By Luke Voogt
About 200 angry residents have protested City Hall’s impending closure of Chilwell Library, with a local school president labelling the decision “inspiringly stupid”.
Chilwell Primary School president Phil Joyce told the crowd gathered at the library Saturday that his students had written letters to Geelong administrators protesting the decision.
“These kids, who use the library regularly, have no say.”
Fellow speaker and campaigner Hilary Hoevenaars was incensed at the administrators’ decision to close the library.
“These outsiders” had ignored the library’s increased visitors during the past four years and about 700 local residents without vehicles, she said.
“You have chosen to close our library without any understanding of who we are and what we value.”
Fellow campaigner Lynne Dowling criticised the administrators’ “lack of consultation” in their decision to close Chilwell, Highton and Barwon Heads libraries.
“The administrators have spent the past nine months and ($645,000) to develop the clever and creative vision for Geelong, but had no consultation at all with us.”
According to a City Hall statement closing the three libraries will save roughly $300,000 per year.
Geelong MP Christine Couzens said the administrators’ decision to close the library was “not acceptable” given their vision for the future which included “engaging the community”.
Ms Couzens is part of the State Government which appointed the administrators in May 2016 following the sacking of council.
“I have already had some discussions with the administrators,” she told the crowd. “We need to say… this is not good enough.”
City Hall director of investment and attraction Brett Luxford told the crowd Geelong had an “unusually high number of library branches”.
“In fact, the majority of members at all three libraries already use alternatives within the library network,“ he said.
“The decision to close the three libraries was not taken lightly. It is a difficult decision that has been deferred by the council on a number of occasions previously.”
The campaigners will protest the closure at City Hall at 6.15pm before the administrators’ next meeting on 23 May.
“We’re inviting the Highton and Barwon Heads groups to join us,” Ms Hoevenaars told The Indy on Monday.
