Dear Editor:

I would like to clarify and correct some of the information in Mayor Taft’s letter to the editor published in The Valley Echo on May 28th and in The Pioneer on May 30th.

Mayor Taft stated that 55 per cent of the library usage comes from outside of Invermere. It is actually 45 per cent.

The library has 1,900 active members – 1,000 inside of Invermere (meaning it services one third of the District of Invermere population) and 900 from Regional District of East Kootenay Areas F & G.

Mayor Taft also states “it was not that many years ago that the Invermere library was not a municipal library, and they used to charge fees for library cards.”

According to the BC Library Act, charging for basic services has been against the law since 1996. For the few years that the library did charge, it was $6 per year.

It is currently the responsibility of local government to fund library service through taxation.

Virginia Walker

Invermere