So in response to his loss in court when the judge refused to dismiss part of our lawsuit, the county executive put together a video about the construction for Project NepTWNE in the library on the Erie County Facebook page because as we know, he loves a photo op. The reason he gives for this extremely rare visit to the Blasco Library is that “there is a lot of misinformation out there.” Once again, he doesn’t clarify that he is the main source of the misinformation. I would give a link to the video, but there’s no way to put a trigger warning on it through our website, and you might be enjoying a meal, and I don’t want to ruin that for you. As per usual, he’s shut off the comments because he doesn’t care what taxpayers have to say.
He proceeds to say how this earns money for the taxpayers–never mind that taxpayers paid for the $1.5 million ARPA grant that is paying for this construction or the fact that the 25 year lease is for $7 an square foot and never increases with the cost of inflation over those 25 years, and can be extended up to 45 years. He claims that he negotiated the lease, when he revealed during his deposition that he just left everything up to the lawyers.
No matter how he spins this, and how shiny and new things may look, this is still an occupation of our library that only benefits Gannon and not the taxpayers. If he every took the time to visit the library for anything other than a photo op, he would know that. He created the video–spending even more of the work day on Facebook–because in his opinion, he’s always right and the court system is always wrong. And he shuts off the comments because he doesn’t want to hear otherwise.
Help us continue our fight and show him that he is the one who is wrong.
“A library is a delivery room for the birth of ideas, a place where history comes to life.”
~Norman Cousins
Keep Our Library Public! 