Local News
#4 Biggest Story 2014
Dodging a budget bullet, twice in two years. Library funding was our
news department’s number 4 story for 2014. La Crosse taxpayers turned out in large numbers this summer, to protest plans for closing or reducing hours at the north and south branch libraries. It was the second year in a row that the branches were placed in jeopardy. Library director Kelly Krieg Sigman says her board was forced to consider a south branch shutdown in 2013, when City Hall gave her just a few days to make a large cut in the library budget:
Tensions were high this year at public hearings, and meetings of a special library task force. But late in the summer, the city made budget changes allowing all three library buildings to maintain their existing hours.
