Save the Boise Library!

Google Maps screenshot

The proposed plan to build a new main library in Boise is a wasteful extravagance and destructive to a city landmark and a historical landmark. It calls for demolishing the existing Boise Library! and removing the Cabin from its current location next door. Neither should be moved or torn down. While only the Cabin is on the official register of historic landmarks, the Library! building dates back to WWII and is an important part of Boise history and one of the important city landmarks that people like me navigate by.

Without the current Library! I will get disoriented in that area of town. If Boise must waste a great deal of money on Mayor Bieter’s latest vanity project, build this monument to his greatness elsewhere, without tearing down important city landmarks. I have ADHD and I need the city’s major landmarks to stay where they are. That likely goes for many others who are neurodiverse.

If this plan goes forward, I would avoid going down there as much as possible to avoid the distress of seeing my Library! gone. If the City of Boise must build their vain monstrosity, built it elsewhere, on a site where you don’t have to tear down landmarks as important as the Library! and the Cabin are.

Note on the models of the proposed changes, the parking situation looks worse, and it looks harder to access the new facility and the green belt for people driving there from my side of town. Also, where are we getting the money for this when the Library couldn’t even afford to keep the Hoopla digital media service? If the Library! has the money to blow on a such an extravagant new facility, it has the money to offer and to expand their digital media services. I’d like to see that done instead, along with the current facility renovated with only the updates that are strictly necessary, Maybe add more floors, but I am 100% against tearing it down and so much as moving the Cabin. That is just wrong.

And the Bible agrees, from the NKJV:

Deuteronomy 19:14 “You shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.

Deuteronomy 27:17 ‘Cursed is the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark.’
“And all the people shall say, ‘Amen!’

Job 24:1-3 “Since times are not hidden from the Almighty, Why do those who know Him see not His days? “Some remove landmarks; They seize flocks violently and feed on them; 3 They drive away the donkey of the fatherless;

Proverbs 22:28 Do not remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.

Proverbs 23:10 Do not remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;

Hosea 5:10 “The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark; I will pour out My wrath on them like water.

Visit Preservation Idaho for more ways to save the Cabin and to hear their input on why it is important.

If you share my viewpoint, please let your voice be heard at the Library! website. Boise is also accepting feedback via CoUrbanize.

[tweetthis]Save the Boise Library! Save the Cabin! #dontremovelandmarks[/tweetthis]