The Ruins of Trenton

The City of Trenton is in a dire state indeed.

City officials have made the decision to each of the Trenton Public Library branches scattered throughout the city's four wards due to fiscal problems, with the exception of the main branch on Academy Street, according to The Times of Trenton.

In doing so the city will be cutting off one of the best resources Trenton’s people have in accessing knowledge and information that can show help both the young and the old to advance themselves and improve their lives.

The wealth of information these facilities provided, especially in many parts of the city that suffer from social and economic chaos, sometimes represented a font of invaluable assistance in pursuing a way out of a life of crime and poverty for many in the city.

These libraries provide a place where Trenton’s kids can escape from the peer pressures and the problems of the inner-city and read books and access computers that helped many to fashion a way out of a problematic, and ultimately deadly lifestyle.

Yet a city that wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars defending employees of little value in the courts and carting a mayor around in purchased vehicles with armed bodyguards like some ancient emperor, has now ruled that spending money to keep open what are frequently the last vestiges of knowledge and hope in some places is too great a fiscal burden to bear.

Additionally, it has been documented quite thoroughly by Councilman Jim Coston that the city’s library officials have frittered away millions of dollars in funds.

After hearing about these activities, Trenton’s residents are now told that many of these important institutions are going to close, and that the city residents employed at each branch will be informed of their impending unemployment, through e-mail, or all things.

These libraries are extremely important tools in fighting the poverty, lawlessness, and general lack of education that has taken root in some of the city’s neighborhood.

The fight against all of these scourges will be significantly more difficult without the branch libraries, which provide islands of hope in areas of the city that have sometimes become oceans of despair.

The branch libraries must not be allowed to close. If they do, the officials responsible for such a reprehensible act - announced on Sept. 11th no less – must be held accountable.

The best to do so is at the ballot box in 2010.