Narragansett Library Board Chair Kelly Receives Trustee of the Year Award
GoLocalProv News Team
Narragansett Library Board Chair Kelly Receives Trustee of the Year Award
“In over 59 years of volunteering, I have never met anyone who works so hard or is as dedicated as Laurie Kelly. We are incredibly proud to see Laurie win this great honor for all of her work to improve our town’s public library and her steadfast advocacy on behalf of a modern new home for our library in the Belmont building, which was approved by 68% of Narragansett voters,” said Gail Shields, member of the Narragansett library Board of Trustees.
Kelly will be formally presented the Trustee of the Year Award at the RILA Annual Conference on Wednesday, May 22 at 11:15 a.m. at the Bryant University Library.
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The award comes as the battle for a new library continues on.
“Even in the face of unconscionable votes by our Town Council to slash our public library’s budget by 50% and to sell the very property meant to be the library’s new home, Laurie has been a champion of the learning and reading resources Narragansett residents deserve. Laurie has truly earned this honor of Trustee of the Year, and we know she will continue to lead our town’s amazing public library even in the face of short term political setbacks,” said Mary Ann Grintchenko, President of the Friends of Narragansett Library.
As GoLocalProv reported, advocates for the new and stalled library charge that the actions of Narragansett Town Council Chair Matthew Mannix are political retribution for their activism and his actions are damaging to town.
Nancy DeNuccio with the "Love Your Library" coalition appeared on GoLocal LIVE to talk about the long-running library battle.
“It’s a battle that’s been going on for about ten years. For the last number of years, the library has had to reach out and get waivers from the state library association because they are not ADA compliant [and] there’s no bathroom in the children’s room. And the waivers have just carried them through," said DeNuccio. "The library was built in the early [1960s] when the town of Narragansett had about 3,200 people — we now have 16,000."
New Library Approved By Voters, Council Reverses Course
The battle for building a new library charge that the newly elected council is violating the intent of the vote of Narragansett residents.
"So they did a needs assessment and they found that the best spot was the old Belmont building in the pier marketplace. There was a lot of back and forth, a lot of meetings about it, people were pro or con — a few of the people on the previous Town Council were opposed to the deal for a number a reasons, including one individual who is really fiscally conservative — I think his main point was that he didn’t think this was a good deal," said DeNuccio.
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