By Dean Vaglia
Leader Staff Writer
The Oxford Public Library bond vote failed, according to unofficial results from Oakland County.
3,302 “no” votes outnumbered 1,533 “yes” votes, shooting down the $9.1 million capital improvement bond for the second year in a row. 4,835 people voted overall with precinct 5 having the least number of voters at 378 and precinct 3 had the most voters at 933. Precinct 7 had the closest margins at 329 “yes” votes and 454 “no” votes. The majority of ballots cast were absentee, 2,847 to 1,988 in-person ballots; majorities in either category voted “no.” Those who voted last Tuesday represented slightly more than 27 percent of the total 17,680 voters in Oxford.
“We fought a hard and noble fight with no regrets, but in the end it just wasn’t enough,” Bryan Cloutier, Oxford Public Library director and CEO, said via email. “Time to move on.”
Cloutier is not exactly sure when the library will pursue another expansion attempt, stating there are more immediate issues for the library to tackle at this time like upgrading the HVAC system — a task Cloutier says is already in progress.
“We need to address the immediate needs of upgrading and replacing the HVAC infrastructure right now and then once that is completed, we can maybe reevaluate the larger picture and start a new dialogue,” Cloutier said via email.
“But it would need to be a new dialogue. Until then, the plan as presented in the last two elections has been mothballed … I might be a librarian by education and trade, but I treat [the library] like a business and right now our investors (or our taxpayers in this case) are telling us that the current plan is not an option at this time. It certainly could have been said much more tactfully and without the lies and smear campaign our opposition put forward to defeat this project, but it was said and heard nonetheless.
“For the good of the community, it is time to set our differences in opinions aside and come together as one community again to get us out of this COVID-driven economic upset we are currently experiencing. That is more important to me personally than an expansion to the library right now.”