done very neatly. If you go on the roof you can see the screws — they left them in a nice pile. They didn’t tear it up, they just gutted it.
“This is devastating,” she said. “We were lucky Monday and Tuesday because the heat had gone down,” and on Tuesday she bought four fans to cool the library until the A/C is replaced. She noted the building does not have windows that can be opened, either.
“We are insured, but we have a deductible to pay,” Coatney said. “We were in dire financial straits. We’ve been able to hang on, but it’s been difficult. I don’t have money for a deductible.”
Coatney said the library got the HVAC unit four years ago through a grant from their state representative and Secretary of State Jesse White’s office, and at the time it cost about $9,300. She imagines a replacement will cost more.
In addition to being a place where school children go after class, the library conducts literacy and computer classes for children and adults, hosts book clubs, and serves as a cooling center in summer and warming center in winter.
“I have approximately 30-35 children every day reading,” Coatney said. She explained that the computer access the library provides residents with is especially valuable because “less than 70 percent of homes have computers and less than 20 percent have an Internet connection.”
The library, Coatney said, “is like the hub of the community. What the person, or persons, did, affects hundreds and hundreds of people on a daily basis.”
A group of community members have offered a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of whoever stole the unit.
Coatney would like to see that person arrested. But she added that she’d also like a moment with the thief or thieves. “I’d like to just speak to them and see what they were thinking.”_________________ Frank Coztansa wrote: conns7901 wrote: Not over yet. Yes it is. CDOM wrote: When this is all over, which is not going to be for a while, Trump will be re-elected President.
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